Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
DREAMCAST: Failure or success?
Mizzmo
Member UncommonPosts: 133
Obviously the Dreamcast failed for the most part commercially. But I owned 2 back in the day and had a ton of games and a ton of fun. They did some revolutionary stuff with it. But alas, they stopped making them due to this and that.
What are your opinions on the Dreamcast? Do you think it's nothing but FAIL, or do you think it's was a success? Or a little of both?
Comments
I believe a lot of the reason it failed was too much focus on peripherals from Sega, and they didn't get good return on it. I still think it has some of the best library of games of any console, with several great exclusives you can't get anywhere else. A few other issues here and there like a lack of piracy protection also hurt it's game sales.
It maintained success for quite a bit longer in Japan than in the US and you can get some great imports from Japan for it.
I had a Dreamcast back in the day. It was a nice little console. I was saddened when it was cancelled so I guess they succeeded with me.
ITS WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN CONSOLE
CUZ IT HAD PHANTASY STAR ONLINE ( 1ST GAME ON CONSOLE TO GO ONLINE)
PS TO EVERYONE: people just are in DENIED cuz they dind't play PSO is all.
Funny you bring this up I found mine in a box last weekend pulled it out hooked it up to a old tv my nephew was over and loved it I also have a WII,Ps3,and a xbox 360 but he loved the dreamcast and played it for a hour or so before I took him outside for some sun.I loved the dreamcast it innovated alot of things like online play even though it was via 56k lol.There downfall was they got sloppy and once ppl figured out how to crack it no one wanted or needed to buy any games and that is where consoles make there money.
I really enjoyed my Dreamcast, and was sad to see it phased out.
I don't regret selling it though, cause there weren't any must have games i played on it. There was an online Phantasy Star for Dreamcast that was exciting to buy, and dull to play.
I still have my TurboGraphics 16. with the multiport, 8 controllers and bomber man. Its priceless imo.
"I swear -- by my life and my love for it -- that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."
- John Galt
It had awesome games but once CD burners came out and people realised you didnt need anything ti play pirated games it was pretty much over
Its sad to think about, especially from my perspective. Being a Ninja and not a Pirate that is.
"I swear -- by my life and my love for it -- that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."
- John Galt
Dreamcast is one of my favorite consoles. It was way ahead of its time. Maybe too far ahead for its own good. We had a console that could go online and had a decent online library as well as a visual memory unit. But the casuals all wanted a console that played dvds instead. Go figure.
Chu Chu Rocket was my first online game experience.I will always have love for the DC.Shenmue was pretty epic too!
Dreamcast was the best console ever in the history of consoles
Bought it the week it came out loved it and was really put off by how quick they decided to become a software only company after it's release.
Fantastic console, not much more to say!
well considering it saw some of the best games of its generation and was way ahead in terms of design it was a sucess. firstly out of the box internet connectivity and an internet browser, for a console this was quite a step forward considering the ps2 and gamecube much later releases never got that sorted out. the console looked sleek and clean not an ugly black box, the controllers were nice and slightly futuristic and the vmu was a nice gimmick for the time. it had buttloads of addons, voice control for games like seaman, some instruments ones for musical games, keyboard, fishing rod, etc, and if the console had been a success more were planned like a hardrive and dvd player.
i think it never took off with the public in us and europe at least, it did well in japan for its lifetime. it was becuase the ps1 so soundly thrashed the staurn, sega dint have that brand recognition anymore as a leader or just plain brand recognition consumers and new consumers especially dint know sega. it released earlier than the ps1 and saw okay sales before ps2, but once ps2 released it dropped off people really liked the idea of a console that could play dvds which dreamcast did not. it did not have the support of as many 3rd partys as playstation, so it had a kind of niche appeal, it released a lot more hardcore/niche games and relied heavily on sega's aracde catalog. the ps2 just had games by the bucketload and a lot more action/3rd person games while sega had a lot of games the general public did not 'get' shenmue the most expensive game ever made at the time, i think its like 80 million dollars and this is back in 2000 . it was an amazing game vast for its time, but i can only conclude it was considered too japanese and foreign for eu/us, anyway i think shenmue nearly bankrupted sega.
so the games maybe im bias as i was a sega fanboy and owned all their previous consoles, shenmue 1 and 2 vast and compelling world amazing graphics for a console at the time probaly a bit ahead of its time. soul caliber was dreamcasts killer app in the west when it launched, this blew the competion out of the water at the time, as there was only n64 and ps1, graphics and gameplay amazing. crazy taxi 1 and 2 classic sega arcade game, the kind of game where you tried to slice off another second off your record time. the house of the dead games, had plenty of good racers metropolis street racer/sega rally 2, virtual on, power stone 1 and 2, jet set grind radio, phantasy star online, marvel vs capcom 2, skies of arcadia. others i never played and not my cup of tea but were well liked, space channel 5, smaba de amigo and seaman, again ahead of its time with the whole periphal/music game.
taking a look at the list of the most revered and well liked games, its very heavy on arcade type gameplay, fighters, racers, on rail shooters, or a certain japanese wackiness like seaman, space channel 5 jet set grind radio crazy taxi. i think western gamers were becoming more accustomed to first person action adeventure shooters the more tomb raider stlye games which now proliferate the market or just straight up fps. it seemed sega repeated the arcade heavy type gameply it did with saturn, which was a niche appeal for the most part. sega had always been strongly focused on arcades and porting over those games to to home consoles. except as time went on home consoles became more and more powerful the gap between them and arcades shrank, games could be ported much easily, after a while an arcade port no longer gave you that 'wow' feeling. so as arcades died so did that style of gameply, which revovled around you putting in your dollor/pound into machine and lasting as long as possible or shaving a few seconds off your time. those arcade games died, the brash grphicallly impressive 'virtual' games but with quite narrow experiences went away, for the more open ended time sink games of grand theft auto and 'sandbox' gampleay.
funny thing is dremcast was perfectly suited to taking advantage of these new games as it ran on a windows operting system so games could be easily ported to from pc, and it did see a few of these ports but not enough to count. sega also lost its magic touch with the sonic series, its fast paced gameplay never made the switch to 3d, whereas nintendo excelled at the 3d switch with mario, so it lost a lot of the younger gamers as well, its mascot was stuck in the 2d era and couldnt make transition.
Massive failure,one of the most overrated consoles ever too, its a real shame they decided to screw themselves by making a controller with only 1 thumbstick, in a gen that needed 2.
ORly?
Heck, its not even teh first Dreamcast game to be online.
except it only had 1 thumbstick, so playing just about any genre except some of the ones you mentioned (fighters, arcadish games) was a PITA.
EDIT: an for anyone who wants to try to invalidate my post by claiming i never played a dreamcast, i did, and still have one, bought it for cheap after it went under and had probably about 20 games for it, with blue stinger being one of my favs, its just a shame the game has crap controls because of the already mentioned controller.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling"
Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
Did buy a dreamcast bit after release here in the netherland , nobody of my friends at that time did ever hear about it before . At the time it was way ahead of ps 1 but to easy to crack and never been a commercial succes.
I played the hell out of PSO. Like seriously, I put too much time into it.