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[Woo-Fu]

Anybody blaming Dreamcast's failure on anybody other than Sega is straight up lying.

 

[ReBurn]

Dreamcast had some phenomenal games. But FUD didn't kill it. Sega leadership just wasn't up to the task.

 

[sublimit]

When it comes to the fall of Dreamcast and Sega Peter Moore, more than anyone else, should know that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Anyone who knows console history knows how the triangle between Peter Moore,EA (with Don Mattrick at the helm then) and the new player that was coming (MS) suffocated Sega by removing all their sports games from their system (a devastating blow back then to an already bleeding Sega) only for Peter Moore to move to MS shortly after Sega dies and then to EA exchanging work places with his friend Don Mattrick who went from EA to MS.There was a new player that was entering the market then so the weakest competitor had to go.Sega was an easy target for MD and Peter Moore worked behind the scenes with MS and EA to kill Sega. It's no wonder why he is still so in love with MS.

And not only that but he has the nerve to blame others for his own dirty work. The man is a snake.

 

[Papacheeks]

I got a Dreamcast at launch. Worst console I ever bought. I don't understand the revisionist history about that piece of shit being anything special. Maybe I just got the "wrong" games but whatever, never had that problem with any other console.

I hope you get booed all day 24/7 on this thread for that comment.

Though in today's standards the controller is terrible. Buttons are shit, the joystick is straight up plastic so your thumbs will get blisters over time. But game wise it had one of the best launch years in history of any console.

It shits on all other consoles in terms of releases, new tech with online gaming, surfing the net, and fairly fast loadtimes for a console on disc in 1999-2000.

The lineup of games is what people remember.

 

[Explosive Zombie]

I hope you get booed all day 24/7 on this thread for that comment.

Though in today's standards the controller is terrible. Buttons are shit, the joystick is straight up plastic so your thumbs will get blisters over time. But game wise it had one of the best launch years in history of any console.

It shits on all other consoles in terms of releases, new tech with online gaming, surfing the net, and fairly fast loadtimes for a console on disc in 1999-2000.

The lineup of games is what people remember.

You pretty much have to like racing and fighting games to feel this way.

 

[El Pistolero]

Remember the whole real time toy story graphics thing?

That quote was actually related to the first Xbox.

Microsoft got game: Xbox unveiled

The software giant's entry into the video game business will no doubt inspire a number of gimmicks, but it will be hard to top Bill Gates sharing a stage with a professional wrestler.

www.cnet.com

 

[Papacheeks]

You pretty much have to like racing and fighting games to feel this way.

You sound like you never owned one. i think your full of shit.

Skies of arcadia, shenmue, sonic adventure 1+2, Jet Set radio, Resident evil: code veronica, Southpark chef's love shack, the entire line of 2k which all started on dreamcast. NFL 2K, NHL2K, NBA 2K.

Sounds like you either had like 2 games for your dreamcast or were too young demographic wise when it came out.

It had everything. Even really good online shooters. Also Phantasy star online 2 was a big deal.

 

[Outrunner]

You sound like you never owned one. i think your full of shit.

Skies of arcadia, shenmue, sonic adventure 1+2, Jet Set radio, Resident evil: code veronica, Southpark chef's love shack, the entire line of 2k which all started on dreamcast. NFL 2K, NHL2K, NBA 2K.

Sounds like you either had like 2 games for your dreamcast or were too young demographic wise when it came out.

It had everything. Even really good online shooters. Also Phantasy star online 2 was a big deal.

Finally someone who was alive and with a brain back then.

 

[Explosive Zombie]

You sound like you never owned one. i think your full of shit.

Skies of arcadia, shenmue, sonic adventure 1+2, Jet Set radio, Resident evil: code veronica, Southpark chef's love shack, the entire line of 2k which all started on dreamcast. NFL 2K, NHL2K, NBA 2K.

Sounds like you either had like 2 games for your dreamcast or were too young demographic wise when it came out.

It had everything. Even really good online shooters. Also Phantasy star online 2 was a big deal.

I thought you were speaking of the launch. Not sure how you can include games from 2 years after launch as launch games.

 

[Rest]

Everything was focused on PS2. PS2 utterly destroyed everything that generation- Dreamcast, GameCube, Xbox it wasn’t even a contest. PS2 was arguably a worse system than the GameCube or Xbox but it had a DVD player and it had mindshare.

My PS2 got plenty of use as a DVD player, and was better and more reliable than purpose built DVD players that I owned at the time. It was a genuine value add, Xbox needing a dongle and Gamecube having no support hampered them in real, practical value.

 

[Polygonal_Sprite]

I don't agree with Moore's assessment on why the Dreamcast for Dreamcasted.

1. Sega was bleeding cash. Poor decision after poor decision kept shortening the days that company could survive, and the DC was widely known to be the last-ditch effort to remain viable in the console sector. They biffed that one hard due to:
2. The console was underpowered against the PS2 and GC. Moore, probably correctly, thought that the best chance to beat Sony and Nintendo in a generation was to launch before both, and build a userbase. As a result, the DC was the 3rd most powerful system. It showed in almost all of its games. This didn't require FUD to be seen, you just needed a pair of functioning eyeballs. Among enthusiasts, that early launch amounted to nothing, as many of us waited to see what Sony and Nintendo were bringing to the table. Both shattered the Dreamcast's best efforts, and this was at a time where each iteration in graphics tech brought noticeable improvements. That early launch didn't sell nearly enough systems to stave off the inevitable beatdown that ensued. It also wasn't helped by:
3. The games just weren't cutting it. A strong library of arcade hits, like Sega Rally and VF4, weren't faithfully replicated on the home console. Whether it was their irrational desire to hold onto the floundering arcade business, or just plain stupidity (I'd say it was a mix of both), they made home hardware that couldn't run the arcade games at full beans. I believe the arcade units were the equivalent of 2 DCs running in parallel. This meant that they were losing money on a rapidly shrinking arcade business, and not making any of it up with subpar home ports. Compare that to Sony who had the Tekken and Time Crisis franchises replicated extremely well by the home console. The arcade boards Namco was using for their games were much closer to the home consoles than what Sega was using for their arcade games. On top of that, Sega seemed to hinge all their hopes on a boondoggle of a Yu Suzuki vanity project, Shenmue, when they should have just told the old codger to shutup and make another Virtua Fighter. Just stupid decision after stupid decision.

Sega was a poorly-run company. Looking at them today, I feel like that still holds true. They haven't leveraged the things that have made them great in the past, their arcade library. Instead of turning into a hit-making software company (something Nintendo could do with incredible ease), they've turned into an also-ran developer that many on here think will be bought out any day now. Peter Moore's claims ring hollow if you lived through the Saturn and DC eras, which weren't all that different. The DC was a more competent attempt than the Saturn, but didn't reap much better rewards for the company.

I don't expect Moore to admit that the company he helmed completely blew it, and tripped over their own feet 2 generations in a row. Hell, for all I know, he was beholden to incompetents in the Japanese office, who couldn't get out of their own way when trying to compete against a rapidly strengthening juggernaut in Sony. However, I don't believe for a second that Sony killed the DC through FUD. There was simply no need for it. You also didn't see the GC meet a similar fate, and it came out after the PS2 was able to hit the ground running. The GC wasn't all the impressive technologically either, but it had what the DC did not, strong and smart management, and a solid library of exclusives. It's why Nintendo was able to easily exit the technology arms race, and still continue to be profitable with less-powerful hardware. They make games. They make fun games. No amount of FUD can detract from that.

I remember being floored by the Dreamcast visuals coming from PS1/N64. It definitely felt like a generational leap at the time.

A lot of the games still hold up visually today especially as a lot of them were 60fps.

 

[Papacheeks]

I thought you were speaking of the launch. Not sure how you can include games from 2 years after launch as launch games.

Almost all of those titles minus sonic adventure 2 came out during the first couple months of launch they were all 2000 games. System launched Sept.9, 1999. So within the first 6+ months a lot of those titles launched.

The whole 2k series launched with the system.





Here is the Dreamcast lineup:

• Blue Stinger
• Expendable
• Flag to Flag
• House of the Dead 2
• Hydro Thunder
• Monaco Grand Prix
• Mortal Kombat Gold
• NFL 2K
• NFL Blitz 2000
• PenPen TRiIceLon
• Power Stone
• Ready 2 Rumble Boxing
• Sonic Adventure
• Soulcalibur
• TNN Motorsports Hardcore Heat
• Tokyo Xtreme Racer
• TrickStyle

That is varied as fuck.

And that was like launch and first month or so after. In year 2000 shooters launched on the console along with the revamp of their online push for games like 2k, tennis.

 

[Fox Mulder]

The ps2 was hyped like it was as powerful as the ps5, but something like Gran Theft Auto 3 felt like a generation above anything possible on the Dreamcast.

The ps2 did turn out to be the best console library in the history of video games. The Dreamcast is remembered for like a handful of games.

 

[Explosive Zombie]

Almost all of those titles minus sonic adventure 2 came out during the first couple months of launch they were all 2000 games. System launched Sept.9, 1999. So within the first 6+ months a lot of those titles launched.

The whole 2k series launched with the system.

Games like SoulCalibur, Sonic Adventure and Power Stone were released in America in 1999. There is only 1 game released in NA in 2002. The console had a 3 year lifespan so it may seem like splitting hairs but when you say "launch" I don't assume you mean 2/3rds of the way through it's entire life.

 

[cireza]

Almost all of those titles minus sonic adventure 2 came out during the first couple months of launch they were all 2000 games. System launched Sept.9, 1999. So within the first 6+ months a lot of those titles launched.

The whole 2k series launched with the system.





Here is the Dreamcast lineup:

• Blue Stinger
• Expendable
• Flag to Flag
• House of the Dead 2
• Hydro Thunder
• Monaco Grand Prix
• Mortal Kombat Gold
• NFL 2K
• NFL Blitz 2000
• PenPen TRiIceLon
• Power Stone
• Ready 2 Rumble Boxing
• Sonic Adventure
• Soulcalibur
• TNN Motorsports Hardcore Heat
• Tokyo Xtreme Racer
• TrickStyle

That is varied as fuck.

And that was like launch and first month or so after. In year 2000 shooters launched on the console along with the revamp of their online push for games like 2k, tennis.

Launch was very solid. I played Sonic Adventure, Soul Calibur, Power Stone and Blue Stinger. Loved all of them.

My first RPG was Evolution, and I also enjoyed quite a lot.

 

[Three]

Its not my job to educate you

Have you tried reading it? Where is the quote seeing as you are "well educated "?

 

[Three]

Both companies had technically illiterate spokespeople saying it. It's a ridiculous claim either way.

Both companies bullshit but the thing is that there is not a single quote of a person from sony saying that specific thing. I've seen sites saying it about the PS2 and after the Gates quote but nobody from sony actually said such a thing.

Bill gate's quote from wired:

Wired News: Gates Gives An Electric Intro

web.archive.org

 

[the_master]

Dreamcast was really an amazing console.

PS2 promised to be so much more that people waited for it.

 

[the_master]

I got a Dreamcast at launch. Worst console I ever bought. I don't understand the revisionist history about that piece of shit being anything special. Maybe I just got the "wrong" games but whatever, never had that problem with any other console.

It sounds really hard to screw up like this, picking up only bad dreamcast games.

You should get the equivalent of a darwin award for fucking up so much.

The Dreamcast was really great at the time.

 

[RAIDEN1]

Dreamcast would have struggled to get a port of MGS-2......but in anycase had it not been for the Saturn, Sega may have been able to go a few more rounds with Sony instead of having to abruptly pull out in 2001.....surely they must have known that the Playstation 2 wasn't going to be a flash in the pan so to speak...

 

[PleaseWaitStation4]

The Emotion engine was designed in hell by these fellows to make life difficult for devs. Legend has it they now reside at refund era and troll here every now and then.

Let Sega Japan brand the XSX their own and give you M$ bastards a cut for the sales. You'll make a ton more than you will the way things are now and FUCK! Sega would be back.

 

[Papacheeks]

Games like SoulCalibur, Sonic Adventure and Power Stone were released in America in 1999. There is only 1 game released in NA in 2002. The console had a 3 year lifespan so it may seem like splitting hairs but when you say "launch" I don't assume you mean 2/3rds of the way through it's entire life.

Did you read? First 6-12 months regardless of if the console flopped is launch window.

 

[thismeinteil]

Do people really not know what FUD is at this point? It's spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt about an OPPOSING product/company. Hyping your own product, even if you think it's over hyping it, is not FUD.

For example, Sony talking up their SSD is not FUD. If they were going around saying anything less than their SSD solution will lead to long load times and severe pop-in as games get larger, it would be.

 

[Arkam]

From the perspective of a late teen at the time, it wasn't Sony's FUD it was Sony's FANS spreading FUD. Not sure how many time I was told "PS2 will be 100x more powerful than the DreamCast"..... to which each time I laughed and told them that was impossible in a consumer device. Which most would ask "Why?", which would tee me up for "MATH!" as a retort.


All the official stuff I remember was well in line with what competitors were saying. Sony showed the Ducks in the bath, a few character models (the old man!) and claims of "Toy Story" graphics. But at the same time Sega was putting out similar messaging and equally BS character models and environments from Shenmue.

Anyone with half a brain knew the delta between the two was not an order of magnitude.

 

[Drewpee]

Moore at the links

Peter Moore on why the plug was pulled on the Dreamcast

Ex-President of Sega Of America talks to Edge on why the Dreamcast died

www.gamesradar.com

Why does this upset so many Sony fans? Do you really think they are above using an effective business strategy to kill a competitor?

Just take a look at games like ff16 and their exclusivity deals if you think Sony lives above the frey. They would push Nintendo and Microsoft out of the market this very second if they knew it would benefit them.

 

[Klayzer]

Both companies bullshit but the thing is that there is not a single quote of a person from sony saying that specific thing. I've seen sites saying it about the PS2 and after the Gates quote but nobody from sony actually said such a thing.

Bill gate's quote from wired:

Wired News: Gates Gives An Electric Intro

web.archive.org

The hardcore Xguys on this site are some of the most intellectually dishonest posters around. Its like a virus of revisionists history storytelling. Appaling ignorance/trolling is running amok in almost every topic.

 

[Thirty7ven]

FUD is constantly mentioning your competitor and organize your marketing campaign around making the competitors product look falsely inferior through ambiguous language and subjective reasoning.

Sega did it to Nintendo, and MS well, they always do it.

 

[Valkyria]

As a 35 year old and a Sega fan back then, this thread is a embarrassment.
Sega was a mess back then and Ps2 had a library unmatched. GTA3, FFX, MGS2 were out on the first years.

 

[AeneaGames]

He's not lying, but all companies do it though. I will say that "Tempest Engine" moniker got folks thinking Sony is reinventing 3D audio. So I guess he's right they are good at it.

That's just a marketing term and has nothing whatsoever to do with FUD.

Besides, what are Smart Delivery, Velocity Architecture, True 4k,etc., etc.?

 

[Dolomite]

He's not lying, but all companies do it though. I will say that "Tempest Engine" moniker got folks thinking Sony is reinventing 3D audio. So I guess he's right they are good at it.

The amount of times I've seen Tempest brought up in convo here, only to explain it as if we've never heard of 3D audio is amazing and sad

 

[Goro Majima]

I'm not sure if there will ever be another piece of hardware as hyped as the Playstation 2.

The first six months of its release in the US was filled with chronic shortages and urban legends about availability. I distinctly remember hearing that "A Walmart associate must walk you to your car if you buy a PS2" because supposedly people would wait outside and try to steal them. Probably an urban legend but such was the hype of that console.

Also this was a system seller as much as any game:

It's hard to overstate how popular this fucking DVD was when the format was new.

There really just wasn't any way for the Dreamcast to compete. I brought mine to lots of friends houses and I heard the same thing over and over again - "Yeah but the PS2 is coming out soon"

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Let's just ignore the fact that Sega was losing hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

They only started losing money during fiscal year 1997, mainly due to Dreamcast R&D and the downturn in the arcade market. Every year prior they made profit, even during the Saturn's early years.

The 32X sealed Sega's fate.

This is wrong. 32X didn't really affect Genesis sales, as MegaDrive still maintained sales lead in Europe over SNES, and in Japan the 32X wasn't even seriously pushed out. The draw-down of Genesis sales in 1995 was due to SEGA of Japan's decision to nix Genesis support in favor of the Saturn.

And had released 4 pieces of hardware in a row that had failed before Dreamcast

Which are? The MegaDrive was very successful. The 32X and SEGA CD are add-ons, they should be treated more as peripheral devices as you don't need them to play Genesis/MegaDrive games. The SEGA CD was the most successful add-on peripheral in the gaming market until the Wii Fit board and Kinect releases.

If you're going to count those as consoles and failures, you should also count the PS4 Pro as its own console and failure, since it doesn't make up even a notable fraction of total PS4 systems sold. Can also count the PSVR as a failure too; same story. That's what happens when you count peripherals and revision models as their own separate game platforms :/

And had only managed to sell 9 million Dreamcasts in a 3 year time period.

The curve of console sales back then was much lower/slower than it is today. The PS1, for example, I don't think it even sold 10 million WW by its second year on the market, and that's the PS1! Same can be said for the MegaDrive, SNES, etc. All relatively successful systems but the curve for their big sales was more gradual on the rise versus what we see with consoles today.

You actually have to take that context into mind before trying to frame 9 million in 3 years as a failure. It did fall short of SEGA's required amounts but that was due to a myriad of circumstances they created for themselves in the years prior.

Sega faild for many reasons and most of them were by their own fault. About the FUD tactics, actually SEGA pioneered it in the home console market using it against Nintendo very successfully, and they were doing it against the first PlayStation too.

SEGA didn't actually do FUD against Nintendo; Genesis typically did get the more mature games, or less censored versions of games, back in the day. "Blast Processing" was used as a marketing gimmick, but the technique itself is actually possible on the hardware. It was just SO difficult for devs under tight schedules to leverage it most games (due to needing to get the timings correct for the DMA), that outside of a few games like Sonic it wasn't leveraged too often.

Also keep in mind Nintendo ran an editorial in Nintendo Power that had its own fair share of smear against the Genesis.

Excuse me, we are not the ones who dragged Dreamcast's corpse out of its grave to use it as ammo here. The link was clearly a hitpiece meant to attack Sony, and you had the GALL to claim that Sony started it? Have you no SHAME?

I haven't fully read the article and the thread title in no way matches the title of the actual article, but I think some of you have a mistaken impression of Sony's past in the market. I wouldn't necessarily say they pushed "FUD", but they did leverage their financial power at the time to put an "unfair squeeze" on Nintendo and particularly SEGA, the sort of financial leveraging people are trying to call MS as being "monopolistic" for doing now when they purchased Bethesda.

The truth is, Sony did a lot of ruthless business things even back in the early '90s. It's said they intentionally wrote the contracts for the Play Station add-on in such terms they'd screw Nintendo out of all royalties of software sold on the peripheral, hence why that partnership was dropped. It's said that Sony leveraged their partnership with SEGA at the time (through Sony Imagesoft) to illegally acquire a Saturn devkit from Japan and use it as a means of constructing PS1's specs around. Those are rumors, but a decent bit of people have relayed these throughout time.

Then getting to the PS1 itself; it's kind of an open secret that Sony often paid off 3P publishers through backroom deals to nip certain big games off of SEGA's Saturn. The original Tomb Raider for example, was originally going to be a Saturn exclusive, this is from Core Design themselves. However, Sony threw in some cash towards Eidos (the publisher at that time) to get a PS1 version going. This affected development of the Saturn version, causing it to fall behind as resources were pushed towards the PS1 version instead. While SEGA arranged for timed exclusivity of the game, this was just the European version, and it was a late deal at that (you can argue if that is "scummy" or not).

Effectively, though, Tomb Raider was a multi-platform series but for the sequels, Sony arranged a full exclusivity deal, causing the planned Saturn port of Tomb Raider II to be cancelled, and turning a multi-platform IP into a PlayStation/PC exclusive IP (a Nintendo 64 version of Tomb Raider was also planned but cancelled due to this same deal). Another example is with Resident Evil 3/Resident Evil Code:Veronica. In fact, Shinji Mikami did an interview about this recently. He said that they originally planned for Code:Veronica to be RE3, but Sony (he didn't mention Sony directly, only implied it was them) forced them to keep to a contract asking for 2 main sequels to the original game for PS1, therefore they forced them to make Nemesis (the planned side-story) a numbered entry, and Code:Veronica relinquish the "3" in its title.

There's other implicated instances where Sony may've leveraged their financial power to affect review scores or claims of system capabilities through proxy of other companies like EA; for example someone high up at EA at the time of the PS1/Saturn launches stated that the system could only do 60,000 polygons per second, and used the buggy port of Daytona USA as their proof. Other sources ran with this and it contributed to the perception of the Saturn being weaker at 3D than it actually was. You do have to ask yourself why someone from a company like EA, who got their big push in the console market through SEGA (albeit scummily), would make a statement like that if they were still a software partner for SEGA's Saturn. It's not too far-fetched to think that there could've been some influence from behind-the-scenes to generate such a claim.

So no, I wouldn't call these things "FUD" as they don't involve Sony corporate figures directly, making any direct false claims about SEGA...but by that notion if we take what some people try claiming MS does as "FUD" against Sony in the lead-up to this console gen launch, then we could easily see how some of the things (particularly the last point) I listed could be interpreted as FUD or at least the kind of "anti-competitive practice" behavior via leveraging their financial position, that people want to claim is what MS are doing buying up companies such as Zenimax.

Like I said; NONE of these console manufacturers are clean of hard-balling business flexing, or have 100% clean records when it comes to possible "FUD" against rivals, even if that wouldn't come from the companies directly. Thinking otherwise, or trying to go "well my brand's company is less guilty than yours!" is both childish and dangerous as it tries excusing something which should be viewed as objectively wrong, into a scale of relativism allowing for ever-shifting of goalposts and Overton windows.

He also claimed for SEGA "that our marketing came together and really lifted the entire industry from being predominantly a toy category" which is simply a lie. Sony broke this notion with the original PlayStation and with PS2 they consolidated everything.

No, your interpretation is what's a lie here. Sony took their marketing cues for PS1 directly from SoA's Genesis adverts. They literally hired guys like Steve Race, who worked at SEGA prior to the PS1's launch, to lead the company with said launch.

Sony capitalized on a growing mature gaming market SEGA was already appealing to with the Genesis/MegaDrive, SEGA CD, and 32X. You need only look at adverts from the era to plainly see this. It was a smart decision on Sony's part, but they didn't revolutionize anything in that aim of the marketing for game consoles. They did iterate and refine it, however, which deserves props.

 

[reinking]

As a big fan of Sega nobody did more to spread FUD about Sega than Bernie Stolar. Bernie pretty much ruined consumer confidence in Sega in the way he handled the Saturn. Sega was already on shaky ground with consumers because of how they handled the transition from 32x to Saturn. I believe that is what started the decline and then when Stolar made his famous "The Saturn is not our future" comment at E3 it pretty much sent them spiraling and not even the Dreamcast was going to save them. The damage to consumer and developer confidence had already been done.

 

[Blond]

Let's just ignore the fact that Sega was losing hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

Let’s also ignore the fact the controller was still built for 2D games. I love the Dreamcast but playing it in hindsight there’s a reason this thing was DOA and you’d be a fool to argue otherwise. Great arcade ports don’t make a good console

 

[wvnative]

Sega did that to themselves Sony just took advantage of their incompetence.

 

[Hendrick's]

Geometry Engine is Emotion Engine 2.0

 

[AeneaGames]

Moore at the links

Peter Moore on why the plug was pulled on the Dreamcast

Ex-President of Sega Of America talks to Edge on why the Dreamcast died

www.gamesradar.com

I've read the article and the longer one linked inside it but where is the FUD? What did Sony supposedly do?

-----
Also teeny tiny funny detail, they are quoting someone from Lost Boys Games, from that time.
Why is it funny? They later on renamed themselves to Guerrilla Games...

I still regret declining the job offer I got from Lost Boys in '99

 

[AeneaGames]

Yeah i remember the FUD starting with PS2, totally undeserved but it was everywhere when i was still on 56k modem.
Sony reached peak FUD with the killzone and motorstorm fakes.
Guess by PS4 time, they scaled down on the fakes, but they didnt really need aggressive FUD, because MS/Mattrick had shot themselves on the foot.
However it seems PS5 FUD is gaining speed, i guess when competition heats up, FUD follows.

PS5 FUD? Care to give examples? I am guessing you mean sony doing it and not Xbox fanatics

 

[petran79]

Let's all, ALL ignore the fact - that for 2 FULL YEARS - PS2 had no games, literally - no - games - the only thing sought after was MGS2 and at it's launch that was 2 years out - it took 2 year's to catch up to the Dreamcast in term's of available exclusive games literally. Very Literally. Lets ALL forget that... Dreamcast Launched with 12 triple A titles - 13 titles in totality - and released tons of games year on year. MOST to Critical Acclaim, unlike PS2, which took in totality 4 years to garner for a small roaster of games that had critical acclaim.

The Dreamcast was a glistening example of the PERFECT console launch. Still by nearly all margins (triple A release titles, cost to consumers, value, amount of dev support) it is considered a perfect console launch, with no area on offer lacking.

But, let's all FORGET - that hype alone, fanboyism - killed the Dreamcast - as the PS2 literally had nothing on offer - until the VERY end of year 2 after launch - and the hype alone/word of mouth/fake tech demo shown off before the PS2 launch and promise of an exclusive MG2 title .... eventually...... STILLLLLLLL somehow....... KILLED Sega as a console manufacturer. All thanks to Kojima really. Wow.

Dreamcast library was viable up to 2005. I remember my friend got a PS2 few years ago and he rented mediocre games like the Matrix and Minority Report because there was nothing interesting for his tastes. I used to bring the Dreamcast and we used to play some games like Sega Rally, Jet Set Radio, Virtua Tennis , SC etc that looked much better than PS2 games at that time. Only when games like MGS3, GOW1, RE4, Killzone , COD4 etc appeared did the PS2 become ultra-popular and pushed other consoles to oblivion.

 

[Kazza]

Almost all of those titles minus sonic adventure 2 came out during the first couple months of launch they were all 2000 games. System launched Sept.9, 1999. So within the first 6+ months a lot of those titles launched.

The whole 2k series launched with the system.





Here is the Dreamcast lineup:

• Blue Stinger
• Expendable
• Flag to Flag
• House of the Dead 2
• Hydro Thunder
• Monaco Grand Prix
• Mortal Kombat Gold
• NFL 2K
• NFL Blitz 2000
• PenPen TRiIceLon
• Power Stone
• Ready 2 Rumble Boxing
• Sonic Adventure
• Soulcalibur
• TNN Motorsports Hardcore Heat
• Tokyo Xtreme Racer
• TrickStyle

That is varied as fuck.

And that was like launch and first month or so after. In year 2000 shooters launched on the console along with the revamp of their online push for games like 2k, tennis.

The Dreamcast had the best launch line up ever (as officially voted on by NeoGAF members ):

I never owned the system at the time, but just looking at the first year releases, it's hard to imagine how anybody could have been disappointed with the games lineup. Here is the first year of releases in the US:

For me personally, these would have been day one purchases:
Soul Calibur
NFL 2K
Sonic Adventure
Power Stone
The House of the Dead 2
Marvel v Capcom
Virtua Fighter 3tb
Dynamite Cop
Sega Rally 2
Seaman
Crazy Taxi
Dead or Alive 2
Virtua Striker 2
Resident Evil: Code Veronica
Virtua Tennis
Ecco The Dolphin: Defender of the Future

And these would have been probable later purchases:
Hydro Thunder
Blue Stinger
NFL Blitz 2000
Tokyo Extreme Racer
Sega Bass Fishing
Toy Commander
Fighting Force 2
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
Power Stone 2
Street Fighter III: Double Impact
Rayman 2
Tomb Raider Revelations
Chu Chu Rocket
Cyber Troopers
Space Channel 5
World Series Baeball 2K1

A good mix of genres there:
- sport
- racing
- survival horror
- adventure
- platformers
- lightgun
- fighting (both one on one and side scrolling)
- whatever the hell Seaman, Ecco and Sega Bass Fishing are

Within an extra 3/4 months of the first year anniversary and you would get these bangers (some even genre defining):
Shenmue
Jet Set Radio
Samba de Amigo
Skies of Arcadia
Grandia 2
Metropolis Street Racer
Phantasy Star Online

While everyone has different taste in games, I don't understand how anyone could describe the console as "shit" or claim that it only had arcade games. I don't think it's an underrated console anymore, as it gets a lot of love these days, but all of that love and respect is well deserved. Awesome machine which deserved to do better at the time.

 

[A.Romero]

I'd think Peter would know better than to think that the average consumer cares about that kind of stuff.

I wonder what's the FUD Nintendo spreads to be able to sell so much.

 

[Evangelion Unit-01]

>Saturn, Mega Drive (JPN), and 32X have entered the chat...

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

Back when system warz were interesting. Hell, back when new consoles were interesting. Good times, man.

 

[Agent X]

Let's all, ALL ignore the fact - that for 2 FULL YEARS - PS2 had no games, literally - no - games - the only thing sought after was MGS2 and at it's launch that was 2 years out - it took 2 year's to catch up to the Dreamcast in term's of available exclusive games literally. Very Literally. Lets ALL forget that... Dreamcast Launched with 12 triple A titles - 13 titles in totality - and released tons of games year on year. MOST to Critical Acclaim, unlike PS2, which took in totality 4 years to garner for a small roaster of games that had critical acclaim.

The Dreamcast was a glistening example of the PERFECT console launch. Still by nearly all margins (triple A release titles, cost to consumers, value, amount of dev support) it is considered a perfect console launch, with no area on offer lacking.

You're joking, right?

I like the Dreamcast, and I believe it did have a better lineup of launch games than the PlayStation 2 did, but the PS2 turned things around mighty quickly. The second half of 2001 was utterly stacked with significantly impressive games for PS2.

But, let's all FORGET - that hype alone, fanboyism - killed the Dreamcast - as the PS2 literally had nothing on offer - until the VERY end of year 2 after launch - and the hype alone/word of mouth/fake tech demo shown off before the PS2 launch and promise of an exclusive MG2 title .... eventually...... STILLLLLLLL somehow....... KILLED Sega as a console manufacturer. All thanks to Kojima really. Wow.

Wow.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Dreamcast has plenty of highlights.

 

[sainraja]

Yeah i remember the FUD starting with PS2, totally undeserved but it was everywhere when i was still on 56k modem.
Sony reached peak FUD with the killzone and motorstorm fakes.
Guess by PS4 time, they scaled down on the fakes, but they didnt really need aggressive FUD, because MS/Mattrick had shot themselves on the foot.
However it seems PS5 FUD is gaining speed, i guess when competition heats up, FUD follows.

The competition didn't "heat" down with the PS4. Stop with the melodrama lol.

 

[longdi]

The competition didn't "heat" down with the PS4. Stop with the melodrama lol.

eh i remember Edge outright called out XO, and splash in their front page, PS4 is your next console, or so
Unseen before.

XO was unable to liftoff from the go.
It was until Phil took over, made tons of revision, price-cuts, that XO found more love.

 

[Azelover]

It was a combination of things, including the ghost of the PS2.

It was like a domino. The pressure from PS2 overhype, made Sega spend a lot of money unnecessarily, and that's really what killed the Dreamcast. It sold decently in the beginning, but even with the losses if the Dreamcast had sold a little better in the second year, it could have continued.

Peter Moore knows a hell of a lot more than I or anybody here does. So if you were to frame one thing, it would accurately be Sony and all their fakery.

It was even coined a term called "Dreamcasting". Which is basically when you drown your competitors with a lot of speculation.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Let’s also ignore the fact the controller was still built for 2D games. I love the Dreamcast but playing it in hindsight there’s a reason this thing was DOA and you’d be a fool to argue otherwise. Great arcade ports don’t make a good console

Lol what? Some of PS1's, hell PS2's best games are great arcade ports. Tekken 3 is one of PS1's highest-selling games; arcade port. Ridge Racer was a pillar for defining early PS1; arcade port. I could go on and on.

Even systems like SNES have a large stable of arcade ports among some of their best games. Where's this false narrative that a console game is suddenly automatically better on a console than an arcade game just because it didn't originate in the arcade?

The controller would've benefited from a 2nd analog stick for sure, but it wasn't "really" built for 2D; it was an evolution of the Saturn 3D pad that launched with NiGHTS, which was made with, well, 3D, in mind. In fact most 2D gaming fans consider the Dreamcast's d-pad a downgrade from the Saturn's in that respect.

 

[KemoSabe]

Dreamcast was so superior.
Shame that it killed segas console ambitions.