Dreamcast

[Aniekwe]

On 6/27/2022 at 9:37 PM, Kane99 said:

 

If I ever find one at a thrift store for a good price, I may pick one up. 

For just collection sakes, I would be open to getting one Dreamcast console as well if I ever found one in thrift stores here. There's a big chance it's going to be available on ebay. I will have a check on it. 

[Grungie]

5 hours ago, Kane99 said:

Yeah it is, bust mostly in the US. I heard that it was still a popular console in Japan and other countries. Much like how the Sega Saturn was a bomb in the US, it still had a decent presence in Japan and other foreign countries. The US audience I guess just didn't care for it as much as Japan did. 

It would have been cool to see the Dreamcast succeed, because it could have been something bigger. 

It wasn't that popular outside of the US either. It wasn't like the Saturn where Japanese sales were carrying it, or the Master System where European sales were carrying it. If you look at sales figures, it wasn't very high. The Sega Saturn sold about 8 million in Japan. The Dreamcast sold 2 million. People might have gotten the facade that it was doing better in Japan because it was on store shelves longer, but when you sell 1/4 of what your predecessor did, I wouldn't call that a success either. It also sold less in Europe than it did in Japan.

A lot of the Dreamcast's failures had more to do with Sega as a company. They created a lack of confidence in consumers by releasing a bunch of hardware in succession, and a short amount of time, and not doing a good job supporting it.

After the Genesis/Mega Drive, this is what came out:

Sega CD

Sega 32x

Game Gear

Saturn

Sega basically played the Google game before Google. The 32X also did the most damage, as it was advertised as the 32bit console to own, only for the Saturn to be released 6 months later. When the Dreamcast came out, a lot of people were like "oh great, another Sega console, they're gonna abandon it soon". 

[Kane99]

8 hours ago, Grungie said:

It wasn't that popular outside of the US either. It wasn't like the Saturn where Japanese sales were carrying it, or the Master System where European sales were carrying it. If you look at sales figures, it wasn't very high. The Sega Saturn sold about 8 million in Japan. The Dreamcast sold 2 million. People might have gotten the facade that it was doing better in Japan because it was on store shelves longer, but when you sell 1/4 of what your predecessor did, I wouldn't call that a success either. It also sold less in Europe than it did in Japan.

A lot of the Dreamcast's failures had more to do with Sega as a company. They created a lack of confidence in consumers by releasing a bunch of hardware in succession, and a short amount of time, and not doing a good job supporting it.

After the Genesis/Mega Drive, this is what came out:

Sega CD

Sega 32x

Game Gear

Saturn

Sega basically played the Google game before Google. The 32X also did the most damage, as it was advertised as the 32bit console to own, only for the Saturn to be released 6 months later. When the Dreamcast came out, a lot of people were like "oh great, another Sega console, they're gonna abandon it soon". 

Do you have a source on that? I know that the sales were better in Japan, but not sure how better. I just know in the US it was pretty bad, but both consoles lasted a fair bit longer in Japan than in the US. 

I think the big reason the Dreamcast failed was because of how easy it was to pirate games back then. All people had to do to my knowledge, was burn the game disc on another and they could literally play it without having to modify the console. As well, I think the Dreamcast came too early. They should have made a console that was close to what the PS2 was capable at the time. Because when the Dreamcast came out, it didn't last too much longer with the PS2 releasing a couple years later. 

[Grungie]

1 hour ago, Kane99 said:

Do you have a source on that? I know that the sales were better in Japan, but not sure how better. I just know in the US it was pretty bad, but both consoles lasted a fair bit longer in Japan than in the US. 

I think the big reason the Dreamcast failed was because of how easy it was to pirate games back then. All people had to do to my knowledge, was burn the game disc on another and they could literally play it without having to modify the console. As well, I think the Dreamcast came too early. They should have made a console that was close to what the PS2 was capable at the time. Because when the Dreamcast came out, it didn't last too much longer with the PS2 releasing a couple years later. 

I’m trying to remember where I found where it specifically listed Japan and not Asia, but here it has the sales figures for North America, Asia, and Europe:

https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Dreamcast

The Dreamcast only sold a little over 9 million units worldwide and half of the sales were in North America.

It’s also documented on multiple websites on how the Dreamcast launch was a flop in Japan, and you can see than North America was a bigger market for the Dreamcast. The actual console was discontinued in Japan in 2001 like North America, but they still trickled out games for it afterwards, which could lead into the facade that it was more popular there.

https://sega.fandom.com/wiki/Dreamcast

https://segaretro.org/History_of_the_Sega_Dreamcast/Release
 

There are multiple factors for the Dreamcast’s failures. The piracy aspect didn’t really help. Though they also didn’t help by releasing so many consoles in a short amount of time, and not really supporting them, causing a loss of consumer confidence. The 32X and Saturn definitely didn’t help in North America.
 

Sega was also broke, so they couldn’t “tough it out” like Nintendo did with the Wii U, because Nintendo was rolling in bank after coming off the Wii and the DD, and the 3DS was also starting to do well. If you look at the sales figures for Sega consoles, they all had different stories and large variations in sales figures in different regions unlike Nintendo.

 

Edit: nvm, found it. I think I could have mixed up the worldwide sales for the Saturn as opposed to just Japan, but still a big drop:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_consoles_by_region#Japan

Edited June 29, 2022 by Grungie

[Kane99]

1 hour ago, Grungie said:

I’m trying to remember where I found where it specifically listed Japan and not Asia, but here it has the sales figures for North America, Asia, and Europe:

https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Dreamcast

The Dreamcast only sold a little over 9 million units worldwide and half of the sales were in North America.

It’s also documented on multiple websites on how the Dreamcast launch was a flop in Japan, and you can see than North America was a bigger market for the Dreamcast. The actual console was discontinued in Japan in 2001 like North America, but they still trickled out games for it afterwards, which could lead into the facade that it was more popular there.

https://sega.fandom.com/wiki/Dreamcast

https://segaretro.org/History_of_the_Sega_Dreamcast/Release
 

There are multiple factors for the Dreamcast’s failures. The piracy aspect didn’t really help. Though they also didn’t help by releasing so many consoles in a short amount of time, and not really supporting them, causing a loss of consumer confidence. The 32X and Saturn definitely didn’t help in North America.
 

Sega was also broke, so they couldn’t “tough it out” like Nintendo did with the Wii U, because Nintendo was rolling in bank after coming off the Wii and the DD, and the 3DS was also starting to do well. If you look at the sales figures for Sega consoles, they all had different stories and large variations in sales figures in different regions unlike Nintendo.

 

Edit: nvm, found it. I think I could have mixed up the worldwide sales for the Saturn as opposed to just Japan, but still a big drop:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_consoles_by_region#Japan

Ah, thanks for clearing that up. Maybe I confused some of it with the Saturns success overseas. I remember hearing that the Saturn was kinda popular in Japan and other foreign countries. But maybe I'm wrong on that as well. 

Yeah Nintendo could have coasted for a while after the Wii's success. Hell even the 3DS had a slow start, but they eventually got over that initial hump. 

Damn, the Saturn fared even worse in North America than the dreamcast did. Weird to see Saturn being the best sold for Sega in Japan.  

[Grungie]

6 minutes ago, Kane99 said:

Ah, thanks for clearing that up. Maybe I confused some of it with the Saturns success overseas. I remember hearing that the Saturn was kinda popular in Japan and other foreign countries. But maybe I'm wrong on that as well. 

Yeah Nintendo could have coasted for a while after the Wii's success. Hell even the 3DS had a slow start, but they eventually got over that initial hump. 

Damn, the Saturn fared even worse in North America than the dreamcast did. Weird to see Saturn being the best sold for Sega in Japan.  

It is kind of weird that the Saturn was the most popular Sega console in Japan. In Europe Sega probably carried over a lot of Master System fans for the Mega Drive, and you can read about the infamous console wars for how much money they pumped into marketing the Genesis for America. You can see how much damage the 32X did for the Saturn in the West, and in North America, they also botched the launch by releasing it 6 months early, and also didn't tell some major retailers. So some of the biggest stores for video games refused to stock the console.

[Ravenfreak]

When I was a kid, I really wanted a Dreamcast and Sonic Adventure until I played it at a Kmart kiosk when I was 10. For some reason I just couldn't get into the game at this time, but then five years later I got Sonic Adventure DX for the Gamecube and loved it. :V The dreamcast really is a cool console, it's not my favorite Sega console (that's the Genesis) but it's awesome. Many older Sonic fans used to browse various Sonic forums using the browser for the Dreamcast. xD It's a shame that Sega had already screwed themselves over with the 32X and Saturn that the Dreamcast didn't last long, not to mention the security for the console sucked so you could easily burn games to discs and that ultimately was the nail in the coffin. (The Saturn is my least favorite Sega console, seeing how the only brand new Sonic title we got on the platform was Sonic R...)

[killamch89]

On 4/11/2023 at 7:06 PM, Ravenfreak said:

When I was a kid, I really wanted a Dreamcast and Sonic Adventure until I played it at a Kmart kiosk when I was 10. For some reason I just couldn't get into the game at this time, but then five years later I got Sonic Adventure DX for the Gamecube and loved it. :V The dreamcast really is a cool console, it's not my favorite Sega console (that's the Genesis) but it's awesome. Many older Sonic fans used to browse various Sonic forums using the browser for the Dreamcast. xD It's a shame that Sega had already screwed themselves over with the 32X and Saturn that the Dreamcast didn't last long, not to mention the security for the console sucked so you could easily burn games to discs and that ultimately was the nail in the coffin. (The Saturn is my least favorite Sega console, seeing how the only brand new Sonic title we got on the platform was Sonic R...)

On my Dreamcast, I used to play Crazy Taxi and Soul Calibur all the time - it was a truly underrated device. It's a shame that both Nintendo and Sony's consoles had way more titles and were cheaper.

[Lens]

On 7/21/2018 at 3:28 PM, fantanoice said:

Did you ever own or play a Dreamcast? What were some of your favourite games on it? 

I picked one up recently but haven't played it much yet. I've grabbed Shenmue 1 and 2 which I'm excited to try before the third installment comes out. There are a few other titles like Skies of Arcadia that I want to try out as well. 

How about you? What were your Dreamcast experiences? 

That’s indeed a very great pickup. I like it but Shenmue 1 and 2 are definitely must-plays. I found the Skies of Arcadia's world and story very incredible.

 

[Button]

People do not know that the Dreamcast's focus on online gaming is what paved the way for modern console . Its failure is was due to Sega's struggles with marketing and competition.