What happened to Dreamcast?

[DotheDamnTHing]

afaik i remember it had a 128bit processor, far more advanced than its competitors at the time...howd it go bust? was it bad software support?

 

[gigapet]

the fact that you didnt need to buy games cuz they were easily pirated.

 

[z0mb13]

it actually had good games..

 

[Murphy Durphy]

Its because PS2 came out and everyone was brain-washed and bought up Sony's tactics like flies on poo poo.

 

[Cal166]

Love the Sports 2k2 series.

 

[DotheDamnTHing]

yeah nba2k2 was good

 

[Kenazo]

better marketing on the part of Sony, in my opinion.

 

[lancestorm]

Everyone was sold on Sony name. PS2 is a piece oh sh!t alright!!

 

[DotheDamnTHing]

imo xbox in terms of just hardware destroys ps2

 

[Atomicus]

Playstation 1 was still better IMO.
When I played Marvel Vs. Capcom on both, I realized PS1 outperformed.

Ex. War Machine + Gold War Machine + dual war destroyer super = horrible lag + graphics disappear on the Dreamcast

 

[phreakah]

piracy and the fact that you didnt even need a mod chip

 

Originally posted by: HajikuFlip
Its because PS2 came out and everyone was brain-washed and bought up Sony's tactics like flies on poo poo.

Yup. Everyone jumped on the Sony-hype even though the PS2 was not even out yet. Fast forward to 2005 and watch a repeat scenario with the Xbox2 and PS3.

 

[yukichigai]

Originally posted by: gigapet
the fact that you didnt need to buy games cuz they were easily pirated.

I'm sure that helped. Once a few enterprising geeks figured out how to make a Coder's Cable the protection scheme for Dreamcast games became a joke.

More info on that below, skip if you don't care:
A Coder's Cable is a cable that goes from 9-pin serial to the Serial I/O port in the back of the Dreamcast. Using this cable and some homebrew software it is possible to use the Dreamcast to read the data from a GD-ROM -- Dreamcast's proprietary disc format -- and transfer it to the computer. Because GD-ROM is truly a proprietary, uncopiable/unreadable (normally) format Sega didn't include much else in the way of piracy protection, save for some difficulty in writing a CD such that it would boot. But unlike a Playstation disc's boot sector -- which was checked for a data block most CD burners are completely incapable of writing -- a Dreamcast game's boot sector was reproducable. And since the Dreamcast was able to read normal CDs all it took was for someone to figure out what burning program could duplicate that sector. (Padus DiscJuggler and Alcohol 120% can do that) After the Broadband Adaptor hit the market it got even easier, speeding up the average GD-ROM->Computer transfer time from a full 24 hours with the Coder's Cable to a little over an hour with the Broadband Adaptor.

In short, the Dreamcast was a next-gen console that didn't require a modchip to use pirated games on. Though that wasn't the only cause of its failure. It was also released very early compared to the other consoles, and the proprietary disc format didn't help it much with game companies. When the rest of the next-gen consoles came out it was perceived to be old and behind-the-game, even though it performed just as well or better than the other consoles.

 

[z0mb13]

maybe because the custoemrs are fed up of sega releasing stupid hardware addons every month!?!?

 

[SoylentGreen]

I have mine and it's great.

Emulators are fair to good, one day I'll just install a HTPC or Xbox for better.

 

[lokiju]

Originally posted by: gigapet
the fact that you didnt need to buy games cuz they were easily pirated.

This indeed had to be its downfall, I had, err I mean I knew someone who had 300+ games for it they found from the interweb.

 

[JoPh]

i have 117 games i found online. i got the dreamcast 1.5 years ago and couldnt find any games instore. had to reley on the internet.

 

[RudeBoie]

There IS Ebay if you're trying to justify your piracy.........

 

[Slick5150]

Piracy was a problem, but that wasn't the major issue.

The fact was simply that Sega did not have the cash on hand to mount any kind of an effective marketing campaign. When it launched, many people didn't even know about it, and the campaign they DID use ("It's thinking") didn't make much sense.

When the PS2 hit, Sony had about a jillion dollars to market it, and just trounced all over it.

As far as the system itself, it was excellent. Graphics on games released for PS2 & Dreamcast tended to favor the Dreamcast. Soul Calibur on DC is still one of the best looking games I've seen.

Putting a small display on the controller (through the memory unit) was an interesting idea, but wasn't really implemented much at all. Had it been a better screen, I think the idea could have worked in a number of situations.

So, it really boiled down to the fact that Sega was losing way too much money making the console, and the sales of DC titles weren't enough to justify keeping it around.

The good news was is that Sega is now thriving, partly thanks to a merger that brought them cash, and their excellent games continue to be released.

 

[emb09]

Originally posted by: phreakah
piracy and the fact that you didnt even need a mod chip

 

[austin316]

the piracy helped its demise, but I feel its biggest problems were the marketing force behind the PS2 and the fact that Sega had a horrible track record going into the DC.

Sega CD, 32X and Saturn were all terrible.

 

[Kipper]

Originally posted by: DotheDamnTHing
afaik i remember it had a 128bit processor, far more advanced than its competitors at the time...howd it go bust? was it bad software support?

SEGA touched it. Ahead of its time, better console than anything at its time but SEGA's marketing sucked. Big time.

 

[onza]

it just got old.. technology did its thing.

 

[RKS]

Most people on AT at that time picked up the DC for $50 through Value America. Games were also available 50% off.

 

[chrisms]

Originally posted by: RudeBoie
There IS Ebay if you're trying to justify your piracy.........

Ebay is just as bad as pirating. The company sees a person own their game without seeing any profit from it. Financially it makes no difference to Activision if you give some dude in Orlando $20 for a game or if you burn the game yourself.