7 ms·

With no/weak DRM you get the fate of the Dreamcast!

nickpsecurity 10y ago
I thought it died because it was weak technically and in terms of publishers vs next gen stuff right around the corner. Nobody I knew wanted a Dreamcast with PS2 and Nintendos about to come out plus hardly any good games. May just be anecdotal though.
- wprapido 10y ago
  same as N64 in comparison to PS1
  - Nkdo 10y ago
    Not really. The N64 had extremely popular first party games. That's what saved Nintendo's console from going extinct. Another factor in Nintendo's survival was the global popularity of their handheld consoles. Even if you were not a N64 owner, chances are, if you owned a portable console, you had a gameboy. The Dreamcast didn't have that privilege. I'm not saying Sega's first party games were bad, but they were nowhere near the kind of popularity (I don't necessarily link popularity to quality) that could sustain a console maker. As for Sega's attempt to enter the handheld market, it began and ended with the same console, the Gamegear. It's still a mystery to me why Sega dropped that market, it didn't sell as well as the gameboy but its sales were still very high and well within the scope of what would qualify as a success, it was a much better console than the various Gameboys until Nintendo released the GBA too.
    - nickpsecurity 10y ago
      "ot really. The N64 had extremely popular first party games. That's what saved Nintendo's console from going extinct." It had that, the 64-bit marketing, and was expandable with things like Turbo... whatever... that made stuff run faster. Sony did that later with PS One to accelerate old games plus have sleaker box. Also had the Gameshark like Sony. Idk if Dreamcast had one. It could help when you wanted some unlocks but had enough of a life that effort to meet requirements wasn't worth it. Perfect Dark comes to mind as we unlocked every gun/gadget in multiplayer that way. :)
      - wprapido 10y ago
        nintendo historically had that party / family vibe
- rtpg 10y ago
  the causes of death were many, of course, but the piracy aspect was very, very painful to Sega and third parties.
  - Nkdo 10y ago
    Piracy was just as rampant on playstation 1 and just like the dreamcast, it didn't require the use of a modchip. Piracy did hurt the sales a bit (on the PS1 too), but it's definitely not why the console died. The dreamcast issue is that no one wanted it. I was the only kid with a dreamcast in my entire school. The playstation won the previous console wars and the marketing surrounding the playstation 2 and its "emotion engine" (which in retrospect was full of bullshit and edited CGI) was so insane that it convinced people to wait for the PS2 and made them disinterested in anything that would've been released before it. You could say, Sega was already dead by the time they released the saturn as there were already very few people looking forward anything they'd make. People felt screwed by all the mediocre genesis peripherals (barely any game worth owning on megacd and 32x), the saturn did terrible, it's a miracle there was enough life left in Sega to even build the dreamcast. Nintendo could've also died during that time period. It's only through the sheer strength of their first party titles that they could retain enough of a niche to survive. Something Sega didn't have. Sonic has never been their own Mario. They never had their Zelda or Mario and they didn't have much third party support beyond arcade developers. That really doomed the DC. EA refusing to make games for it didn't help. They tried to strongarm Sega into letting them be the only sports game developer for the platform, Sega refused and EA said they wouldn't develop for the platform then if they weren't given a monopoly on the genre. With no strong first party games the kind that makes a ton of people buy a console solely for their sake, and with dropping third party support, the DC's sole niche was fans of arcade games, just like the Saturn. That's an extremely small niche. I still play arcade games to this day and thus keep up with the news in the genre and it's getting difficult for the specialized companies like CAVE to survive. They're now focusing on mobile games.. companies like Degica help retain the genre on lifesupport by porting the old ones to Steam but there's not much in terms of newly made games nowadays.
    - ZenoArrow 10y ago
      > "Sonic has never been their own Mario." It certainly was in the Mega Drive/Genesis era. Sega dropped the ball between the Mega Drive and Saturn eras. Too many poorly-supported extensions to the Mega Drive (Mega CD, 32X), Saturn was apparently too hard to program for (especially for 3D games), those things are what appears to have damaged their 3rd party support the most. As for Nintendo, I'd say Pokémon was key for them doing well in the early 2000s rather than Mario.
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  > "plus hardly any good games" Of course this is purely subjective, but in my opinion the Dreamcast had one of the strongest game line ups of any console, especially considering that it was only a mainstream platform for a couple of years. Shenmue 1+2, Soul Calibur, Power Stone 1+2, Crazy Taxi 1+2, Jet Set Radio, Virtua Tennis 1+2, Street Fighter 3 (all three versions), Marvel Vs Capcom 2, Phantasy Star Online, Rez, etc... Was a great system, particularly if you enjoyed arcade-style gaming.
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, Mario, WWF No Mercy/Smackdown, Mortal Kombat, the sports games... What genre defining and blockbuster games did it have? We don't need better-looking versions of a few good ones. It had those but couldn't justify price on that. Playstation and N64 had way more value for money in terms of content, esp original. Plus, did it play all your old games? That was a nice selling point of PS2's although not strictly necessary.
    - ZenoArrow 10y ago
      > "What genre defining and blockbuster games did it have?" When you say 'genre defining and blockbuster', are you referring to the quality of the games or how much they sold? If you base quality on how many copies were sold, then you're not going to find what you're looking for. If you base them on the quality of the experience, then you will find what you're looking for. Consider the fighting game genre. What games in the 3D fighting genre were the equal of Soul Calibur at the time of release? The N64 had very limited choices in this regard (I had an N64 too, so I remember this well, best option was probably Fighters Destiny). The PlayStation had some decent 3D fighters, but again nothing I would favourably compare to Soul Calibur. Even the Playstation 2 didn't have anything I'd put above it within its first year (Tekken Tag Tournament was okay, as was Dead or Alive 2, though the Dreamcast had Dead or Alive 2 as well). I could go through a bunch of other high quality games that the Dreamcast had, but unless you've played them I doubt you'll believe me about how good they were.
      - 10y ago
joshgoldberg 10y ago
No true goy

I thought it died because it was weak technically and in terms of publishers vs next gen stuff right around the corner. Nobody I knew wanted a Dreamcast with PS2 and Nintendos about to come out plus hardly any good games. May just be anecdotal though.

wprapido 10y ago
same as N64 in comparison to PS1
- Nkdo 10y ago
  Not really. The N64 had extremely popular first party games. That's what saved Nintendo's console from going extinct. Another factor in Nintendo's survival was the global popularity of their handheld consoles. Even if you were not a N64 owner, chances are, if you owned a portable console, you had a gameboy. The Dreamcast didn't have that privilege. I'm not saying Sega's first party games were bad, but they were nowhere near the kind of popularity (I don't necessarily link popularity to quality) that could sustain a console maker. As for Sega's attempt to enter the handheld market, it began and ended with the same console, the Gamegear. It's still a mystery to me why Sega dropped that market, it didn't sell as well as the gameboy but its sales were still very high and well within the scope of what would qualify as a success, it was a much better console than the various Gameboys until Nintendo released the GBA too.
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    "ot really. The N64 had extremely popular first party games. That's what saved Nintendo's console from going extinct." It had that, the 64-bit marketing, and was expandable with things like Turbo... whatever... that made stuff run faster. Sony did that later with PS One to accelerate old games plus have sleaker box. Also had the Gameshark like Sony. Idk if Dreamcast had one. It could help when you wanted some unlocks but had enough of a life that effort to meet requirements wasn't worth it. Perfect Dark comes to mind as we unlocked every gun/gadget in multiplayer that way. :)
    - wprapido 10y ago
      nintendo historically had that party / family vibe
rtpg 10y ago
the causes of death were many, of course, but the piracy aspect was very, very painful to Sega and third parties.
- Nkdo 10y ago
  Piracy was just as rampant on playstation 1 and just like the dreamcast, it didn't require the use of a modchip. Piracy did hurt the sales a bit (on the PS1 too), but it's definitely not why the console died. The dreamcast issue is that no one wanted it. I was the only kid with a dreamcast in my entire school. The playstation won the previous console wars and the marketing surrounding the playstation 2 and its "emotion engine" (which in retrospect was full of bullshit and edited CGI) was so insane that it convinced people to wait for the PS2 and made them disinterested in anything that would've been released before it. You could say, Sega was already dead by the time they released the saturn as there were already very few people looking forward anything they'd make. People felt screwed by all the mediocre genesis peripherals (barely any game worth owning on megacd and 32x), the saturn did terrible, it's a miracle there was enough life left in Sega to even build the dreamcast. Nintendo could've also died during that time period. It's only through the sheer strength of their first party titles that they could retain enough of a niche to survive. Something Sega didn't have. Sonic has never been their own Mario. They never had their Zelda or Mario and they didn't have much third party support beyond arcade developers. That really doomed the DC. EA refusing to make games for it didn't help. They tried to strongarm Sega into letting them be the only sports game developer for the platform, Sega refused and EA said they wouldn't develop for the platform then if they weren't given a monopoly on the genre. With no strong first party games the kind that makes a ton of people buy a console solely for their sake, and with dropping third party support, the DC's sole niche was fans of arcade games, just like the Saturn. That's an extremely small niche. I still play arcade games to this day and thus keep up with the news in the genre and it's getting difficult for the specialized companies like CAVE to survive. They're now focusing on mobile games.. companies like Degica help retain the genre on lifesupport by porting the old ones to Steam but there's not much in terms of newly made games nowadays.
  - ZenoArrow 10y ago
    > "Sonic has never been their own Mario." It certainly was in the Mega Drive/Genesis era. Sega dropped the ball between the Mega Drive and Saturn eras. Too many poorly-supported extensions to the Mega Drive (Mega CD, 32X), Saturn was apparently too hard to program for (especially for 3D games), those things are what appears to have damaged their 3rd party support the most. As for Nintendo, I'd say Pokémon was key for them doing well in the early 2000s rather than Mario.
ZenoArrow 10y ago
> "plus hardly any good games" Of course this is purely subjective, but in my opinion the Dreamcast had one of the strongest game line ups of any console, especially considering that it was only a mainstream platform for a couple of years. Shenmue 1+2, Soul Calibur, Power Stone 1+2, Crazy Taxi 1+2, Jet Set Radio, Virtua Tennis 1+2, Street Fighter 3 (all three versions), Marvel Vs Capcom 2, Phantasy Star Online, Rez, etc... Was a great system, particularly if you enjoyed arcade-style gaming.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, Mario, WWF No Mercy/Smackdown, Mortal Kombat, the sports games... What genre defining and blockbuster games did it have? We don't need better-looking versions of a few good ones. It had those but couldn't justify price on that. Playstation and N64 had way more value for money in terms of content, esp original. Plus, did it play all your old games? That was a nice selling point of PS2's although not strictly necessary.
  - ZenoArrow 10y ago
    > "What genre defining and blockbuster games did it have?" When you say 'genre defining and blockbuster', are you referring to the quality of the games or how much they sold? If you base quality on how many copies were sold, then you're not going to find what you're looking for. If you base them on the quality of the experience, then you will find what you're looking for. Consider the fighting game genre. What games in the 3D fighting genre were the equal of Soul Calibur at the time of release? The N64 had very limited choices in this regard (I had an N64 too, so I remember this well, best option was probably Fighters Destiny). The PlayStation had some decent 3D fighters, but again nothing I would favourably compare to Soul Calibur. Even the Playstation 2 didn't have anything I'd put above it within its first year (Tekken Tag Tournament was okay, as was Dead or Alive 2, though the Dreamcast had Dead or Alive 2 as well). I could go through a bunch of other high quality games that the Dreamcast had, but unless you've played them I doubt you'll believe me about how good they were.
    - 10y ago

joshgoldberg 10y ago

No true goy