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> "the Dreamcast barely had games that anyone cared about" I'm guessing you didn't play one. The Dreamcast had an amazing game library, especially considering

> "the Dreamcast barely had games that anyone cared about" I'm guessing you didn't play one. The Dreamcast had an amazing game library, especially considering the short time it was actively supported. Admittedly 3rd party support was thin on the ground, but the games that did make it to that system were some of the best of that generation IMO. > "I can't remember if the story was that Sony had effectively bought everyone's loyalty, or if the devs had decided they hated Sega." My understanding was that 3rd party devs had been burned three times in a row by Sega on products that were poorly supported by Sega (MegaCD, 32X, Saturn). There was also the piracy problem on the Dreamcast, and the fact that the PS2 was a DVD player as well as a games console. If the Dreamcast had used a DVD drive instead of the GD-ROM option they went with I could see it easily adding another 2 years onto the Dreamcast's life. The silver lining is that the piracy issues also helped the Dreamcast be one of the best supported homebrew gaming platforms.

Grazester 10y ago
The Dreamcast was well thought out(unlike the Saturn) and incredibly easy to develop for(Sega learnt at least in this regard) which lead to such an embrace from the homebrew scene. I remember one development house saying something along the lines of, Developing for the PS2 is like writing a sentence with a paint bush while for the Dreamcast it was like using a fine point pen.
amyjess 10y ago
> I'm guessing you didn't play one. The Dreamcast had an amazing game library, especially considering the short time it was actively supported. Admittedly 3rd party support was thin on the ground, but the games that did make it to that system were some of the best of that generation IMO. The Dreamcast had an amazing game library, true, but it almost entirely consisted of niche games that the general public didn't care about. The Sonic Adventure games were the only ones with mainstream appeal. The market then was different from the market now. Nowadays, Steam is full of awesome quirky niche indie games that are successful, and if a console launched now with that kind of library, it would probably be successful, but back then if you didn't have AAA games with name recognition, you were dead in the water. You'd only recognize how awesome the Dreamcast's library was if you were interested in taking huge gambles on stuff you've never heard of before.
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  > "You'd only recognize how awesome the Dreamcast's library was if you were interested in taking huge gambles on stuff you've never heard of before." You didn't have to take a huge gamble, you just had to play one to see quality that was on offer. As for games with mainstream appeal, aside from the Sonic Adventure games there were a number of decent sports titles for the system (Virtua Tennis 2 probably being my personal favourite, but the 2K Sports franchises seemed to make amends for the lack of EA support). I'd also say games like Soul Calibur, Crazy Taxi, Metropolis Street Racer and Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 had broad appeal. Think about when the PS2 was released, what was the big draw at the time? Tekken Tag Tournament is the only thing that sticks out as a memorable PS2 exclusive in the initial period when it was competing with the Dreamcast. I personally don't think the PS2 had the superior game library at the time the Dreamcast was discontinued.

Grazester 10y ago

The Dreamcast was well thought out(unlike the Saturn) and incredibly easy to develop for(Sega learnt at least in this regard) which lead to such an embrace from the homebrew scene. I remember one development house saying something along the lines of, Developing for the PS2 is like writing a sentence with a paint bush while for the Dreamcast it was like using a fine point pen.

amyjess 10y ago

> I'm guessing you didn't play one. The Dreamcast had an amazing game library, especially considering the short time it was actively supported. Admittedly 3rd party support was thin on the ground, but the games that did make it to that system were some of the best of that generation IMO. The Dreamcast had an amazing game library, true, but it almost entirely consisted of niche games that the general public didn't care about. The Sonic Adventure games were the only ones with mainstream appeal. The market then was different from the market now. Nowadays, Steam is full of awesome quirky niche indie games that are successful, and if a console launched now with that kind of library, it would probably be successful, but back then if you didn't have AAA games with name recognition, you were dead in the water. You'd only recognize how awesome the Dreamcast's library was if you were interested in taking huge gambles on stuff you've never heard of before.

ZenoArrow 10y ago
> "You'd only recognize how awesome the Dreamcast's library was if you were interested in taking huge gambles on stuff you've never heard of before." You didn't have to take a huge gamble, you just had to play one to see quality that was on offer. As for games with mainstream appeal, aside from the Sonic Adventure games there were a number of decent sports titles for the system (Virtua Tennis 2 probably being my personal favourite, but the 2K Sports franchises seemed to make amends for the lack of EA support). I'd also say games like Soul Calibur, Crazy Taxi, Metropolis Street Racer and Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 had broad appeal. Think about when the PS2 was released, what was the big draw at the time? Tekken Tag Tournament is the only thing that sticks out as a memorable PS2 exclusive in the initial period when it was competing with the Dreamcast. I personally don't think the PS2 had the superior game library at the time the Dreamcast was discontinued.