6 ms·

The article states that the Dreamcast "fell out of the public eye as the Nintendo 64 was released". Am I missing something here? As far as I know the N64 was re

by b15h0p 5y ago

The article states that the Dreamcast "fell out of the public eye as the Nintendo 64 was released". Am I missing something here? As far as I know the N64 was released more than two years before the Dreamcast's release. The Dreamcast always felt like it belonged to the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube console generation more than the PS1/N64 generation, although it was released in between generations. Release dates: * PlayStation 1: '94/'95 * N64: '96 * Dreamcast: '98/'99 * PlayStation 2: 2000 * XBox: 2001 * GameCube: 2001

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
baochan 5y ago
That's as far as I read before deciding the author had no idea what they were talking about and closed the window.
- radicalbyte 5y ago
  This; I went from being astonished by Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the N64 to being stunned by Shenmue only a two years later on my Dreamcast. I bought both of them on release. The Dreamcast was a great machine, I have fond memories of many hours playing Rez, Phantasy Star Online, Sonic Adventure, Shenmue, Skies of Arcadia and Space Channel 5..
dmicah 5y ago
I think they probably meant to write GameCube there.
- CameronBanga 5y ago
  This still doesn't make any sense, as Sega discontinued the Dreamcast 6 months before the GameCube even released.
arprocter 5y ago
Article also seems confused that the NES competed against the Genesis - the Master System was Sega's 8-bit console; and no mention of the 32X or Sega/Mega CD either iirc a big selling point of the PS2 was it could play DVDs, whereas the Dreamcast couldn't
- vikingerik 5y ago
  The NES did compete against the Genesis. Different technology generations, but they overlapped in the market for more than half of the NES's active lifespan, from 1989 through 1994. There were plenty of comparisons between early Genesis games and later NES games.
- nullstyle 5y ago
  The genesis was available in stores concurrently with the NES, and once it was released the master system didn't get much shelf space at stores anymore. The genesis has nearly around 2 years lead on the SNES if I remember correctly. The NES and Genesis definitely competed. (source: I remember the store displays)
  - icedchai 5y ago
    Yes, I remember this as well. Growing up, late 80's, we had a NES, then in 1989: a Sega Genesis, and also a Turbografx 16. Yes, we were spoiled kids...
    - nullstyle 5y ago
      We had to sell half our NES games and pool together Christmas money from 3 brothers to get an open box genesis from the BX. Ah, military brat life :)
- droptablemain 5y ago
  The Mega Drive / Genesis was release to the NA market in 1989, a couple of years before the SNES. So for a time, it was competing with the NES. But, overall agree that the article has some factual issues.
Comevius 5y ago
They confused it with Sega Saturn, that's the one that was pushed under the bus by Nintendo 64 in 1996. Nintendo however was late to the game, the PS1 was already entrenched.
- ascagnel_ 5y ago
  If I remember right, the Saturn shipped shortly before the PlayStation, but it was more expensive ($400USD vs $300USD) and shipped in a manner that annoyed most retailers (it was initially exclusive to KB Toys, I believe). The article also didn't go into the add-ons released for the Genesis/Master System (the Sega32X and SegaCD among them), and how Sega's attempts at keeping the G/MS alive instead wore out many console owners.
  - dleslie 5y ago
    They launched much earlier than expected, before really any meaningful library of games were available. Third party developers were taken completely by surprise by the early launch.
    - laumars 5y ago
      It didn’t help that the Saturn didn’t ship with an SDK and was painful to develop 3D titles on due to being a sprite based machine (3D was effectively transforming sprites. Which caused bugs like breaking alpha blending). The PlayStation wasn’t exactly easy by modern standards either but it was compared to that generation of consoles. For starters it had an SDK. Then there was the lack of storage constraints (unlike with the N64 cartridge). And while it didn’t have a Z index, at least it’s polygons weren’t just hack around 2D sprites. That all said, I do still love my Saturn and N64 more than my PlayStation. This is Tony a rational preference but more just what I enjoy more as a retro gamer. In some ways their faults enhance the console.
      - agumonkey 5y ago
        I think I've seen videos saying they somehow overengineered the hardware too, and without libs (as you mention) people struggled to make use of the many processors and couldn't reach goals.
titusjohnson 5y ago
According to my memory of the time, the Dreamcast launched a bit too early compared to the PS2. The Dreamcast was trying to sell games and systems right when the PS2 marketing engine went into full swing. The marketing hype for PS2 was huge, everyone I knew was talking about how many millions of pixels it would push, how the multi-core architecture would make everything else obsolete, and of course, how it was backwards compatible with existing libraries. I knew one guy that had a Dreamcast, everyone else saved their pennies for a PS2 and made do with their existing PS1.
- Izkata 5y ago
  Yep, I was that kid who got a Dreamcast for Christmas (my parents' compromise since my brothers and I wanted different systems) and I remember the same about commercials for the PS2 having just started.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    > Yep, I was that kid who got a Dreamcast for Christmas There are dozens of us!
- ac2u 5y ago
  I believe the PS2 marketing hype was further bolstered by great initial sales in Japan, because it was a reasonably priced DVD movie player. https://www.gamespot.com/articles/ps2-primarily-used-as-dvd-player/1100-2542136/ https://www.gamespot.com/articles/ps2-primarily-used-as-dvd-...
  - perardi 5y ago
    Oh I so remember that, and can even find mainstream media articles to back that up. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/26/technology/playstation-2-game-console-as-trojan-horse.html https://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/26/technology/playstation-2-... Same thing with the PS3—it was a lot of bang-for-the-buck for Blu-rays when it debuted. (Not that Blu-ray took the world by storm like DVDs, but still.) https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/4/20992215/playstation-3-ps3-blu-ray-disc-hd-dvd-sony-25th-anniversary https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/4/20992215/playstation-3-ps...
emodendroket 5y ago
It was absolutely the PS2 that tanked the Dreamcast. Perhaps the author meant Xbox.
- monocasa 5y ago
  Yeah, Sony's PS2 pre release marketing hype was out of control, and a lot of it was directed at how the Dreamcast wasn't going to be worth it. The CPU of the PS2 was called the "Emotion Engine" with Sony just straight up saying it had the power to emulate the human mind.
- rusk 5y ago
  Best selling game console of all time I think. No shame losing to the best.
  - timw4mail 5y ago
    It was only the best in terms of hype and sales. Video-quality-wise, it was likely the worst of its generation.
    - rusk 5y ago
      All for nothing if you haven’t got the games, and PS2 was selling games for 10 years.
- xgkickt 5y ago
  Although the PlayStation 2 had the brute force, from this programmer's perspective the Dreamcast had a certain finesse, largely due to the PowerVR GPU. SEGA's teams were also on a strong creative streak at the time too. Such a shame it didn't pan out.
beamatronic 5y ago
The Sega Dreamcast release date was 9/9/99
yob28 5y ago

by b15h0p 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

baochan 5y ago

That's as far as I read before deciding the author had no idea what they were talking about and closed the window.

radicalbyte 5y ago
This; I went from being astonished by Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the N64 to being stunned by Shenmue only a two years later on my Dreamcast. I bought both of them on release. The Dreamcast was a great machine, I have fond memories of many hours playing Rez, Phantasy Star Online, Sonic Adventure, Shenmue, Skies of Arcadia and Space Channel 5..

dmicah 5y ago

I think they probably meant to write GameCube there.

CameronBanga 5y ago
This still doesn't make any sense, as Sega discontinued the Dreamcast 6 months before the GameCube even released.

arprocter 5y ago

Article also seems confused that the NES competed against the Genesis - the Master System was Sega's 8-bit console; and no mention of the 32X or Sega/Mega CD either iirc a big selling point of the PS2 was it could play DVDs, whereas the Dreamcast couldn't

vikingerik 5y ago
The NES did compete against the Genesis. Different technology generations, but they overlapped in the market for more than half of the NES's active lifespan, from 1989 through 1994. There were plenty of comparisons between early Genesis games and later NES games.
nullstyle 5y ago
The genesis was available in stores concurrently with the NES, and once it was released the master system didn't get much shelf space at stores anymore. The genesis has nearly around 2 years lead on the SNES if I remember correctly. The NES and Genesis definitely competed. (source: I remember the store displays)
- icedchai 5y ago
  Yes, I remember this as well. Growing up, late 80's, we had a NES, then in 1989: a Sega Genesis, and also a Turbografx 16. Yes, we were spoiled kids...
  - nullstyle 5y ago
    We had to sell half our NES games and pool together Christmas money from 3 brothers to get an open box genesis from the BX. Ah, military brat life :)
droptablemain 5y ago
The Mega Drive / Genesis was release to the NA market in 1989, a couple of years before the SNES. So for a time, it was competing with the NES. But, overall agree that the article has some factual issues.

Comevius 5y ago

They confused it with Sega Saturn, that's the one that was pushed under the bus by Nintendo 64 in 1996. Nintendo however was late to the game, the PS1 was already entrenched.

ascagnel_ 5y ago
If I remember right, the Saturn shipped shortly before the PlayStation, but it was more expensive ($400USD vs $300USD) and shipped in a manner that annoyed most retailers (it was initially exclusive to KB Toys, I believe). The article also didn't go into the add-ons released for the Genesis/Master System (the Sega32X and SegaCD among them), and how Sega's attempts at keeping the G/MS alive instead wore out many console owners.
- dleslie 5y ago
  They launched much earlier than expected, before really any meaningful library of games were available. Third party developers were taken completely by surprise by the early launch.
  - laumars 5y ago
    It didn’t help that the Saturn didn’t ship with an SDK and was painful to develop 3D titles on due to being a sprite based machine (3D was effectively transforming sprites. Which caused bugs like breaking alpha blending). The PlayStation wasn’t exactly easy by modern standards either but it was compared to that generation of consoles. For starters it had an SDK. Then there was the lack of storage constraints (unlike with the N64 cartridge). And while it didn’t have a Z index, at least it’s polygons weren’t just hack around 2D sprites. That all said, I do still love my Saturn and N64 more than my PlayStation. This is Tony a rational preference but more just what I enjoy more as a retro gamer. In some ways their faults enhance the console.
    - agumonkey 5y ago
      I think I've seen videos saying they somehow overengineered the hardware too, and without libs (as you mention) people struggled to make use of the many processors and couldn't reach goals.

titusjohnson 5y ago

According to my memory of the time, the Dreamcast launched a bit too early compared to the PS2. The Dreamcast was trying to sell games and systems right when the PS2 marketing engine went into full swing. The marketing hype for PS2 was huge, everyone I knew was talking about how many millions of pixels it would push, how the multi-core architecture would make everything else obsolete, and of course, how it was backwards compatible with existing libraries. I knew one guy that had a Dreamcast, everyone else saved their pennies for a PS2 and made do with their existing PS1.

Izkata 5y ago
Yep, I was that kid who got a Dreamcast for Christmas (my parents' compromise since my brothers and I wanted different systems) and I remember the same about commercials for the PS2 having just started.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  > Yep, I was that kid who got a Dreamcast for Christmas There are dozens of us!
ac2u 5y ago
I believe the PS2 marketing hype was further bolstered by great initial sales in Japan, because it was a reasonably priced DVD movie player. https://www.gamespot.com/articles/ps2-primarily-used-as-dvd-player/1100-2542136/ https://www.gamespot.com/articles/ps2-primarily-used-as-dvd-...
- perardi 5y ago
  Oh I so remember that, and can even find mainstream media articles to back that up. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/26/technology/playstation-2-game-console-as-trojan-horse.html https://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/26/technology/playstation-2-... Same thing with the PS3—it was a lot of bang-for-the-buck for Blu-rays when it debuted. (Not that Blu-ray took the world by storm like DVDs, but still.) https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/4/20992215/playstation-3-ps3-blu-ray-disc-hd-dvd-sony-25th-anniversary https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/4/20992215/playstation-3-ps...

emodendroket 5y ago

It was absolutely the PS2 that tanked the Dreamcast. Perhaps the author meant Xbox.

monocasa 5y ago
Yeah, Sony's PS2 pre release marketing hype was out of control, and a lot of it was directed at how the Dreamcast wasn't going to be worth it. The CPU of the PS2 was called the "Emotion Engine" with Sony just straight up saying it had the power to emulate the human mind.
rusk 5y ago
Best selling game console of all time I think. No shame losing to the best.
- timw4mail 5y ago
  It was only the best in terms of hype and sales. Video-quality-wise, it was likely the worst of its generation.
  - rusk 5y ago
    All for nothing if you haven’t got the games, and PS2 was selling games for 10 years.
xgkickt 5y ago
Although the PlayStation 2 had the brute force, from this programmer's perspective the Dreamcast had a certain finesse, largely due to the PowerVR GPU. SEGA's teams were also on a strong creative streak at the time too. Such a shame it didn't pan out.

beamatronic 5y ago

The Sega Dreamcast release date was 9/9/99

yob28 5y ago