5 ms·

There are so many unanswerable questions about the Dreamcast. Would launching with dual-stick controllers have saved it and jumpstarted the era of the console F

by causi 4y ago

There are so many unanswerable questions about the Dreamcast. Would launching with dual-stick controllers have saved it and jumpstarted the era of the console FPS early? Would the increased sales from using DVD have made up for the increased manufacturing cost? How much did waiting a year to launch it outside Japan hurt it?

cenal 4y ago
As a retro gaming enthusiast myself, I think the issue of the system not having a DVD drive is only potentially surpassed by the ease of which piracy was possible on the system. What seems craziest to me of that era is that Microsoft didn't just buy Sega to enter the market and instead made a huge bet on Halo. Seamus Blackley should be better known for what they pulled off in Redmond.
- jimbob45 4y ago
  Halo wasn’t a “huge bet”. Bungie had made three criminally underrated games in the Marathon series prior to Halo. In fact, Halo is largely supposed to take place in the same universe, although the final product was only vaguely linked.
- brendank310 4y ago
  MS was knee deep in anti-trust negotiations with the DoJ around that time so I imagine acquisitions of that size and scope were off the table. Sega probably was small potatoes financially for MS at the time, but buying one of the three companies in that market wouldn't have helped their anti-competitive reputation.
  - trelane 4y ago
    Maybe. It's not like they didn't turn around shortly thereafter and launch their own console, likely incorporating lessons learned from their Dreamcast work.
    - trelane 4y ago
      Indeed, from the Wikipedia, article, MSFT had a fork of the OS to run DirectX games on it "Microsoft developed a custom Dreamcast version of Windows CE with DirectX API and dynamic-link libraries, making it easy to port PC games to the platform,[31] although programmers would ultimately favor Sega's development tools over those from Microsoft.[28]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast
- twoodfin 4y ago
  My understanding at the time was that Xbox was not so much a bet on gaming as a bet on the PC architecture—and the Microsoft software platforms that dominated it.
- trelane 4y ago
  That may have been in the cards eventually, had the Dreamcast worked out better. Microsoft made the OS for the Dreamcast after all.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast
  - ac2u 4y ago
    Sort of. Despite the logo on the console, the BIOS/OS on the Dreamcast was in-house by SEGA. The Windows CE thing was an SDK developed my MS that was essentially a port of DirectX to the Dreamcast to give developers an option to utilize existing skillsets in DirectX in making games, or to make certain PC ports to Dreamcast easier. Sega still had their own SDK though that most games used. However, rather than an on-system OS, the Windows CE had to be bundled on disk for each game that used it.
robin_reala 4y ago
It did have dual-stick controllers (I had a pair) but possibly not the sort you’re thinking of: https://www.reddit.com/r/dreamcast/comments/b3zwvl/voot_with_twin_sticks_is_bliss/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dreamcast/comments/b3zwvl/voot_with...
- Grazester 4y ago
  Those are also dual digital not analog fyi.
83457 4y ago
I forgot just how much was released by Sega in a 4-year span. 32x, Saturn, and Dreamcast from '94 to 98/99.
1983054105 4y ago
Another question that has not been answered yet: What happened to all the great arcade games of the Dreamcast? In 40 years it has been my favorite console so far and I would love to play again all the good games it had. The only fun alternative is the Neo Geo but the graphics are a bit outdated.
- causi 4y ago
  You could emulate it. Personally I'm really hoping Sega releases a Dreamcast Mini in the coming years.
  - Grazester 4y ago
    That's not going to happen anytime soon. Emulating it is a non trivial affair and the hardware to properly do that is going to be expensive and the mini console is going to cost more than just $100. Games were also relatively big so then you have the added cost of storage for those 40 or so games you would not include.
    - causi 4y ago
      Emulating it is a non trivial affair The Playstation Classic can run fanmade Dreamcast emulators. I'd call that effectively trivial especially when it's a team with access to Sega's source code and intellectual property doing it. Games were also relatively big so then you have the added cost of storage for those 40 or so games you would not include. C'mon dude. A 64GB eMMC in bulk quantities costs less than three dollars a piece.
      - Grazester 4y ago
        Yeah a whole lot of these single-board computers can run emulation but that doesn't make it worth playing. The raspberry pi can't even do perfect Dreamcast emulation. And for the the price of emmc, that's very expensive(for a single component) I don't know who would want a subpar experience on a mini console when they can just run an emulator a decent 4 years old computer/laptop and have a much better experience...or just buy the console if it matters that much to them.
snickerbockers 4y ago
Incidentally, the bus used by the controllers (maple) actually had support for a second analog stick, but they never released a controller that used it (by which i mean a regular gamepad, there were several novelty controllers for certain games and IDK if any of them put it to use). Speaking of novelty controllers, SEGA nearly beat Wii to the motion control fad by several years. There was a fishing rod controller and a pair of maraccas that both used motion controls. they also had a prototype of a more general-purpose motion controller which strongly resembles the wii remote but unfortunately this was never released (source: https://segaretro.org/Air_NiGHTS https://segaretro.org/Air_NiGHTS ) If they had just made that their core control method instead of an optional gimmick that only a few games used, history could have been very different.
- TapamN 4y ago
  The light gun used by the arcade version of House of the Dead 2 (and I think Virtua Cop 3 and Ghost Squad) also worked the same way as the Wii Remote's pointer, using a camera in the controller to sense infrared LEDs. So the screen doesn't flash white when you pull the trigger on the arcade version of HotD2 like it does on the console version. Instead of a single bar with two LEDs like on the Wii, there's a row of five LEDs above and below the screen. You can make them out in this video: https://youtu.be/vmt-UAc28bo?t=192 https://youtu.be/vmt-UAc28bo?t=192
- zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
  I remember using the fishing controller to swing my sword in Soul Calibur.
xaerise 4y ago
I don't think the lack of dual-stick killed it. Many factors play in: * Mostly the piracy killed Dreamcast. It was way simpler to copy the GD-ROM than the Xbox and PS2 DVDs. * The lack of DVD functionality, which both Xbox and PS2 came with. But the performance was outstanding in Dreamcast.
- als0 4y ago
  PlayStation 2 could play PlayStation 1 games. I think that cinched the deal for a lot of consumers.
  - whywhywhywhy 4y ago
    It was also a DVD player at a time where everyone was planning buying DVD players anyway.
- pbj1968 4y ago
  Dreamcast was already well on its way out before piracy became a thing.
- myrmi 4y ago
  'Piracy killed the Dreamcast' is very commonly put around, and it was incredibly easy for a contemporary console (literally just burn a CDR, no hardware modifications required), but if you look at the attach rates [1] for the console, they are comparable to successful consoles. Pirated games still needed consoles to be played, so we would expect a much lower attach rate than normal if this was a primary factor. Ultimately, it was almost everything else going against the console. [2] [1] https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Software_tie_ratio https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Software_tie_ratio [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d2xuRwYUt4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d2xuRwYUt4
  - jerf 4y ago
    Yeah, this is the common refrain after the fact but it wasn't as easy at the time as people think, the ability to just burn a disk and go on a stock Dreamcast came pretty late in the lifecycle. And this is 1999 and 2000, it's not like literally everyone was on Facebook and sharing tips on how to burn disks. Heck, even the internet connection large enough to successfully download disks at all, and the hard drives to easily store them, weren't that common. In 2022 optical media is clearly inferior on the density front to cheap SD micro cards, let alone other storage techs... in 1999, even a single CD was a whackload of data and hard to deal with. Not impossibly large, but it's not like it is now where you can lift a couch cushion and find a 8GB sd micro card you forgot you had, and then throw it away, because what use is 8GB anyhow? I think the more conventional marketing discussions are much more relevant. In an alternate universe where Sega hadn't burned the entire market with the Saturn, but simply released the Dreamcast at the same time otherwise, it may well have done much better. I'm not sure there is any way it could have "won", while I have my quibbles with some decisions in the PS2 hardware it is generally superior enough that it probably would have won anyhow, it might have been a more grinding war. (Bear in mind that part of this alternate universe is better support from the gaming companies because they weren't burned and they still had some residual good feelings about Sega remaining, so the DC would have been going in with more high-quality games in this version of reality.) The simple truth is that six months into the Dreamcast's run in the US, before any of the next-gen competition had emerged, I could just tell it wasn't in for the long haul. The library was just too lopsided and the support from the big names, while not entirely absent, just was never there in the necessary quantity. The competition actually coming to market merely buried an already-dying console. But it's the only console I've ever purchased on release day and I didn't ever regret it. There was a lot of good and interesting stuff... there just wasn't enough.
MetaWhirledPeas 4y ago
> Would the increased sales from using DVD have made up for the increased manufacturing cost? It would have been crucial, but not enough. Sony's hype was strong. Remember the supercomputer status? The only reason the XBox stood a chance was because it had strong specs. People were even more into specs then than they are now. So in answer to the "waiting a year" question: it hurt it a lot. They really needed that year to build momentum and they didn't get it. > Would launching with dual-stick controllers have saved it and jumpstarted the era of the console FPS early? No, but I do think the controller needed help. The analog sticks were slippery, the triggers were positioned awkwardly, and the VMU was overengineered. Maybe the VMU costs were negligible but they seemed like a waste.
- mechanical_bear 4y ago
  Supercomputer status was attributed to The Cell processor and the PS3.
  - nebula8804 4y ago
    There was a whole saga regarding the PS2 as a super computer. [1]:https://www.eurogamer.net/article-29913 https://www.eurogamer.net/article-29913
    - mechanical_bear 4y ago
      Interesting, thanks
dfxm12 4y ago
Would launching with dual-stick controllers have saved it and jumpstarted the era of the console FPS early? Not likely. Goldeneye showed that console gamers were perfectly happy to play with one stick, if the game was good. Halo brought in the console FPS era because it was such a good game. After all, everyone hates the original xbox controller. Would the increased sales from using DVD have made up for the increased manufacturing cost? Consoles are usually a loss leader. Making them more expensive to produce (by licensing DVD tech from Sony) means you're just losing more money on each sale. At least Sega makes some money on games sales. They would get nothing from DVD sales. People would have probably bought more games if more Dreamcasts were sold, but Sega's problems were way more than install base. They burned a lot of goodwill with both developers and retailers with the Saturn and 32x and had infighting between Sega Japan and Sega of America. All these were contributing to the poor library and poor sales. How much did waiting a year to launch it outside Japan hurt it? Hard to say how much this mattered. Great exclusive titles were being released for PSX through Christmas 2001, even past the release of the PS2. Because Sega had a tough time getting devs on board, they had a tough time getting the killer app. If you already had a PSX, and you probably did, and you weren't flush with cash, why would you buy a Dreamcast when great games like Final Fantasy VIII, let alone the PS2 were around the corner?

by causi 4y ago

cenal 4y ago

As a retro gaming enthusiast myself, I think the issue of the system not having a DVD drive is only potentially surpassed by the ease of which piracy was possible on the system. What seems craziest to me of that era is that Microsoft didn't just buy Sega to enter the market and instead made a huge bet on Halo. Seamus Blackley should be better known for what they pulled off in Redmond.

jimbob45 4y ago
Halo wasn’t a “huge bet”. Bungie had made three criminally underrated games in the Marathon series prior to Halo. In fact, Halo is largely supposed to take place in the same universe, although the final product was only vaguely linked.
brendank310 4y ago
MS was knee deep in anti-trust negotiations with the DoJ around that time so I imagine acquisitions of that size and scope were off the table. Sega probably was small potatoes financially for MS at the time, but buying one of the three companies in that market wouldn't have helped their anti-competitive reputation.
- trelane 4y ago
  Maybe. It's not like they didn't turn around shortly thereafter and launch their own console, likely incorporating lessons learned from their Dreamcast work.
  - trelane 4y ago
    Indeed, from the Wikipedia, article, MSFT had a fork of the OS to run DirectX games on it "Microsoft developed a custom Dreamcast version of Windows CE with DirectX API and dynamic-link libraries, making it easy to port PC games to the platform,[31] although programmers would ultimately favor Sega's development tools over those from Microsoft.[28]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast
twoodfin 4y ago
My understanding at the time was that Xbox was not so much a bet on gaming as a bet on the PC architecture—and the Microsoft software platforms that dominated it.
trelane 4y ago
That may have been in the cards eventually, had the Dreamcast worked out better. Microsoft made the OS for the Dreamcast after all.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast
- ac2u 4y ago
  Sort of. Despite the logo on the console, the BIOS/OS on the Dreamcast was in-house by SEGA. The Windows CE thing was an SDK developed my MS that was essentially a port of DirectX to the Dreamcast to give developers an option to utilize existing skillsets in DirectX in making games, or to make certain PC ports to Dreamcast easier. Sega still had their own SDK though that most games used. However, rather than an on-system OS, the Windows CE had to be bundled on disk for each game that used it.

robin_reala 4y ago

It did have dual-stick controllers (I had a pair) but possibly not the sort you’re thinking of: https://www.reddit.com/r/dreamcast/comments/b3zwvl/voot_with_twin_sticks_is_bliss/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dreamcast/comments/b3zwvl/voot_with...

Grazester 4y ago
Those are also dual digital not analog fyi.

83457 4y ago

I forgot just how much was released by Sega in a 4-year span. 32x, Saturn, and Dreamcast from '94 to 98/99.

1983054105 4y ago

Another question that has not been answered yet: What happened to all the great arcade games of the Dreamcast? In 40 years it has been my favorite console so far and I would love to play again all the good games it had. The only fun alternative is the Neo Geo but the graphics are a bit outdated.

causi 4y ago
You could emulate it. Personally I'm really hoping Sega releases a Dreamcast Mini in the coming years.
- Grazester 4y ago
  That's not going to happen anytime soon. Emulating it is a non trivial affair and the hardware to properly do that is going to be expensive and the mini console is going to cost more than just $100. Games were also relatively big so then you have the added cost of storage for those 40 or so games you would not include.
  - causi 4y ago
    Emulating it is a non trivial affair The Playstation Classic can run fanmade Dreamcast emulators. I'd call that effectively trivial especially when it's a team with access to Sega's source code and intellectual property doing it. Games were also relatively big so then you have the added cost of storage for those 40 or so games you would not include. C'mon dude. A 64GB eMMC in bulk quantities costs less than three dollars a piece.
    - Grazester 4y ago
      Yeah a whole lot of these single-board computers can run emulation but that doesn't make it worth playing. The raspberry pi can't even do perfect Dreamcast emulation. And for the the price of emmc, that's very expensive(for a single component) I don't know who would want a subpar experience on a mini console when they can just run an emulator a decent 4 years old computer/laptop and have a much better experience...or just buy the console if it matters that much to them.

snickerbockers 4y ago

Incidentally, the bus used by the controllers (maple) actually had support for a second analog stick, but they never released a controller that used it (by which i mean a regular gamepad, there were several novelty controllers for certain games and IDK if any of them put it to use). Speaking of novelty controllers, SEGA nearly beat Wii to the motion control fad by several years. There was a fishing rod controller and a pair of maraccas that both used motion controls. they also had a prototype of a more general-purpose motion controller which strongly resembles the wii remote but unfortunately this was never released (source: https://segaretro.org/Air_NiGHTS https://segaretro.org/Air_NiGHTS ) If they had just made that their core control method instead of an optional gimmick that only a few games used, history could have been very different.

TapamN 4y ago
The light gun used by the arcade version of House of the Dead 2 (and I think Virtua Cop 3 and Ghost Squad) also worked the same way as the Wii Remote's pointer, using a camera in the controller to sense infrared LEDs. So the screen doesn't flash white when you pull the trigger on the arcade version of HotD2 like it does on the console version. Instead of a single bar with two LEDs like on the Wii, there's a row of five LEDs above and below the screen. You can make them out in this video: https://youtu.be/vmt-UAc28bo?t=192 https://youtu.be/vmt-UAc28bo?t=192
zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
I remember using the fishing controller to swing my sword in Soul Calibur.

xaerise 4y ago

I don't think the lack of dual-stick killed it. Many factors play in: * Mostly the piracy killed Dreamcast. It was way simpler to copy the GD-ROM than the Xbox and PS2 DVDs. * The lack of DVD functionality, which both Xbox and PS2 came with. But the performance was outstanding in Dreamcast.

als0 4y ago
PlayStation 2 could play PlayStation 1 games. I think that cinched the deal for a lot of consumers.
- whywhywhywhy 4y ago
  It was also a DVD player at a time where everyone was planning buying DVD players anyway.
pbj1968 4y ago
Dreamcast was already well on its way out before piracy became a thing.
myrmi 4y ago
'Piracy killed the Dreamcast' is very commonly put around, and it was incredibly easy for a contemporary console (literally just burn a CDR, no hardware modifications required), but if you look at the attach rates [1] for the console, they are comparable to successful consoles. Pirated games still needed consoles to be played, so we would expect a much lower attach rate than normal if this was a primary factor. Ultimately, it was almost everything else going against the console. [2] [1] https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Software_tie_ratio https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Software_tie_ratio [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d2xuRwYUt4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d2xuRwYUt4
- jerf 4y ago
  Yeah, this is the common refrain after the fact but it wasn't as easy at the time as people think, the ability to just burn a disk and go on a stock Dreamcast came pretty late in the lifecycle. And this is 1999 and 2000, it's not like literally everyone was on Facebook and sharing tips on how to burn disks. Heck, even the internet connection large enough to successfully download disks at all, and the hard drives to easily store them, weren't that common. In 2022 optical media is clearly inferior on the density front to cheap SD micro cards, let alone other storage techs... in 1999, even a single CD was a whackload of data and hard to deal with. Not impossibly large, but it's not like it is now where you can lift a couch cushion and find a 8GB sd micro card you forgot you had, and then throw it away, because what use is 8GB anyhow? I think the more conventional marketing discussions are much more relevant. In an alternate universe where Sega hadn't burned the entire market with the Saturn, but simply released the Dreamcast at the same time otherwise, it may well have done much better. I'm not sure there is any way it could have "won", while I have my quibbles with some decisions in the PS2 hardware it is generally superior enough that it probably would have won anyhow, it might have been a more grinding war. (Bear in mind that part of this alternate universe is better support from the gaming companies because they weren't burned and they still had some residual good feelings about Sega remaining, so the DC would have been going in with more high-quality games in this version of reality.) The simple truth is that six months into the Dreamcast's run in the US, before any of the next-gen competition had emerged, I could just tell it wasn't in for the long haul. The library was just too lopsided and the support from the big names, while not entirely absent, just was never there in the necessary quantity. The competition actually coming to market merely buried an already-dying console. But it's the only console I've ever purchased on release day and I didn't ever regret it. There was a lot of good and interesting stuff... there just wasn't enough.

MetaWhirledPeas 4y ago

> Would the increased sales from using DVD have made up for the increased manufacturing cost? It would have been crucial, but not enough. Sony's hype was strong. Remember the supercomputer status? The only reason the XBox stood a chance was because it had strong specs. People were even more into specs then than they are now. So in answer to the "waiting a year" question: it hurt it a lot. They really needed that year to build momentum and they didn't get it. > Would launching with dual-stick controllers have saved it and jumpstarted the era of the console FPS early? No, but I do think the controller needed help. The analog sticks were slippery, the triggers were positioned awkwardly, and the VMU was overengineered. Maybe the VMU costs were negligible but they seemed like a waste.

mechanical_bear 4y ago
Supercomputer status was attributed to The Cell processor and the PS3.
- nebula8804 4y ago
  There was a whole saga regarding the PS2 as a super computer. [1]:https://www.eurogamer.net/article-29913 https://www.eurogamer.net/article-29913
  - mechanical_bear 4y ago
    Interesting, thanks

dfxm12 4y ago

Would launching with dual-stick controllers have saved it and jumpstarted the era of the console FPS early? Not likely. Goldeneye showed that console gamers were perfectly happy to play with one stick, if the game was good. Halo brought in the console FPS era because it was such a good game. After all, everyone hates the original xbox controller. Would the increased sales from using DVD have made up for the increased manufacturing cost? Consoles are usually a loss leader. Making them more expensive to produce (by licensing DVD tech from Sony) means you're just losing more money on each sale. At least Sega makes some money on games sales. They would get nothing from DVD sales. People would have probably bought more games if more Dreamcasts were sold, but Sega's problems were way more than install base. They burned a lot of goodwill with both developers and retailers with the Saturn and 32x and had infighting between Sega Japan and Sega of America. All these were contributing to the poor library and poor sales. How much did waiting a year to launch it outside Japan hurt it? Hard to say how much this mattered. Great exclusive titles were being released for PSX through Christmas 2001, even past the release of the PS2. Because Sega had a tough time getting devs on board, they had a tough time getting the killer app. If you already had a PSX, and you probably did, and you weren't flush with cash, why would you buy a Dreamcast when great games like Final Fantasy VIII, let alone the PS2 were around the corner?