The failure of SEGA

[Spring in Fialta]

For no discernible reason, the Dreamcast popped up in my head today while I was on my way to work and I started reading about it on mobile while on the subway. I thought it was a fascinating read and I'm kind of interested in discussing the failure of the Dreamcast or more generally, of Sega. I'm not a gamer but I'm always fascinated by sorts of cult figure artifacts and the reasons why they never gained a wide following (From what I've read, Dreamcast seems to be considered as an ahead of it's time console that was mostly done in by marketing) but I'd be curious in seeing what more knowledgeable people have to say about the Dreamcast/SEGA and why it failed (partly due to the fact that I have fond memories of SEGA consoles as a child). I'm borderline thinking of even getting a Dreamcast off the internet if the reviews/thoughts of people make me lean towards it being worth it for some regular fun. Links to interesting, well-written articles are welcome too (I seem to have a hard time finding them online, for some reason).

Thanks!

Click to read more...

 

[Unholy]

I was 10 when it came out and don't remember seeing or hearing anything about this thing till it was about dead. Was all about the N64 and I got the Gamecube when that came out and a PS2 at some point.

For whatever reason I did not know much about the Saturn or Dreamcast. Genesis we had and I remember loving that system. None of my friends had the other two.

 

[syz]

Piracy + people knew the PS2 was coming. PS2 lead up was insane. Everybody wanted one.

 

[GlassesJacketShirt]

A big part of the Dreamcast's failure was the PS2's hype, and it was even more damaging in its homeland than in the west. Having a DVD player inside a game console was a huge selling point for Japanese households with limited space, while the Dreamcast's big innovation, online play on a console, was ahead of its time.

It did decent at launch in North America, but the PS2's hype machine also killed its short lived success here as well. Marketing ssuuuucccckkkkeeeeedddd.

Also, while this is a hunch more than anything else, the Dreamcast's controller with the chord passing underneath it was not a good design choice. Made things clunky. Lack of two thumbsticks could have played a factor.

Shame, cause on the games front the Dreamcast REALLY delivered on quality in my opinion.

 

[X66]

Dreamcast was my favourite console growing up.

Every single person I knew with a Dreamcast though had a binder full of copied games lol.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

A big part of the Dreamcast's failure was the PS2's hype, and it was even more damaging in its homeland than in the west. Having a DVD player inside a game console was a huge selling point for Japanese households with limited space, while the Dreamcast's big innovation, online play on a console, was ahead of its time.

It did decent at launch in North America, but the PS2's hype machine also killed its short lived success here as well. Marketing ssuuuucccckkkkeeeeedddd.

Also, while this is a hunch more than anything else, the Dreamcast's controller with the chord passing underneath it was not a good design choice. Made things clunky. Lack of two thumbsticks could have played a factor.

Shame, cause on the games front the Dreamcast REALLY delivered on quality in my opinion.

Do you think it'd be worth looking into buying one, then? I'm not who truly cares about up to date aesthetics/graphics (there's a bunch of games from way back when that I feel still look great). If so, what games would you recommend?

Thanks!

 

[RandV]

Never had a chance to get a Dreamcast but I was actually a big fan of the Saturn, which I thought had a vastly superior lineup the first 2 years to Sony but no one cared and just bought the PS anyways. Always found it funny with the console wars how with the Xbox360 MS got the jump on the market by pushing out a year early and they got nothing but praise for it, even though the hardware was **** and judging by the constant breakdowns not ready for market... but 10-15 years earlier Sega does the same thing but gets burned by it.

Anyways, I really don't think there was much Sega could do either way. The market will only support so many consoles, and with a big Corp like Sony entering in followed by another juggernaut like Microsoft, there's only room left for one of the old guard and that spot went to Nintendo. Anyone remember the TurboGrafx-16? Because that's the status Sega got bumped to.

I think where they really lost the battle was between the Genesis and Saturn, when they lost consumer confidence by releasing not one but two expensive and poorly supported add ons to the Genesis that no one really wanted, the SegaCD and 32X:

The Genesis was already behind the SNES, but they really shot themselves in the foot with this business strategy.

 

[Beef Invictus]

Dreamcast was my favourite console growing up.

Every single person I knew with a Dreamcast though had a binder full of copied games lol.

And there was the Dreamcast's fatal flaw, lol

 

[karnige]

dreamcast or sega made the huge mistake of making almost all the games themselves. for every success there was tons of failures and $$$ lost. it was imo the best system and so far ahead of its time. shame

 

[guinness]

I don't buy the piracy narrative dooming the Dreamcast: freshman year of college (1998, dating myself), my roommate had decent soldering skills, and added a mod chip to my PlayStation. That Christmas, I begged my parents for a 2x CD burner, a Sony with a CD caddy.

Super easy to go up to Blockbuster, rent games, and in about an hour or two, have a copied disc.

For me, Sega's downfall started with the Sega CD/32x, that rolled on into the Saturn. I'm old enough to remember the early 1990s, and the buzz behind CD-ROMs, and the classic console wars (ah, Electronic Gaming Monthly and Gamepro), and even had a Genesis over a SNES, but I never considered a Saturn.

Didn't hurt that the PlayStation was $100 cheaper ($300 in 1995 was a ****ton of money, getting a PlayStation allowed my parents to get me a game and a memory card, whereas the Saturn wouldn't get you anything).

I also pre-ordered a Dreamcast (from KBToys no less), but never ended picking it up, but that was because I simply didn't have the money at the time.

 

[X66]

I don't buy the piracy narrative dooming the Dreamcast: freshman year of college (1998, dating myself), my roommate had decent soldering skills, and added a mod chip to my PlayStation. That Christmas, I begged my parents for a 2x CD burner, a Sony with a CD caddy.

Super easy to go up to Blockbuster, rent games, and in about an hour or two, have a copied disc.

The thing with the Dreamcast Piracy is that you didn't need a mod-chip for it to work. Literally any dink could just find the ISOs online and then put them on a disc.

Took way more effort for the other consoles IMHO.

I wouldn't say it was the main thing, but IMO it did play a role.

 

[Emperoreddy]

despite the fond memories. The Dreamcast was a pretty poor seller for a lot of reasons.

All of Sega's jump starts and failures with the Genesis add ons and Saturn failures built up a lot of mistrust in the market place. They didn't have enough time to rebuild that goodwill before the PS2 launched.

The Japanese launch was a mess. Games weren't ready, and there were supply issues.

The American launch was great, but the games eventually dried up about a year or so after launch. Not enough third party support.

They misjudged where the market was going. The dreamcast was more of an arcade machine, while the PS2 promised and delivered the quintessential home experience with DVDs and grand sweeping narratives.

The need for price cuts and rebates for seganet bled the company dry and that was that.

 

[Winger98]

Never had a chance to get a Dreamcast but I was actually a big fan of the Saturn, which I thought had a vastly superior lineup the first 2 years to Sony but no one cared and just bought the PS anyways. Always found it funny with the console wars how with the Xbox360 MS got the jump on the market by pushing out a year early and they got nothing but praise for it, even though the hardware was **** and judging by the constant breakdowns not ready for market... but 10-15 years earlier Sega does the same thing but gets burned by it.

Anyways, I really don't think there was much Sega could do either way. The market will only support so many consoles, and with a big Corp like Sony entering in followed by another juggernaut like Microsoft, there's only room left for one of the old guard and that spot went to Nintendo. Anyone remember the TurboGrafx-16? Because that's the status Sega got bumped to.

I think where they really lost the battle was between the Genesis and Saturn, when they lost consumer confidence by releasing not one but two expensive and poorly supported add ons to the Genesis that no one really wanted, the SegaCD and 32X:

The Genesis was already behind the SNES, but they really shot themselves in the foot with this business strategy.

*single hand raised way in the back*

I actually liked the thing, too.

 

[Supermassive]

I'll be the first to admit that the console was made for people like me. Arcade addicts that wanted a smooth graphical experience at home. I spent all my money on games, and bought CD-Rs off the internet for everything I could not afford. My collection stands at about 40-50 games, so I don't feel guilty for killing Sega, but I don't think piracy did them in. My girlfriend's brothers had hundreds of PSX CD-R's, they worked at Blockbuster simply as a means of obtaining the discs to copy and sell copies.

The DC died because people invested in Sony first. And that's a shame, because the DC was far superior to the PSX, and was still a better experience than the first couple years of the PS2's lifespan.

I still have all the magazines, the demo discs, the special controllers. Seriously considering selling off my Nintendo collections to just collect Dreamcast, because emulators do Nintendo just fine, but the DC games are getting rare.

 

[blue425]

For me, Sega's downfall started with the Sega CD/32x, that rolled on into the Saturn. I'm old enough to remember the early 1990s, and the buzz behind CD-ROMs, and the classic console wars (ah, Electronic Gaming Monthly and Gamepro), and even had a Genesis over a SNES, but I never considered a Saturn.

despite the fond memories. The Dreamcast was a pretty poor seller for a lot of reasons.

All of Sega's jump starts and failures with the Genesis add ons and Saturn failures built up a lot of mistrust in the market place. They didn't have enough time to rebuild that goodwill before the PS2 launched.

The Japanese launch was a mess. Games weren't ready, and there were supply issues.

As another who lived through it these are the most correct answers. I would like to go a bit deeper if I may:

Sega had started sowing the seeds to their demise almost 10 years before leaving the hardware market.

Sega CD came out in 92. It never came close to delivering on the hype, and the hype was considerable at the time. This would have been fine if it wasn't $300. I was smart enough not to buy one but many others did, and as Emporereddy and guiness have stated - the feelings of being burned had started.

-Two years later they dropped the 32X in our lap. Oooo another add on for $150? This I bought and unlike the Sega CD had a few legit good games for it. This would have been fine if they didn't release the Saturn a ****ing year later at a $400 price point.

- The Saturn. On top of the price point there was the whole E3 fiasco with Tom Kalinske (more on Kalinske later - guy is a genius). This shocked everyone because no one knew it was coming. Retailers were blindsided by this (more bad blood) and if memory serves me correctly some retailers outright refused to carry it.

The system, while a pain in the ass to program for due to its duel core Hitachi's but did have a slew of great games for it. That Sega of America decided to never bring to the states.

Here is the companies financials for the time period. You can see where they begin to lose money coincided with their poor decisions to release a **** ton of add-on's and consoles without telling people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega#/media/File:Sega_Annual_Income(Loss)_1993-2004.svg

The Dreamcast while a remarkable piece of hardware came too little too late. Had there not been a Sega CD or a 32X? Who knows - in this scenario even if the Saturn flops in NA like it did I could see the Dreamcast being supported at least through the end of the 6th generation.

Perhaps Sega would have released a 7th gen console based on their Lindberg board?

Tom Kalinske is/was a marketing genius. He was behind Matchbox cars, Masters of the Universe, and Sega's 16 bit coup on Nintendo. It was his idea to cut the price of the MD to $150 and bundle Sonic with it.

The following is highly recommended - https://retrodomination.podbean.com/?s=tom+kalinske

 

[Retrocity]

I never had a Dreamcast, but I remember a bunch of my friends having them, one even had two, maybe three, once they were discontinued. They had so many burned games. I also remember them having Bleemcast discs for Metal Gear Solid and Gran Turismo 2.

I actually really enjoyed a lot of the games and had intended to buy a used system, but never got around to it.

 

[aleshemsky83]

The thing with the Dreamcast Piracy is that you didn't need a mod-chip for it to work. Literally any dink could just find the ISOs online and then put them on a disc.

Took way more effort for the other consoles IMHO.

I wouldn't say it was the main thing, but IMO it did play a role.

This is exactly it. You could just pick up some blank cd roms and you could burn games onto them. Now some games needed to be compressed because dreamcasts discs actually used larger storage capacity but for the most part it was as simple as burning the CD and popping it in

 

[Mount Suribachi]

 

[guinness]

The Genesis was already behind the SNES, but they really shot themselves in the foot with this business strategy.

I remember seeing Altered Beast for the first time on a Genesis (at a Kohls no less), and being amazed...the 10 year old me misses those 'wow' moments.

The Genesis was still pretty awesome though (Mutant League Hockey needs a modern NHL type remake), and Sonic was good (back then), just didn't have the Nintendo stable and RPGs. Those halcyon days of the speed of the Genesis vs the graphics of the SNES, and 16 MEG cartridges were a big deal.

Still have my Genesis and the games at my parents, but with emulation the way it is, it's just easier to fire up my Pi, which also gives me access to the SNES I never played growing up.

In either case, the Genesis and SNES have aged much better than the PlayStation. Can't stand to play any PS games without heavy upscaling and smoothing.

 

[chicagoskycam]

Dreamcast was awesome for a year or two, cant' remember the lag before PS2. It was also so hard to get a PS2 at launch for many.

Dreamcast had some amazing graphics and games at the time. The controller had a battery with a display which was unique. I could play my friend at Madden but call my plays on the controller display so they were hidden. It also had a mic for this gem of a game, Seaman. lol.

PS2 just surpassed it and on-line gaming on consoles started to gain momentum.

 

[GlassesJacketShirt]

Do you think it'd be worth looking into buying one, then? I'm not who truly cares about up to date aesthetics/graphics (there's a bunch of games from way back when that I feel still look great). If so, what games would you recommend?

Thanks!

The Dreamcast was notable for four different kinds of games: fighters (some of the best fighting games ever), JRPGs, arcade staples and weird experiments. If you like those, then the Dreamcast is worth a purchase so long as you feel comfortable with the price. I would put down $150 on it max if it's brand new, otherwise go with however you feel.

The classics for me:

FIGHTERS
Soulcalibur
Power Stone 2
Marvel vs. Capcom 2
Dead or Alive 2
Street Fighter III: Third Strike

RPGs
Grandia II
Skies of Arcadia (personal favorite, also available for Gamecube)
Phantasy Star Online (so long as you are willing to search for private servers)
Silver
Evolution 1/2

ARCADE
Crazy Taxi 1/2
Sonic Adventure 1/2 (especially 2, the last scion of great Sonic games)
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
Metropolis Street Racer
Jet Set Radio

EXPERIMENTAL
Shenmue 1/2 (probably the signature series of the console)
Samba de Amigo (but only if it comes with Maracas)
Space Channel 5 (for the sheer weird)
Chu Chu Rocket
Seaman (this one requires a microphone and is ****ed)

Some of them are available on other consoles and steam as well, so keep an eye out for that.

 

[chicagoskycam]

The Dreamcast was notable for four different kinds of games: fighters (some of the best fighting games ever), JRPGs, arcade staples and weird experiments. If you like those, then the Dreamcast is worth a purchase so long as you feel comfortable with the price. I would put down $150 on it max if it's brand new, otherwise go with however you feel.

The classics for me:

FIGHTERS
Soulcalibur
Power Stone 2
Marvel vs. Capcom 2
Dead or Alive 2
Street Fighter III: Third Strike

RPGs
Grandia II
Skies of Arcadia (personal favorite, also available for Gamecube)
Phantasy Star Online (so long as you are willing to search for private servers)
Silver
Evolution 1/2

ARCADE
Crazy Taxi 1/2
Sonic Adventure 1/2 (especially 2, the last scion of great Sonic games)
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
Metropolis Street Racer
Jet Set Radio

EXPERIMENTAL
Shenmue 1/2 (probably the signature series of the console)
Samba de Amigo (but only if it comes with Maracas)
Space Channel 5 (for the sheer weird)
Chu Chu Rocket
Seaman (this one requires a microphone and is ****ed)

Some of them are available on other consoles and steam as well, so keep an eye out for that.

Seaman would comment if I came home early on Saturday, it knew stuff until I forgot to feed it and it died.

Not to mention it was Leonord Nimoy's voice.

Also had the fishing game with the controller reel. Some great shooters with the gun.

 

[Emperoreddy]

As another who lived through it these are the most correct answers. I would like to go a bit deeper if I may:

Sega had started sowing the seeds to their demise almost 10 years before leaving the hardware market.

Sega CD came out in 92. It never came close to delivering on the hype, and the hype was considerable at the time. This would have been fine if it wasn't $300. I was smart enough not to buy one but many others did, and as Emporereddy and guiness have stated - the feelings of being burned had started.

-Two years later they dropped the 32X in our lap. Oooo another add on for $150? This I bought and unlike the Sega CD had a few legit good games for it. This would have been fine if they didn't release the Saturn a ****ing year later at a $400 price point.

- The Saturn. On top of the price point there was the whole E3 fiasco with Tom Kalinske (more on Kalinske later - guy is a genius). This shocked everyone because no one knew it was coming. Retailers were blindsided by this (more bad blood) and if memory serves me correctly some retailers outright refused to carry it.

The system, while a pain in the ass to program for due to its duel core Hitachi's but did have a slew of great games for it. That Sega of America decided to never bring to the states.

Here is the companies financials for the time period. You can see where they begin to lose money coincided with their poor decisions to release a **** ton of add-on's and consoles without telling people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega#/media/File:Sega_Annual_Income(Loss)_1993-2004.svg

The Dreamcast while a remarkable piece of hardware came too little too late. Had there not been a Sega CD or a 32X? Who knows - in this scenario even if the Saturn flops in NA like it did I could see the Dreamcast being supported at least through the end of the 6th generation.

Perhaps Sega would have released a 7th gen console based on their Lindberg board?

Tom Kalinske is/was a marketing genius. He was behind Matchbox cars, Masters of the Universe, and Sega's 16 bit coup on Nintendo. It was his idea to cut the price of the MD to $150 and bundle Sonic with it.

The following is highly recommended - https://retrodomination.podbean.com/?s=tom+kalinske

Microsoft coming in would of pushed Sega out if they lingered on and released another system. I think they did talk about teaming up before it all fell apart.

The game lineup for the Dreamcast was a double edged sword. The games were great, but I don't think they were system sellers. Fighters and arcade games don't push systems. Especially at that point when gamers were really craving for games that really pushed the home experience like Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, stuff like that.

No EA hurt. Madden was that eras Call of Duty.

I imagine the piracy hurt Sega's bottom line, but unless it kept third parties away I don't think it hurt the Dreamcast directly. People still had to buy the system.

In fighting between Sega of Japan and Sega of America definitely hurt marketing and game development. They weren't on the same page with much of anything.

 

[GlassesJacketShirt]

The EA thing is good point, that did hurt quite a bit. I would argue Sega ended up making superior football, basketball and hockey games in response, but the name brand of EA Sports was too much of a factor.

At least the 2K legacy lives on with the NBA franchise. It has its issues, but there's a reason why EA doesn't even bother fighting it anymore.

 

[JS19]

The failure with SEGA goes as far back as making the Genesis Add-ons, and fracturing the marketplace when it came time to release the next generation hardware at the time (Saturn). Different parts of the world wanted different things and SEGA simply ****ed up.