The most promising system?

[AtticGamer]

Offtopic: There is a store near where I live that has one MS Rambo III, a Sega CD game, PS1 and Saturn games and 32X Doom still on shelves (and probably with the original pricetag =|). I was thinking about getting that Doom 32X there, even though I don't have the system.

 

The 32X should have been like the FX chip of the SNES, something that keeps the console going while the successor doesn't come out yet. Sega should have given the 32X its time and released the Saturn in 1996 (with a powerful and easier to use hardware) with a strong launch of good games and support the 32X for the next 2 years or so.

Edited August 22, 2008 by Atari_kid

[mos6507]

32X suffered from the Osborne effect. Everyone pretty much knew it was a stopgap. From a technical perspective it wasn't that great compared to what was possible at the time. They made the mistake of doing the 3D in software just like the Saturn and the Jag.

[AtticGamer]

I forgot the Atari Lynx, it was such a powerful system and with the right management, it could have had great Amiga ports (since the hardware was a bit similar). Being a little smaller could have helped too.

Edited August 25, 2008 by Atari_kid

[Seob]

the only thing that could have saved the atari lynx and sega gamegear for that fact is longer battery life with fewer battery's.

[DracIsBack]

Let's see, outside of Europe, the Master System flopped. Outside of Japan, the Saturn flopped.

 

It also did well in latin america and australia if I recall. As for "flop", I guess that depends on your definition. I think it was profitable everywhere, so I don't consider it a flop. Though it fell far behind the NES in North America and Japan, so point taken.

 

The Dreamcast only lasted two years before Sega announced it had to give up on hardware.

 

Yep, though they were snookered by two things:

 

1. The major debt they carried from past fiascos; and

 

2. The changing industry economics. With that era, it became common practice for consoles to hemmorage money (instead of break-even) , lose money on most games and eventually hope to make it back on software.

 

Put the two together and I'm surprised Sega lasted as long as they did.

 

The Gamegear was not successful enough to produce a follow-up

 

Wasn't the Nomad the original planned successor?

 

They didn't ride Nintendo's coat tails, unless you count stepping on them while kicking them in the ass.

 

Heh ... that was my favorite time in video games. Nintendo had gotten so smug that it was cool to see Sega haul off and kick the arrogant twirps off their high horse.

 

In the end, the consumer won out because Nintendo had to fight like a wild animal in order to compete against a competitor that fought like a wild animal.

 

Man, I miss the 16-bit era!

 

My vote for the Dreamcast too!

Edited August 25, 2008 by DracIsBack

[Artlover]

The Dreamcast only lasted two years before Sega announced it had to give up on hardware.

Yep, though they were snookered by two things:

 

1. The major debt they carried from past fiascos; and

 

2. The changing industry economics. With that era, it became common practice for consoles to hemmorage money (instead of break-even) , lose money on most games and eventually hope to make it back on software.

 

Put the two together and I'm surprised Sega lasted as long as they did.

3 things really.

 

3. Because Dreamcast was years ahead of the rest of the generation and by the time the Xbox & PS2 came out, the hardware capabilities were starting to become out dated for the period.

 

 

While it was still really good, and could be pushed to make some really good looking/playing games, it honestly would not have been able to seriously compete after the Xbox & PS2 programmers learned how to push those systems. Of course it depended on the games. I'd still rather play Crazy Taxi on the DC then anything else. But how well would the DC have done COD3? I mean, Half Life is pushing the thing to it's limits, and it's relatively simple in comparison.

 

That's the problem with consoles. Fixed hardware. If you don't get it right, you're limited in what you can do later. People don't like attachments, especialy after the Genesis.

[RickHarrisMaine]

as much as I love the Dreamcast, I think the Saturn showed more promise and was killed off way too early. Just a colossal mess-up from the get-go on Sega's part.

[Dr. Van Thorp]

If you want to see what the Colecovision could have done, look at Sega Master System games; both machines had the same graphics chip and the same CPU.

 

As for the CoCo, Radio Shack's whole marketing system was its enemy; Independant stores couldn't sell the machine so they didn't carry the software, and Radio Shack stores carried the machine, but were not allowed to carry third-party software or hardware. There was third party stuff, but it was ghettoized into mail order through ads in CoCo magazine. Would have been cool to have seen this machines quirky hardware pushed to the limit. Was there ever a CoCo demo scene?

[Dr. Van Thorp]

I just remembered another one. Hasbro secretly developed a system called NEMO, but cancelled the project when the game market crashed. NEMO stood for "Never Ever Mention Outside".

[fdurso224]

Hi guys:

 

I'd say the Atari 7800 & 3DO system.

 

Anthony...

[Atarifever]

The Dreamcast only lasted two years before Sega announced it had to give up on hardware.

Yep, though they were snookered by two things:

 

1. The major debt they carried from past fiascos; and

 

2. The changing industry economics. With that era, it became common practice for consoles to hemmorage money (instead of break-even) , lose money on most games and eventually hope to make it back on software.

 

Put the two together and I'm surprised Sega lasted as long as they did.

3 things really.

 

3. Because Dreamcast was years ahead of the rest of the generation and by the time the Xbox & PS2 came out, the hardware capabilities were starting to become out dated for the period.

 

 

While it was still really good, and could be pushed to make some really good looking/playing games, it honestly would not have been able to seriously compete

 

after the Xbox & PS2 programmers learned how to push those systems. Of course it depended on the games. I'd still rather play Crazy Taxi on the DC then anything else. But how well would the DC have done COD3? I mean, Half Life is pushing the thing to it's limits, and it's relatively simple in comparison.

 

I couldn't agree less. It released no earlier than the Genesis did in comparison to the SNES (and the Genesis did very well), and much less time than between the 2600 and Intellivision (and the Inty still came a distant second to the 2600). Also, as as far as North Americans and Europeans were concerned it was only on the market a year ahead of the PS2 (less time than between the 360 and PS3). Your idea that it couldn't keep up with the PS2 is kind of silly, considering you are using games already in the DC library to demonstrate the limits of the machine. The system got support for something like 2 years and you think we really saw what could be done on it? Because the PS2 had shown all of its tricks by 2002 right? The Genesis pulled it's last trick in 1991. The NES had reached its last graphical step in 1987.

 

As for saying it couldn't compete once the Xbox and PS2 programmers learned to push the systems, two points:

 

1) Don't lump the PS2 and Xbox together there, as if their programmers are working on anything like comparable hardware. The Xbox was as far above the PS2 as you are claiming it was above the Dreamcast. It was also released as long after the PS2 as the PS2 was after the DC. Your argument could as easily be that the PS2 couldn't compete with the Xbox once Xbox programmers figured it out. As the PS2 succeeded, you'd never think to say anything so silly.

 

2) It released earlier than those systems, so it didn't need to compete with them up until the last trick in those systems had been discovered. Had it done well, it may have had a successor as early as 2004, so it's hardly like it had to outlast every last game released on those systems.

[mos6507]

3. Because Dreamcast was years ahead of the rest of the generation and by the time the Xbox & PS2 came out, the hardware capabilities were starting to become out dated for the period.

 

The Dreamcast was the first console to be designed from the ground up to do 640x480 (i.e. interlaced video) as its primary 3D mode. This put it in the same category as the Xbox and PS2. It just couldn't pump out as many polygons or as nice texturing, but it was still pretty clean looking graphics even by today's standards despite being 10 years old. If Sega hadn't imploded for other reasons the Dreamcast probably could have kept going longer.

[dreamcastrip]

Also,

 

* DC had twice the video RAM as PS2 and this can clearly be seen in the quality of polygonal textures in certain games. DC, unlike PS2, also had anti-aliasing which showed in games such as Dead or Alive 2

 

* The DC version of Half Life, to my recollection, was a lazy and unfinished PC port, i.e. it wasn't created specifically for DC and therefore wasn't optimised for it. Look at PC/360 games ported to PS3 for a current-gen illustration of this

 

* Perhaps if DC game coders had enough years to fully exploit the system it would have seen even better games 4+ years into its lifecycle. Recall how piss poor PS2 launch titles were relative to games released years later

[Artlover]

I couldn't agree less. It released no earlier than the Genesis did in comparison to the SNES (and the Genesis did very well)

The different in capability between the Genesis & SNES was way less then the difference between DC & PS2. And the SNES did still sell 2/3 more units.

 

1) Don't lump the PS2 and Xbox together there, as if their programmers are working on anything like comparable hardware. The Xbox was as far above the PS2 as you are claiming it was above the Dreamcast. It was also released as long after the PS2 as the PS2 was after the DC. Your argument could as easily be that the PS2 couldn't compete with the Xbox once Xbox programmers figured it out. As the PS2 succeeded, you'd never think to say anything so silly.

I don't consider the Xbox to be "far above" the PS2. I didn't realize anyone did. Better yes, but that's it. All in all, based on the 100's of games I've played on both, PS2 and Xbox are kinda close at the end of the day regarding what matters (how the games looked & played), with the xbox only being slightly better, because it came out later and knew what it had to compete against and better technology avaialble to use.

 

Lets use polys/per second as a rough quick baseline (considering they are all 3d systems and games are typicaly judged by how they look, this should be somewhat fair).

 

DC = 7 million polys/sec

PS2 = 66 million polys/sec, an improvement of 9.4 times vs the DC.

Xbox = 125 million polys/sec, an improvement of only 1.9 times vs the PS2

 

considering you are using games already in the DC library to demonstrate the limits of the machine

And? It was chosen because there aren't many other games for the thing that push it as hard. It's a major game developed by a big company that made good games, developing it years into the DC's life, which is when the good games start to come out on consoles. Hell, considering some people like to claim the DC version looks better then the PS2 version, I'm suprized your not jumping on using it yourself as an example to prove me wrong. Also, don't forget that companies were still developing/producing NEW DC games through 2006. Would you rather use one of those for comparison. By all means, try and find one that is any better then the typical early 2000's DC game and point it out to me.

 

2) It released earlier than those systems, so it didn't need to compete

Thank you for repeating the basis of my argument. They were first, wern't competing against anything and released hardware that ended up being signifigantly behind what came out next.

 

I love the DC, I own 4 of them. I voted it as the most promising system too. It was a good system for what it was, for it's time. But I'm not going to ignore the truth. The Dreamcast is not even the same boat as the PS2 & Xbox. If anything the DC is closer to the Gamecube in it's overall system specs (speed, polys, storage, etc.). But it wouldn't be realisticly fair to compare the DC to the Cube however because Nintendo has a 100+ year name brand history in entertainment & a fanboy following and could sell concrete blocks so long as they say Nintendo on them. Lets face it, regardless of what potential it had regarding itself, like it or not, as part of the 6th generation, was a middleweight competing against two heavyweights and an elderly kung fu master who knows the ultimate technique. When they stopped being alone, they lost their market beyond the sega loyalist (which wasn't the base it used to be back in the Genesis days).

[A Sprite]

Lets use polys/per second as a rough quick baseline ....

 

DC = 7 million polys/sec

PS2 = 66 million polys/sec, an improvement of 9.4 times vs the DC.

Xbox = 125 million polys/sec, an improvement of only 1.9 times vs the PS2

 

The PS2 and XBox figures are for raw polygon pushing performance, minus texture and lighting. Neither figure is relevant, unless you can name a PS2 game that benefited from more polygons and less texture data? Final Fantasy X and Tekken Tag tournament are two early games who's sequels had their character polygon counts reduced. In the case of Final Fantasy XII, this was purely for reasons of texture detail - the Dreamcast wouldn't have needed to make a similiar sacrifice.

[dreamcastrip]

Lets use polys/per second as a rough quick baseline (considering they are all 3d systems and games are typicaly judged by how they look, this should be somewhat fair).

 

DC = 7 million polys/sec

PS2 = 66 million polys/sec, an improvement of 9.4 times vs the DC.

That figure is the one stated by Sony as a theoretical best. It was for basic untextured polygons with no graphical effects whatsoever, therefore should be treated with extreme caution as an indicator of true performance. Sony were, from memory, ridiculed at the time for such a claim. Nintendo stated Gamecube's figure as being 12 million polys/sec and this was for supposedly true in-game performance, i.e. textured polygons with additional effects. Gamecube was very much underestimated at the time regarding its true power. PS2's real figures were thought to be similar to that of Gamecube from what I recall.

[Atarifever]

DC = 7 million polys/sec

PS2 = 66 million polys/sec, an improvement of 9.4 times vs the DC.

Xbox = 125 million polys/sec, an improvement of only 1.9 times vs the PS2

Well, seeing other people have already pointed out how wrong this is, I won't bother. I will point out how silly it is to believe you can make a valid argument about hardware specs by using terms like "9.4 times the DC." No individual hardware stat ever exists in a vacuum, so claiming something is X times whatever is silly. It shows more ploygons under X circumstances, if Y requirements are met, and you aren't trying to do Z. Don't think Wikipedia really lets you make statements with the kind of absolute certainty you seem to want to.

 

I didn't repeat your argument; you did. I was pointing out that comparing the DC's 2 year life to the PS2s 8 year life is stupid, and that assuming that it would have had to stand up to what was eventually possible on those systems at the end of their own lives is even more dumb. It stacked up well against them at first, and by 2004 it wouldn't have mattered.

 

I am also pleased to see you couldn't even comment on a Sega console, when no one else mentioned a Nintendo console, without going into your "Nintendo fanboys such and such" tirade. As I said before, that gets more amusing to watch all the time. Like watching someone charging at windmills.

[Artlover]

FTR: All three of those poly specs are the max best case numbers that none of them regularly achieved.

 

Bottom line is, by the time all the players in the 6th generation staked their claim, Sega had the smallest fan base and weakest hardware. They could not seriously complete at the same levels the other 3 were.

 

I am also pleased to see you couldn't even comment on a Sega console, when no one else mentioned a Nintendo console, without going into your "Nintendo fanboys such and such" tirade.

Sorry, I call them as I see them. Sure, there are Sega fanboys, Atari fanboys, Sony fanboys, Microsoft fanboys, Coleco fanboys. But even since the NES days, they have tended to be more obsessed with their choice of consoles then anyone else. Even today, one can't make a valid complaint about the Wii without a dozen people attacking. None of the other fanboy groups are as bad, not even the NeoGeo or Jaguar ones. Truth is, stereotypes tend to be based on some degree of fact.

 

Personally, I think all the fanboys on all sides are damned idiots. But then, I have most all the consoles anyways and have never been stuck trying to defend my choices, so I can see/accept that they all have their strengths and weaknesses, even if others choose not to.

[Atarifever]

Personally, I think all the fanboys on all sides are damned idiots. But then, I have most all the consoles anyways and have never been stuck trying to defend my choices, so I can see/accept that they all have their strengths and weaknesses, even if others choose not to.

We may have some common ground. However, regarding Nintendo fans I have my own theory.

 

Talking Nintendo makes everyone stupid.

 

Nintendo fanboys love pretty much everything Nintendo does, and adjust their beliefs and preferences accordingly. For example, the die hard Nintendo fanboys (certainly not meaning everyone who likes the Wii by any stretch) will argue that the Genesis was never anywhere near as good as the SNES, and that the Genesis was basically unplayable. They will argue that online play is pointless, until they got it, and will then point out how great it is. They will argue that, as Nintendo makes more casual games, casual games were what they wanted all along. And my personal favorite as a huge N-Gage fan, they will argue the N64 and Gamecube libraries being smaller than the competition don't matter because it is quality over quantity, and will then turn around to point out how the Gameboy Advance had it all over the N-Gage, because with so many games on the GBA, how could the library not be utterly amazing. They become positively retarded when Nintendo is brought up.

 

Fans of other systems stop making any sense at all when Nintendo is brought up too. They will, for example continue to insist (quite seriously) that Nintendo shouldn't have released the Wii but should have instead released an attachment kit for the Gamecube that upgraded it. To make it like the Wii, this would have been a kit that added wi-fi, SD storage, the Wii channel stuff, some small internal storage, new controller pick ups, slight graphical additions, and a DVD drive. That this product would have been incredibly ugly, difficult to set up, and stupid doesn't seem to matter to them. Afterall, the Wii only catapulted Nintendo into first place from third on the heels of their worst console showing ever. The Wii only ended up all over TV and sold out two Christmases in a row. The Wii has only had a shortage of Wii Fit since Wii Fit was introduced with further shortages predicted for Christmas. Wii has only become a household name. Wii has only gone on to re-establish market supremacy for Nintendo. Of course they should have made a 32X instead. Look how well that worked for Sega.

 

No fanboy of either strip can ever discuss Nintendo without becoming a complete moron.

[vdub_bobby]

FTR: All three of those poly specs are the max best case numbers that none of them regularly achieved.

 

Bottom line is, by the time all the players in the 6th generation staked their claim, Sega had the smallest fan base and weakest hardware. They could not seriously complete at the same levels the other 3 were.

True or not, this is completely irrelevant. No console has ever been a success on the basis of its hardware being "better" than its direct competitors (assuming that you could ever get any two nerds to agree on which of two consoles is "better" anyway).

 

Not the 2600, 5200, 7800, Colecovision, Intellivision, Odyssey2, NES, SMS, Genesis, SNES, N64, Saturn, Jaguar, PlayStation, Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox, GameCube, Game Boy, GBC, Lynx, GBA, GameGear, DS, PSP, PS3, 360, Wii, nothing, nada, none, never never never.

 

Comparing technical prowess between consoles is just a way for nerds to argue. But every console that has succeeded has done so because people other than nerds bought it - and those people don't understand or care about polyglots/sec, baud ratios, pixel run rates, or any other stupid maths.

 

The recipe for console success is basically: be first to market, have lots of games, build reliable hardware, advertise like hell, and hope for the best.

Edited August 27, 2008 by vdub_bobby

[Atarifever]

FTR: All three of those poly specs are the max best case numbers that none of them regularly achieved.

 

Bottom line is, by the time all the players in the 6th generation staked their claim, Sega had the smallest fan base and weakest hardware. They could not seriously complete at the same levels the other 3 were.

True or not, this is completely irrelevant. No console has ever been a success on the basis of its hardware being "better" than its direct competitors (assuming that you could ever get any two nerds to agree on which of two consoles is "better" anyway).

 

Not the 2600, 5200, 7800, Colecovision, Intellivision, Odyssey2, NES, SMS, Genesis, SNES, N64, Saturn, Jaguar, PlayStation, Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox, GameCube, Game Boy, GBC, Lynx, GBA, GameGear, DS, PSP, PS3, 360, Wii, nothing, nada, none, never never never.

 

Comparing technical prowess between consoles is just a way for nerds to argue. But every console that has succeeded has done so because people other than nerds bought it - and those people don't understand or care about polyglots/sec, baud ratios, pixel run rates, or any other stupid maths.

In fact, the main time specs are given as a reason for failure is in hindsight after the product has long since failed. Sure people say things like "the Wii will never win because it is too weak" but in 20 years no one will argue about the Wii's specs at all. If it wins the generation's top spot, the next generation will largely emulate the Wii's controller over graphics formula, and it's specs won't ever be considered a real issue ever again. Similarly, no one says "the 2600 nearly failed because it was weaker than the Intellivision." It didn't. It mopped the floor with the inty. No one cares anymore that the Xbox had it all over the PS2, because the PS2 outsold it five or six times over. No one cares that the Neo Geo had better specs than the Genesis or SNES. Specs have never won any console race ever. The most advanced system on paper has never, ever carried the day. Not one time.

 

Meanwhile, when explaining failure people point to specs as if that's the reason. The Jag failed because it "wasn't really" 64 bit. No, the Jag failed because Atari were morons at the time. The TG-16 failed because it wasn't "really" 16 bit. Nope, it failed in NA because of all kinds of distribution and advertising oddities and a library more palatable to Japanese gamers. The 7800 finished last because it couldn't do tiled backgrounds (or whatever lies spec people spout about the greatest system of all time). Nope, again you can blame good ol' Atari mismanagement for that one.

 

Systems win or lose based on games, and the specs never, ever decide it.

[AtticGamer]

Yes I agree the Colecovision is probably the most promising system ever, now I see it.

 

Had it not been for the crash, it would have probably prevailed and even blocked the NES' dominance. Probably the console world would be alot different, with us playing with joysticks instead of gamepads.

[DracIsBack]

3. Because Dreamcast was years ahead of the rest of the generation and by the time the Xbox & PS2 came out, the hardware capabilities were starting to become out dated for the period.

 

Don't agree

 

I really don't think the difference was that substantial ... especially in the case of the PS2. The difference between the PS2 and the Dreamcast was, IMO, like the PS2 and the Xbox or GameCube (slightly newer, slightly better) and a lot less than ... say ... the Dreamcast vs. the PS1.

[DracIsBack]

If anything the DC is closer to the Gamecube in it's overall system specs (speed, polys, storage, etc.).

 

Technical superiority of the PS2 over the GameCube?

 

 

Why is Resident Evil 4 - widely regarded as one of the best looking games on the last generation - a game that had to be cut down in order to run on the PS2?

 

And why is the PS2 version usually considered a substantial technical achievement for replicating the GameCube experience as closely as it was able to (despite the adjustments and limits?)

Edited September 4, 2008 by DracIsBack

[nathanallan]

If anything the DC is closer to the Gamecube in it's overall system specs (speed, polys, storage, etc.).

 

Technical superiority of the PS2 over the GameCube?

 

 

Why is Resident Evil 4 - widely regarded as one of the best looking games on the last generation - a game that had to be cut down in order to run on the PS2?

 

And why is the PS2 version usually considered a substantial technical achievement for replicating the GameCube experience as closely as it was able to (despite the adjustments and limits?)

Hells yeah, may the Dreamcast and GameCube be remembered fondly for the next three or four generations, a la 2600 and Genesis.

 

Nathan