Jump to content
IGNORED

Sega Dreamcast, OMG, this thing is awesome?


82-T/A

Recommended Posts

In Japan the price of a DVD player was more than what a PS2 cost. That pretty much put the nail on the coffin in Japan for the Dreamcast. I remember reading an article that even stores that didn't normally carry game consoles were carrying the PS2 as a DVD player. Consumers were buying a PS2 and walking out with 10 dvds to watch on it. I wish I could find that article again.

The DC was never big in Japan anyway: Sega's market declined significantly with the Saturn from 1997 onward (in terms of hardware sales) and the DC dropped far further than that with only about 6% market share for its active life. With Sony's money and Square under their belt, DVD was just icing on the cake. But really, the introduction of the PS2 in Japan didn't really seem to push the DC much further back that it was in 1999 (first full market year in Japan), a small but noticeable market share, but well behind even the N64's roughly 15% share in 1999 from what I've seen. (in 2000 the DC was still over 5%, N64 was over 20%, PS1 was ~55% and PS2 was ~19% though it had launched in March) The big shift for the PS2 came in 2001, but the DC's market share was no longer even applicable as it had been canceled. (even so the DC managed a 4% share to ~4.5% N64, 7.5% GC released in September, 63.9% for the PS2, and 20.5% for the PSX) I'd hazard a guess that the release of FFX in 2001 had a significant impact in Japan. (vs FFVIII and IX released in '99 and 2000 for the PSX -though such support for late PSX exclusives certainly adds another element to the PS2's backwards compatibility)

 

At least going by this market share compilation:

there were formerly charts that corresponded to most of that fairly well, though I think that site may be gone or at least the charts were removed. (for Sony and Nintendo, both have public sales figures avalable region by region in any case, but Sega's figures are never as definitive as they didn't officially release final sales charts)

 

However, it's critical to note that people buying systems as DVD players might not ever become significant game users at all, so it would only inflate PS2 hardware sales. (though given Sony's stake in the DVD market it was win win for them)

Owning a PS2 at all would obviously make you more likely to go out and buy games, but for those solely buying it for DVD it would be more likely that they'd be very minor, casual users if active at all.

 

I don't see why people think things like "nail in the coffin" in that context. The fact that Sony was going to be dominant was a given in any context, noone could do a thing about that by 1999 (and really it was getting pretty clear from 1997 onward) due to the PS1's market position and Sony's relations with developers.

However, that doesn't mean competition couldn't still exist and profit, even if forced down to a niche level, and as it was, the competition was well beyond niche though certainly overshadowed heavily by Sony. (the overall figures were very close to the PS1 in terms of Sony having about 70% of the overall home console sales in each generation, or significantly less if you cut it off when the competition pulled out -PSX sales continued well beyond 2001 and PS2 sales are still going today)

It wasn't a whole lot different than when Nintendo had dominance, or in some cases a lot more even if considerably different in nature. (Sony's dominance was far more monetary in nature than Nintendo's had been) And all of that is keeping the handheld market separate. (otherwise there's a huge skew of market share towards Nintendo, especially in Japan)

The Master System was not hugely popular in terms of market share in the US or Japan, but it was profitable in both cases while it had a more significant European presence (again Sega also had strong arcades at the time), and the DC was in a far better market position than that too, or rather the DC in North America was perhaps more like the SMS was in Europe while being weaker elsewhere.

 

But Sega really shot themselves in the foot pulling out of the diverse markets they had back in 1995, especially losing the handheld market and much of the late 16-bit market still quite viable. (the Genesis should have been supported up to 1999 at least -by then a budget system- and it was by Majesco on a lower profile than Sega could have managed, same for the Game Gear, though the CD and 32x/Neptune might or might not have been practical to push beyond 1996 -though in any case they should have been gradually phased out and not dumped so dramatically meaning hefty losses on hardware and software as well as bad PR/disgruntled users -they made the same mistake by discontinuing the Saturn like they did)

 

 

Nintendo held on in spite of their loss of critical 3rd parties (especially Square) due to in large part their brand name (especially in Japan) as well as 1st/2nd party exclusives and, of course, their handheld market. Sega never had the sustained market recognition as Nintendo in any region aside from Europe, let alone in Japan specifically (and they only very briefly ever even exceeded Nintendo's popularity with the Saturn over the SNES+N64 in 1997 managing a brief 2nd place before falling to 3rd behind the N64 in terms of hardware sales), and Sega had lost their strength in the arcades as well as giving up their significant niche in the handheld market at the end of 1995. (which had every reason to expand with the GBC still 4 years away and a huge potential for cost reduction, integration, and improved efficiency to give a decent battery life -especially as reflective color LCD screens got to acceptable quality to allow a non-backlit version)

But again, Sega had lost that with only a modest Arcade market and home PC game market to work with outside of the Saturn and then Dreamcast.

 

 

I still think that even the first gen DC games run circles around what is produced on the PS2 even today.

The better first gen DC games vs most later PS2 games, yes, but there were some really crappy looking (and playing) DC games too early on (like Test Drive 6), albeit no worse than the far more common poor looking PS2 games.

But yeah, good enough to manage most games up to 2005 at least. (from good to reasonable quality)

Edited by kool kitty89
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nintendo held on in spite of their loss of critical 3rd parties (especially Square) due to in large part their brand name (especially in Japan) as well as 1st/2nd party exclusives and, of course, their handheld market.

If Nintendo had gone with CD storage they very likely would have retained those 3rd parties, and shaken up that generation. Even if they couldn't have beaten Playstation, they'd have smacked Saturn (and Sega) to the curb quickly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nintendo held on in spite of their loss of critical 3rd parties (especially Square) due to in large part their brand name (especially in Japan) as well as 1st/2nd party exclusives and, of course, their handheld market.

If Nintendo had gone with CD storage they very likely would have retained those 3rd parties, and shaken up that generation. Even if they couldn't have beaten Playstation, they'd have smacked Saturn (and Sega) to the curb quickly.

They'd almost certainly have beaten Sony in Japan (unless those developers went multiplatform), though likewise the Saturn would have depended on multiplatform support. (ie had it gotten general ports of Square, Capcom, Konami, etc from the PSX, even with degraded quality, that would have been huge, in Japan at least -in the west they screwed up the Saturn so badly and in multiple ways that it would have been hard regardless -and even had they managed the Saturn well they'd have faced tough competition, but at least likely held onto their loyalists -especially the long-held UK market)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 8 years later...

I actually decided to pull myself away from Red Dead Redemption 2 the other day and finally commit to finish D2 by the end of this week, despite having it for around 14 years. The Dreamcast is definitely one of the few consoles that has a soul in my eyes. I ordered a clone GDEMU unit for my original system that has a wonky laser, so I'm excited to get that little fella going again. Anyone here try gaming online with the DreamPi yet? I don't have home internet, otherwise I would be all over it. Pretty amazing that more games are being brought back online. I'm hoping they somehow get Bomberman back, but the original Doom and Quake games are in the works which is very cool.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whatever happened to Slave: Limited Edition? It's been on "pre-order" on the Goat Store website for forever. I was too scared to buy one thinking I'd never get it. Apparently I was right?

 

I e-mailed them a few hours ago. I'll post when I get a response!

 

I found some chatter on some Dreamacast "sites" which suggested that "bad code" uncovered/discovered in 2016 has resulted in "broken" gameplay. Hmm.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I e-mailed them a few hours ago. I'll post when I get a response!

 

I found some chatter on some Dreamacast "sites" which suggested that "bad code" uncovered/discovered in 2016 has resulted in "broken" gameplay. Hmm.

Last I heard from the newsletter in August was they fixed the bug, but doing so caused other things they need to look into. I'm anxious for any updates since I've been looking forward to this game for years. It would have been great if a playable demo was released, but I'll settle for just a launch window. If anyone is interested, here's the last full newsletter I got for SLaVE. Spoiler tags added because it's pretty in depth:

 

 

 

Hey everyone!

 

Before I even start, I apologize for the length of this email update. If you don't want to read it all, in short - Sorry for the slow update and it appears we are barreling toward completion! If you want the full story, please read on...

 

Again, first, a big apology from us at GOAT Store for not updating the list sooner. Without going too far into this, some of you are aware that we also run the yearly Midwest Gaming Classic trade show in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This year, the show moved to the largest convention space in the state, and we had many behind the scenes things that kept us extremely busy, and kept getting in the way of us making further updates on the progress of the game. I have had it on my to do list to write this email since May, and I am just now getting to it.

 

That's obviously not what Gary or I want, as we pride ourselves on responsiveness and keeping up do day with things, but unfortunately it is the reality of the situation. Neither the GOAT Store or the Midwest Gaming Classic has been our full time jobs, and so trying to squeeze everything that we want to in with our regular jobs as well as being the fathers of young kids is sometime difficult to keep everything in balance.

 

Additionally, as I hope that I have been very clear about since the beginning, we did not expect these delays to happen with the game when we announced it. As I've stated, the game was running in emulation just fine, and we expected production of the game to be as easy as us doing some simple bug tests, pressing the games and delivering them. If we had any idea that it would have taken this long for the game to go through "final bug test" we would not have started to take pre-orders when we did.

 

This delay, combined with the growth of the Midwest Gaming Classic and the increase in our personal schedules have led to updates that are more difficult to send out.

 

Again, I apologize and it isn't how we want it to be. And with that, I have a bit of a solution that I'm personally very excited about:

 

Starting next month, I will officially be a full-time GOAT Store employee. This means that I will be able to keep people updated like we want, as well as hopefully will allow us to catch up with many of the other ideas and projects that we have! This will be the first time in the history of the GOAT Store that we have been able to have one of us be full time, and I hope that it will lead to us being able to pursue a lot more projects in the future.

 

No matter what, thanks for sticking with us. It hasn't been the easiest time, but we can really, REALLY see the light at the end of the tunnel!

 

First, while all the above is true, it's worth pointing out that Gary and I are not the programmers for the game. We produce and help with other functions like that, but we are not the ones combing through the code looking for how to update it, so even though Gary and I have been so incredibly busy, the game has been nearly consistently worked at since my prior email.

 

I've explained in the past that we were looking for one final game breaking bug, but the time to find it was extremely hard to nail down due to the nature of bugs like it. It could have been something that the next day we found and the game would have already been in your hands, or in the worst case scenario it could have been something that was never found.

 

On top of this, we did have a health scare with one of the main programmers at the beginning of the year. While I won't get into personal things, this obviously did cause a delay too.

 

The good news is the bug has been found, and we now have a stable version of the game running without issue! This does NOT yet mean that we have gone gold, as fixing the bug introduced a few other things that needed to be looked into and revised. The good news is this revision process, as well as with the knowledge gained, means that the game has been improved some and has had a couple minor bugs we found that were fixed and has significantly improved loading time.

 

While I will still not put an actual date on the release of the game because it's hard to ever know exactly what will happen, the to do list of things before the final tests to go gold has consistently gotten shorter and shorter, and barring any unforeseen issues we expect to be able to finish up everything as soon as possible.

 

I can't wait for everyone to see it!

 

Now for you, thank you for sticking with us! This has been by far the most frustrating game release that we've done, but when it is in your hands I think and hope you'll agree that all of the delays were worth it.

 

If it's too much, please contact me back (this is my personal email address!) and I am happy to issue refunds to anyone who would like them.

 

I am honestly completely amazed by how awesome and positive the vast majority of people who have signed up for the game are. It is because of awesome people like yourself that this game is still coming, and we can't wait to get it into your hands soon!

 

And then hopefully, soon after that, we'll have some more projects - that we will wait until they are GOLD to announce! - to announce for you!

 

Thanks again for being a GOAT Store Productions supporter!

 

 

Edited by xenomorpher
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So... I used to have a TON of game systems, almost everything, but sold it when my daughter was born. I only really kept most of my Atari stuff.

 

I haven't really played games in a while, but I just hooked up my Sega Dreamcast last night. I've had it for something like 4 years now, and just never really bothere to play it.

 

Anyway, I hooked it up, and started playing some of the games. I have some game called Soul Caliber, Test Drive Grand Prix (or something), Quake Arena 3 (ok, but kinda sucks... no missions to go on???), Evil Dead III, and a few other games that I haven't tried yet.

 

I'm VERY impressed with the graphics. My wife bought a Nintendo Wii about 6 months ago (no idea why), but the graphics on this Dreamcast seem to be way better than the one on the Wii!

 

I've played an xBox 360, and a Play Station 2 (never a 3). I'm sure the Dreamcast graphics are kind of lame compared to those two, but I was impressed at (considering how old the system is), that the graphics are as good as they are.

 

So I was just curious, if I was to buy a couple more games, what are some good games for the dreamcast?

 

 

For what it's worth, I was a little bummed that I couldn't play my Sega Saturn games in the Dreamcast. How stupid does Sega have to be? How hard could it possibly have been to just create a built-in emulator?

 

Harder than you could guess for the time; Saturn had like 8-9 processors in it each dedicated to some specific task(s). It would never have been as simple as taking one or two processors and sticking them in the new system the way Sony did bringing PS1 back-compat to PS2. At least, not for the price SEGA were aiming for ($200).

 

I kinda chuckled at the Dreamcast/Wii graphics comparison tho; 6th gen is interesting because even tho in general the systems seem pretty easy to distinguish going from most to least powerful (Xbox > Gamecube > PS2 > Dreamcast), each of them had some (pretty specific) areas where they excelled over each other and allowed them to punch above their weight in those areas. That's more applicable to DC, PS2 and GC than Xbox, but still.

 

That said, there's certainly some beautiful DC games and some ugly Wii games but given Wii is a slightly more powerful GC, taking a game from Wii and DC with great art direction in both, on a technical level the Wii game is going to look somewhat better. That's not a knock on DC tho, it obviously has its gorgeous games (both artstyle and technical).

 

If you're looking for more Dreamcast games like the ones you have now, try: Resident Evil Code Veronica, Dead or Alive 2, Marvel vs Capcom 2, Power Stone 1 & 2, D2, Virtua Fighter 3TB, Daytona USA, Speed Devils, and Metropolis Street Racer. There's also stuff like Jet Set Radio and Chu Chu Rocket you might dig. I can't speak on personal experience b/c (sadly) Dreamcast is one of the SEGA console I've yet to have, but some of the games that are arcade ports I've played or games similar to them and basically go off of that (Daytona USA for example is basically a port of the Model 2 arcade game but if you get it you'll definitely want to get a steering wheel b/c the default sensitivity levels are VERY high on the Dreamcast version. But the Dreamcast version has more tracks and cars and online play (might just be a specific version with online play), and people have been managed to get back online with their Dreamcasts these days which is really cool).

 

EDIT: Also W O W, a necro bump? Really?!? xD

Edited by 00010000
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Last I heard from the newsletter in August was they fixed the bug, but doing so caused other things they need to look into. I'm anxious for any updates since I've been looking forward to this game for years. It would have been great if a playable demo was released, but I'll settle for just a launch window. If anyone is interested, here's the last full newsletter I got for SLaVE. Spoiler tags added because it's pretty in depth:

 

 

 

Hey everyone!

 

Before I even start, I apologize for the length of this email update. If you don't want to read it all, in short - Sorry for the slow update and it appears we are barreling toward completion! If you want the full story, please read on...

 

Again, first, a big apology from us at GOAT Store for not updating the list sooner. Without going too far into this, some of you are aware that we also run the yearly Midwest Gaming Classic trade show in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This year, the show moved to the largest convention space in the state, and we had many behind the scenes things that kept us extremely busy, and kept getting in the way of us making further updates on the progress of the game. I have had it on my to do list to write this email since May, and I am just now getting to it.

 

That's obviously not what Gary or I want, as we pride ourselves on responsiveness and keeping up do day with things, but unfortunately it is the reality of the situation. Neither the GOAT Store or the Midwest Gaming Classic has been our full time jobs, and so trying to squeeze everything that we want to in with our regular jobs as well as being the fathers of young kids is sometime difficult to keep everything in balance.

 

Additionally, as I hope that I have been very clear about since the beginning, we did not expect these delays to happen with the game when we announced it. As I've stated, the game was running in emulation just fine, and we expected production of the game to be as easy as us doing some simple bug tests, pressing the games and delivering them. If we had any idea that it would have taken this long for the game to go through "final bug test" we would not have started to take pre-orders when we did.

 

This delay, combined with the growth of the Midwest Gaming Classic and the increase in our personal schedules have led to updates that are more difficult to send out.

 

Again, I apologize and it isn't how we want it to be. And with that, I have a bit of a solution that I'm personally very excited about:

 

Starting next month, I will officially be a full-time GOAT Store employee. This means that I will be able to keep people updated like we want, as well as hopefully will allow us to catch up with many of the other ideas and projects that we have! This will be the first time in the history of the GOAT Store that we have been able to have one of us be full time, and I hope that it will lead to us being able to pursue a lot more projects in the future.

 

No matter what, thanks for sticking with us. It hasn't been the easiest time, but we can really, REALLY see the light at the end of the tunnel!

 

First, while all the above is true, it's worth pointing out that Gary and I are not the programmers for the game. We produce and help with other functions like that, but we are not the ones combing through the code looking for how to update it, so even though Gary and I have been so incredibly busy, the game has been nearly consistently worked at since my prior email.

 

I've explained in the past that we were looking for one final game breaking bug, but the time to find it was extremely hard to nail down due to the nature of bugs like it. It could have been something that the next day we found and the game would have already been in your hands, or in the worst case scenario it could have been something that was never found.

 

On top of this, we did have a health scare with one of the main programmers at the beginning of the year. While I won't get into personal things, this obviously did cause a delay too.

 

The good news is the bug has been found, and we now have a stable version of the game running without issue! This does NOT yet mean that we have gone gold, as fixing the bug introduced a few other things that needed to be looked into and revised. The good news is this revision process, as well as with the knowledge gained, means that the game has been improved some and has had a couple minor bugs we found that were fixed and has significantly improved loading time.

 

While I will still not put an actual date on the release of the game because it's hard to ever know exactly what will happen, the to do list of things before the final tests to go gold has consistently gotten shorter and shorter, and barring any unforeseen issues we expect to be able to finish up everything as soon as possible.

 

I can't wait for everyone to see it!

 

Now for you, thank you for sticking with us! This has been by far the most frustrating game release that we've done, but when it is in your hands I think and hope you'll agree that all of the delays were worth it.

 

If it's too much, please contact me back (this is my personal email address!) and I am happy to issue refunds to anyone who would like them.

 

I am honestly completely amazed by how awesome and positive the vast majority of people who have signed up for the game are. It is because of awesome people like yourself that this game is still coming, and we can't wait to get it into your hands soon!

 

And then hopefully, soon after that, we'll have some more projects - that we will wait until they are GOLD to announce! - to announce for you!

 

Thanks again for being a GOAT Store Productions supporter!

 

 

 

 

Dan said:

 

 

 

The game is available for purchase, but it not yet shipping. We are hoping to have a complete version soon, but we do not yet know an actual date for production.

 

So it looks like there haven't been any new developments here. The GOAT store does have a pre-order form, but I'll wait until we hear something more concrete.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How are the clone GDEMUs? Does anyone have any experience with them? Are they worth getting or is it worth it to get a legitimate one?

I'm super-tempted to just get one. Since there are some with Prime shipping on Amazon, returning it is just a matter of printing a pre-paid label. It's basically a risk-free trial. But I gotta get my Christmas shopping done first. :lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How are the clone GDEMUs? Does anyone have any experience with them? Are they worth getting or is it worth it to get a legitimate one?

From what I've read they're pretty good, but they will be bricked if you try to upgrade the firmware. Mine isn't here yet, but it has passed through customs, so it shouldn't be too long. The official version will always be the better choice, but they're kind of a pain to get.

Edited by xenomorpher
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dreamcast was and is an awesome console, sadly I never use the VGA adapter because two of my favorite games don't support it. Cool thing is you can still play online using DreamPi a raspberry pi distro that lets you set up a phoney land line for the DC's modem.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From what I've read they're pretty good, but they will be bricked if you try to upgrade the firmware. Mine isn't here yet, but it has passed through customs, so it shouldn't be too long. The official version will always be the better choice, but they're kind of a pain to get.

When it gets here please talk about your experience. Theres so much pent-up demand that its kind of silly the official ones are not in more production. Edited by derFunkenstein
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...