Interesting information regarding the Sega DC (Dreamcast)

[carmel_andrews]

Linky only

 

 

http://www.techspot.com/article/653-history-of-the-gpu-part-2/

 

 

Interesting that Sega were looking to piggyback on the success (at the time) of 3DFX (where are 3DFX now....there again, where are Sega) and getting 3DFX to develop the gfx/video hardware for what became the dreamcast

 

I'd be interested to know why Sega (or was it 3DFX) backed out of the joint development, just think...A leading edge gfx/video hardware company tying up with a fairly popular videogame brand (bearing in mind that Sega were already getting trounced by Sony's playstation) so having leading video hardware in a new gaming system (to better compete with whatever sony came up with) could have put Sega and the dreamcast on a better footing with the PS2 and also give the PS2 some decent competition

 

There again, AMD haven't exactly set the world on fire with their buyout or merger with ATI (i.e. they haven't taken marketshare away from Intel), so perhaps Sega (or was it 3DFX) saw something in the tie up that might not have worked someway down the line

 

...Or maybe perhaps Just like sega poopoo'd using 3do's m2 technology in their gaming hardware development (apparently they weren't too impressed with the spec's/hardware) perhaps Sega saw the tie up with 3DFX in the same light and thought that Sega could develop just as good a gfx/video hardware as 3DFX were doing

 

Question is though, Would the DC have done any better had both companies gone through with the joint development and 3DFX supplying the gfx/video hardware for the DC

[+Gemintronic]

The PowerVR series had some advantages that 3DFX didn't have. Also, who knows how Microsoft felt about 3DFX at the time. Wouldn't want to anger the beast as WinCE was integrated into the DC.

[Austin]

There goes Carmel with his speculation again..

 

My answer is no, it wouldn't have made a difference. The least of the Dreamcast's problems were video/graphics processor related.

[godslabrat]

There goes Carmel with his speculation again..

 

My answer is no, it wouldn't have made a difference. The least of the Dreamcast's problems were video/graphics processor related.

 

I love stuff like this. =) Every system is high-tech and revolutionary on it's launch day (Well, except the Game.com) and it's only in hindsight do we see where the mistakes are made. It's so tempting to think that a few different moves could have changed entire generations of hardware.

 

On this particular point, I ultimately agree that the end result would have been the same. Still, if any system deserved a better life than it had, it'd be the Dreamcast.

[+Curious Sofa]

It definitely wasn't a hardware problem. The Dreamcast had issues, mostly in terms of Sega having lost its customer base, and in terms of not getting the EA Sports games and the Square Role Playing games it needed to woo the customers. And the VMU sucked. Oh, and the advertising was beyond idiotic except for the early "It's Thinking" ads which kind of ruled. But bullshit like that Jet Grind Radio ad, just almost trying to not sell games.

 

But the DC's graphics and chipsets, completely awesome. And for those of us who valued fighters and arcade style action games above all else, it was / is the best of all time. Partially because the graphics are so great.

[carmel_andrews]

There goes Carmel with his speculation again..

 

My answer is no, it wouldn't have made a difference. The least of the Dreamcast's problems were video/graphics processor related.

 

 

 

 

 

How the F**k is that speculation or didn't you read the damn article

 

 

Or just to rub it in 'so to speak' here is some more

 

 

http://corporate.findlaw.com/contracts/operations/technology-development-and-license-agreement-sega-enterprises.html

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3dfx#Dreamcast

 

http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=270455

Edited April 6, 2013 by carmel_andrews

[Austin]

I don't need to read what you linked to, because it's old news and nothing new. Yeah, SEGA was in cahoots with 3DFX, but then it turned sour. Who gives a damn? The Dreamcast turned out fine from a hardware perspective.

[Torr]

I live in North America.

I love SEGA.

 

But I can't deny it's reputation here.

 

Sega Master System - FAILED

Sega Genesis - SUCCESS

Sega Game Gear - FAILED

Sega CD - FAILED

Sega 32X - FAILED

Sega Saturn - FAILED

Sega Dreamcast - FAILED

 

There's really only one success there.

Sure system X was popular in this country and system Y was popular in that country, but compared to other console/handheld makers of it's time, the Genesis was it's only true worldwide success, and that was a long time ago. EA (Trip Hawkins anyway...) may have made the 3DO but at least he stopped after one failure instead of releasing 6 failures, and having plans for a 7th doomed from the getgo bastard child (the Sega Neptune).

 

I may sound harsh, but once again, I love SEGA, however hindsight being 20/20 and all, they probably would have been better off never making consoles and just been an arcade company / 3rd party developer for consoles all along.

Activision, Namco, or Capcom never had to make the the 'X VideoTainment System" or anything, and look how well they've done.

[gorfcadet]

I live in North America.

I love SEGA.

 

But I can't deny it's reputation here.

 

Sega Master System - FAILED

Sega Genesis - SUCCESS

Sega Game Gear - FAILED

Sega CD - FAILED

Sega 32X - FAILED

Sega Saturn - FAILED

Sega Dreamcast - FAILED

 

There's really only one success there.

Sure system X was popular in this country and system Y was popular in that country, but compared to other console/handheld makers of it's time, the Genesis was it's only true worldwide success, and that was a long time ago. EA (Trip Hawkins anyway...) may have made the 3DO but at least he stopped after one failure instead of releasing 6 failures, and having plans for a 7th doomed from the getgo bastard child (the Sega Neptune).

 

I may sound harsh, but once again, I love SEGA, however hindsight being 20/20 and all, they probably would have been better off never making consoles and just been an arcade company / 3rd party developer for consoles all along.

Activision, Namco, or Capcom never had to make the the 'X VideoTainment System" or anything, and look how well they've done.

 

I don't know that failure is a fair word. I have all of those systems since they launched except for the GameGear and SEGA supported them all reasonably. A system doesn't have to last 8 years to be considered a success. If it weren't for the SEGACD the US might have never played Lunar or Lunar 2. The 32X even has some nice games considering the odd timing of its release. The US alone doesn't determine a console's successfulness nor does it have to be number one. Is the PS3 a failure because it wasn't number one this cycle or the Xbox a failure because the PS2 outsold it?

 

The Saturn is a [email protected]$$ system and I never regret owning it or the DC. I've still clocked more hours on it than my Xbox or PS3.

[Austin]

I'd also argue that the Dreamcast WAS a success, until SEGA pulled the plug. It didn't sell as much as SEGA was hoping, but we are talking about a system that still sold millions. MILLIONS. In two short years (3+ if you want to count the Japanese support before and after the US launch). Had SEGA not been in such a desperate financial situation from past mistakes, I'd be willing to bet that support for it would have gone on far, far longer than it did.

[xDragonWarrior]

I live in North America.

I love SEGA.

 

But I can't deny it's reputation here.

 

Sega Master System - FAILED

Sega Genesis - SUCCESS

Sega Game Gear - FAILED

Sega CD - FAILED

Sega 32X - FAILED

Sega Saturn - FAILED

Sega Dreamcast - FAILED

 

There's really only one success there.

Sure system X was popular in this country and system Y was popular in that country, but compared to other console/handheld makers of it's time, the Genesis was it's only true worldwide success, and that was a long time ago. EA (Trip Hawkins anyway...) may have made the 3DO but at least he stopped after one failure instead of releasing 6 failures, and having plans for a 7th doomed from the getgo bastard child (the Sega Neptune).

 

I may sound harsh, but once again, I love SEGA, however hindsight being 20/20 and all, they probably would have been better off never making consoles and just been an arcade company / 3rd party developer for consoles all along.

Activision, Namco, or Capcom never had to make the the 'X VideoTainment System" or anything, and look how well they've done.

 

Well Capcom did make a obscure console(the CP System) and Godslabrat,the Game.com was revolutionary.Where do you think the DS got the touch screen and two cartridge slots ideal and the PSP with the internet ideal from?.

Edited April 6, 2013 by xDragonWarrior

[madmax2069]

I live in North America.

I love SEGA.

 

But I can't deny it's reputation here.

 

Sega Master System - FAILED

Sega Genesis - SUCCESS

Sega Game Gear - FAILED

Sega CD - FAILED

Sega 32X - FAILED

Sega Saturn - FAILED

Sega Dreamcast - FAILED

 

There's really only one success there.

Sure system X was popular in this country and system Y was popular in that country, but compared to other console/handheld makers of it's time, the Genesis was it's only true worldwide success, and that was a long time ago. EA (Trip Hawkins anyway...) may have made the 3DO but at least he stopped after one failure instead of releasing 6 failures, and having plans for a 7th doomed from the getgo bastard child (the Sega Neptune).

 

I may sound harsh, but once again, I love SEGA, however hindsight being 20/20 and all, they probably would have been better off never making consoles and just been an arcade company / 3rd party developer for consoles all along.

Activision, Namco, or Capcom never had to make the the 'X VideoTainment System" or anything, and look how well they've done.

 

Sorry but the DC did not fail, Sega hardly allowed it to live before they pulled the plug. I don't really see the 32x as a failure either because of the same reason above, they pulled the plug before it was really allowed to live. The Sega CD wasn't a failure either. The only ones I see in your list as failures is the SMS (competed against NES and got handed), gamegear (competed against the gameboy and lost) and Saturn (which competed with PS1 and N64 and lost), the saturn was around long enough to actually compete with other consoles (around 4 years), the gamegear was around for around 10 years.

 

For me to actually consider a console a failure it actually has to be around long enough to compete against other consoles. The 32x only lived about 6 months before they pulled the plug (not long enough to do much of anything), the Sega CD was alive for around 5 years and dis quite well considering what other CD based consoles was out at the time.

 

The PowerVR series had some advantages that 3DFX didn't have. Also, who knows how Microsoft felt about 3DFX at the time. Wouldn't want to anger the beast as WinCE was integrated into the DC.

 

From what I understood is that they was going to use a much older version of the voodoo GPU when you look at the powerVR. the PowerVR gpu that they used could walk all over the voodoo chip that they planned to use, I'm sort of glad that deal fell through. I can only bet they was going to use the voodoo 2 or voodoo rush which is under what the PowerVR chip Sega used.

 

And it didn't really matter what MS thought of 3dfx, heck only a handfull of games used windows CE http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/threads/43804-WinCE-games-List

 

Oh and just a heads up, windows CE wasn't integrated in the Dreamcast, the OS was on the games disk itself, a game that was developed using windows CE only contained what the game needed to run.

Edited April 7, 2013 by madmax2069

[Austin]

Well Capcom did make a obscure console(the CP System) and Godslabrat,the Game.com was revolutionary.Where do you think the DS got the touch screen and two cartridge slots ideal and the PSP with the internet ideal from?.

 

I sincerely hope you are joking.

[madmax2069]

 

I sincerely hope you are joking.

 

I would only hope he is joking

[Torr]

Maybe FAILURE in all caps was a bit harsh, but by failure I mean to this day when I talk to people about retro consoles and the games I collect, many have never heard of the SMS or Sega CD/32X and Dreamcast. Sure hardcore gamers know and love these systems but when it comes to the general public, I never have to explain what the Super NES or PS1 is!

 

Kinda like Atari 5200 and 7800. SO many people have no clue about these systems and when "Atari" is mentioned or used to describe a videogame they mean the VCS/2600 cause thats all they know, and when "Sega" is used to as a videogame name people mean the Genesis. That was the "SEGA System" to the 20/30 somethings around today.

Edited April 7, 2013 by Torr

[Greg2600]

I loved 3Dfx graphics back then, and the card and drivers always seemed to work with every game, unlike the ATI cards that were horrible to get the drivers to do anything. I knew SEGA was working with Voodoo, didn't know they essentially screwed them over.

 

Would it have helped DC, no, the maker of the hardware was irrelevant. Frankly, once Sony got into games, SEGA was doomed. They simply didn't possess the capital or management expertise that Sony or Nintendo had.

[shadow460]

The Dreamcast was made around the time 3Dfx purchased the STB plant in Mexico. IIRC, they had some trouble meeting demand once they started manufacturing their own graphics cards. Most, if not all, of their third party manufacturers jumped ship. I don't remember if they had trouble meeting demand for GPUs or finished boards--I think it was both.

 

Assuming my memory is correct, if I'm working on the Dreamcast project, I'm thinking that if 3Dfx can't keep up with demand and the third parties are waiting to get GPUs, are they going to be able to supply the GPUs we need to manufacture consoles? If there's a risk they can't, but I know I can find PowerVR units all day, I'm going to choose the platform that uses the PowerVR chipset. Never mind the fact that 3Dfx might turn the STB plant around and be able to manufacture more GPUs than I know what to do with. I'm first to market in this generation of consoles and I need a solid user base by the time the PS2 hits retail shelves or I'm going to lose my shirt this time around.

 

As for failures, I don't consider the Game Gear a failure. Until 2005, it was the most successful competitor to the Game Boy. I'm not sure if I'd personally consider any of their systems outright failures, either. Maybe the 32X and Saturn and that's it. They made some bone headed decisions back then. Similarly, 3Dfx's decision to manufacture their own graphics boards was pretty bone headed, although those first party Voodoo boards were pretty awesome.

[+Curious Sofa]

I would also just like to say that whether they failed in the market (and what numbers you're using to determine this), the Sega Genesis / CD / 32x had _the single greatest video game controller of all time_ in the 6-button pad, and the 2nd generation pad was in the running too (despite being flimsier in general construct).

It is for this reason that I will nearly always pick a Genesis / CD / 32X multiplatform game over the SNES version.

 

This is going off from the main point too, but I'm just going to say that while the Saturn failed, I always thought it shouldn't have. It was made to do really awesome 2d games with some 3d capability, and the Playstation was the opposite. And at the time it seemed like Sony sure had the right idea and Sega the wrong. But now...when you try to play a 32-bit 3d game it's...so horribly ugly. Unless we're talking about Tekken 3, which was of course a very late 32-bit release. 2d gaming should have stayed stronger than it did.

So the Playstation was great for a lot of reasons, but the Saturn was too, it just wasn't in tune with the zeitgeist of polygon gaming. It reaally wasn't until the Dreamcast / Ps2 / Xbox / Gamecube that 3d was ready, if you ask me.

[Torr]

I get ya. Like I said in my OP, I love Sega, been a Fanboy ever since I upgraded from the VCS.

And yes, FAILURE is a bit harsh but aside from the Genesis when I talk to people about classic games the Genesis is the only system anybody knows anything about, and they always just call it Sega.

Financial figures & statistical data be damned, when I meet someone new, say friend of a friend or new workmate whatever and think 'hey, maybe they have some old video games lying around their basment or parents and would be willing to let it go cheap?..' so I mention my hobby and ask them about old games from their youth and, obviously based on their ages, I always get told Atari, Sega, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Game Boy, Playstation & Nintendo 64. By Atari they mean VCS and have no idea Atari ever released ANYTHING else ever. By Sega they mean Genesis, some people know about the Sega CD, but I am really surprised at how many don't, and forget the 32X, SMS, Saturn, or DC. Nintendo clears the board by having basically all it's systems represented.

As for other systmes, I've only ever met one person who knew what the 3DO was, his friend had one, One guy I met had a Saturn growing up, One had a Sega CD, and handfull of people mention the Colecovision. Forget Neo-Geo, Jaguar, etc... I've questioned a lot of people in my search for classic vg stuff in the wild. These are my results. So yeah, I say The Genesis was Sega's only REAL success. Too bad they never tried making an 'Arcade/Console' like the Neo-Geo. I guess they kind of did with the Dreamcast. Which i what this thread is about. It has come full circle!

[glazball]

Sadly Torr I have to agree, except I'd say Dreamcast was pretty successful too. At least among people I know (or knew). Maybe not everyone HAD a DC but a lot of people played it and there are still games that are remembered as fondly as SMB, Sonic or Goldeneye. But it is true that, at least in the US, when you say "Sega" people think Genesis.

[Hatta]

So yeah, I say The Genesis was Sega's only REAL success.

 

In the US. The SMS was pretty big in Europe and Brazil. Sega sold about 6.5 million SMSs in Europe, where Nintendo sold about 8.5 million NESs in Europe. That's a respectable showing.

[Dripfree]

Wow I'm actually a little surprised that this is even being debated. I actually thought that it was just agreed upon that the Genesis was Sega's only true console success story. I agree with Torr I like Sega very much. My DC is one of my most played consoles. You can make the argument that Sega gave up on these systems before they should have, but that only proves that the company failed the system and because of that the system failed. A systems success is not measured by how much individuals like it and not even how many are sold. Sega is a company and the measure of success is simply profit. I think that Sega's accounting department would agree that the Genesis was there only real successful console and that's why they don't make them anymore.

[akator]

Sometimes the concept of success / failure becomes too much of a zero sum, black or white thing. A company doesn't have to be #1 in the marketplace to be successful. SMS didn't sell nearly as well as NES, but that didn't make the SMS a failure -- it still sold well enough for Sega to remain in the home console business and release the Genesis. The Sega CD and 32X weren't failures, either, no matter how much Wiki revisionists keep posting it.

 

Failed consoles don't have over 500 game titles like the Saturn. It didn't meet sales expectations and Sega pissed off 3rd party developers by abandoning it too soon, but that puts it into a gray area. Not 100% success but also far from failure. Once again, not zero sum.

 

Game Gear was the only non-Nintendo handheld to sell over 10 million until the PSP. (The PSP is also often talked about as a failure, yet sold over 70 million with over 2000 game titles, which isn't anything to sneeze at.)

 

I would even propose that the Dreamcast was not a complete failure. It had hundreds of games in it's library and sold 10 million in 3 years. The GameCube is not considered a failure yet sold 21 million in 6 years. Once again, these consoles fall into a gray area between success and failure.

[GigaDrive]

It wasn't Sega's choice of chipset / graphics chip that caused Dreamcast to fail. It was their terrible reputation with consumers, developers, publishers, retail, etc.

from the disasters with SegaCD, and more notably, 32X and Saturn.

 

With that said, Sega's path to choosing a chipset was a very long one.

 

It started sometime before the November 1994 launch of Saturn in Japan and ended in July of 1997.

 

The following was originally publsihed by a site called Totalgames.net but there is no longer a working link.

 

The Dreamcast Story

 

''A do-or-die machine which will decide whether Sega stays in the

hardware biz''

 

Dreamcast is a system born out of Sega's darkest hour, a do-or-die

machine which will decide whether the company stays in the hardware

business. Its precursor, the 32bit Sega Saturn, had been widely

expected to conquer the world with Nintendo's own second next

generation system heavily delayed -- due to the collapse of an

alliance with Sony -- and neither Atari nor 3DO seriously threatening

mass market success.

All that changed with the November '93 announcement of the Sony

PlayStation, a system which would heavily defeat Sega's system and

become a considerable influence on how Sega designed Dreamcast.

Although there had been rumours of Sony producing a console, what came

as a heavy shock to Sega was the technical superiority of the

PlayStation. While the Saturn had been designed as perhaps the

ultimate 2D arcade machine, albeit with a substantial 3D capability,

PlayStation was totally committed to polygons.

 

Sega boss Hayao Nakayama angrily berated Sega's engineers for their

failings, but it was too late to totally redesign the system if the

1994 launch was too proceed. Instead, Sega added yet another processor

to an already over-complicated design. In terms of raw power, the new

Saturn was much more of a match for PlayStation, but it would never be

an easy machine to program for. The twin CPU design in particular

demanded highly specialised machine code rather than the C most

Japanese developers prefered: barely a year after Saturn's launch a

key Sega manager admitted only one in a hundred programmers would have

the skill to use the machine's full potential.

 

Ironically, the Saturn's Japanese launch would be Sega's best ever

performance in its home territory. Even a flawed version of Virtua

Fighting was enough to transform the company's traditional weakness in

its home territory. Overseas, however, it was to be a different

matter. Scepticism about the prospects of a CD-ROM machine succeeding

in the cost-sensitive US market meant Saturn was originally partnered

with a low-cost, cart-based system codenamed Jupiter -- principally

due to American scepticism that a CD-ROM machine could be

competitively priced. When Saturn was upgraded, Jupiter got axed in

favour of Mars, an upgrade for Sega's 16bit Mega Drive which was

supposed to protect the company's hugely lucrative US market. In fact,

32X was an unmitigated disaster, drawing vital developer support away

from Saturn and destroying the company's reputation among gamers who

found themselves with an add-on with barely a handful of games.

 

The Saturn debacle would cost the jobs of Sega's American and Japanese

bosses, beside reducing its US empire to a ruin running up losses of

$167 million in 1997. For any replacement machine the lessons were

clear: a single format, complete user-friendliness for developers and

a new brand -- so low had sunk the once mighty Sega name.

 

 

As soon as any console is launched, work is usually underway on a

replacement but the Saturn's troubles gave this process an unusual

urgency for Sega. By 1995, rumours surfaced that US defence

contractors Lockheed Martin Corp. were already deep into the

development of a replacement, possibly even with a view to releasing

it as a Saturn upgrade. There were even claims that during Saturn's

pre-launch panic a group of managers argued the machine should simply

be scrapped in favour of an all-new LMC design.

 

Sega originally entered into partnership with LMC to solve problems

with its Model 2 coin-op board, however by 1995 the relationship had

soured somewhat with the Model 3 board suffering massive delays.

Around the same time, 3DO began shopping around its 64bit M2 system.

According to informed sources, Sega's Japanese bankers had brokered an

unwritten deal whereby Matsushita would manufacture M2 units, while

Sega would concentrate on the software. M2 devkits were supplied to

Sega in early 1996, with initial work reputedly concentrating on a

Virtua Fighter 3 conversion for M2's launch.

 

Sega's M2 project soon fell apart however. 3DO's Trip Hawkins blamed

corporate ‘egos' for the collapse, while Sega insisted its engineers

were unconvinced M2 was the breakthrough technology they needed.

Instead, the company was increasingly preoccupied by the PC market --

unlike Nintendo, it was fully prepared to convert its games onto the

format and in mid-1995 it had entered into a partnership with PC

graphics card manufacturer nVidia. Under the terms of the deal, Sega

would supply ports of key Saturn titles exclusively for the nVidia PC

graphics card. At the time, pundits wondered if Sega might be

switching from Saturn to nVidia as its principal platform.

 

By 1996, this speculation was ebbing away as two clear frontrunners

emerged in the PC graphics market: VideoLogic's PowerVR and 3Dfx's

Voodoo chipsets. Sega approached both companies to be partners in two

parallel Saturn 2 projects, each of which having minimal if any

knowledge of the other. The 3Dfx-Sega of America project was codenamed

Black Belt, while the VideoLogic-Sega of Japan system was known as

Dural. Although console development is usually shrouded in total

secrecy, Saturn 2's development coincided with the rise of the

Internet and Black Belt soon became a popular topic of gossip. For a

time, many presumed Black Belt was the only new Sega system.

 

All this changed on July 22nd, 1997, when 3Dfx was informed them Black

Belt was cancelled. It was a shattering blow -- "Our contract with

Sega was considered to be gospel right up until we received the call,"

admitted marketing manager Chris Kramer. Two months later, 3Dfx issued

a lawsuit against Sega while blaming VideoLogic's Japanese backers,

NEC, for bringing influence to bear on a decision which would

otherwise have gone to 3Dfx. An initial burst of publicity soon gave

way to highly confidential discussions which settled the lawsuit away

from the public eye in August 1998.

 

For outsiders, 3Dfx had always been the favoured partner due to their

leadership in the PC market, moreover Sega let it be known the

decision to cancel wasn't due to either performance or cost reasons.

What may have been a factor is 3Dfx's very strength made it a

difficult partner for Sega, VideoLogic's second-place status obviously

made it the hungrier partner. Moreover, whereas 3Dfx see themselves as

creating a new gaming platform around their Voodoo hardware and Glide

software, VideoLogic were much more eager to use Microsoft's Direct3D

API.

 

Whatever the reasoning behind the decision, the PowerVR decision

further dampened excitement about a machine soon to be redubbed

Katana. In January '98, UK trade newspaper CTW ran a savage onslaught

upon the new format: "When one looks at a format owner that actually

struggles to garner interest in its latest hardware announcements, you

know it''s in trouble. From Black Belt to Dural and Katana,

journalists have leapt into headline mode, but the level of

disinterest elsewhere is palpable." Commenting upon the latest

redundancies in America and Britain, Dinsey wondered whether the

company was "giving up and trying to re-invent itself as a PC

publisher."

 

In May, Sega gave its response with the official announcement of its

new system, its specifications and that controversial name: Dreamcast.

The marketing campaign began with the announcement of the marketing

campaign and its $100 million budget for each territory: America,

Europe and Japan. Sega boss Shoichiro Irimajiri put the cost of

hardware development at $50-80 million, software development at

$150-200 million, which with marketing added up to half a billion

dollars.

 

The PR statements were suitably bullish: "Dreamcast is Sega's bridge

to world-wide market leadership for the 21st century" commented Sega

US VP Bernie Stolar. "I am confident that Dreamcast will become a de

facto standard for digital entertainment" claimed Sega chairman Isso

Okawa. However, it was at E3 itself that the tide really began to turn

for Sega with bravura software demos finally earning the machine

journalists' respect. Post E3 reports were full of adoration , as

impressed by the restoration of Sega's old self-confidence as the raw

processing power on show. Dreamcast's launch date was set as November

20th and this time all Sony can threaten is the announcement of new

hardware -- 1998 is Dreamcast's alone.

 

From E3 onwards, Sega orchestrated a careful drumbeat of

announcements, including the launch of the VMS unit on July 11th to

tie-in with the Godzilla movie and a much hyped August 22nd PR event

for Sega's old mascot in Sonic Adventure. In September, Sega ran an ad

showing MD Eiichi Yukawa being abused by members of the public who

preferred Sony -- and promising all would change with Dreamcast's

arrival. And so it is, everything now rests with the machine and its

software.

Edited June 21, 2013 by GigaDrive

[cimerians]

Shadow460 makes good points. 3DFX made some critical mistakes and by the late 90's it was too late for them.

 

I don't think the DC was going anywhere no matter what happened. Sega really made some mistakes in the mid 90's where most people either played NIntendo, Playsation or PC games.

 

Consoles don't fail the companies behind them fail.