What Killed Sega Saturn & Dreamcast?

[ninjarabbit]

Wasn't the first Virtual Fighter on the Saturn so bad that they made a remix version to give away for free to people who had it.

[JB]

If I remember right ps1 cost $299.99 and Saturn cost about $400 dollars. It was do to the amount processors the saturn had.

Yah. They had mroe parts, and more expensive parts.

By the end both were down at 200, if I recall.

 

 

Wasn't the first Virtual Fighter on the Saturn so bad that they made a remix version to give away for free to people who had it.

Yes, it was.

[Atariboy]

Where does Gremlin fit in with Sega's history?

 

Wasn't it called Sega/Gremlin back in the early 80s?

[8th lutz]

Where does Gremlin fit in with Sega's history?

 

Wasn't it called Sega/Gremlin back in the early 80s?

It was for the arcades in that timeperiod. It was from 1978-1982 according to http://www.klov.com/manuf_detail.php?letter=S&manuf_id=1611.

 

I know it wasn't called that when sega was doing 3rd party games for the 2600, 5200,colecovision and intellivision.

[NovaXpress]

Here's the answer. Again.

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=64456

[shadow460]

I think what doomed the Dreamcast was its launch. Half a dozen titles had bugs in them, which were fixed later, but that isn't the way to launch a system. I also think Sega rushed both systems a little too much--especially the Saturn.

 

Out of the 32 bit era, in my opinion, the N64 is the best all around system, although PSX and Saturn both had games one should not be without. The N64 is a little lacking in the RPG department, whereas both of the other two made up for that in spades with Shining Force and Parasite Eve (Final Fantasy is a given, and completely sucked on PSX in light of the Glide-enabled PC versions). Saturn was also a tad underpowered, well, no, it was a little difficult to program for, methinks. Most of the games I've got didn't seem to fully utilise the system, GEX and NiGHTS being some exceptions. Other games made up well for the system's weaknesses, like Enemy Zero (the E.T. of Saturn games), and Shining the Holy Ark. Defcon 5 is another decent Saturn game that stood its own versus the PSX version.

Still, though, I think Sega could have done a little more for their systems.

Oh, another thing that killed DC, IMO, was when the 3Dfx/BlackBelt deal fell through. I've run both 3Dfx and PowerVR chipsets, and I feel like PowerVR just doesn't measure up. Imagine what Dreamcast could have done with a pair of VSA 200 Rampage GPU's running in SLI under the hood. It might have cost $300 at launch, but the graphics would probably have been true to real life or the arcade counterparts.

That move alone crippled the Dreamcast before it even went to production--why reject a chipset that really is a tad too strong for its own good?

[okto]

Hey, 1998 and 2000 called. They want their over-answered questions back.

[JB]

I think what doomed the Dreamcast was its launch. Half a dozen titles had bugs in them, which were fixed later, but that isn't the way to launch a system.

If I recall, it was problems with one of their disk pressing plants, not actual software bugs.

 

 

I also think Sega rushed both systems a little too much--especially the Saturn.

Definitely.

The US Saturn was a prime example of what not to do from start to finish.

 

(Final Fantasy is a given, and completely sucked on PSX in light of the Glide-enabled PC versions).

A. I don't recall GLIDE support in FF7 PC.

B. FF7 PC was a horrific port.

C. FF7 and 8 were both rather lackluster games.

 

Saturn was also a tad underpowered, well, no, it was a little difficult to program for, methinks.

Bingo.

 

 

The PS1 was very simple hardware. And on top of that, it came with C++ libraries for easy programming.

The Saturn was a complex beast that had to be programmed in assembly, and required a lot of code tweaking to bring out the full potential.

(Ironically, this situation was reversed for the PS2 and Dreamcast)

 

 

The Saturn was technically the more powerful piece of hardware in most respects. But in practice, the PS' power was far easier to harness.

[DracIsBack]

but in America a lot of people still had a sour taste in their mouths from the "dead way too soon" saturn... it didnt give confidence in buyers...

 

Ditto for the "dead within a year of release" 32X that preceeded it.

[NovaXpress]

The 32X was the beginning of the end. Sega had a nice loyal customer base which could have carried them through the decade. But they hyped the 32X then neglected it and gamers knew what was up. They lost trust in Sega, who never did enough to bring them back.

 

I think they were dead before Dreamcast, that was just the last spit and kick from the dying console-making corpse.

[MCHufnagel]

The 32X was the beginning of the end. Sega had a nice loyal customer base which could have carried them through the decade. But they hyped the 32X then neglected it and gamers knew what was up. They lost trust in Sega, who never did enough to bring them back.

 

I think they were dead before Dreamcast, that was just the last spit and kick from the dying console-making corpse.

I totally agree with that statement about the Dreamcast. Sega had to know that they shouldn't have released it, otherwise they wouldn't have pulled support of it so soon. They were so deep in the red that the Saturn should have been their last system. Maybe they would have supported it better here in the USA?

 

I was never a console gamer until I picked up my Genesis in 1992. I then bought both the Sega CD and the 32X. The CD attachment wasn't a mistake, but the 32X sure was. When the Saturn came out, I wasn't ready to move up. My wife would have killed me for getting a $400 game system, considering I had "upgraded" my Genesis two years in a row and we were saving to buy our first house.

 

But by the time I was ready, Sega pretty much stopped supporting the Saturn and so I bought my N64. Of course that meant that I wasn't going to buy a Dreamcast when it first came out. A viscious cirle to be sure. But Sega did it to themselves by releasing consoles and attachments so close together and then not supporting them.

 

Everybody has their own reasons for not supporting Seag after the 16 bit years. But I bet that most of those reasons are simular to mine. And now they are only a so-so third party developer. For me this is why I don't wish for Nintendo to go third party. Can you imagine how watered down their franchises would be if they had to develop under someone elses wants?

[Vic George 2K3]

Oh, another thing that killed DC, IMO, was when the 3Dfx/BlackBelt deal fell through. I've run both 3Dfx and PowerVR chipsets, and I feel like PowerVR just doesn't measure up. Imagine what Dreamcast could have done with a pair of VSA 200 Rampage GPU's running in SLI under the hood. It might have cost $300 at launch, but the graphics would probably have been true to real life or the arcade counterparts.

That move alone crippled the Dreamcast before it even went to production--why reject a chipset that really is a tad too strong for its own good?

 

The reason that the 3DFX deal fell through was in this Gamespy article about the 25 dumbest moments in videogaming.

[Artlover]

I dunno. The DC is really the start of the current generation. Looking at what the PS2 & Xbox offered, despite comming out 2 and 3 years later in the game, I can't reasonably expect that the DC could/would have been signifigantly better then it was during that time in the real world.

 

Certainly couldn't have expected to have been any better then a PS2 or Xbox, considering that's as good as those are now. To that end, the DC can still hold it's own against the current to some degree. CrazyTaxi on Xbox ain't THAT much better then the DC's.

 

As far as this goes, I still believe that atleast part of the problem was that it was just a little ahead of it's time, and people didn't know what to make of it.

Edited April 6, 2006 by Artlover

[Atariboy]

Here's the answer again?

 

Sorry if it was posted in this thread earlier, but if it was I didn't see it.

[JB]

For me this is why I don't wish for Nintendo to go third party. Can you imagine how watered down their franchises would be if they had to develop under someone elses wants?

Nintendo won't go 3rd-party. Not just because they're morally opposed to it, but because they're the most profitable company in the industry(excepting Microsoft, but they're still more profitable than Microsoft's video game division).

[8th lutz]

I don't see nintendo doing to a 3rd party soon because this :http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200604/N06.0404.1714.57696.htm.

 

That article has nintendo fiscal year forecast. It's forcast is that nintendo made a 807 million dollar profit in their fiscal year. That is there highest in 4 years.

[sega saturn x]

There was a Sonic game in the works but it was cancelled, BAAAD managing!!!

You could right a book on everything that went wrong with sonic extreme.

 

And I think it's safe to say the dreamcasts death lays more with the failure of the saturn than anything on its own end. Sega just couldn't stop the internal bickering long enough to give their fans the games they wanted so badly. If sega was smart about the saturn, which clearly they weren't they could have made the push with rpgs to have made it the system of choice for rpg fans, not the playstation. There's enough good looking japanese only games for the thing to make me almost want to learn japanese (almost). Same goes for shooters, and 2-d fighters.

 

While these are far from the genres that bring in the "big crowds" they drawn in a very LOYAL group of gamers that stick with you through and through. Kind of like nintendo, only with less mass market appeal.

Edited April 10, 2006 by sega saturn x

[Seob]

And because of that amount of processors the saturn had, its dual hitachi's, it was harder to program for then the ps1. So more and more develpers where switching to sony because they could make more games in less time for it. Also the reason why there are so many crap titles for the ps1.

[JB]

And because of that amount of processors the saturn had, its dual hitachi's, it was harder to program for then the ps1.

It wasn't just that it had dual SH-2s for the CPU.

It also had an SH-1 for hte CD-ROM controller, as well as a 68k-variant and programmable DSP in the sound section. Essentially, it was a 5-processor system.

There were also 2 seperate graphics chips, so you didn't have a single all-in-one solution.

 

Some quirks to Sega's multi-proc implementation also made things more difficult than they needed to be.

 

 

And as I said earlier, the PS came with C++ libraries, so you didn't have to code in assembly(not that the compilers of the time worked worth crap for multi-processor loads). That made life much easier for PS programmers. They had simple hardware with a simple language, and because of it they could hammer games out easily.

 

 

 

But ultimately, if the Saturn had been more popular than the PS, developers would have learned the hardware. The developers go where they gamers are.

[DeV0]

Sony's massive advertising and marketing blitz killed the Saturn as already mentioned. The majority of people seem satisfied with Sony products with the false belief they are superior. We should all remember the original hardware issues with the psx, like overheating etc. And yes i'd agree the 32x was a very very bad move by sega,,,,,,,

[thegamezmaster]

Wasn't the improvements in the 32X originally supposed to have been in the Sega CD, if I remember correctly but were left out due to costs? Did not having the capability to play DVD's like the PS2 hurt the Dreamcast?

Edited April 6, 2006 by thegamezmaster

[JB]

Wasn't the improvements in the 32X originally supposed to have been in the Sega CD, if I remember correctly but were left out due to costs?

Nah.

There was talk of putting in graphical upgrades to remove the SNES' color and background advantages. That was pitched, officially for cost.

 

The 32x was a new beast. That level of power wasn't plausible for home users when the SCD was designed.

 

Did not having the capability to play DVD's like the PS2 hurt the Dreamcast?

People claim it did, I don't think it really mattered. It was just one more thing people could say "Dude, the PS2 is gonna be way better" with.

Remember, the XBox can't play DVD out of the box, and the GameCube can't play them at all.

[MCHufnagel]

For me this is why I don't wish for Nintendo to go third party. Can you imagine how watered down their franchises would be if they had to develop under someone elses wants?

Nintendo won't go 3rd-party. Not just because they're morally opposed to it, but because they're the most profitable company in the industry(excepting Microsoft, but they're still more profitable than Microsoft's video game division).

Oh, I know that they won't. But I just mentioned it because so many anti-Nintendo fanboys keep thinking/wishing that they will since their consoles have been selling less units every successive generation.

[superjudge3]

Actually, I love the 32X. I think it was actually the quick death of the Saturn that doomed them. There were so many great games that never came over from Japan and a lot of the last titles released were mind-blowing. If Shining Force 3 and Panzer Dragoon Saga were released earlier along with the Japanese games...who knows what could have happened.

[JB]

Actually, I love the 32X.

And I love the Virtual Boy.

Which doesn't change the fact that it was a horrible ill-conceived cockup of massive proportions.