Dreamcast, cast off too soon?

Many said the Dreamcast was ahead of its time. Some called it the first true multiplayer experience because of its online capabilities. Whatever you want to call it, the Dreamcast was Sega's last stand into the console business.

[The Dark Knight]

i miss the dreamcast:(

[MK_Red]

DreamCast was a masterpiece, a state of the art console and sadly people killed it buy not buying it or it's games. People killed it because they buy 10000000000s of Maddens, Fifas and such on PS2 but don't give darn about real games.

[xplosneer]

I don't get the US demographic anymore(and I'm in California). Why people buy $60 worth of games that they won't play for more than a year is beyond me. If they updated the roster online after spending 2 years to perfect the players looks from the start-THEN it would be fine. Stupid EA buying out Madden. yet another demonstration where competition is GOOD.

[Marceles]

The Dreamcast was a great console...it just got absolutely NO support from ANYONE. It had the online gameplay...the VMU idea was also pretty cool for playing football and for developing Chao's on Sonic Adventure. But the most support it could get from a 3rd party were a few playstation 1 ports, and those still managed to outsell the Dreamcast versions even though the DC version came with enhanced graphics and other features. Soul Calibur, Marvel vs Capcom 2, Street Fighter III, Virtua Tennis, Shenmue, Soul Reaver: Legacy of Kain, Skies of Arcadia, the NBA and NFL2k series, Chu Chu Rocket, and Resident Evil: Code Veronica were all reasons why the Dreamcast was a good well-rounded system

[kewlkat007]

Marceles said.

One of my favorite consoles which had a mix of 2-D games and a good selection of 3-D titles.

The games were of High Quality. Even games like "Worms" got me and my buddies at college playing for hours.

2-D scroller shooter like Bangai-O was sweet. Cannon spike was a decent brawler. Skies of Arcadia was nice as well as shenmue and grandia.

SEGA 2k Sports was the sh^t.

Dreamcast was the first do do some thing like True online console gaming, then XBL took it and ran away with it.

I spent countless hours playing Soul Caliber and getting all the weapons. MARVEL VS CAPCOM 2 was sweet. Games like Guilty Gear was awesome. Crazy Taxi, Samba Di Amigo was fun.

Hmffff..

[UltramanJ]

Are you serious? After all the times Sega screwed consumers with Sega CD, 32x, and Saturn you expected them to just rush out and buy another system from a company notrious for lousy third party support, and a habit of killing off their systems? Sega screwed nobody but themselves over the years, so don't dare put the blame on consumers who took the smart approach and held off for a system from a more competent company.
I bought a Dreamcast on 9/9/99 like a lot of other people, but after the launch, what was there? We had Resident Evil CV and DOA 2 and that was basically it. There were no other high profile games because third parties knew the Dreamcast was a sinking ship that already had flopped in Japan thanks to a terrible launch of Godzilla (awful game), Pen Pen Triathalon (sound good to you?), and Virtua Fighter 3 (a lousy port).

[DeejayTai]

Did you ever notice that the DC was powered by microsoft? No, my friend, Bill Gates forced the DC to sink because he wanted to market HIS console. AS soon as the DC was no more, here comes this ugly-a$$ed big black heavy box.

[BenderDGreat82]

#2.2, marceles...you said EXACTLY how I felt about this tremendous system. 9.9.99 was an incredible date. I remember my jaw falling to the floor when I saw Soul Caliber...the experience would have been better had if my grandpa's funeral wasn't on that date also...still, it was one of the best damn gaming experiences I've EVER had!

[The Dark Knight]

:O who disagreed with me:O:O the dreamcast was the best!! sonic adventures:) you remember that game were you played as toys, cant remember the name but my god that was good

[BlackCountryBob]

I loved Toy Commander, possibly one of the most fun games ever, especially the flying missions.

IMO The Dreamcast was truly an amazing machine and the only reason I got rid of mine was because it was bricked, it had and still has some of the most interesting, unique and generally entertaining games of any platform in the past 10 years. Jet Set Radio was brilliant and I remember the ridiculous number of hours I spent on Unreal Tourney which was the first FPS I had ever played.

I think I might hit Ebay and try to pick one up, damn you nostalgia.

[Tarmgar]

Nothing on the Dreamcast beat "Blue Stinger" and my all time favorite "Power Stone 2". It's so sad that both had to die such a young life.

[Marceles]

Blue Stinger was one of the first games that really made me say "omg...this is in-game graphics???". That game was really cool

[B Man]

Ugh that game was freaking HORRIBLE. The story, the dialouge, the gameplay... bad bad bad. Only reason I had it was because my grandma bought me the dreamcast for christmas and didn't know what game to get so all I had to play for a month was Bland Stinger.

Now... Skies of Arcadia on the other hand... best game ever made TO DATE.

It's a real shame about dreamcast... they had waaay more good titles during it's short lifetime than xbox 1 did in the same amount of time.

[IntelligentAj]

Yeah this system was definitely ahead of it's time. I remember playing online and definitely remember Sonic Adventure.

[andrugrif]

DC was ahead of its time considering the market that followed. I also think it is funny how Sega was able to work with MS in creating a OS for their system. Regardless, I did drop $700 on 9/9/99. Poor sega.

[ReBurn]

Microsoft didn't actually work with Sega to create the operating system. Windows CE was an operating system designed to run on embedded systems. Contrary to popular belief the OS bits actually shipped on the discs with the games instead of running the console itself and were loaded at game startup by a bootstrap if the OS was present on the disc. The console OS was called Dreamcast OS and was full-featured on its own. The inclusion of CE as a platform gave developers the option of creating games using a CE development kit, but it didn't actually run the console.

[Nameless]

Imagine if Sega re released the Dreamcast for a little bit of time (It cant be that pricey to make these days) & if they priced it at $100 bucks it would probably sell more then the Wii.

[InyaAzz]

The king is dead. Long live the king.

[Ikanago]

DC could have kept going for another year or so. I think SEGA killed it off a bit too soon. Sorta like when Shenmue bombed, it was time to get out. Because that was supposed to be this beautiful opus of a game (to an extent it was), but it just didn't translate in terms of sales. So I think people at SEGA started to get freaked and saw the PS2 as a competition they couldn't beat.

[Rattles]

to hear this story 7 years from now.

[WilliamRLBaker]

""Capcom Exec and co-producer of Streetfighter 2 in interview with Sega Saturn Magazine, 1998:

"The Days when people really loved playing computers games has ended. This is mainly because of Sony. Sony has created a new era of light users who consider games to be just an everyday form of general entertainment- nothing special. The kind of games we used to see from Nintendo have gone. These are the games that children used to play, but now they don't.""

[Jdoki]

I loved the Dreamcast. Even with it's lower hardware specs I always thought it had great graphics, and much better than the PS2 (although that may be nostalgia talking!!)

It still ranks as the console I bought the most peripherals for... two Fishing rods, steering wheel, 3 extra controllers, mouse & keyboard, two lightguns, a few VMU's, samba shakers and probably other stuff I've forgotten about!

It still ranks as one of my all time favourite consoles. Not only did it have the classic Sega franchises on (Daytona was awesome), but it also had a tonne of original titles (Red Dog anyone?) that still puts most consoles to shame. The hours me and friends put in to PSO was scary!

I think Sega were premature killing off the DC. Considering games are STILL being released (mainly in Japan), and there's a thriving indie developer scene it shows the strength and love people have for the console.

[RacingX]

I bought the most periphriels as well. fishing rod, steering wheel, light gun, tons of VMU's, although I got my keyboard & mouse for free for signing up with at&t dial up....yes DIAL UP! I remember playing the Bass fishing demo on the free disc you got with your DC thinking " who would play a fishing game?" next day I'm at EB asking "whens it coming out?" Daytona online was the bomb and I got my first taste of FPS glory online with Quake 3 & Unreal Tournament & Outrigger (remember that one?) I even have Half life for my DC!!
For those of you that have thier DC's and can play imports with it, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND the game Under Defeat, it came out in 2005, yes 2005, its a kickin shooter. I still love you DC!!!

[GIJeff]

its not a dead relative. Its a piece of hardware. Sega jumped too soon to launch, just like MS has done now with the 360. Remember the PS2 vs. DC comparison screen shots and all that bull? Remember when the ps2 was attacked for having "jaggies"? What happened in the end? a year and a half after launch, ps2 games kept getting better and better, prettier and prettier; the DC was not able to keep up. The DC had tapped its potential from launch. There was nothing to keep getting the "oos and ahhhs" every year. Plus, the ps2 had more built in functionality, and parents wanted them in their living rooms. DVD was becomming more popular over VHS. and guess what system had a DVD player? All im saying is that the DC wasnt as great as everyone thinks it was. I prefer the Genesis any day. :)

[TheExodus]

That's true, but we do become attached to objects as well because certain objects have the magical ability to take us back to a place in time of reverence. Case in point, to this day I will only buy Volkswagens & refuse to consider any other make at any other price for the simple fact that every new Volkswagen I put in my driveway takes me back to the escapades of a carful of 18-year-olds taking to the roads between Winter Harbor & Bar Harbor Maine in the late 80's. That's what nostalgia is all about, certain objects do possess the magical ability to return us to a point in time before that carefree wall of youth began to crumbled revealing the cold hard reality of life. For some it maybe a car, for others a game console. It's not the object that matters so much as the trip down memory lane that it invokes.

[ASSASSYN 36o]

OMFG give it up. It is gone.

[Zevious]

...but not forgotten. I'd still put Soul Calibur and RE:Code Veronica up against anything out today. The last great gasp from one of my favorite companies (I was a true fanboy- I bought everything Sega, even when buying Nintendo and Sony). "Thanks, for the memories..."

[Gaara_724]

lol ive neva even head of the dream cast until i watched a documentry a couple of days ago about the ps2 vs dreamcast and ps2 vs xbox was it populer in scotland? al i can renemba the day ps2 came out i had 2 whoo hoo lucky me some people couldnt even get 1 it was so populer on relese in scotland

[ASSASSYN 36o]

What! I don't understand your engrish.

[Testo]

He is always bashing Fony due to the death of his long lost love...

[SSCOOLCHEA]

but...............sony + dvd = death to everyone....sony + blu ray = death to everyone

i supported sega from day 1 but i love everything sony puts out electronically so i had to make the switch .

genesis , saturn , dreamcast ......i had all of them...

[SMK056]

that waet hapen to Dreamcast

[SMK056]

that waet hapen to Dreamcast

[Bleucrunch]

The Dreamcast was hands down the greatest system every created. Everything done now was based off the dreamcast.

[DFresh]

I agree that the Dreamcast was a really good console and ahead of it's time at the beginning but once something new and better comes out that product becomes worthless.
Then again Sega was bought out by MS early which is why the Xbox came out. I also think this is what contributed most to MS getting the lead on online technology that is until Home and PlayTV comes out on the PS3.
Sega had it's ups and downs
ups:
Soul Caliber Series
Dead or Alive series
House of the Dead series
Virtua fighter Series
and
Sonic the Hedgehog Series
downs:
Didn't quite have the graphic superiority to the PS2 which put them at the bottom.
Only used CDs for games compared to Sony who started to use DVDs allowing for more space thus better gaming.
Sega also sold it for too little not being able to get enough profit which also put Sega out of business.
Bought out by Microsoft.
Still Sega hasn't been doing that well since then and it shows in sales.
Either way the Dreamcast was a great console and it started my early phase into gaming which I'll never forget.

[mcgrawgamer]

Sony helped but they did not kill the dreamcast. Modding killed the dreamcast 1st and foremost, and Sony knifed Sega in the back while they were down. Sega's business practices also hurt 32x, saturn, hurt Sega with consumers. Dreamcast bought them back into the mainstream but by that time there name was already hurt in the eyes of casual gamers. Sony won because the casual got on the ps2 bandwagon. Hardcore gamers had plans to eventually have both a DC and PS2 anyway but casual gamer were gonna buy 1 and 1 only. 3rd parties helped Sony but BC did as well. Dreamcast was not BC with the Saturn and that hurt it in my mind. It was just Sega's time to go. I was a Sega fanboy but I don't think anything could have prevented their demise.

[SSCOOLCHEA]

i was a fanboy of whatever system was the best. I might not be right but i always bought a console that i thought was top notch at the time. but i guess if i bought the ps1 , ps2 and ps3 that makes me a sony fanboy ( but again i only bought the system that i thought or is the the best )

[Dogswithguns]

.... Oh, well.

[Raptors]

I will forever hate the PS2 because of the fate DC was handed to it.

[Slayer OP]

If ignorance is bliss then you must be sky high in it man.

[UltramanJ]

..than an uneducated gamer that thinks others are to blame for Dreamcast's demise. Hate Sega, not Sony.

[Slayer OP]

1st off how is this newsworthy? We are suppoesed to post news about up to date gaming tecnology not consoles that died 5 years ago.

Second you are all ignorant. You blame Ps2 for killing dreamcast but in reality the console killed itself through the company that led it. It was a terrible console not anything to praise. It wasnt about sony killing them or it releasing too soon. It was just a bad console that was released by a business with no apperent marketing strategy so it failed and it was their own fault.

Stop posting news about this console. There is no Dreamcast 2 and posting news about it wont make it come true.

[Raptors]

Could you be anymore angry? Relax...for the most part everyone is not being serious about hating the ps2. And I completely disagree that the DC was not a great console. It was a fantastic console but things just weren't lined up properly for it. From the way sega handled things to missing third party support (EA Sports).

[potenquatro]

segacd was preatty good,soniccd,samurai spirits were great but nobody did anything other than ports with better sound tracks or lame fmvg. 32x was horible but thats why you can't be a blind fanboy, i never got that one i waited 6months for the saturn. saturn was great just like genesis and dc. aperently sony did like ms and gave money away for exclusives, i remember umk3 coming 2 years after sony had mk3. almost every port was better on saturn re,madden,and x-men vs streetfighter was horrible on ps1,i found it unplayable. sony's money and nintendo's incredible n64 were to much but the saturn was really good imoho. agree with 26.

[Matpan]

This is a place for news and articles ranging from the latest videogaming news to articles of general interest for the gamers.
I find an analysis of a past generation console interesting to read every now and then. Even more if it is about the dreamcast, one of my favourite consoles.
The fat that the article made it to the frontpage with a 510º just proves this turned out to be pretty much interesting for quite some people.
If you don´t care about an article at all, just pass through...

About the causes you state for DCs failure. That can be arguable. There are many positions when anallyzing it, and more than one factor. While PS2 had some of the guilt (which is totally fair, since sony can sell it´s console whenever they like to) SEGA is also to be blamed for the lousy launches it made some years before, the lack of a DVD drive also is to blame, but sega was on a hurry and on a budget...

Now about the quality of the console... Man... DC was way better than PS2s first year... and even technically surpased.
It was a GREAT cosole with GREAT games, and GREAT ports of GREAT arcade games from sega. It had a nice library of 2d games and plenty of 3D titles. It was surely the gate to the generation that followed it. And in many aspects, revolutionary.

Had it had a DVD drive, it might have had a larger lifespan.

Anyways... it´s nice you had the time to read through and made a comment... usually, when I read "one of the worst thing ive ever seen approved" I don´t even bother to waste more time on it :P

[mariusmal]

you wanna kno why i never bought a dreamcast.... because i bought sega cd and was ripped. thats why. oh and dont forget 32x... that's why sega went down in the console wars. after the mega drive it was all down hill

[name]

It's all nastilga. I owned a dreamcast and you people are blowing it's significance out of proportion. I owned alot of games for it as well. It was my first online played system and I also owned a PS1. The ps2 was a much better system than it. Just because it's dead doesn't mean its great. It's the same crap people do for dead musicians and celebrities.

[resistance100]

Dreamcast was dead the moment it launched, in japan in launched on the same day as Final Fantasy 8 on PS1 and just after square annouced they won't be supporting the dreamcase whats so ever.

Then it getting delayed 18months in europe because the ship carrying the consoles sunk, also cost them dear as it reduced the amount of time they had before the Ps2 launched.

who knows if the boat didn't sink and square supported sega we might still have sega consoles today

[jinn]

Dreamcast memories:

Marvel vs capcom 2
Soul Caliber

[Fanboy Slaughter]

First console to pull off 60fps 3D graphics.

First to INCLUDE online play (Sega.net > XBL for it's time)

Near perfect PC ports (Quake 3, Unreal Tournament and Soldier of Fortune), despite the long loading times.

First of it's generation, and it blew everybody away. I don't know what UltramanJ was crying about. Ready to Rumble was an awesome boxing game that breathed new life into the genre, not to mention the best of it's kind since Punch-Out!! I spent days raising a Seaman by resetting my console and moving the date forward. By the time I was done, my Dreamcast thought it was 2009. And Grandia 2 at the time was the first RPG to keep my interest since Xenogears. (But by no means am I comparing it to Xenogears.)

But, like EVERY system before it and after it...it had crap, and lots of it. Timestalkers, Silver, Blue Stinger to name a few. But the quality-to-crap ratio was much more even. I Still play Shenmue, Illbleed, Soldier of Fortune, Grandia 2, R2R Boxing 1 & 2, MDK2. There's lots more but to keep this from already being too long, the Dreamcast's plug was pulled WAY too fast, and I honestly think that given another year or two to bring out the system's potential, it could've stayed right up there with the PS2 and GC...and then we'd have fanboy wars between the Dreamcast 360 and the PS3, except the Dreamcast would be slaughtering the PS3, and the Wii would've probably been a quiet blip on the radar.

[SDS Overfiend]

Don't Forget the Near-Perfect port of The original Half-Life or the first 60 FPS on DC made by Sega themselves which deserved a Sequel
"Outrigger"

Dreamcast failed because sega did'nt make due on the last projects (Sega CD,32x) by cutting the life span short when developers signed on to make games for it. Coupled with the fact Sony came into the Video game Market with slandering bussiness techniques and Payoffs for exclusives it was bound to slow down the steam it picked up. Sony took the innocence away from the video game industry if you ask me.

I could go on and on for days about the tactics but it'll only make me mad that EA was the deciding factors in this bullsh!t. Let me ask ya'll a question? If the 2K sports series was so much better than EA's why did us the customers fail it?

Can't answer?

Because it did'nt boom until PS owners had version on their subpar system. After Sega went 3rd party that when it was ok to support it and a Sony Fandroid.

[gauntletpython]

I loved the DC... unfortunately, Sega had a bad reputation from its previous generation, and lost the support of a few devs(namely Squaresoft and EA). Its been said before, but I think the DC was too advanced in areas it shouldn't have been and not up to date where it should have. It had online, but only via dial up - you can't spend hours gaming with dial up eating up your phone line and online minutes(there was a super expensive BB converter, but it was too little too late). On the flip side, the lack of a DVD player harmed it(but then again, the GC lacked this as well), and the piracy was its biggest concern(remember Sega even offering stock options to pirate groups?).

Still, I love it. It had arguably the BEST launch ever, and I still play it(just beat Rez actually, and nothing beats 4 player Power Stone). If I was ever a fanboy, it was for Sega, and if they made a come back, I would get their system at launch!!