Why did the Sega Dreamcast fail?

[Thunderbolt]

Sega's fooball wasn't as good as EA's but the hockey and b-ball was way better than what EA had out at the time,so I dissagree about the whole EA angle.



Genisis yes,Master System no.It wasn't even a competition between the NES and Sega Master System.I only knew of like three people who had that thing back in the day.

you can disagree if you want , but just think of what happen to the original xbox the first year ... They had EA sports but it wasnt online and just that fact hurt the xbox in sales untill they eventually managed to please EA and get online for all ea sports titles . So if EA doesn't have an impact on a console selling or not then I guess I must have been asleep the last few years And another thing , even if EA sports games arent always the best , they always sell the most and that's a fact .

 

[zell]

you can disagree if you want , but just think of what happen to the original xbox the first year ... They had EA sports but it wasnt online and just that fact hurt the xbox in sales untill they eventually managed to please EA and get online for all ea sports titles . So if EA doesn't have an impact on a console selling or not then I guess I must have been asleep the last few years And another thing , even if EA sports games arent always the best , they always sell the most and that's a fact .

I think is more about Madden than the rest of the EA Sports titles.And like I said,Sega's football wasn't better that EA's football.Here's an example;everytime I when into a video game store(EB,Gamestop,whatever)at the time the first Xbox came out,the guys in the store were playing the same game.Madden.Not baseball,not basketball,not hockey,not golf.It was always Madden.It's not EA,It's Madden.

 

[Thunderbolt]

I think is more about Madden than the rest of the EA Sports titles.And like I said,Sega's football wasn't better that EA's football.Here's an example;everytime I when into a video game store(EB,Gamestop,whatever)at the time the first Xbox came out,the guys in the store were playing the same game.Madden.Not baseball,not basketball,not hockey,not golf.It was always Madden.It's not EA,It's Madden.

That changes if you look in canadian stores where hockey is more popular than football and in europe it's the fifa games so it's not only Madden .

 

[zell]

That changes if you look in canadian stores where hockey is more popular than football and in europe it's the fifa games so it's not only Madden .

Good point,I didn't think about that,but doesn't Madden out gross all of their other titles in total sales worldwide?

 

[Thunderbolt]

Good point,I didn't think about that,but doesn't Madden out gross all of their other titles in total sales worldwide?

I know it's a really big seller for the U.S. , in Canada it's NHL , In europe it must be FIFA but I guess that if you take the total sales of Madden for the world it must be their biggest seller with most of the sales in the U.S.

 

[No1MechWarrior]

1. bad controller
2. only used dial-up
3. bad games only(Resident Evil: CV) & (House Of The Dead 2) where worth the purchase of this console

 

[Thunderbolt]

1. bad controller
2. only used dial-up
3. bad games only(Resident Evil: CV) & (House Of The Dead 2) where worth the purchase of this console

Come on , what about a classic like the first Soul Calibur ? The dreamcast had a bad games but some where great .

 

[xhandar]

Advertising was what killed the Dreamcast. Look at what Sony did, they advertised the hell out of their system. I remember seeing hundreds of Sony Playstation advertisements littering the tv, radio and internet. The Dreamcast was unheard of, I hadn't heard of it until I went over to my friends birthday party and saw one in action. I was shocked of its existence, having never seen a single ad for one.
Advertising is what killed it, plain and simple.

 

[Namreg]

the dreamcast died because of many things, among them:

1. no backwards compatibility with saturn. the saturn was quite popular in japan, and with the ability to play saturn games the DC would have found more customers over there. given that both consoles use hitachi SH CPus this could have been done, but sega chose not to.

2. lack of faith in sega. after the launch and seeming abandonment of numerous machines (genesis CD, 32x, saturn) as well as several failed machines (nomad and game gear which failed to even dent the gameboy's marketshare) a lot of people didn't trust sega anymore and chose to wait for the PS2 instead.

3. failure to update famous franchises. instead of making new versions of sega rally, shinobi, and other famous sega games available right from the start, sega chose to innovate with F355, MSR, seaman, and a few other games. those were mostly greatgames, but they had no name recognition; thus they did nothing to promote the system in the mainstream.

4. the inclusion of the 56k modem. this cost sega a lot of money (that stuff wasn't cheap back then), yet few people actually used it. fewer still knew that there was a broadband adapter available for the system...

 

[CaDDaFy]

The actual console was good but the games sucked big time.

 

[allan]

Nobody mentioned Ikaruga

The Dreamcast still has a small fanbase in the development scene. So it's backwards compatible with the genesis in a way . I also remember experimenting with a SNES emulator for the dreamcast, but it only ran at 80% of the speed with poor sound quality, I believe things have improved since then.

Might post my Dreamcast collection someday, I need to get it out of the basement I think i have about 30+ games for it.

 

[monale]

In Terms of success graphics don´t matter that much. PS, PS2, Gameboy, DS and Wii prove(d) it.

 

[vitisku2000]

thats not really true though. Back when the PS and PS2 were released the graphics were revolutionary.

 

[monale]

thats not really true though. Back when the PS and PS2 were released the graphics were revolutionary.

The N64 had revolutionary graphics, Dreamcast was also way ahead of time. As the N64 was released, the Sales of PS didn´t decreas much although the N64 was clearly superior in terms of graphics. And it wasn´t any different as GC and Xbox were released.

 

[jelba619]

i got a dreamcast from ebay recently and it just as good as my ps1

 

[frodo60]

One word:
Shenmue

That game was revolutionary.

 

[Thunderbolt]

One word:
Shenmue

That game was revolutionary.

Hehe I think you missed the purpose of this thread . The title is why did the dreamcast fail . Shenmue is one of the few bright spots for that console . It was a revolutionary game . :thumbsup:

 

[CaDDaFy]

Dead or alive 2
Headhunter

were alright too

 

[CaDDaFy]

It's still better than the original x-box :2 cents:[/QUOTE]

Dave the xbox its a far better than the dreamcast.

 

[allan]

It's still better than the original x-box :2 cents:

Dave the xbox its a far better than the dreamcast.

I agree, the graphics were more comparable to the Nintendo Gamecube. Very good for it's time. The Dreamcast also had VGA support, which was revolutionary for it's time.