dreamcast did sony kill it

[jwc]

dreamcast is good but how did it die was it sony

[GSZX1337]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast

[silverback]

Sega killed it themselves in all honesty

[The Apprentice]

I blame the media and the consumers. Sony made wild clames to their system's capabillities and the market ate it all up; they advertised the capacity of the DVD yet many of its early titles were sold on CDs (which were very poor in quality) and people honestly believed a game on DVD would somehow be better than the same game on CD (reminds me of CD attachments for the 16 bit systems); and the media talked like Sega was fighting a losing battle from the very begining, when, by the time of the PS2's release, they had 25% of the market.

Long story short: the gamers killed the Dreamcast and only recognised its greatness after it was gone.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

I blame the media and the consumers. Sony made wild clames to their system's capabillities and the market ate it all up; they advertised the capacity of the DVD yet many of its early titles were sold on CDs (which were very poor in quality) and people honestly believed a game on DVD would somehow be better than the same game on CD (reminds me of CD attachments for the 16 bit systems); and the media talked like Sega was fighting a losing battle from the very begining, when, by the time of the PS2's release, they had 25% of the market.

Long story short: the gamers killed the Dreamcast and only recognised its greatness after it was gone.

Yes, I have a PS2 launch game (coolboarders 2001) THAT WAS ON A CD, IN A CD CASE AT THE STORE. But anyway the only time I can think the DVD really brought better is the ability to have nicer looking open worlds due to less of a need to compress textures etc.

[Curlypaul]

Yeah Sega did a fair amount of damage themselves by only giving short bursts of support for the 32x, MegaCD and criminally the Saturn they mananged to irritate both the games developers and the consumers at the same time.

Sonys media barrage helped as well so I guess its a combination of both segas ineptidue and sony agressive use of the media and having a fine machine to back it up as well I suppose. As much as I am a Sega fanboy and the lack of attention the saturn and the dc got is irritating, lamenting over this gets us no-where. It doesnt matter who killed sega, the fact is that they are out of the hardware race but they are still about and occasionally roll out a decent game.

[marurun]

The Saturn did well in Japan, and continued to do well. The problem is that Sega abandoned the Saturn in Japan before developers and consumers were willing to let it go, in part because of the Japanese and European market.

The WP article is a decent analysis of the market conditions the DC faced, but there are some minor oversights. Dreamcast sales in the US were pretty good even when the DC was cancelled. Sega let the DC go because they knew they didn't have the capital to back the system up against a Sony onslaught. This was in part due to the complete failure of the system in Japan. I have no idea why it did so badly in Japan, because Sega's arcade reputation was still pretty pristine at the time.

The WP article is right in that Sega got out for good once it was clear the Gamecube and Xbox were both going to be a reality. In a 4-way fire-fight it doesn't help to be the first person to market with limited cash reserves, because most people will assume the first out the door is the least technologically capable and Sega couldn't afford proper marketing to convince people the system was worth its salt. Sega was already failing to put enough money into showing how the DC was, at least initially, better at many graphical tricks than the Playstation 2. In some ways it still is.

[Orange]

Sony didn't kill Sega or the Dreamcast. This is a garbage argument that was presented by bitter Sega fanatics that were looking to put the blame on a party other than the one responsible (which is, of course, Sega themselves). The Wikipedia article linked above, last time I read it, has a fairly good explanation.

[Droid party]

Long story short: the gamers killed the Dreamcast and only recognised its greatness after it was gone.

Guilty as charged, I could not have said it better myself . I didn't buy a Dreamcast until long after the machine was dead, and I regret that immensely. The DC gives me so much more pleasure now days then the PS2 ever did. (MGS and GT titles aside) Although I do feel that the Saturn really was still the main reason Sega's console days are over.

[Lythinca]

I'm somewhat guilty as that. Yet somewhat not.

When I first heard of the dreamcast, was when it first launched. I wanted one ever since seeing its name. Yet my parents wouldnt let me get one. Now, like 7 years later, I bought one in 2007 with like 20 burned games, and a sonic 2 trial and pso.