DC games being easy to pirate didn't make any difference really. Even to this day, most people have no idea how easy it is to pirate a DC game, and it's been well over a decade.
At the time people were even less computer suave, and if you had a really old comp at that time it probably could not do it. Burning in general was just taking off, but that was mainly for music.
As for the subject at hand, DC failed simply because Sega wasn't willing to pump anymore money in it after messing up with its prior hardware. If Sega had not made so many blunders with the 32X and Saturn, then the Dreamcast probably would have had a long and successful (at least as successful as the Xbox and GC if not more) life. Damm64 mentioning Shenmue is a good example as well, Shenmue was a really stupid move for Sega. Again, if they had not been bleeding money and they had a higher install base, going all out and making a super expensive and ambitious game in Shenmue would have more merit from a business perspective, but considering their situation it was pretty silly.
Original_Name wrote:Haha, fair enough.
Still though, has anybody else noticed this with the Dreamcast lately? It seemed like nobody talked about it for nearly a decade outside of retro forums, then it sat on this nostalgia bubble that got to be borderline mainstream (to the point that Sega started rolling out a brief Dreamcast revival), and now people dump on it more than they have since, like... 2003. Seriously, the amount of times I've read "Yeah, the games were cool and all, but they lacked polish and were kind of weird" as though that's supposed to be surprising or something is getting out of hand.
Not that I'm so attached to a video game console that I can't accept others not holding it in high esteem, but I do sort of wonder if this'll become a trend in the Internet age. On the one hand, awareness and admiration of retro Nintendo is probably at an all-time high for the same reasons, but for less ubiquitous consoles it could continue to do the exact opposite. Y'know, with the advent of retro-chic games journalism and abundant availability of roms I could imagine the Neo-Geo making a huge comeback, for instance -- "Remember how you couldn't afford this back then?" "SNK was amazing, you should have supported them" "The games still hold up to this day", only to have people dismiss it with painfully obvious things like "Oh, there's too many fighting games" a year and a half later.
I'm probably looking into this too much, but I think that the Dreamcast is kind of unique in that it rides this line between being almost totally unrecognized in the real-world, well-recognized in games journalism, and interpreted as overrated by a lot of the Internet community, and has actually gone on to become more popular after its release than during. I guess it'll be a good thing to see under-recognized consoles get their due, but it's been weird to see people dump on an underrated console because t
I think you're stretching it comparing the DC to consoles like the Saturn, PC Engine and Neo Geo. Those consoles are considered obscure if not irrelevant to the video game community.
The Dreamcast never disappeared for 10 years or what ever. Might not be mentioned along side its generational brothers in PS2/Xbox/GC, but it always gets a nod here and there. For a console that lasted so short, it made a fairly big impact, and just about every gamer knows what a Dreamcast is, even if they have never seen one personally. I don't think it has become cool to either hate or love Dreamcast, Dreamcast like any other console has people who like it and people who do not like it.
As for why there seems to be people who hate on the DC. If I had to guess, a lot of people see the DC being hyped by others, and probably just do not see it themselves. I mean the DC is not an easy console to sell to most gamers. Most games really only care about like 10-20 ips, games that have brand recognition, which Dreamcast doesn't have.
Since this is probably important for why the DC fell, I'll elaborate a bit more. I have a friend who is a big fan of GC, but he can't see why anyone would think the Dreamcast is a good console. I can say there are games like Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio Space Channel 5 and what not, but to him those are not major games, he would merely dismiss them (and as jaded as that is, most gamers do that, including ones on here and this is an open minded community). Their games that really have no legacy (kind of a weakness with Sega in general, it's great that they make so many new games, but it's bad for business that they never whored out their brands other than Sonic). For him, it's easy. He can just say Zelda, Mario, Smash Bros, Metroid - all of those games have "GOTY" vibes, their all recognizable even by people who have not played the GC versions of them simply because they have predecessors (and sequels). DC games have been associated with quality, but never been associated with the word master piece (for the most part).
It's like someone else said, the Dreamcast never had a killer ip. Their biggest seller was Sonic Adventure, and the game even at the time was kinda mediocre (it was awesome because Sonic was in 3D, but I think many people always knew in the back of their head it was no Mario 64), and has probably gotten worse with age. So after that the only thing people have to remember the DC is a bunch of one shot zany Japanese games. Oh, and Shenmue, which well...its reception was quite mixed obviously. Soul Calibur was big, but most people are probably more familiar with Soul Calibur II due it being on 3 platforms.
Then there's the arcade aspect, which is one of the reasons why I absolutely loved the Dreamcast. But arcade games are niche in the modern era. I was in love with 2D fighters during the 6th gen, but no one cared about fighters then, seen as a shallow genre by people who are single player purist, and fighters had no online capability so little chance for growth. This is something that wouldn't change until Street Fighter 4. Lightgun games and their racers just never caught on, or came off as too dated.
Sega did have great sports games, but many gamers dismiss sports games automatically, even though their sports games were exclusives on top of being well produced.
So yeah, I don't think it is so much that people woke up, realized the Dreamcast existed and praised it, then later they decided to hate on it. The people who do not like Dreamcast now, probably never liked it much in the past.
