Why Did the Dreamcast Fail?

[Erik_Twice]

Everyone I knew with a Dreamcast pirated it. The PS1 was already pirated like fuck and it was one generation earlier and required a chip instead of a small hand trick.

[Violent By Design]

So is it worth buying?

Yes, plus you can just bootleg all the games.

[ZeroAX]

Everyone I knew with a Dreamcast pirated it. The PS1 was already pirated like fuck and it was one generation earlier and required a chip instead of a small hand trick.

Small hand trick?

[fastbilly1]

Everyone I knew with a Dreamcast pirated it. The PS1 was already pirated like fuck and it was one generation earlier and required a chip instead of a small hand trick.

Small hand trick?

probably a disc swap.

[dsheinem]

Everyone I knew with a Dreamcast pirated it. The PS1 was already pirated like fuck and it was one generation earlier and required a chip instead of a small hand trick.

Small hand trick?

probably a disc swap.

it's an illusion, Norris. "Tricks" are something whores do for money.

[ZeroAX]

it's an illusion, Norris. "Tricks" are something whores do for money.

[Jagosaurus]

So is it worth buying?

Does the Pope wear a funny hat?

[Menegrothx]

I notice that this high level Sega marketing exec did not mention piracy as a contributing factor.

Well CD burners were still pretty expensive back then. I had one but my PC couldn't handle burning the DC games back then. I had a buddy with a nice rig who burned me a few games. Seems like when this really caught on, the DC was already falling.

Most people I know didn't have CD burners until after the DC was already gone. They were not something that just came in every $400 desktop back then.

This isn't related to Dreamcast, but I remember by 1999 and 2000 (maybe even 1998, can't remember), my cousin had a PS1 with like 40 different burned games. But his father had to ask his work mate to burn games for him, they didn't have the required equipment.

My experience is very limited, but I reckon that amongst core gamers, 16-25 year old males with good PCs, it was a lot more common.

[marurun]

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.

To the US game community, maybe. The Saturn and PC Engine were resounding successes in Japan and made their corporate masters quite a bit of cash money.

The Dreamcast was a market failure from day one in Japan, and was really only successful in the US. It was taken off the market when it still had life in it in the US market, largely because Sega of Japan was tired of propping it up in the home country. SOJ was already bleeding money from gap between the decline of the Saturn in Japan and the release of the Dreamcast, and when it failed to net them any footing at home they scrambled for a solution and ultimately didn't come up with one.

The Saturn and PC Engine had the exact opposite problem. They were largely failures in the US but did very well in the JPN market. The PC Engine actually outsold the NES for a while there, before the SNES came out. The system hosted nearly 600 games in total, and handily crushed the Sega Mega Drive in the market. Sound familiar? Flip the PC Engine and the Mega Drive and you have the US market. The Saturn also did fairly well in Japan, outselling the Playstation for a little while at the beginning of the console race. The Playstation rapidly took the number one spot, but unlike in the US, the Saturn held on, bolstered by arcade ports and fantastic 2D games that never came to the US. The 32-bit generation in Japan was much more balanced than in the US, market-wise.

[Violent By Design]

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.

To the US game community, maybe. The Saturn and PC Engine were resounding successes in Japan and made their corporate masters quite a bit of cash money.

The Dreamcast was a market failure from day one in Japan, and was really only successful in the US. It was taken off the market when it still had life in it in the US market, largely because Sega of Japan was tired of propping it up in the home country. SOJ was already bleeding money from gap between the decline of the Saturn in Japan and the release of the Dreamcast, and when it failed to net them any footing at home they scrambled for a solution and ultimately didn't come up with one.

The Saturn and PC Engine had the exact opposite problem. They were largely failures in the US but did very well in the JPN market. The PC Engine actually outsold the NES for a while there, before the SNES came out. The system hosted nearly 600 games in total, and handily crushed the Sega Mega Drive in the market. Sound familiar? Flip the PC Engine and the Mega Drive and you have the US market. The Saturn also did fairly well in Japan, outselling the Playstation for a little while at the beginning of the console race. The Playstation rapidly took the number one spot, but unlike in the US, the Saturn held on, bolstered by arcade ports and fantastic 2D games that never came to the US. The 32-bit generation in Japan was much more balanced than in the US, market-wise.

My post was about the west. :p.