Why Did the Dreamcast Fail?

[Menegrothx]

Saturn outsold Nintendo 64 in Japan.

[oxymoron]

Whats a good price for one? With and without box.

[CD AGES]

Whats a good price for one? With and without box.

Without box, I say about $30 on average is a reasonable price (even after these $10 increase on the console that's been recently happening in my area among retro game stores ).

With box, around $50 to $60 is a good price (granted the box is in good condition and most of the packaging materials are intact.)

[skyknight]

There is no single and easy explanation to the failure of the Dreamcast. You have to factor in the previous failure of the 32X, CD, and Saturn; none of them meet the expectations, which does affect consumer confidence and business interest.

Keep in mind, EA bailing out on SEGA was serious, considering the history between the two companies; yes, SEGA 2K sports did come out with great sports games, but it doesn't have the audience of EA sports (how many here will boycott EA for monopolizing NFL game rights).

The agreement between SEGA and MS was consider just a show, as SEGA never really promoted the Windows CE capability. As of now, I still read some internet rumors that the higher ups at SEGA at that time wanted to keep Dreamcast as Japanese as it can (i.e. the codename was "katana", the pride of Japanese bladesmith). They rejected 3dfx's proposed graphics card and went in-house instead - a former 3dfx manager thought their product was easier to produce and write programs for. Nor SEGA really tried to reach out to Western game developers.

[Violent By Design]

Sega Japan vs Sega America is such a strange and bizarre relationship. It's as if they were competing against each other as opposed to working together.

[$crewed4l]

I for one was very happy for all the weight Capcom added to the DC. Fighting games like Power Stone, Tech Romancer, Project Justice, and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, shmups like Giga Wing, Gunbird 2, and Mars Matrix, and other stuff like Cannon Spike and Spawn.

Yesss Capcom had great titles on the DC... Two factors to me that led to the system's demise was that it had no DVD playability and the system release date. I feel if Sega would've have waited to see the what the competitors systems were like they would have done better. Hopefully we can one day get another Sega console who knows??

[bacardipr05]

Sega Japan vs Sega America is such a strange and bizarre relationship. It's as if they were competing against each other as opposed to working together.

This is paramount......

[Erik_Twice]

You have to factor in the previous failure of the 32X, CD, and Saturn; none of them meet the expectations, which does affect consumer confidence and business interest.

The Sega CD sold at least 7 million units and several of its games sold millions of units. It was not a commercial failure at all.

The 32X was and the Saturn era drained Sega's coffers given the poor launches in the West but the Sega CD is unjustly compared to the 32X and it shouldn't.

[marurun]

The agreement between SEGA and MS was consider just a show, as SEGA never really promoted the Windows CE capability... They rejected 3dfx's proposed graphics card and went in-house instead - a former 3dfx manager thought their product was easier to produce and write programs for.

While Sega didn't go out of their way to promote WinCE, they did use it in at least one game, Sega Rally 2. And the reason they didn't really promote WinCE is because it simply wasn't as capable on the hardware. WinCE was an easy way to develop a game quickly, but it wasn't able to really utilize the hardware, which is something Sega was counting on to help push the system.

As for the 3DFX hardware being easier to write for, the Dreamcast is purportedly quite easy to develop for in the final form chosen. Look at how spectacular Soul Calibur is even today, and keep in mind that that game was an early title on the system. It was being demoed heavily in nearly final form at the spring Tokyo Game Show (I know, I was there) and the system had been out for less than a year. It may be that the 3DFX hardware was even easier to write for, but the DC can't be faulted as a difficult development platform (especially compared to the brutal PS2 developer experience).

Whether they targeted western developers or not, EU develops took particular joy in doing some very interesting, and graphically advanced, things with the system.

[ZeroAX]

The Sega CD sold at least 7 million units and several of its games sold millions of units. It was not a commercial failure at all.

While for such an expensive add-on it did have pretty high % market penetration of the Mega Drive userbase, you can hardly call 7 million a big enough install base for it to be worth developing for, plus while the games might have sold averagely well (or very well for the small install base), how many critically acclaimed exclusive games did it have?

Though I totally agree it's unfair to compare it to the 32X.