Why did Sega Dreamcast die off?

[Pendulous]

Didn't it also have a very short life span for consoles? Or maybe that was just something I read that wasn't serious.

[Rennadrel]

On top of the reasons others have stated, mismanagement. Sega was still trying to support the Game Gear, the Saturn, and the Genesis. Funds were spread far too thin to fully support the Dreamcast.

It was a great console and very forward thinking but, sadly, was doomed from the start.

Part of Sega's problem has always been that they were never focusing their resources on a single platform and poor managing led to them trying to bilk money out of consumers. See Sega CD and 32X as prime examples, the Sega Saturn being out while the Genesis was still getting games didn't help either. Also, competing with the GameBoy using a giant brick of a device with a shitty screen that used 8 AA batteries was such a bad idea.

[sTyLnK]

They made their own games if I recall, not big name companies. I think that caused problems in the end.

[Rennadrel]

Didn't it also have a very short life span for consoles? Or maybe that was just something I read that wasn't serious.

It only lasted a few years before it was discontinued. Sony literally blew everyone out of the water with the PS2, still is the definition of a quality console that has the right amount of features. The N64 was great, especially for people who played local multiplayer and the number of single player games that were great was up there, but the PS2 just had so many games and features that the more powerful Gamecube lacked. Both kinda failed with the online thing but overall the PS2 destroyed the Gamecube and the Xbox because of release timing and features.

[Pendulous]

It only lasted a few years before it was discontinued. Sony literally blew everyone out of the water with the PS2, still is the definition of a quality console that has the right amount of features. The N64 was great, especially for people who played local multiplayer and the number of single player games that were great was up there, but the PS2 just had so many games and features that the more powerful Gamecube lacked. Both kinda failed with the online thing but overall the PS2 destroyed the Gamecube and the Xbox because of release timing and features.

I meant the hardware itself. That it would break after only a few months.

[Creamy Flames]

Just something that intrigued me, Sega was always a really decent franchise [at least in my eyes], anyone with some broad knowledge of what caused it to slip away?

Here's the full story.



He died for our sins ;_;

Segata Sanshiro was a sort of mascot for Sega.

[Grrwaherr]

I love my Dreamcast. Best game for it was Fur Fighters haha.

[Zombina]

He died for our sins ;_;

Segata Sanshiro was a sort of mascot for Sega.

Oh my.
10-10

[lordjust]

2 very simple reasons that killed it.
1. Its discs were very easy to copy, and therefor pirate.
2. PS2 came out and played DvDs as well as music CDs and PS1 games.

These 2 points ended up being a huge part in the death of the system. For one, people could pirate games and go to flea markets and buy 20 games for $40 and that was not too rare. And with the PS2 coming out doing all sorts of things that the Dreamcast could not, people would lean towards just getting there kids that system.

It still makes me sad to this day to think that it died for such simple reasons even with all of the things it did that we did not have on other systems at the time.

Pirating wasn't that easy because the Dreamcast used normal 800mb CDs without safety zone. So you could easily make an image of the games but there where only some CD burners on the market that actually could burn the image on a CD and the CDs itself were a problem because most CDs were <800mb. So when you made an image of the game you had to extract its content and compress videos or delete them so that they fit on a CD. Another thing is that you needed to mod your Dreamcast so that it takes burned CDs and there weren't so many shops or people that did that.

The real problem was that Sega didn't have such a good third party support and that a lot of people bought the PS2 as a cheap DVD player like people bought a PS3 as a cheap Bluray player. Another problem were the CDs. Sega didn't want to use DVDs because that would have made the Dreamcast very expensive like the PS2 but they "burned" 1GB of data on a 800mb CD and if you had only one little scratch on the disk you got problems and in the worst case possible you cleaned your disk and after it you made a big scratch and the disk was broken.

[Firebert]

Sega have been very good at failing to release their products correctly (either a timing fail or a quality fail). See the Mega Drive II against the SNES, as well as every subsequent Sonic The Hedgehog game post-Genesis.

I mean, I love the company to bits (as Sonic ruled my childhood), but it's like an adorable puppy that doesn't want to be housetrained.

[Pickynerd]

TB just covered this in mailbox episode, dead nuts imo.

[Kaosbringer]

Just something that intrigued me, Sega was always a really decent franchise [at least in my eyes], anyone with some broad knowledge of what caused it to slip away?

Several reasons.

First would be the run of failed consoles (as well as add-ons like the 32X and Sega CD) that lead up to the DreamCast, that bread distrust in there consumers

Lack of Third party support

Lack of any anti-piracy software/hardware

It was released to late (its what the Sega Saturn should have been)

Failed marketing

PS2 destroyed it in terms of Specs

There are many other reason but these stand out as the big ones.

---------- Post added 2012-07-08 at 12:15 PM ----------

Sega have been very good at failing to release their products correctly (either a timing fail or a quality fail). See the Mega Drive II against the SNES, as well as every subsequent Sonic The Hedgehog game post-Genesis.

I mean, I love the company to bits (as Sonic ruled my childhood), but it's like an adorable puppy that doesn't want to be housetrained.

I pesonally liked the DreamCast Sonic games. However nearly every other one was a complete failure in my eyes. I won't even try Sonic Generations because how poorly they have handled the brand.

[Lazy Gecko]

Sega was plagued by constant infighting between the American and Japanese divisions. The 32X for example was essentially a stillborn project which neither side had any faith in. It was the result of a compromise where Japan wanted to abandon the Genesis ASAP and move on to 32-bit, while the US wanted to keep on supporting it for a while.

It was completely Sega of America's initiative in the late 80's to start competing directly with Nintendo. Sega of Japan never thought they'd stand a chance. Thanks to SoA the monopoly Nintendo had on the console industry was broken, and at their peak they had more market share than Nintendo. Not too surprisingly, Sega were steamrolled by the SNES in Japan while worldwide it was a whole different story.

You also need to keep in mind that Sega was one of the biggest players in the arcade industry during their golden years, and the extinction of arcades has no doubt hurt them as well.

[Gothicshark]

Sega Dreamcast was nearly $400 when it came out, had a very limited set of games. Everyone wanted it no one could afford it.

[Zombina]

TB just covered this in mailbox episode, dead nuts imo.

Intrigued, but this would mean watching one of his videos. I don't think I can do it

[openair]

It was ahead of it's time and we know what happens to things that are ahead of their time, in short the world was not ready.

This. It was a next generation console released half way between generations. It was released too late in the CD storage generation, and too close to the adoption of the DVD. The 'next gen' storage medium it did support, the GD-ROM, was never widely supported. The PS2 and Xbox were released 1 and 2 years later. With better storage, better graphics, better everything.

[Firebert]

I pesonally liked the DreamCast Sonic games. However nearly every other one was a complete failure in my eyes. I won't even try Sonic Generations because how poorly they have handled the brand.

I had Sonic: The Dark Brotherhood bought for me for a birthday present by my brother and I traded it in without completing it. He tried it from where I got to and apologised to me.

Sonic 4 (demo) looked alright, and then I saw Yahtzee's review and saw that they're still trying to make out that anything Sonic related post-Dreamcast (I never had one, my Mega Drive and PS1 lasted me forever, I'll take your word for Sonic Dreamcast being OK) was amazing and glorious for the company, when it wasn't.

Sonic was the best in 2D.

[Kaosbringer]

I had Sonic: The Dark Brotherhood bought for me for a birthday present by my brother and I traded it in without completing it. He tried it from where I got to and apologised to me.

Sonic 4 (demo) looked alright, and then I saw Yahtzee's review and saw that they're still trying to make out that anything Sonic related post-Dreamcast (I never had one, my Mega Drive and PS1 lasted me forever, I'll take your word for Sonic Dreamcast being OK) was amazing and glorious for the company, when it wasn't.

Sonic was the best in 2D.

The DreamCast Sonic games got a port to the GameCube (how I discovered them), they also have HD remakes available on Steam and the PS3 (they might be on XBLA too). But your right Sonic's heyday was back in the 2D days.

[Meyple]

I am surprised no one mentioned the release time lime.

Lets make Sega Genesis, oh I mean lets make 32X, I mean lets make Sega CD wait I mean lets make Sega Saturn... wait I mean lets make SEGA DREAMCAST.

The main problem with Sega is they lost a lot of the market support because they couldn't support there own product. They abandoned the idea of video game consoles half way through making them.

[Kaosbringer]

Actually now that I think about it the GC got a lot of DreamCast porst, like Skies of Arcadia (Best Pirate RPG ever IMO).

---------- Post added 2012-07-08 at 04:42 PM ----------

I am surprised no one mentioned the release time lime.

Lets make Sega Genesis, oh I mean lets make 32X, I mean lets make Sega CD wait I mean lets make Sega Saturn... wait I mean lets make SEGA DREAMCAST.

The main problem with Sega is they lost a lot of the market support because they couldn't support there own product. They abandoned the idea of video game consoles half way through making them.

My earlier comment:

First would be the run of failed consoles (as well as add-ons like the 32X and Sega CD) that lead up to the DreamCast, that bread distrust in there consumers

Sega did however have support in there product initially (ex. Sega CD had Sonic CD), But due to lack of interest and lack of third party support they quickly pulled the plug to minimize losses.

This however back fired on them because like many have said they released a next gen console mid-generation, and many consumers where still hurt by the Saturn (which was TERRIBLE!!!!) which made it hard to trust Sega again.