Had DC been a success who would have failed? PS2/XB/GC?

[function]

The Dreamcast was in big trouble long before it was hacked. You could even say the DC was in real trouble back in 1996, when management squabbling was making the process of selecting technology and gaining third party support slower and more difficult than it should have been.

Certainly though, you have to admire the way Sega used cheap and effective proprietory media for the console (its high capacity GD roms), only to give every DC the ability to not only rip said games, but also boot and play copies from none proprietory CDRs. It seemed to take them ages to change the design to prevent this.

Anyway, on topic, Sega's Xbox exclusive games have sold so poorly outside of "the bundle", it's hard to see how a lack of Sega support would have killed it. Halo would still have been the killer app that it was, and the technology gap between it and the Xbox would have been the greatest this generation. DC's dial up friendly alternative to Xbox Live might have had some impact, but again not too much given the relatively small proportion of Xbox users that subscribe to Live.

A successful DC would have impacted most on Nintendo IMO, as the DC would have been a cheap console to compete with GC, while removing some GC titles (such as the very successful Super Monkeyballs and Sonic Adventure 2) and obliterating the GC's entire online presence (PSO 2 and 3). F-Zero seemed to be a pretty big event for Cube too actually, going by fan excitement.

PS2 would have been hugely successful whatever. Even if it had taken a few million PS2 sales (which you could debate untill the cows come home), it wouldn't have made much of a dent on the userbase.

 

[function]

I can hardly see the point of this thread, I think we should concentrate on this reality/dimension for crying out loud!. The fact is that Dreamcast is dead and rightly so. Let the dead rest.

What's the point of most threads? People enjoy discussing things. "If" is a popular word, whether applied to events in the future or the past. Reflect. Reminisce. Draw parallels with the present. Whatever takes your fancy.

If you really can't see the point of a thread, why make it a post longer? You aren't going to convince many people who were about to express their opinion that they don't actually want to.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

What's the point of most threads? People enjoy discussing things. "If" is a popular word, whether applied to events in the future or the past. Reflect. Reminisce. Draw parallels with the present. Whatever takes your fancy.

That if is too big. And commenting that goes so much beoynd speculation that it is completely pointless. One must give reasons why things would have been different for example Square jumping to Sega's camp or something.

Besides I'm sick and tired of this Sega worshipping and the inability to see that Sega is the one to blame.

 

[jvd]

Besides I'm sick and tired of this Sega worshipping and the inability to see that Sega is the one to blame.

Please there is worshiping of every format here by everyone . I don't see you calling out people who allways post about ms or allways post about sony .

Sega managed to sell 10 million dreamcasts in a year and a half world wide . That is half the number of cubes and xboxs that those companys could sell in 4 years .

If sega kept it around we may have all been playing console games through a sega isp . We could have been talking about sega in second place .

But you are right , sega got scared when ms announced it was entering the market and bailed out . IF they had stuck it through we may have seen a diffrent market place. Perhaps it would have been ps2 or xbox that lost this generation .

Or mabye becasue of sega detracting from the ps2 launch ms could have gotten a better foot hold and you would have seen mabye a 50% share to sony , 30% share to ms and the rest split between sega and nintendo.

WHo knows . But why not ask the question

 

[function]

What's the point of most threads? People enjoy discussing things. "If" is a popular word, whether applied to events in the future or the past. Reflect. Reminisce. Draw parallels with the present. Whatever takes your fancy.

That if is too big. And commenting that goes so much beoynd speculation that it is completely pointless. One must give reasons why things would have been different for example Square jumping to Sega's camp or something.

Well, fortunately you don't get to choose what people are allowed to think about. The thread starter was interested in how a successful DC would have impacted on competitors, not what would have made the DC successful, and no, he doesn't need to explain this to your satisfaction before he can ask his question.

Besides I'm sick and tired of this Sega worshipping and the inability to see that Sega is the one to blame.

Unfortunately too sick and tired to actually read the thread you're passing judgement on, as this would allow you to see that not only is this clearly not the case ([edit] there's a lot of Sega criticism here [/edit]), but also utterly irrelevant with respect to the question the thread starter asked.

In short, you not only don't understand the thread and the people your criticising, but you're actively making it longer and longer with *truly* pointless material.

I guess there's a lock coming up soon ...

EDIT: and my apologies Dr Evil for sounding like an ass

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Ok maybe I was bit too harsh, but I still think that Dreamcast was destined to fail, even if Dreamcast would have survived the beating it took from PS2, the next round would have been too much anyway. Inferior Dreamcast against PS2, Gamecube and Xbox would have surely been the end of it. If Sega would have managed to grab Square during the Saturn age things could have been different, but they didn't. Sega was well beyond the point of no return when Dreamcast launched and there was little if anything they could have done, well that's my opinion anyway.

 

[function]

It appears that Sega never even tried to grab Square at the time they were disgruntled with Nintendo. For a company that had a few years earlier valued 3rd party support so much, not courting a key developer like this seems strange.

 

[London Geezer]

Perhaps it would have been ps2 or xbox that lost this generation

Errr... Yeah sure. :|

PS2 wouldn't have failed even if it were handled by bloody 3Dfx.

 

[cthellis42]

PS2 wouldn't have failed even if it were handled by bloody 3Dfx.

I dunno, man... 3Dfx was VERY bloody.

 

[archie4oz]

It appears that Sega never even tried to grab Square at the time they were disgruntled with Nintendo.

Well Sony really didn't either... The initiative was more Square's...

 

[V3]

If Sega Dreamcast lives, it would be in third place with Nintendo Gamecube in fourth place. At that price point Dreamcast is directly competing with Nintendo, for the cheapest consoles on the market.

 

[see colon]

interesting point, V3. at this point sega would likely be making a profit on hardware, and selling in the $79 range (or maybe less). i wonder if nintendo would have matched the price of the dc, and i wonder if having 2 systems that cheap would have driven down the cost of the xbox and ps2.

 

[Sonic]

SEGA got out of the hardware business on its own whim. There is no need for further explanation. It had little to do with piracy and if it was then you'd see developers putting crosses on their Xbox development kits.

At the time SEGA was in a very tight spot financially. Management internal to the company was divided on the issue of how to go about with the Dreamcast. There was development on a successor to the Dreamcast ongoing but the decision was made that the company could use its great software making abilities to make millions. SEGA lost its identity in the world of videogames and still needs to find itself. Hopefully a new generation can help SEGA become what they once were in terms of software quality.

If the DC was a success then the Xbox itself might not even have been released. There would be no stopping the Gamecube and Nintendo if SEGA was still in the market since the two were great rivals at one time.

 

[Legend]

I don't believe anyone will be lost in place of DC. if it didn't perform a Kara-hiri then there would have been four systems out there.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

I don't believe anyone will be lost in place of DC. if it didn't perform a Kara-hiri then there would have been four systems out there.

It's called hara-kiri.

 

[jarrod]

Anyway, on topic, Sega's Xbox exclusive games have sold so poorly outside of "the bundle", it's hard to see how a lack of Sega support would have killed it. Halo would still have been the killer app that it was, and the technology gap between it and the Xbox would have been the greatest this generation. DC's dial up friendly alternative to Xbox Live might have had some impact, but again not too much given the relatively small proportion of Xbox users that subscribe to Live.

A successful DC would have impacted most on Nintendo IMO, as the DC would have been a cheap console to compete with GC, while removing some GC titles (such as the very successful Super Monkeyballs and Sonic Adventure 2) and obliterating the GC's entire online presence (PSO 2 and 3). F-Zero seemed to be a pretty big event for Cube too actually, going by fan excitement.

I have to disagree to an extent... you're looking almost exclusively at Sega's performance on the other machines to gauge impact but the truth is there'd be far deeper results on the corperate side.

Sega's stunning GC performance is more likely from a receptive already installed base than Sega attracting it's audience to the platform. Sonic and Monkey Ball inherently appeal to Nintendo's base, that's why they've done well. The truth is Sega's fractured market strategy in the 3rd party shift also fractured their fanbase, resulting in none of the machines really eating up the Dreamcast audience entirely. Sega would've done better to concentrate on one machine (PS2 probably) and port games from there when it made sense.

Sega never developing for GameCube also would've resulted in Nintendo following through with it's sports line initially, meaning the platform might've built a respectable sports marketplace and we'd be seeing annual sports under a unified brand from Nintendo (Retro Football, Leftfield Basketball, NCL Soccer/Baseball, etc). The F-Zero deal might've been nice PR but it was a nonevent at retail. A GameCube F-Zero would've been made with or without Sega anyway... given that the Triforce project actually started at Namco (under the codename System 33) I'm guessing Nintendo would've just handed it to the Ridge Racer team or Genki. No Sega suppport also would've likely forced Nintendo to push other Japanese publishers harder for exclusive content.

On the other end of the spectrum, Project Midway was only greenlighted when it became apparent to Microsoft that their lone console partnership (the Windows CE backed Dreamcast) was stalling in the marketplace and the only other manufacturers (SCEI & Nintendo) wouldn't ever do business with them. Xbox is primairily about protecting Microsoft's stranglehold on OS and cornering content distribution, extending their empire to the living room. If Dreamcast had been a success there'd most likely be no Xbox.

 

[Legend]

I don't believe anyone will be lost in place of DC. if it didn't perform a Kara-hiri then there would have been four systems out there.

It's called hara-kiri.

guess I've been doing it backwards all along

 

[see colon]

On the other end of the spectrum, Project Midway was only greenlighted when it became apparent to Microsoft that their lone console partnership (the Windows CE backed Dreamcast) was stalling in the marketplace and the only other manufacturers (SCEI & Nintendo) wouldn't ever do business with them.

i agree completely. looking back it would have been very nice for microsoft to have included the dc soc for dc backwards compatability. they couls have gobbled up a decent amount of the dc fanbase and had a pretty killer launch library.

 

[TEXAN]

What would have happened if Sega chose DVD instead of GD-Rom.

Where would Dreamcast be?

Where would PS2 be?

 

[cthellis42]

It's hard to think of a situation where they would have been doing well, because you really have to adjust Sega's financial straits and business structure a lot so that they could keep up with ANY of their competitors--not just Sony.

At any rate, if the Dreamcast had continued to sell very well after the PS2 came out we'd have a more rounded marketplace, but I certainly don't see the PS2 or Nintendo as the ones getting truly hurt because of it. No one was going to say "well, the Dreamcast is selling well and gamers like it, but let's ignore the follow up to the best- and fastest-selling console ever", and Nintendo starts by carrying a rather large fanbase around in its pocket waiting for their games.

What I think we would have seen was more strengthening of Sega's IP, and more shared games between it an the PS2, as well as probably more focus on online gaming faster with them both. Dreamcast had it built in and was delivering it, and if they'd remained a solid seller alongside the PS2, Sony would have felt actual pressure to get the ball rolling on that. (Maybe Nintendo would have too? Probably not. They've been very resistant to that trend with the Cube.) The PS2 may even have gotten the ball rolling on the HDD earlier, too, to one-up what the others couldn't do--who knows?

What it definitely would have done, however, is make the barrier of entry for Microsoft much harder. The market was hard enough to split between three options, but four...? If the Dreamcast were selling well, it would have shown them not as marginal the way the Saturn was alongside the PS1 and N64, but as steadily-increading and a strong contender who would stick around for years to come. So while Microsoft would have still entered the field, they would have entered it with three firmly-entrenched players doing well, and I think their appeal would have been much dampened by the general console market, as their features would be less impressive, and they would be facing the threat of a new Sega system just around the corner that would one-up its technical strengths AND bring its entrenched fanbase with it.

That's not to say the Xbox would have failed or that Microsoft would have abandoned it immediately, but I don't think it would have sold as well, and its appeal would have turned more to being the "cheap and easy option for PC gaming." Likely they would have just changed direction to try to grab a share of the marketplace that was untapped and bided their time to see if one of the others weakened and a wedge could be driven in, but if the Dreamcast were selling well--even half as well as the PS2--I don't see the market reaching out to embrace the Xbox among the already-established and strong, "accepted" players. As it stands, the Xbox found the market used to three players, and a void created that they could slip into easily that would only enhance their appeal otherwise. But without that void, and with the thread of a quick technical marginalization hanging over their head...

So my main predictions would be: fewer PS2 sales, faster online adoption (but probably no one looking into an Live-like structure for a while), more sedentation of the public's mindset into THOSE three players (rather than the usual flux) which would help S/S/N's momentum into the future, and a lower-selling Xbox that would be looking for a more unique place in the market to sit, rather than competing directly alongside the others.