If the DC was still going today what would it's worldwide install base have been?

T

TEXAN

Regular
At the end of the Dreamcast's run the machine was at 10M units worldwide.

If the system hadn't been cancelled then throughout 2002, 2003, and 2004 it would have been retailing for the sub $100 marker. There probably would have been a hardware revision aswell on either 0.15, 0.13 or even 90nm process.

I believe it's current worldwide installed base at the back end of 2005 would have stood as follows -

Asia - 5-6m (Japan, Korea, China)
Europe - 6-8m
North America - 14-16m

In other words, 25-30 million units worldwide userbase at the end of it's glorious 7 year run. About the same as the legendary MegaDrive/Genesis, the victor of the 16-bit era.

SEGA SAMMY would have been readying the successor for a Q4 2005 release, with the system being based on their Lindbergh arcade board.
 
Oh no

DC had moved somewhat more than 10 million units all said and done IIRC. What was it? 13, 14 million?

Consoles don't sell just because they're there. We could all pull number out of rears regarding sales, but the point is they didn't have the money to keep going, and just how much imaginary money you assume they had to spend would influence (to an unjustifiable degree) the meaningless, made up figure you came up with.

How many Jaguars would have been sold if it hadn't failed? 3DOs? CDis?
 
I think, if the DC was still around to this day, MS's xbox would not have had that big of an installment base on their first console release. Other than that, self-booting games weren't helping Sega make any money either.
 
I think maybe 15million ( or 20 at tops ) - The DC sold a lot of units in the US at bargain basement prices.. I reckon if Sega could have kept it on the market they wouldn't have dropped the price as much.

However... it didn't sell enough units to be profitable, which was why it was abandoned - and a lot of publishers were already moving on to other platforms
 
Not much higher, there's only so many competitors the market can take. Ps2 would've been king, xbox with MS supah cash would've been second, GCN with its rabid fans would've been third. NO way would the DC have taken the place of anyone of these, at best it could've eaten 1 or 2 M off the cube, IMHO.
 
Crazyace:
However... it didn't sell enough units to be profitable,
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It wasn't even at the halfway point of the cycle. With several of SEGA's royalty-free first party games -- NFL 2K series, NBA 2K series, Sonic Adventure, Crazy Taxi -- near million seller status and their sports line exhibiting growing software sales for the platform in its last year, the signs for a healthy and eventually profitable business were there.
which was why it was abandoned
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The entire consumer hardware business at SEGA was discontinued because CSK wouldn't keep floating the loans far after the Saturn. The Dreamcast project almost didn't start in the first place because of strong executive opposition, and it was only approved under unrealisitc expectations of time for a return on investment.
- and a lot of publishers were already moving on to other platforms
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Multiplatform development had only just started to ramp up and was including DC -- games like Soul Reaver 2, State of Emergency, even Ninja Gaiden -- from most publishers, and they only backed away when SEGA started indicating a 'software future' near the very end.
 
It was already better in image quality: more effective mipmapping, higher quality image buffers, internal precision for color blending and floating point z buffering, more conducive for proscan support.
 
mckmas8808 said:
DC couldn't have gotten close to the PS2. Not even close.
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As a person who has thorough knowledge of the innards of both machines, I'd have to strongly disagree.

DC's hood had barely been scratched.
 
Supposing Dreamcast would still be supported, Sega would still have been backed up by CSK. So yes, Sega would have moved a lot more units (no financial 'threat'), but I am not sure if they'd break-even on that.
 
Uh oh (again)

It's just like 2000 again! DC vs PS2! TEXAN vs mckmas8808!

"DC couldn't have gotten close to the PS2. Not even close"

"DC's hood had barely been scratched."

These things have been debated to death many times, with the strongest opinions seeming to be held by the people that seem to know the least. Seriously guys, just walk away. It's not like either of you are really looking to exapnd your knowledge or explore another way of looking at things.
 
TEXAN said:
As a person who has thorough knowledge of the innards of both machines, I'd have to strongly disagree.

DC's hood had barely been scratched.
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Lets do the time warp again....... LOL

IMHO if the Dreamcast had 32megs of memory instead of 16 it could have held up well against the ps2 technically.
 
TEXAN said:
In other words, 25-30 million units worldwide userbase at the end of it's glorious 7 year run. About the same as the legendary MegaDrive/Genesis, the victor of the 16-bit era.
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The Super NES was the victor of the 16 bit era.

.Sis
 
Pozer said:
Lets do the time warp again....... LOL

IMHO if the Dreamcast had 32megs of memory instead of 16 it could have held up well against the ps2 technically.
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Dangerous - you start moving into the lazy8s "Dreamcast with Elan T&L" area.

This thread isn't too bad - it's a slightly different take to all of the "DC matches PS2 technically" stuff.

Though TEXAN , I think "as a person who has thorough knowledge of the innards of both machines", I'd have to strongly disagree that the DC's hood had barely been scratched.
Lots of games utilised the DC H/W pretty well.
 
function said:
It's just like 2000 again! DC vs PS2! TEXAN vs mckmas8808!

"DC couldn't have gotten close to the PS2. Not even close"

"DC's hood had barely been scratched."

These things have been debated to death many times, with the strongest opinions seeming to be held by the people that seem to know the least. Seriously guys, just walk away. It's not like either of you are really looking to exapnd your knowledge or explore another way of looking at things.
Click to expand...

My bad I was talking about in sales not games using their respective hardware. Again my apologies.
 
Enough with the SNES/Genesis and DC/PS2 wars crap. There are many different articles on the net, all saying different things.



Today, many debate which system actually "won"[size=+1]*[/size] the 16-bit wars. During the final two years, the SNES had sold more systems than the Genesis (barely), but there have been far more Genesis systems purchased since 1989. Some say that because the SNES came from behind (competing with a system that had been firmly established for two years) it deserves the honor. Others say that because the Genesis (with its older technology) was able to supply heated competition to the younger SNES it should be the winner. However, if all of these arguments are considered together, it becomes evident that neither system "beat" the other, and that this era benefited greatly from the multi-system market.
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http://www.geekcomix.com/vgh/fifth/snes.shtml

Based on numbers, Nintendo sold twice as many SNES units as the Genesis and even though Sega was able to cut into Nintendo's market share (peaking at 65%), it was Nintendo that had regained over 60% from its original 95% market share of the NES days when Sega began not supporting the Genesis in its later cycle life days with quality games like the SNES enjoyed.
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http://www.zerogifts.com/what%20is%20the%20best%20video%20game%20system%20-%20article.htm
 
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gdtable1.JPG


http://www.alexassoc.com/games/GDmemo.shtml

Both Europe AND America went to Genny/MD.

Snes won in Japan only.
 
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