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

The same article has this:

gdtable2.JPG


Which, well, is a bit off, mainly because of the year the study was made and the data used. So i'm not sure how off the 16-bit one is either.


These are more accurate figures, not sure when the data was extracted, but it's surely between Japanes and the American release of the PSP, sicne there are only figures of Japanese PSP sold. Quite recent anyway.

PS2

19.47m Japan
32.86m USA
29.06m Europe

81.39 Total

XB

1.70m Japan (asia pacific- some discrepancy as sony and microsft count as japan, others count as Europe/Pal)
13.20m USA
5.00m Europe

19.90m Total

GC

3.78m Japan
10.11m USA
4.13m Europe

18.02m Total

GBA

15.48m Japan
32.82m USA
17.44m Europe

65.74 Total

DS

1.45m Japan
1.36m USA
0.03m Europe

2.84m Total

PSP

0.51m Japan

0.51m Total

PS

21.13m Japan
40.78m USA
39.82m Europe

101.73m Total

N64

5.54m Japan
27.39m Other

32.93m Total

GB

32.47m Japan
86.22m Other

118.69m Total

SNES

17.15m Japan
31.87m Other

49.02m Total

NES

19.23m Japan
42.55m Other

61.78m Total

Genesis / Mega Drive

3.58m Japan
27.17m Other

30.75m Total

Saturn

5.74m Japan
3.52m Other

9.26m Total

Game Gear

1.78m Japan
6.87m Other

8.65m Total

Dreamcast

2.30m Japan
8.30m Other

10.60m Total

Totals:

118.69 GB
101.73 PS
81.39 PS2
65.74 GBA
61.78 NES
49.02 SNES
32.93 N64
30.75 Genesis
19.90 XBox
18.02 GC
10.60 DC
9.26 Saturn
8.65 Game Gear
2.84 DS
0.51 PSP

Japan:

32.47 GB
21.13 PS
19.47 PS2
19.23 NES
17.15 SNES
15.48 GBA
5.74 Saturn
5.54 N64
3.78 GC
3.58 Genesis
2.30 DC
1.78 Game Gear
1.70 XBox
1.45 DS
0.51 PSP
Click to expand...

Now, i'm not sure what the SEGA history revisionists will come up next, but the SNES sold more units than the Genesis, end of.

And no one knows what the DC userbase would be now, how can you ask something like that? Even market analysts wouldn't have the slightest idea. Though i'm sure a bi-monthly DC Forever thread for SEGA fans to reunite and praise the living dead and tell us how DC's "immense hidden power was only scratched" was missing from the new boards.
 
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There are more up-to-date current systems numbers:

Code: 
Until 2005.06.30 (1M units)
	 	2005	 2005	 2005
Console		03.31	03-06	06.30
-------------------------------------
PS2(Tot)	87.47	 3.53	91.00
PS2(JP)		20.71	 0.54	21.25
PS2(US)		35.35	 1.43	36.78
PS2(EU)		31.41	 1.56	32.97
-------------------------------------
Xbox				21.90
-------------------------------------
NGC(Tot)	18.50	 0.26	18.76
NGC(JP)		 3.80		
NGC(US)		10.46		
NGC(Oth)	4.24		
-------------------------------------
PSP(Tot)	2.97	 2.09	 5.06
PSP(JP)		 1.44	 0.89	 2.33
PSP(US)		 1.53	 1.20	 2.73
PSP(EU)		 ----	 ----	 ----
-------------------------------------
NDS(Tot)	5.27	 1.38	 6.65
NDS(JP)		 2.12		
NDS(US)		 2.19		
NDS(Oth)	0.95		
-------------------------------------
GBA(Tot)	66.79	 0.98	67.77
GBA(JP)		15.55		
GBA(US)		33.37		
GBA(Oth)	17.87		
-------------------------------------

		 2005	 2005	  2005
Game		03.31	03-06	 06.30
---------------------------------------
PS2(Tot)	824.00	35.00	859.00
PS2(JP)		168.00	 6.00	174.00
PS2(US)		381.00	13.00	394.00
PS2(EU)		275.00	16.00	291.00
---------------------------------------
Xbox		 ?????	  ???	 ?????
---------------------------------------
NGC(Tot)	156.29	 4.31	160.60
NGC(JP)		 23.99		
NGC(US)		 97.77		
NGC(Oth)	34.54		
---------------------------------------
PSP(Tot)	 5.70	 4.90	 10.60
PSP(JP)		  2.70	 1.00	  3.70
PSP(US)		  3.00	 3.90	  6.90
PSP(EU)		  ----	 ----	 -----
---------------------------------------
NDS(Tot)	10.49	 5.32	 15.82
NDS(JP)		  3.82		
NDS(US)		  4.75		
NDS(Oth)	 1.92		
---------------------------------------
GBA(Tot)	268.36	11.67	280.03
GBA(JP)		 62.54		
GBA(US)		147.24		
GBA(Oth)	58.59		
---------------------------------------
 
http://www.actsofgord.com/Proclamations/chapter01.html

(edit: SNES sales. The last number I could find regarding SNES unit sales
was 36 million when they launched the redesigned unit. At this point the
SNES was a non-contender in the market and didn't rack up more than a few million in sales before it ceased to be. 40 million units maybe. Same
story, I've emailed Nintendo to get sales figures.)
Click to expand...

Snes only sold 36 million not 48 or 49 as people mistakenly say.
 
Crazyace said:
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.
Click to expand...

I think there were big gains still to be had from the DC (bear in mind I'm NOT claiming to have the kind of knowledge that TEXAN thinks he does), but that it would have come down to better art and better utilisation of the DCs graphics chip rather than magically increasing polygon counts.

Over the lifespan of every console this generation (and every other) there have been great benefits to visuals that come from artists learning to better work with what's available, and the development of new tools to help with asset creation. I'm sure everyone knows the Master Chief example (where 40% less polygons made a much more impressive model). Many of the DCs showcase games (like Shenmue 1 & 2) are relatively crude by todays standards.

And then there's the graphics chip. While it's been mystified by the Sega fan-boy, it did have practically unused features that could have radically changed the appearance of DC games. I've discussed this before on here, and even Simon F couldn't understand why features like the DC's bump mapping didn't appear to ever have been used, and it's hardware shadow volumes had barely been touched. I suspect it was as much down to "how things are done" at the time as sound technical reasons.

If you combine the tools that were availbale later on (creating high quality bump mapped models has become incredibly easy) with greater artist and programmer familiarity, I think DC visuals could have been moved up a notch.

Do you have any views on this?

mckmas8808 said:
My bad I was talking about in sales not games using their respective hardware. Again my apologies.
Click to expand...

Then it's my turn to apologise, as I misread your post. I agree with you.

Given the money to continue making games as they had done, and the money to perhaps step up marketing to remain visible against their three competitors, I see no reason why the DC wouldn't have gone well past the 20 million mark, and perhaps even started to make money once the hardware costs had dropped (as they were about to with the whole DC-On-a-Chip thing). DC would probably have had a long lifecycle if it had survived to see in a successor - I don't think Sega would have replaced it till they could offer a step up over Xbox, which would have been Xmas 2004 IMO. 6 years, like the Megadrive/Genesis, SNES and PSOne. SegaNet would have probably started to make money too - it's worked for Xbox Live.

This is all ultra-speculation I'm indulging in of course, just like TEXAN was doing!

I don't think for a moment they could have sold half as many DCs as Sony will sell PS2.
 
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Where would one go about getting their hands on a Western DC dev kit, complete with the WindowsCE OS stuff? I've looked on Ebay, and done a quick Google search, so frankly I'm all out of ideas.

And how much would one cost now anyway? There must be tens of thousands of them sitting around rotting.
 
function said:
Where would one go about getting their hands on a Western DC dev kit, complete with the WindowsCE OS stuff? I've looked on Ebay, and done a quick Google search, so frankly I'm all out of ideas.

And how much would one cost now anyway? There must be tens of thousands of them sitting around rotting.
Click to expand...

don't rely on getting a dc dev kit.
the normal procedure to get coding on the dc is as follows:

1) get a dc unit guaranteed to be able to boot from a burned cd (rumor is late production units can't)
2a) get the dc serial (aka 'coders') cable - build it yourself or get one from lik-sang/play-asia, that latter way is not necessarily hassle-free though - i got one cable from them that didn't work at all, and the general quality of that particular sku of theirs is not very good to start with.
2b) or check ebay for the dc broadband adapter - prepare to pay serious bucks for it
2c) or, as a final option, if you feel EE-confident enough, buid yourself a usb-to-dc adapter from one of the several ingenious designs talented guys have come up with (see one here)
3) get the freely flaoting dc gnu toolchain together with kalistiOS 1.3+ (check sourceforge)

follow those and you should be in business in no time.
 
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Darkblu's post perfectly explained what to do if you want to start coding on DC. I'll just add that only a few DC unable to play CD-R were ever produced, that should not be a problem, and you can find KOS and a few other useful tool here.

I, personaly, would recommend the Broadband adaptator solution, you'll have to shell out $60/80 for it on Ebay, though.
 
The dc would hold up just fine technically if it had the developer support and budgets of the ps2. Developers with great art assets and good technical knowledge is the prime factor when it comes to graphics not hardware.
 
london-boy said:
No, the numbers should be quite clear. DS is still in the lead.
Click to expand...

Those numbers mix shipped numbers with actual sold numbers...

For example, PSP didn't sell 2.33 million units in Japan, more like 1,523,738 in mid July.

DS is starting to get a lead of 1.5 million units in Japan over PSP, which will be hard to gap. If DS continues to outsell PSP, I am sure much more developer support will emerge.
 
Multitexturing held a lot of the DC's untapped potential. Besides the dot product shader, the system had two dedicated internal buffers for blending textures into custom combinations and of course its 32-bit framebuffer-independent blending precision.

Crazyace:
Dangerous - you start moving into the lazy8s "Dreamcast with Elan T&L" area.
Click to expand...
More NAOMI2 parts can be fit on a wafer than PS2 parts.
 
Evil_Cloud said:
Those numbers mix shipped numbers with actual sold numbers...

For example, PSP didn't sell 2.33 million units in Japan, more like 1,523,738 in mid July.

DS is starting to get a lead of 1.5 million units in Japan over PSP, which will be hard to gap. If DS continues to outsell PSP, I am sure much more developer support will emerge.
Click to expand...

And being that the opposite is true in North America I'm sure that the PSP's support will emerge over here.
 
Well you gotta look at a few things

1) Dreamcast graphics would have continued to improve as more time was invested into it

2) the system most likely would have been 100$

3) it had a solid library of great games

with that knowledge it could have seen it staying strong for at least another 2 years making most likely 20 million units worldwide mabye even 25-30 depending on price drops . At 50-75$ it would have been in psone price range at that time and would have sold like hot cakes . Esp if they took advantage or the new processes and made the system it self smaller . They could have perhaps built up enough games to make a dreamcast on a chip (using mbx ) and made a good cheap portable .

However because of piracy it wouldn't have helped sega that much
 
Lazy8s said:
Multitexturing held a lot of the DC's untapped potential. Besides the dot product shader, the system had two dedicated internal buffers for blending textures into custom combinations and of course its 32-bit framebuffer-independent blending precision.
Click to expand...

I think that multitexturing was used ( just like any other device with accum. buffers ) - but it did have a hit on performance. The 32 bit blending was nice - it saved some precious vram, which was important when you only had 8M.

Lazy8s said:
More NAOMI2 parts can be fit on a wafer than PS2 parts.
Click to expand...

So SH4+Elan+2xCLX+VRAM is less than EE+GS? Parts per wafer isn't the final say on costs - packaging and pcb costs are also involved, especially in high volume.

....

I think the CPU is the real millstone around the DC's neck - when comparing against PS2 / GC and XBox. As the CPU had to handled all transform/lighting and setup, games with complex AI, physics , or animation would have less time available for graphics. A lot of DC games showed simple non-skinned, or hard-skinned characters because the setup time was less for the same polygon budget.

This would have shown up more and more as games were compared against all three platforms
 
So SH4+Elan+2xCLX+VRAM is less than EE+GS? Parts per wafer isn't the final say on costs - packaging and pcb costs are also involved, especially in high volume
Click to expand...
I believe the clx was 15m transitors . So two would be 30m transitors . I belive an sh4 and elan would be slightly over 55m transtiors from what i remember . Which i believe is in line with the two ps2 chips . Anyway i don't think u would need 2 clxs . You cuold prob get away with just a 200mhz clx . That would be twice the power of the dc video chip

This would have shown up more and more as games were compared against all three platforms
Click to expand...
the dc would have kept pace pretty well with the ps2 in terms of graphics . I would think judging from the ps2 games it wouldn't be till the 3rd or 4th year that games would really pull to far out of the dcs reach. However by then the dc would have been 4-5 years old and be almost through its life . The cost of the dc would have also kept it muchc heaper .
 
I belive an sh4 and elan would be slightly over 55m transtiors from what i remember . Which i believe is in line with the two ps2 chips . Anyway i don't think u would need 2 clxs . You cuold prob get away with just a 200mhz clx . That would be twice the power of the dc video chip
Click to expand...

According to Simon F, Elan was around 10 million transistors...

Anyway SH-4 was only around 3 million transistors and consumed only 1.5 Watts. Imagine a portable with a single chip SH-5/SGX.:devilish:
 
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Hmmm i see . So 2 clxs at 30m transitors , elan at 10 + 3 million from the sh4 would be 13m . So that would be 43 m .

What is the count for the ee and gs ?
 
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