RIP Sega Dreamcast 1998-2007

[ParaParaJMo]

1. Sega was in a poor financial situation after the failure of the Saturn in most of the world.
2. Big publishers like EA felt burned by the Saturn and decided not to release games for Dreamcast. Maybe not everyone plays Madden, but Madden definitely sells systems and that hurt Sega.
3. The launch of the PS2. Yes, there was a lot of buzz for the Dreamcast, and it did have a successful launch with lots of great titles. But that buzz was killed by the announcement of the PS2. Since Sony was the clear winner of that generation, lots of fans would obviously be on board for their next generation offering.
4. DVD. Even though DC games generally looked quite a bit better than PS2, the PS2 did have a DVD player. It may seem trivial now, but seven years ago, DVD players were still expensive, so the PS2 was the cheapest way for a lot of people to jump onto the format. In those days, that definitely hurt the Dreamcast (and the GameCube).

Any talk of Dreamcast not having enough titles is silly. There were plenty of great titles that came out during its lifespan, many of which have been ported to other systems. It was definitely a system for the serious gamer, the likes of which will probably never be seen again.

1. Saturn mostly failed in America. Sega of America refused to bring all the good games that were Japanese exclusive and they priced it at $400. Saturn in Japan had a lot of hit titles like Virtua Fighter 2, Sakura Taisen, and the Capcom vs. games. Plus, SEGA had Segata Sanshiro played by the original Kamen Rider

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joNwYPdEBTc

2. I would talk about what I don't like about EA sports, but you'd have to be a fan of the Hajime no Ippo PS2 gaming series to understand my argument against them. But NFL2K was ahead of its time.

3. Yeah, Sony already confirmed DVD playback and backwards compatability with improved graphics and loadtimes with PS1 games. DC was hurting because no good games came to America on the Saturn.

4. I know a DVD system for DC was only released in Japan, same with Gameube sadly.

But DC was a great system for 2D fighters. I still call Shenmue the greatest game of all time. Dreamcast still caught a cult following but Sony already had the advantage with the success of PS1 and Sega was at somewhat of a disadvantage due to the bad mishandling of Saturn.

Saturn was also a great sytem but it was a pain to program with (it was also a pain to program the PS2 at first but things eventually got easy) and like I said, the only great Saturn games were moslty Japan exclusive which also became DC's fate to some extent.

[ZeonfromHell]

Alright, that answers just about everyting I asked. One question remains: What do you guys think: Did the Genesis truly beat the SNES? The Sega counterpart had better games (I think) but the SNES sold better towards the end of the 16-bit age. Which one was truly better?

Also, I agree that the Dreamcast kicked serious *pretentious butt.* One thing I thought was cool was the interactive controller with the ammo and junk being visible on a digital readout. I found that particularly helpful when I was playing Dino Crisis.

[ParaParaJMo]

I believe when Sega went on to the Saturn, they stopped making some games for Genesis and Nintendo still supported SNES during the middle of the console wars.

SEGA CD really had no business in the U.S. It was really meant to compete with another CD system exclusive in Japan. No idea why they made 32x. Never even bothered thinking about playing or trying it.

A lot of Saturn games had Japanese RPGs but Stolar thought they wouldn't appeal to American audiences until Square did that with FF7. I dont think Sakura Taisen would have appealed to American audiences though.

But Saturn still had great ports of X-Men vs Street Fighter, Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter, and Street Fighter Zero 3. Saturn was pretty much the perfect system for import gamers.

[Genocide]

But Saturn still had great ports of X-Men vs Street Fighter, Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter, and Street Fighter Zero 3. Saturn was pretty much the perfect system for import gamers.

The only problem with those games was that they required the RAM cartridge. The same goes for a lot of the SNK fighters, such as KOF95 and Real Bout Faatal Fury.

Along with the Dreamcast, I always felt the Saturn was an extremely underrated console. Sony may have had games like Final Fantasy VII and Tekken 3, but in all honesty I thought games like Panzer Dragoon Saga and Fighters Megamix kicked their counterparts' asses. It's also a bit ironic that the Saturn failed because of its complexity (outside of Japan, anyway) while the Dreamcast failed because of its simplicity. I think that if Sega hadn't quit the console business and had released another System, they might have actually found a good balance between their previous designs.

A lot of Saturn games had Japanese RPGs but Stolar thought they wouldn't appeal to American audiences until Square did that with FF7. I dont think Sakura Taisen would have appealed to American audiences though.

Well, they did bring over games like Albert Odyssey, Dragon Force, Shining the Holy Ark, Shining Force III (1/3) and Panzer Dragoon Saga which were all fairly successful. Of course, the latter two were released at the end of the Saturn's lifespan here, and bringing over the first episode of SFIII but not the remaining two seemed almost like a taunt.

I still call Shenmue the greatest game of all time.

I'm glad that I'm not the only person who appreciates that game on this forum. No other game has ever had the same impact on me as Shenmue, except perhaps Shenmue II. In a world where RPGs are full of flashy sci-fi/fantasy elements and a lot of adventure games are either uninspiring or unecessarily violent, the Shenmue games (ignoring the ending of SII) paid respect to realism and did it beautifully. It's a pity the human race probably won't be around long enough to see Shenmue III get released. One reason why the modern-day Sega pisses me off...

[ParaParaJMo]

The only problem with those games was that they required the RAM cartridge. The same goes for a lot of the SNK fighters, such as KOF95 and Real Bout Faatal Fury.

Along with the Dreamcast, I always felt the Saturn was an extremely underrated console. Sony may have had games like Final Fantasy VII and Tekken 3, but in all honesty I thought games like Panzer Dragoon Saga and Fighters Megamix kicked their counterparts' asses. It's also a bit ironic that the Saturn failed because of its complexity (outside of Japan, anyway) while the Dreamcast failed because of its simplicity. I think that if Sega hadn't quit the console business and had released another System, they might have actually found a good balance between their previous designs.

I dont get why the RAM cartridge is such a problem. The games came with it from what I know since I do have them. Plus, there is a cartridge that act as a converter and as a RAM card and memory card which is frickin' sweet. SFZ3 on Saturn ran smoothly more than the DC version.

Dreamcast was totally rushed in Japan because Saturn was still popular over there and the fans felt it was unnecessary. AND THEY KILLED SEGATA SANSHIRO!!!! But that's cool. He later on playe Iwao Hazuki in the Japanese version to Shenmue. GO GO RIDER KICK!!!

Well, they did bring over games like Albert Odyssey, Dragon Force, Shining the Holy Ark, Shining Force III (1/3) and Panzer Dragoon Saga which were all fairly successful. Of course, the latter two were released at the end of the Saturn's lifespan here, and bringing over the first episode of SFIII but not the remaining two seemed almost like a taunt.

But they didn't bring over Sakura Taisen! Did they do well in Japan or in America? I'm pretty sure they did well in Japan. Sakura Taisen sold millions over there. I also got the Japanese version to Panzer Dragoon Saga called Orta. Panzer Dragoon I know got some cult following in America.

I'm glad that I'm not the only person who appreciates that game on this forum. No other game has ever had the same impact on me as Shenmue, except perhaps Shenmue II. In a world where RPGs are full of flashy sci-fi/fantasy elements and a lot of adventure games are either uninspiring or unecessarily violent, the Shenmue games (ignoring the ending of SII) paid respect to realism and did it beautifully. It's a pity the human race probably won't be around long enough to see Shenmue III get released. One reason why the modern-day Sega pisses me off...

I call Shenmue in the vision of Yu Suzuki as the FREE genre and not necessarily as the RPG. Sega can still give us all the great Virtua Fighters and Initial Ds and Sonics, but they still owe us the ending to the Shenmue saga

[Chris]

For anyone who wonders why they need a Dreamcast, for me Shenmue I and II are the showcase titles. They're constantly crapped on by idiots who don't understand the games. Those games are so entirely different from most other games that they really make for a unique experience. As much as I enjoyed part I, part II blew it out of the water. Yes, it will always be the Shenmue fan's lament that we haven't gotten part III yet, but at least the series is alive with the Shenmue Online MMO. Hopefully that will keep interest going, and Sega will eventually make part III (not on 360, please).

[Yuusha Tokkyu Might Gaine]

I wanted to play Shenume for the longest time now, in fact I was almost gonna get myself an X-Box just so I can play Shenume 2

[Chris]

I wanted to play Shenume for the longest time now, in fact I was almost gonna get myself an X-Box just so I can play Shenume 2

You really should play part I first. Although part II was only released on Xbox in the US, it was released for the Dreamcast in the UK. You can find a used Dreamcast for about $20 at an EB/Gamestop, which makes it a much better investment than the Xbox (in terms of quality games).

[Genocide]

But they didn't bring over Sakura Taisen! Did they do well in Japan or in America? I'm pretty sure they did well in Japan. Sakura Taisen sold millions over there. I also got the Japanese version to Panzer Dragoon Saga called Orta. Panzer Dragoon I know got some cult following in America.

The Japanese version of Panzer Dragoon Saga was called Azel: Panzer Dragoon RPG I believe (after the female lead; you're thinking of the XBox game). I'm not sure how the games did in terms of sales, especially since most had extremely limited releases, but pretty much every review about the games I mentioned were great. Albert Odyssey was considered more mediocre however, since the game was more-or-less tagetted at casual gamers rather than RPG fanatics. Dragon Force probably sold the most given the game was actually released while the system was fairly popular, even though it was more of a tactical RPG. I guess if it came down to sales and popularity, FFVII had always put the Play Station leagues ahead of the Saturn, but that doesn't mean the latter didn't have some great RPGs as well.

I call Shenmue in the vision of Yu Suzuki as the FREE genre and not necessarily as the RPG. Sega can still give us all the great Virtua Fighters and Initial Ds and Sonics, but they still owe us the ending to the Shenmue saga

Well, from what I heard the new Sonic game was a mess. Virtua Fighter 5 thankfully looks pretty good, but aside from that I haven't been impressed by any new Sega games. Even Shenmue Online is a disappointment to me. Although it's great people still remember Shenmue, the fact that they're trading in realism for the usual and generic MMO fantasy elements is almost disgraceful to Suzuki's original masterpiece. Why Yu Suzuki himself supports this game is beyond my understanding. Of course, it is a bit unfare to judge the game before it comes out, but it just angers me that Sega would choose to attract new fans over pleasing their existing ones. And given how many MMOs currently exist out there, I haven't seen much from Shenmue Online that differentiates it from all the others.

["Kamille! Kamille!]

I wanted to play Shenume for the longest time now, in fact I was almost gonna get myself an X-Box just so I can play Shenume 2

You really should play part I first. Although part II was only released on Xbox in the US, it was released for the Dreamcast in the UK. You can find a used Dreamcast for about $20 at an EB/Gamestop, which makes it a much better investment than the Xbox (in terms of quality games).

In your opinion...

[Chris]

[quote=""Kamille! Kamille!"]In your opinion...[/quote]

Hey, congratulations for making a totally useless post. Thanks for pointing out that something is my opinion. You're telling me that getting a Dreamcast for $20 ISN'T a better investment than the Xbox, with the library of games the DC has?

["Kamille! Kamille!]

[quote=""Kamille! Kamille!"]In your opinion...

Hey, congratulations for making a totally useless post. Thanks for pointing out that something is my opinion. You're telling me that getting a Dreamcast for $20 ISN'T a better investment than the Xbox, with the library of games the DC has?[/quote]

When you make a blanket statement like "Dreamcast is better in terms of quality games," that's entirely an opinion, especially because if the dreamcast's library were really that great, don't you think it would have sold a little better? Look at where the two consoles are now and then try and make that statement as a fact again.

There are very few Dreamcast games that are considered system sellers. Xbox had a legendary catalog, exclusive titles or not. Halo, Splinter Cell, Ninja Gaiden, Knights of the Old Republic, Project Gotham Racing, Forza Motorsport, Jade Empire, Burnout, GTA, DoA, NFL 2K, Rainbow Six, etc.

Microsoft sold infinitely more games and consoles for a good reason.

Basically, the evidence speaks for itself. Even if you think that way, it's foolish to talk about the Dreamcast's "superior catalog" as if it's a fact.

[Chris]

This is not going to turn into an Xbox debate. Your argument is wrong for two reasons:

1. A system can have good games and still not sell well (i.e. Saturn, Dreamcast, GameCube). Don't try to throw in sales figures, because it's irrelevant to the discussion. Plenty of bad games sell loads of copies, and high sales don't make them good games (ie. Enter the Matrix).

2. I never stated that anything I said was a FACT. Anything that anyone says is an opinion. You're the one who's misinterpreting and making false claims.

[Blauer Nebel]

Did the DC have better games than the Xbox. I would say yes, but that's dependent on the types of games I like. I wasn't interested in anything that the Xbox offered, and there isn't anything on the 360 or PS3 that even warrants those systems a second glance. If I still had my DC, then I would probably be playing that along with my Wii and PS2, if only for Rise From the Ashes and Virtual On.

I played Shenmue and fell in love with it. You can't imagine my disappointment when I heard that the sequel was going to be ported over to the Xbox. As of now, I haven't played Shenmue II and the last time I played Shenmue was when I rented it those many years ago. By the way, I always wondered how Shenmue is pronounced. Is it "Shen-moo" or "Shen-muay". I always pronounce it in the latter form.

["Kamille! Kamille!]

This is not going to turn into an Xbox debate. Your argument is wrong for two reasons:

1. A system can have good games and still not sell well (i.e. Saturn, Dreamcast, GameCube). Don't try to throw in sales figures, because it's irrelevant to the discussion. Plenty of bad games sell loads of copies, and high sales don't make them good games (ie. Enter the Matrix).

2. I never stated that anything I said was a FACT. Anything that anyone says is an opinion. You're the one who's misinterpreting and making false claims.

One more and then I'll let this die, because I think it needs to be said:

You can find a used Dreamcast for about $20 at an EB/Gamestop, which makes it a much better investment than the Xbox (in terms of quality games).

It certainly sounded like it was a fact. In fact, I don't know how else you could have taken it, with the way you worded it. Usually people include IMO with this kind of thing, but whatever. It's not a big deal.

And while there are certain cases in which I agree with your point about sales figures not necessarily determining what's a good game or not, I still can't buy it in this situation, and to say sales figures are "irrelevant" is, IMO, completely ridiculous, like I find pretty much your entire argument. Usually "bad games" that sell well are license tie-ins, like Enter the Matrix. Sales figures are impossibly to deny completely; I think they speak, for the most part, for themselves. Xbox's library had maybe one or two best-selling games that were considered "bad" (EtM is the only one I can recall, and that was a movie tie-in). The majority of its bestselling games, such as Halo, are completely original titles. If they sell that well without any previous consumers' knowledge of them before the game was released, then that speaks pretty clearly for how good the game is. Yes, there will always be good, poorly-selling games, but not enough to determine how good the entire console's library is compared to that of another console.

Heck, you don't even have to look at the sales figures; just look at popular opinion. Reputation can't make or break a console: look at the PS3, selling (at one point) worse than the Gamecube in Japan, yet bearing the Playstation name. Basically, you can deny the sales figures and popular opinion all you like, but it's not a fluke that Xbox games sold so much better than Dreamcast's. It's because the game catalog was better. That's, in the end, as history shows, what ALWAYS makes or breaks a console. There is very little evidence outside of your personal opinion to support your claim that Dreamcast is a better investment than Xbox because of its library, so making it sound factlike is pretty ridiculous.

And what ever happened to my lineart I submitted? Will it be included in the next update?

[ParaParaJMo]

I dont think you can find DC systems that often anymore. Mostly in Japan, I guess.

XBox I think is a great system but just doesnt have games that personally appealed to me. I didn't like the Shenmue 1 voice acting that much and I already had Shenmue 2 the JPN version on DC that came with special discs on Virtua Fighter 4 so I could care less what a non-dual langual Shenmue 2 oN Xbox had to offer than Shenmue the movie in English only.

Dreamcast was just the ideal system for an arcade gamer back in the late 90s as well which was also why I bought it and I supported what the Japanese did with Saturn at the time. Hell, I bought my import Dreamcast 4 months before the American launch and got lots of great games with it.

(Darn you piraters to Hades!).

But yeah, some guy mentioned the sweet irony of how the Saturn's complexity and the DC's simplicity where its downfalls. I remember Capcom loved working with the system and gave 100% support for it which was also why I bought Dreamcast.

[Chris]

Kamille Kamille:

It's not my fault you misread what I say. I'm not going to go and preface EVERYTHING I say with IMO just so that you can clearly understand it. Personally, I think Dreamcast's library is far superior. There's almost nothing on Xbox that you can't find on PC or on some other console. But from the peak production years of the Dreamcast, 1998-2002, you had games like:

Soul Calibur 1
Dead or Alive 2
Virtua Fighter 3
Shenmue 1-2
Sakura Taisen
Sonic Adventure 1-2
Skies of Arcadia
Crazy Taxi 1-2
2K Sports series
Ikaruga
Gundam: Rise from the Ashes
Jet Grind Radio
Daytona USA
Street Fighter III/Street Fighter Alpha 3
Capcom vs SNK (various titles)
Phantasy Star Online
House of the Dead 1-2

The list goes on and on. Those are all very well-known titles, many of which have been ported to other consoles. There's also plenty of Japanese arcade/RPG/shoot 'em ups like Ikaruga that never came out here. That list easily rivals the Xbox games you listed, some of which like GTA didn't even originate on Xbox. Does that library look ridiculous? No, I don't think so. So despite having all these titles, it still failed. I could list dozens of great original GameCube titles and further prove that console had a great catalog as well, but didn't do well either. With that list, I still think it's a better investment than an Xbox.

P.S. I did receive your lineart.

["Kamille! Kamille!]

Likewise, most of those series (street fighter, 2K sports, sonic, dead or alive) have appeared on other consoles.

If you like the Dreamcast's library better, that's fine. I'm just stating that it's nowhere near a fact like I took it to mean in your first post--whether you intended it that way or not, the way you wrote it told me there was no other way to take it--because every piece of evidence available aside from your own opinion says otherwise.

I didn't take issue with your opinion; I took issue with the way you said it, that's all.

[Genocide]

A lot of great Dreamcast titles like Street Fighter III: Third Strike, Capcom vs. SNK 2, Dead or Alive 2, Sonic Adventure, Phantasy Star Online, Skies of Arcadia, Shenmue II, Headhunter etc. were actually ported to other next generation consoles because of their success. That alone should prove that the Dreamcast has a fairly solid library (along with several great exclusive titles Chris brought up). Given the price diffference, I would agree that the Dreamcast is a better investment then the XBOX at this point. That's not to say it isn't a highly opinionated decision, but it would be a smart move if you're planning to get/already own a 360.

[Toxicity]

PSO was ported to the Xbox? Damn. I gotta get my hands on that..