That certainly wasn't the plan back in , when Sega launched a new system that did its best to learn from previous mistakes. So we fully fleshed out our libraries to make development easier. Even today, the Dreamcast gets a lot of praise for its dev environment. The Dreamcast was more than dev-friendly, though — it was also casual-friendly, going completely away from the hardcore gamer-oriented trend they established with the bit Genesis and bit Saturn.
As a result, we went with a compact, simple design with a warm color scheme, something completely different in look from older Sega systems. I think it was the console that we took the most complete marketing approach with.
So why did the system fail? Sony [whose PlayStation 2 came out March in Japan] was part of the team that developed the DVD standard, and they could develop a system around that completely internally with their own chips. Sega, meanwhile, was buying everything from outside companies, so it was at a distinct cost disadvantage. We couldn't easily cut costs on manufacturing, the software wasn't selling the numbers it used to, and then we were forced to discount the system.
As mentioned before, Sega was already suffering serious financial trouble, and was now engaging in a battle they had no hope of winning. By the end of , Sega projected they would have to sell about million Dreamcast units to keep the console alive for another year: this proved to be an impossible undertaking.
Another factor that affected the Dreamcast was piracy. This made it trivial to pirate Dreamcast games even more so when self-booting ISOs were created , requiring nothing more complicated than a decent internet connection and a CD burner. Due to selling the Dreamcast at a loss, Sega had to rely on software sales to make a profit, and large-scale piracy severely impacted the system's profitability.
The last batches of Japanese Dreamcasts belatedly removed MIL-CD support in an attempt to remedy the piracy issue, but by that point it was already far too late. Because of the problems mentioned above, Dreamcast sales were not enough to make a profit and Sega continued to bleed money. Sega initially had plans for a Dreamcast successor but many executives had already been wanting to leave the console market for many years.
With the Dreamcast failing as well, they easily convinced the rest of the company that they could make more money and solve their financial problems by dropping from the console business and focusing exclusively on making games. Support for the system continued in Europe until The announcement of Sega retiring from the console market was met with many different reactions. Gamers without Sega consoles were eager to be able to play Sega games on their own systems, some Sega fans were understanding and glad Sega would continue to make games, the more hardcore Nintendo fans saw the announcement as Sega admitting defeat over the console war while the hardcore Sega fans were heartbroken and shocked, in particular, having to see Sonic the Hedgehog games on Nintendo consoles.
During then Sega didn't publish certain games on their own. Although the death of the Dreamcast and Sega Hardware, in general, was considered a tragic event in gaming history, it allowed Sega to stay alive.
There are still small companies that continue to develop homebrew games even to this day. Years after its death, the Dreamcast became a cult classic console with most gamers -Sega fans or not- agreeing that it's an amazing system. Many gamers consider the Xbox to be the indirect successor of the Dreamcast, as many games intended for the Dreamcast were released on Xbox, the controllers shared some similarities, and Microsoft helped Sega develop the Dreamcast.
In fact, Sega negotiated with Microsoft to make the Xbox backward compatible with Dreamcast games, but that didn't happen. Ever since the Dreamcast's death, many Sega fans hoped that Sega would potentially return to the console market with a Dreamcast successor, but it's been almost 20 years since Sega stopped making consoles and there's no sign that they're even interested in coming back.
That, however, doesn't stop obsessive fans from constantly making requests and spreading rumors hoping to convince Sega to return. Neither of those efforts came to fruition, whether because of budgetary constraints or resistance to change.
The service supported online voice chat, which would soon be a staple of multiplayer console gaming. Phantasy Star Online , released in December , was the first online RPG for consoles, introducing a genre previously reserved for PC players to an enormous new audience. The Dreamcast also pioneered the concept of downloadable content on consoles. Although later systems would make much more extensive use of DLC than the Dreamcast did , the system still introduced console gamers and developers to the idea that games could get bigger and better after they came out.
Whether Sega would be there to take them is a whole different story. But Sony had more money and the power of the PlayStation brand. Those were humbling times.
None of those possibilities panned out. Even so, the Dreamcast crammed a wealth of great games into its fleeting lifespan, which contributed to its current cult-classic status. Sega to end production of Dreamcast console. Topics Business. Reuse this content.
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