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Was the Dreamcast ...

Discussion in 'General Sega Discussion' started by Agobue, Nov 18, 2009.

  1. Agobue

    Agobue

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    ... Too good for it's time? It was unlike any other console out at the time, and maybe that's why it flopped?

    Just food for thought.
     
  2. Ell678

    Ell678

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    Wasn't it the first console to have online play, straight out the box?

    I never followed the story that much, so couldn't offer much else. But that alone is a pretty good feat. I loved mine, wish the damn thing still worked :(
     
  3. Mr. Mash

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    What's the problem with your DC? I might be able to point you in the direction of fixing it, if it's something like the common error where the DC seems to reset itself every few minutes.

    Personally, I think the dreamcast's downfall was that it was between generations, when I first got mine(1999), most kids in my village were holding back for the PS2 or Nintendo "dolphin" to be released.
     
  4. Jordan4K6

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    Dreamcast is a really good console but people say it breaks down easily?
     
  5. Ell678

    Ell678

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    Games just crash, and refuse to load. When I bought it, nearly every game worked, except ones that had 'Windows CE' on them, strangely enough. Eventually, the only game that worked flawlessly was SA2, and now, not even that. Last I checked, it loads, but after finishing a level it just stops. They get stuck in an endless cycle of loading, and sometimes, don't make it past the hub (as though there is no game in the drive).

    I tried calibrating the DC laser and it didn't seem to make much difference :(
     
  6. Mr. Mash

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    Me and my brother have been through about 4 or 5, each had the same resetting problem, until this one I got a few years back, we worked out how to fix it, and now it's fine.
     
  7. Meat Miracle

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    Most Sega consoles were too good out of the box, which is why most of them failed.

    The Megadrive was their best, and it was 2-3 years behind technology at the time.
     
  8. Jordan4K6

    Jordan4K6

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    Resetting problem!?!? how did you manage to fix it? My cousin's DC keeps resetting!

    Damn breakdowns T_T Dreamcast is T_T
     
  9. doc eggfan

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    Open it up
    Pull out power supply
    bend connection pins towards the front a little
    reinsert power supply
    Problem solvered.
     
  10. Chimpo

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    The Dreamcast suffered from several problems. Third party developers would not jump on board the new hardware after previous failures. Publishers like EA refused to publish games on the Dreamcast. Say what you like about Madden, but those games do sell. It's timing was also incredibly awful as it didn't really fit into the next generation. It was sort of stuck inbetween the Playstation and N64 era and the one to follow. The news about the PS2 pretty much made the DC obsolete in the eyes of many not to mention Sony's aggresive marketing campaign. How easy it was to pirate games on the console sure didn't make things any better. You throw in SEGA's crumbling financial situation and selling the DC at a loss greater than they originally planned and you got yourself a solution to failure.

    The Dreamcast didn't die just because of Sony, or just because it was "ahead of its time". It flopped due to numerous factors
     
  11. Andeh

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    On both dreamcasts I've had, The same problem arose. For some reason, the controller ports suddenly stopped working, and I never figured out the problem.
     
  12. Third party controllers can blow a protective fuse in the controller port slots that cause them to not work. IIRC there was a repair guide tailored for that issue, but I can't google it ATM.

    As for the reasons the Dreamcast "failed"? Among the other factors, Sega needed a success on the Dreamcast the level of Nintendo's Pokemon franchise in order to break even from it's previous failures.

    And Shenmue cost a TON of money. It's highly possible that one project not breaking even could've brought them down, just like what happened with Square and "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within".
     
  13. Andeh

    Andeh

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    I never had any third-party controllers for the dreamcast.
     
  14. Kurosan

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    What they both said. Simply being "too good for its time" doesn't make anything fail, it's the circumstances that have to do with it being "too good for its time" that tend to do that.

    If anything, the Dreamcast was the last truly great console before gaming started being watered down more and more.
     
  15. NiktheGreek

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    To elaborate on Chimpo's points:

    Even those third parties which turned up to the DC party didn't necessarily give the machine much thought. Namco's output after Soul Calibur and nearly all of Konami's games did very little to help the system. While it could be claimed that EA wasn't missed too much because Sega had a critically and commercially successful in-house sports range, the relative lack of high quality RPGs caused by the absence of Square/Enix/others definitely hurt in Japan (and possibly elsewhere).

    The timing wasn't the best, but it's only about as odd as the timing for the Xbox 360, which nobody describes as "between generations" - four years after the last console and about a year before any serious competition. The difference is that Sega didn't have the financial reserves to weather slow sales in the early days. The Dreamcast was not vastly less capable than the PS2, though that is proven by very few games, and unfortunately mainly those released after the system's commercial failure. Of course, you couldn't have known that at the time, given the media and marketing frenzy surrounding the PS2.

    Piracy didn't really become an issue until the DC was already doomed to failure, to be honest. The first releases happened around the middle of 2000, by which time Sega was already preparing to allow internal developers to work on other systems. There was also no net negative impact on software sales. The main problem caused by piracy was a sharp drop in the confidence of publishers, which I can only imagine caused them to cancel projects sooner.

    Sega's financial situation was one of the main causes of the system's early death. To counter a dive in profitability towards the end of the Saturn era, Sega cut a lot of staff to save money, but then had to get a hell of a lot of people in to deal with the Dreamcast. Stupid mistake. Similarly, the system was sold at a loss (industry standard) but when sales levelled off Sega was unable to offer the kind of price cut needed to stimulate demand, leaving retailers to slash their own margins. Of course, Sega's European branch squandered marketing money on football team sponsorships and banned ad campaigns too, but that's a story for another time...
     
  16. Kurosan

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    That's another good point. Since the Dreamcast was all but commercially dead by mid-2001, several interesting games never made it. Shenmue II didn't make it to North America (yet at least made it to Europe, miraculously), and Propeller Arena got cancelled. Speaking of which, you know how they say that the (insert name here) did 9/11? Well, 9/11 did Propeller Arena.
     
  17. PicklePower

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    Near the end of its life, though, third party developers were starting to hop on. I remember in issues of the Dreamcast Magazine they talked about concepts of tons of new peripherals that games would take advantage of. There was a microphone that went into the VMU slot that could be used for chat (practically unheard of at the time). Someone even had a concept for a device that would emit a scent specific to what you were playing at that time (like fresh grass in Madden).

    I think the fact that it had four controller inputs out of the box made it a great party machine, and it was advertised as one. New controllers were something like $20. And having individual VMU screens on each controller let each player privately see things like what was in their hand of cards in a game. Very useful.

    Is there anything saying that Sega can't enter into the console market again, other than their word years ago that they would not again?
     
  18. Mr. Mash

    Mr. Mash

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    Pretty much this.
    Here's a tutorial
     
  19. I've heard some rumors that some of the more "elaborate" accessories can do it too, but I've been fine with a MAS Systems arcade stick, a Virtual On Twin Stick and Official Samba Maracas.

    Here's one fo them guides, regardless.
    http://wiki-scene.com/Fix_Dead_Dreamcast_Controller_Ports
     
  20. Overlord

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    Not really, other than financial suicide, as far as I can tell. Look how money Microsoft bled on Xbox =P