The key thing to understand in the losses conversation is that Sony always took big losses like Sega, but they were a big enough company to have a better chance of withstanding them in the long-run. Having better selling software helped too of course.
Sony also had a vested financial interest in DVDs taking off. They stood to make money off the DVD format directly because they were part of the consortium. They could loss lead DVD drives, because they'd make up the losses on DVD sales eventually once the format caught on. Sega had no real way to recoup their losses from including a DVD drive in the Dreamcast -- a DVD drive wouldn't have made them sell more games, and they wouldn't be making money off DVD tech in general. In fact, they'd be paying for Sony's investment in DVDs directly.
The PlayStation 2 was significantly more expensive in Europe. It was €600 in The Netherlands and Belgium, and €450 in France. I remember seeing it at €600 in a FNAC store.
As it goes, the PS2 was £299.99 in the UK at launch. Anyway, below is a press release from 13th October 2000, announcing a UK Dreamcast/DVD player bundle: Just for a moment, ignore everything you know about how things were about to go. Doesn't the Dreamcast look like a very competitive option going into Christmas 2000? You can get it with a DVD player and price parity with the PS2, or no DVD player and a £150 price advantage. Either way, you get internet access and a free game in the pack, which you don't get with the PS2. The PS2's launch line-up was generally considered to be rather underwhelming, and low quantities of the hardware were available. The Dreamcast had really hit its stride with games by late 2000, and the machine was readily available. Now this was of course just in one territory, but it's an example of the Dreamcast going head to head against the PS2 without the DVD disadvantage. And did it move the needle? Predictably, it did not. The marketing wasn't there, the trust in the brand wasn't there, and the hype was most definitely elsewhere. And as has been outlined above, it wouldn't have been viable to put a DVD drive in the Dreamcast from the start. So yeah, DVD? Not the big deal people think it would have been.
I don't agree with that for one big reason: the convenience in the PS2 was that it was one box. The PS2 played new games, old games, CDs and now DVDs. It could do it ALL. You could bundle a DVD player with the Dreamcast, but that's a different set of discs for a different set of hardware with a different set of wires; ultimately two different platforms. The PS2's all-in-one approach was both the sweetest deal you could get, and the one that set the standard for future consoles that aren't Nintendo. That's a world of difference from what Sega was up to here. And that's not even to mention Sega endorsing you buying multiple separate hardware to get a full experience was already a big stain on their reputation.. Honestly the fact that they could sell two different boxes for roughly the same price range just proves that, in only a short amount of time, DVD drives could've been cheap enough to put in a Dreamcast. They couldn't have truly predicted that they'd drop that drastically to produce, sure, but that still comes down to that question of whether it was worth the risk. And I still think it was.
Bernie Stollar and others from the American side seem to disagree. I recall them making the suggestion that it wouldn't do much to increase the cost. This was in some interview for Sonic, perhaps the 20th anniversary. Maybe someone who knows what I'm talking about can link to it. I can't do it at the moment.[/QUOTE] Hideki Sato said himself cost was the issue of why the DC didn't have a DVD drive built in, when EDGE did its Dreamcast feature in its DC supplement. That move would have added around 100 to 200 to the price and SEGA didn't want another 400 quid console on its hands. I don't think SONY was able to lower the price of the DVD player because they were part of the consortium, their own DVD plans with Philips failed and the likes of Hitachi, and Panasonic signed up to Topshiba DVD tech (so SEGA could have used one of their DVD drives) SONY could not only afford to take a bigger hit given their stock value but also because they have the manufacturing capacity to help reduce costs that whats always counted against SEGA consoles Not for one moment did I think people were buying a PS2 for it to be a DVD player mind (maybe in Japan) Most were buying it on the hype and the talk of power and emotion in games. For me, the killer moment was the MGS2 E3 2000 trailer. That for me killed the Dreacast there and then. Not helped of course the the idiots at SEGA Europe at the time and SEGA Japan making a total cock up of its early handling and launch of the DC in Japan. But really for me what killed the DC was all the big 3rd party players were putting on their big AAA games on the PS2, not the DC.
Sega was licensing out their DC games for PS2 at E3 2000 before they had even released their first online game in Europe and months before the Western PS2 launch, the writing was on the wall. It's no wonder that people held off for PS2.
SEGA licenced out games to the Famicom and PC Engine and it wasn't until 2001 that we saw the start of SEGA bringing games to the PS2 with Crazy Taxi. The issue SEGA had was all the main 3rd Parties weren't ready to put their big AAA games to lead on the DC, even Capcom wouldn't give SEGA a numbered RE game or Namco a Tekken 4. It was like only Atlus who looked to make a AAA 3rd party game developed from ground up on DC .. Also SEGA Europe handling of the Internet function of the DC was a utter cock up and a disgrace... Not allowing PAL DC users to enter their own ISP details killed online gaming in Europe on Day 1 for the DC.
Also home computers, but as soon as MD took off following the release of Sonic they stopped licensing out their games to other platforms until just months after the western DC release. So from May 2000 it was known that Sega's first party games would be coming to PS2 etc, so why switch from PS1 to DC (which is what Sega needed for DC to be succesful) when you can just wait for PS2 and play Sega's games there anyway?
Not that I was paying a huge amount of attention at the time, but I don't recall talk about PS2 Crazy Taxi until after the Dreamcast was axed. The dates suggest it might have been public knowledge before then, but it was an old game with a sequel on the way - I'm not sure there was much outrage. I'm also told it's the weakest of the ports. Brand recognition and the DVD player were the main drivers around here. "Video games" and "PlayStation" were the same thing as far as the masses were concerned back in 2000/2001.
It most certainly did not. A lot of people didn't have an ISP in the first place. There was no such news at the time. Not long before Sega axed the Dreamcast, there was talk of Sega bringing their games to portable consoles, but not PlayStation 2. It was only when the Dreamcast was axed that it was announced Sega would be becoming a full-fledged third-party developer.
The link to the news article was posted in my previous post to the one you quoted. That wasn't about Sega becoming a third party developer, but licensing their games out to other third party developers. Of course the implication was that Sega would become a third party developer themselves, even if they didn't officially announce it until early 2001 the rumours persisted until then.
"Using DVDs would've saved the Dreamcast" is about as true a statement as "piracy killed the Dreamcast". And by that I mean that both statements are pure bullshit that you can easily disprove with the most basic of research
DVD would have future-proofed the system a little better than GD-ROM. Playing DVD movies was a factor in late 2000 (to the point where Sega Europe started bundling Dreamcast with separate DVD players to counter the PS2), but became less of one as the years went on. What would have began to bite was larger games, which would need multiple GD-ROMs on Dreamcast, and just a single DVD-ROM on PS2. However, I'd argue the Dreamcast didn't really get far enough in life for that to become an issue. Most Dreamcast games don't come close to filling a GD-ROM, and many early PS2 games shipped on CD-ROM. It would take many months before virtually everything needed the disc space. But again, Sega didn't make the wrong call here - they assessed using DVD during development but didn't want to pay royalties to the DVD Forum, so came up with their own thing. You couldn't have known for sure in 1998 the format would become the mainstream way of playing movies - it was still pretty niche when the Dreamcast launched in Japan, and took until 2002 to overtake VHS. Nintendo are probably more in the wrong here for not noticing the trends when developing the GameCube. There were no trends to notice with the Dreamcast.
I wasn't on about SEGA being a 3rd party developer but licensing Crazy Taxi on the PS2 by Acclaim, not very different from how SONY allowed Wipeout on the Saturn or SEGA licensing out the likes of Golden Axe, Outun Ect to the PC Engine. I don't think it killed the DC or made people hold off. I say it was more hype of the PS2 power and the likes of Konami, Capcom, EA Ect putting all their AAA games on the PS2 did the job That E3 trailer of MGS2 was also a real killer moment for the PS2 and Dreamcast chances on so many levels IMO. You add in SOJ rubbish handling of the DC launch in Japan and the muppet show at SEGA Europe. SEGA Europe who went on about 8 billion only for the Pal user to wait months to play a game online or couldn't enter their own ISP details (which killed any chance of online being popular in Pal land) and best of all chose to promote the launch of the DC without showing a single game in action, but just a barber shop or by advertising the best looking game around at the time (Soul Calibur) on prime time TV, by showing someone sending an e-mail, you really couldn't make it up... SONY could sit back and laugh. Such a shame too because SEGA America really did well and I did think it had a chance with the launch of NFL 2k1
I don't agree myself. I think in Japan DVD player was a bigger deal not so much in the UK or the USA and I think many people use the PS2 as a DVD player because the early software wasn't that great I'm also not so sure if DVD would have future proofed the DC much plenty of PC games were still coming out on CD-Rom and it wasn't like the Cube had much more data on its disc. I think more of the issue was the DC system RAM which was low to the PS2 or XBox I'll say no MG2 or no EA were far bigger factors and it never helped SEGA GT wasn't good and what should have been a showcase for the DC tech and its online functions ended up being the disappointing SEGA Rally 2. If SEGA Rally 2 was Arcade perfect and hand the online functions one saw in Virtual On 2 in Japan (head to head online game, online ranking and uploading and downloading replay data). I think the game would have been massive in Europe myself
