SegaHeart said:
I'm reiterating a comment my first and only copy and paste from another read number 1 also $200 price tag in america made Sega in the red read the rest of the numbered comment Price - The system was supposed to be sold at $249.99. At the last minute, Bernard Stolar announced the price as $199.99. This is a considerable drop, meaning SEGA would take a bigger hit per every Dreamcast sold, pushing them further into the red. EA dropping support - EA was (and still is) one of the largest 3rd party publishers, with a wealth of popular IP's. EA would not support the Dreamcast, meaning the console lost titles like FIFA, which are immensely popular. SEGA did provide alternatives but for some, they would just go where the IP is. Lack of DVD - One of the driving factors for the PS2's immense popularity is that it was also a cost effective way of getting the then brand new DVD format. The PS2 was cheaper than pretty much all dedicated DVD players on the market, meaning it could attract consumers who were simply looking to purchase a DVD player as well. SEGA considered a DVD player for the Dreamcast but it would not be as cheap/easy to implement as Sony (who were actively involved in the formats development). SEGA instead went with the modem for the Dreamcast and created the GD-ROM format, which was inferior to DVD. GD-ROM - The GD-ROM held less storage than the DVD format used by the PS2. GD-ROM discs typically could hold 1.2GB of data vs the DVD's 4-7GB. This meant that games had to be smaller to fit on the discs. The lack of disc storage also was an issue for the Gamecube's mini disc format, which saw entire game modes cut in some of its third party titles. Piracy - The Dreamcast did not require any form of modification (at least for the majority of the models out there) in order to play burned discs. You could easily burn a game to a CD and play it on your Dreamcast. Whilst this has benefited the Dreamcast homebrew community in the long term, it is catastrophic for games developers/publishers. From their perspective, developing and selling a game on the Dreamcast was a huge risk since it likely would be pirated almost immediately, meaning lower ROI (Return on Investment). Poor relations with retailers - SEGA burned a lot of relationships they had with a number of retailers with the surprise launch of the Saturn. One high profile example is KB Toys, infuriated by SEGA's surprise launch, they refused to stock any SEGA consoles again. This would mean less available stores for the Dreamcast to be seen/available for purchase. Production issues - Early on in the Dreamcast's launch, SEGA were unable to supply enough consoles to meet the demand primarily due to lack of available parts to manufacture the console because of a supplier issue (I forget which part exactly). These early sales could have been crucial to the Dreamcast's success. Lack of buttons/analog stick on controller - The Dreamcast lacked the number of available buttons (10 + 1 analog) that the original Dualanalog/Dualshock (14 + 2 analog sticks) controller had, which became the main controller of the original Playstation and later the PS2. This would make some games difficult to port to the Dreamcast due to the lack of available buttons/analog stick. It was also somewhat bulky compared to the competition. PS2 Backwards compatibility - The PS2 would support the vast majority of original PlayStation titles, meaning for many consumers, you would not have to get rid of your old collection and could continue to play your old titles on the new console. For newcomers to the PS2, it meant they could also revisit the PS1's games library without having to buy a PS1. This was a huge advantage - the PS1 was the overwhelming winner of the 5th generation (Over 100 million sold), massively outselling the Saturn (9.26 million) and N64 (32.92 million), many consumers simply opted to wait for the PS2 instead of jumping in early with the Dreamcast. There was no viable way for the Dreamcast to support the Saturn's library. Marketing - Sony's marketing was able to successfully convince people that the PS2 was some kind of 'super gaming' machine. Some of this was true but not entirely honest. For example, Sony advertised the PS2's ability to display 75 million Polygons vs the Dreamcast's 3-6 million. On the surface this is true, but when you dig deeper, the PS2's figure is flat, untextured polygons (basically not in a real game) whilst the Dreamcast figure was representative of in-game scenarios. The actual PS2 figure is closer to 10-25 million. Technically Sony was not lying but it cleverly doesn't tell the full story to maximise impact. The Saturn's sudden discontinuation and disappearance from shelves worldwide - SEGA discontinued the Saturn worldwide in 1997, 1 whole year before the Japanese launch of the Dreamcast and 2 years before the worldwide launch in 1999. This left SEGA without a market presence for 1-2 years, which is a colossal mistake. To the general consumer purchasing video games at this time, having no SEGA presence on the store shelves (leaving only Sony and Nintendo) would lead to decreased brand awareness in the mass market. Sure, the dedicated gaming community would be aware of SEGA but don't forget, gaming wasn't as mainstream back then as it is today.
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Will point some items I disagree with
3 - PS2 didn't sell as replacement of DVDs as PS3 didn't sell as replacement of BDs... sure having the disc helped promoting, but PS2 from data posted in VGC was never really cheaper than the DVD players and PS3 was cheaper for like 2 years or less. and when looking for their attach ratio you can see that most bought because of the games, with the DVD being just at most another positive aspect to balance decision.
4 - At the time the size of the disc was a issue more for cutscenes and audio files so good devs could do with the regular size, but yes no good reason for a smaller disk that doesn't cost less or perform better.
5 - Piracy wasn't really a big issue from data posted on VGC long ago, the attach ratio of Dreamcast was very similar to other consoles, so we can't fault it for the financial hoes of Sega (I would say bad management and poor investment were more likely culprit, like making of games being to expensive for the amount sold see Shenmue for example).
9 - BC wasn't really something that pushed sales, SNES and Genesis had no BC and that didn't hold sales back, PS3 had BC for 2 gens while X360 didn't had and it didn't matter as well. BC is more like a token point for most costumers.
