Xbox or Dreamcast?

[Cerebralbore101]

Azzanation said:

Cerebralbore101 said:

There was a period of time where they were not making money towards the end of the XB1 generation when they made all those acquisitions. Xbox wasn't profitable. The personal computing arm of MS was profitable. That included Windows, Xbox, and a whole bunch of other stuff. But it was Windows and the other stuff that paid the bills making it profitable. Not the sales of Xbox consoles, or software, or subscriptions. Xbox as it was in 2017 is dead weight and still loses money. It's the Blizzard/Activision/Bethesda part of Xbox that actually pays the bills.

Anyway my point stands. Sega found success on their own, even if it was only for a single generation. Xbox would have been DOA if not for MS losing billions on it.

Also, Sega had and still has a better games development department than Xbox. That's why Dreamcast wins this battle. They courted 3rd party developers to bring over tons of great arcade games to Dreamcast. They made plenty of their own smash hits. Dreamcast had more kickass exclusives when they left the market in 2001 than XB1 had after seven years on the market. More than OG Xbox had when it was replaced by 360 too.

Thats incorrect because MS didn't own Bethesda and ABK during the XB1 era. The XB1 was a more profitable system than the 360 and OG Xbox because the 360 had the Red Ring issue which cost MS $1.6b in itself to address as well as selling the 360 and OG Xbox at massive losses. Xbox One didn't make as much profit as its competitors but it wasn't bleeding money like the 360/PS3/OGXBOX/DC were.

The fact you are throwing Bethesda and ABK in to prove your point is misleading and a desperate attempt to try and prove your point. Bethesda was brought in 2021 and ABK in 2022. The XB1 launched in 2013, the start of the new generation.

Also, Sega entered the market at a very different time, before the mega corps got involved. Sega's failure was due to the lack of funding and lack of good games. I liked Sega but let's not be delusional here. Sega games have not aged well outside of the Genesis and Master System eras. We can claim they had some Gems but so did every console ever made.

Well you are assuming I'm only talking about Actiblizz and Bethesda. You realize Xbox acquired more than just Bethesda and Actibliz right? They bought a slew of smaller developers and dumped a bunch of money into Gamepass in 2018.

Do you have proof that XB1 was profitable? Can you bring up some old Microsoft PNL sheets and link to them? Because I remember Microsoft never reporting individual Xbox profits and just lumping it in with the entire Moore Personal Computing department.

Sega's failure was due to a surprise launch of the Saturn in North America which ticked off retailers. As a result of this Wal-Mart, Target, and pretty much every USA retail chain refused to sell the Saturn. Yeah 32X and Sega CD had underwhelming libraries. But Saturn was DOA in the USA due to the boneheaded surprise launch. Competition with Sony (a mega corp) wasn't what killed them. Saturn outsold the N64 in Japan and if it wasn't DOA in the states it would have outsold the N64 in the USA as well. I can't stress how much of a death sentence not being carried by most USA retail chains was for the Saturn.

At the end of the day Xbox survived by having deep pockets. Sega died because it was a regular company and not a subsidary to a massive mega-corp.