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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Sega charged $22 per month to play online for the Dreamcast. Where was the outcry back then?

LudicrousSpeed on 11 March 2015
Mr Puggsly said:
LudicrousSpeed said:
Sega did charge a monthly fee for online play across their titles before MicroSony.

Are you saying there was a fee to play all Dreamcast games online? Because that isn't true.

I know this because I was a Dreamcast owner during that period and played numerous games online. The only game I know that had a subscription fee was Phantasy Star Online Version 2.

They added it late into the consoles life, after SegaNet folded. I dont think it was required to play Quake or Unreal, but pretty much all Sega games required it. PSO did not, it had a seperate fee.



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Avro1958 on 11 March 2015

Sega simply could not market anything well, combine that with how they treated customers with hardware I think it was more about the consumer base lost faith in the brand. Sega I think took Sony lightly as Nintendo did also, the difference being Nintendo marketed better and appealed to a younger crowd and Sega was more of a direct competitor. This is not a Nintendo bash at all, it's well known they focus less on mature games and IMO set them apart and allowed them to live on (I am sure the GB and Pokemon also helped lol).



Screamapillar on 11 March 2015

Social media wasn't a thing. People that whined a lot got far less attention. All the messaging was controlled by magazines.



The Screamapillar is easily identified by its constant screaming—it even screams in its sleep. The Screamapillar is the favorite food of everything, is sexually attracted to fire, and needs constant reassurance or it will die.

Farsala on 12 March 2015
SpokenTruth said:
Farsala said:
SpokenTruth said:
Farsala said:


It did. IF it made the Dreamcast a massive success like the PS2, they would have stayed. It was a gamble that didn't pay off like they wanted.

 

It might have done quite well, but it did not make their hardware situation profitable as they hoped.

Popularity /= Profit.  Even if 100% of the install base had connected their Dreamcast online, Sega was still on the way out of the hardware business because it wasn't profitable for them (and in fact would likely have cost them considerably more money).

If they had 100% online I am sure they would not have quit. And if it sold as much as PS2 did in its early years then I am sure they would not have quit. Would have been quite profitable, and they would not have had to price cut anything.

The whole "And if it sold as much as PS2 did in its early years" bit is massively different from reality though.  My point is that even if Sega had a 100% online attach rate. they were getting out of the hardware business because they were losing way more money than they were earning.  

And don't confuse SegaNet with the Dreamcast being online.  SegaNet/NetLink/Heat.net was the $22 per month Internet provider service and was available on Saturn, Dreamcast and PC in some regions or forms.  Also, Sega offered a full rebate on the console price if you subscribed for 2 years.  If they were selling DreamCasts as the same pace as Sony was selling PS2's, they would have ironically gone broke even faster.

I do not think you are getting my point, may be my last post on the subject as I think this conversation has blown over.

 

Originally said "IF it made the Dreamcast a massive success like the PS2, they would have stayed. It was a gamble that didn't pay off like they wanted." And then I added "Would have been quite profitable, and they would not have had to price cut anything". Thus they would not need to offer that full rebate.



Mr Puggsly on 12 March 2015
LudicrousSpeed said:
Mr Puggsly said:

Are you saying there was a fee to play all Dreamcast games online? Because that isn't true.

I know this because I was a Dreamcast owner during that period and played numerous games online. The only game I know that had a subscription fee was Phantasy Star Online Version 2.

They added it late into the consoles life, after SegaNet folded. I dont think it was required to play Quake or Unreal, but pretty much all Sega games required it. PSO did not, it had a seperate fee.

Well I'm reading this may have happened but it didn't seem to affect the games I was playing. PSO definitely remained free and I recall playing Outtrigger without any issue. Maybe this pay to play strategy was a horrible failure because the best games didn't require it.

For the record, the original PSO remained free to play. Its the Version 2 had a subscription fee from the start. My guess is that was a strategy. They wanted people to play the first for free and hopefully subscribe to Version 2.



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MikeRox on 12 March 2015
johnsobas said:
Can someone tell me when this fee started? I don't remember the fee and i played online for quite a long time with PSO, quake 3 and other games. It must have been after it was discontinued, because i was still playing online after that.


I don't think it ever was mandatory. I'm sure you were always allowed to pick your own ISP. I think the OP has confused it with the fact that Seganet was an option for the many people who didn't already have an ISP back in 99 as if you didn't have a PC, why would you?



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oldschoolfool on 12 March 2015

It was new thing back then,that's why. I got the dreamcast right before it was discontined. I only somewhat regretted that decision,but I did mostly get if for resident evil at the time and skies of arcadia. that's pretty much the only games I played on the system,before I got rid of it.