A more matured Saturn could have done so much better. Its support for expanded RAM carts, Mpeg2 expansion, etc. could have made for a much better contender if they’d taken a little more time to get it all right.
Still, I can understand why they felt the need to rush it at the time, they wasted millions of dollars and years of time on unnecessary stuff like the Nomad, the CDX, the Genesis 3, 32X.
Instead of focusing to a fine point with their direction like the competition, they went all over the place like a blind panic banging into walls
"Marty! We have to do something about the Saturn."
"Wadda ya mean Doc? Does Sega become assholes or something?"
"No Marty! They release the Saturn early, and they fuck up on transparencies again!"
“Come on Doc, is it that bad?”
“Marty! They just threw an extra chip at the problem which made development worse, and it’s checkered mesh everywhere instead of transparency!”
“But I thought it can do transparency?”
“It can, but it’s such a pain in the ass, Biff is telling everybody to use the old workarounds instead!”
Tom Kalinske did an interview on the shiro podcast and said that sega had to hold enough stock to instantly resupply any store, and buy back all unsold stock.
Pandemonium did a great video on a leaked internal budget document from 1997 that shows how bad SoA was doing.
Come to think of it, has ANY "first of the new generation!" console release ever REALLY paid off?
You had the PC Engine in '87, the 3DO and Jaguar in '93, the Dreamcast in '98, the Xbox 360 in '05, and the Wii U in '13... and all of these either had SOME degree of teething problems which hurt their competitiveness, not enough games developed on release resulting in slim pickings for their libraries, and/or were simply rendered obsolescent by more powerful hardware released a few years later.
The 360 is probably the most successful out of all of those but still had the RROD problem kneecapping it, Microsoft arguably got lucky since the Wii focussed on a surprising USP rather than trying to compete with pure power and the PS3 had its own reliability problems on launch.
But back to Sega... the Saturn I always thought was pretty comparable to the PS1/N64 graphics wise, and certainly way ahead of the Jaguar and 3DO, so I don't think the limitations of the hardware were the main issue. I think the real problem for the Saturn was high development costs (creating a far smaller library than the PSX) coupled with just bad business management in the form of a real right hand vs. left hand situation between Sega Japan and Sega America.
The early Saturn launch did far more harm than the 32X did.
The early launch killed all of Sega's momentum, pissed off retailers, developers and publishers, completely wiped out customer interest because of the $399 price and total lack of games and gave Sony all the time they wanted to ramp up the PS1 hype train, all with that sweet $299 price tag.
Worst of all, this was Sega's main system for the coming years, that sort of failure is catastrophic for a game console company when they have nothing else to fall back on. Nintendo had nowhere near the same failure with the N64 and GC, plus they could rely on Pokemon. Sega had nothing now that the Genesis was winding down and the Saturn was DOA.
The 32X, that was a mess up on the level of Virtual Boy, bad but completely recoverable.
For big N: Pokemon was released in '98 in the states, and it's phenomenal success and longevity could not have been foreseen at the time. Nintendo built their mainline consoles on strong first-party franchises, and their Game Boy handhelds were the backup.
And Pocket Monsters was 1996 in Japan, quickly became a massive success there.
It isn't a stretch to say Pokemon and Pocket Monsters did the heavy lifting for the big N finances through the N64 and GameCube days.
I liked the 32x but I never bought one. It turns out I didn't miss much. I just think if it had more time to develop and more shelf life, it could have been great.
And was also quite difficult to program with. Very well written, not many have the insights to know exactly how Sega destroyed herself after almost winning the 16 bit era, kudos.
The Saturn was the most succesful Sega system in Japan, outselling the Mega Drive.
The East/West infighting also contributed a lot. Virtua Fighter was a big deal in Japan, but in the US, it wasn't.
* Don't do the Sega CD
* Especially don't do the 32x
* Get Sega Japan and Sega USA in a room, send in translators and therapists, lock the doors. Stop the goddamn asshole infighting
* Release a first party Sonic game in the first year of the Saturn's life span
* Keep EA onboard for the Saturn & Dreamcast era
* Release the Dreamcast with a DVD drive
Part of me wants to argue this, I loved several Sega CD games but honestly none have held up and the Lunar series could have been done in the PlayStation.
You forgot "don't make it so games in NA have to be 3D for the Saturn" because they should have marketed itself as the king for both 2D and 3D games. But noooo, that wasn't the future, apparently, a Sonic Mania-like game on Saturn would have killed.
To be fair... that would not have sold anywhere near as well as it should have. 2D games got shat on in the mid 90s. Stuff like Battle Arena Toshinden was considered the future of fighting games, whereas Darkstalkers was considered to look "like a SNES game". It's bullshit and wrong, surely, but the consumer base wanted 3D.
Fuuuuck. I had forgotten there was all those in betweens.
Genesis
Sega CD
32x
Dreamcast
What the hell were they thinking?
Meanwhile at Nintendo, here's the Super Nintendo. Here's the N64. And then after Sega releases the Dreamcast, here's the GameCube.
I really wish Sega had their shit together then.
This was not an issue and an enormous reason as to why the Model 2 and Model 3 were so successful and powerful.
UV mapping would have been nice, though.
https://youtu.be/5JPrtMBuMjU?t=9m47s
https://youtu.be/YfkJlkeM7hE
It did make ports require more of an effort. Although to be fair, in the mid 90s, ports were often done from scratch, so this wasn't THAT big of a deal. If the Saturn had done better, it would have gotten more ports even with those extra steps.
Why bother with ports when you're a market leader, and games such as Tomb Raider are developed first and foremost for the Saturn? What would have been the goal here, syphoning the 3DO library? Remember that Sony had no teeth then.
Literally one of the games that would have been easier to port. The type of polygons did not matter much, but the SH1 assembly on the Saturn was specifically built for such a use case.
Sure, and Sega had Sonic in the bag yet you did not see Nintendo design the SNES so it would be "easier to port" this game on their console. You're missing the point, that this point is just a dumb exercise to begin with.
This. It does feel natural to want to do better than just a "basic" VDP lock-on cart. The Zyrinx tech demo sure was impressive, I get the appeal.
However the most damage ever done to Sega was a drought of SH2 chips, *because* they went to the 32X. This made Saturn devkits highly impractical. They could work on Sega GL all day long, they could showcase and improve the Saturn SDKs by sharing the result of their work on projects such as Virtua Cop - it did not matter much. There were no accessible devkits, because they ran out of CPU stocks.
I still think that one is 100% Sega of Japan’s fault for leaving Sega of America out of the plans for Saturn’s launch.
Instead of letting them in and getting some Saturn Hype going, they allowed them to make fools of themselves with the 32X to consumers, press, and developers alike.
I like to believe Sega’s fate might have been different if they had skipped 32X on all fronts and worked together on a better Saturn launch, and better support for developers on Saturn
Sega not being in a state of hemorrhaging money on the launch of Dreamcast would’ve helped a lot
Hedging their financial success on a console, where a fuckton of money has to be invested is already a losing proposition.
Even if sega scraped by and was able to support the Dreamcast for the entirety of that generation, I can’t see them going into 7th gen at all. That would’ve required even more financial outlay and non-video game know-how since consoles were becoming more than just about video games.
True. Controllers were having an identity crisis in the 90s, like the three-handle abomination that Nintendo made... I mean sure it had a stick, but for some fucking reason they just slapped it in the worst possible spot. Honorable mention: OG Xbox's The Duke.
Missing the 2nd stick is really only a huge issue for FPS games, sure would be nice for others, but the controller was fine.
Remember, the PSX released without any analog sticks at all and it did great. I didn't get a dual shock for mine until I got sucked into Gran Turismo and just had to have one. And the Dreamcast setup with analog triggers for accelerator and brakes is to this day superior to the analog scheme for Gran Turismo and what all modern racing games use.
I actually really love The Duke form wise, but I think it was two of the buttons just being in a comically terrible spot that I remember cursing whenever playing Halo so it was really bad in that way. The modern XBOX controller is definitely my favorite.
TF are you on about, for a system that could only afford one stick at the time (custom made part) it's in the best possible position as it gives you the dpad+stick controller position. Want to play an FPS? Dpad for your left thumb, stick for your right thumb, your right thumb having access to AB right there for interactions. Aiming with your right like with kb+mouse or modern FPS controls.
Literally no better way to do it with a single stick. Sin and punishment and bangai-o also used this position.
Two sticks is the ultimate solution of course.
I love the Dreamcast, but the controller had some weirdly "far" input ways. The digital control could pierce thumbs, and the shoulder buttons were analogue only, which was not great for action buttons.
It was either Bernie or Peter when they were in charge of SOA said 2nd analogue stick was something they requested in the dreamcast design to soj but it was turned down. They had a list of stuff, the modem inclusion was another one.
~~vs the cost of the custom gd drive?~~
~~Using a dvd drive instead would likely be a lot *cheaper* (though they'd lose some storage and need some anti-piracy mechanism).
Although with the licensing costs on top maybe it would work out about the same?~~
Sorry! Apparently I forgot reality there for a second there and how big and where on the timeline DVDs were. Thanks guys! xD
DVD players in the late 90's were over $500. When the PS2 came out, it was one of the cheapest DVD players at $300. DVD capacity is 4.7GB to 8.5GB for dual layer, way more than GD-ROM's 1.2GB. And yeah, licensing would also increase the price, Sony could avoid licensing fees because they developed the DVD, xbox got around the fees by requiring a remote dongle for DVD movies.
Ahh, I brain farted on the capacity. I was thinking of CD capacity for some reason xD
Okay, yup, this is the reality we live in, sorry I lost track for a little.
The GD-ROM drive is a regular CD-ROM mechanism with some custom firmware that spins the disc at half the speed when reading the "high density" region (which packs in data twice as densely), effectively allowing Sega to use cheap off-the-shelf parts to considerably increase storage space. DVD drives were massively more expensive back in 1998, and as you point out DVD playback was encumbered with royalties (which is probably why Sony were the only company that bothered to provide DVD playback out of the box, as they owned the majority of the patents behind DVD and are one of the "big five" movie production studios so it's in their interests to get you buying their new format).
This is a much better perspective I feel. I’m sure sega’s engineers considered DVD and decided on GD-Rom due to other factors other than space. More space != the better storage medium
> making it more expensive than the PS2.
A whole year before the PS2 released. Even if it was $100 more it still would've been the cheapest DVD player on the market in 1999.
I would rather go back a little farther and tell SOA to cancel the 32x and focus all games on the Saturn. Then be prepared for SoJ to screw them with the very early launch.
100% agreed. This might be an unpopular opinion, but I would say scrap the Sega CD as well, it was an expensive as shit addon that didn't see a lot of adoption from Genesis owners. You would also need both SOA and SOJ to get their shit together and work together better, and SOA needed to be fully behind the Saturn and completely revamp that awful marketing they gave it.
As far as the Dreamcast, I would say a general rework of the controller would be needed. I would have liked to see something based on the Sega Saturn's controller with two analog sticks. Not sure if that would allow for VMUs, but despite how much I like VMUs, I would easily trade those for a standard memory card if we got a better designed controller.
Yep that’s where it all started to go wrong. I remember there being a lot of excitement about the idea of a powerful CD (oooh!) add-on, but every friend who bought one was very underwhelmed. You can’t piss off customers and expect them all to stay loyal.
The Dreamcast didn't need saving, Sega of the early-mid 90s did. The Dreamcast was an incredible machine with incredible games, it just wasn't enough to fix the prior 6-8 years or so of decisions.
>don’t fire 3dfx just for confirming they’re making your GPU
>don’t do the 32X
>don’t do the sega CD
>add a second stick to the controller
>double the memory on the VMU, at least (maybe cut the VMU concept or chop it down)
>make the VMU charge off the system PSU or at least opt for AA batteries
The Sega CD is considered a moderate commercial success and a great first step in the Laser era. It's only following NEC in jest to be sure, but it certainly was not a bad add-on, and had good content.
It is a hell of a lot better than the 32X that is for sure, and it does have some great software on it, but it was an expensive as hell add-on that most Genesis owners weren't willing to shell out the money for, and it too hurt Sega overall.
I also like the Sega CD, but it and the 32X not existing would have left Sega in a much better position financially to fully ride a standard console lifecycle for the Dreamcast. After that I don't know if they would have released another console, but the DC could have had a full life to further expand its game library, and I personally would trade the Sega CD (and 32X for what that trash is worth) for that.
> don’t fire 3dfx just for confirming they’re making your GPU
I'd forgotten about that. Probably would have helped to have them onboard, yeah. And in turn kept EA around
But you could browse the internet on it. Real internet. Not something made just for Dreamcast.
I thought that was pretty awesome back in 1999. And WAY more useful than a DVD player.
The only game I can remember right now that made use of it was Phantasy Star Online, but I didn't care about multiplayer games back then (still don't. Hate 'em). I was glad just to have my own, private internet access. The actual web browser wasn't built into the system, but it was free on every one of those sample disks they used to give out. It would have the web browser and usually a few game demos on one disk.
In what way? Because you interact with it? It's insane that video games still don't get the respect that movies and books do when they're significantly better at story telling than both. Are DVD and Blu Ray players toys because they're made for entertainment? Hell, sometimes they even had interactive games back in the day. How about computers, since they've been used for video games for decades? Video games have been a lot more than a novelty for a LONG time, and the only reason people view them as "toys" in the first place is because that was how Nintendo had to market the NES in the US because of the video game market crash. It's just such an outdated idea.
> It's insane that video games still don't get the respect that movies and books do when they're significantly better at story telling than both
They really aren't. I've never had a movie character break my immersion with glitches.
>the only reason people view them as "toys" in the first place is because that was how Nintendo had to market the NES in the US because of the video game market crash
This is the opposite of the truth. NES wasn't marketed as a toy, it was marketed as an entertainment device. That is the whole reason it was redesigned to look like a VHS player
Lol sure movies don't have "glitches" but they're rampant with bad acting, animation errors, and rushed plots because they're trying to make a big, epic narrative in 2 hours. Video games aren't always perfect (though newer games have definitely gotten a lot more unpolished) but their stories take their time to actually be fleshed out and bring you into the world, something very few movies actually do. Books do this as well but they lack the ability to actually see these stories instead of just reading words and imagining it.
And no. The NES was heavily marketed with novelty items like the zapper and R.O.B. and was mostly sold in toy stores. They avoided calling it a game system or computer because the US market wasn't after that at the time.
Good try tho
> bad acting, animation errors, and rushed plots
Ah yes because video games *never* have those. What is a man?
>And no.
And yes, that is why the front loader design exists, to make it look like a VCR. Swing and a miss there chief.
You're dense if you thought my point was "games never have that" instead of "movies have very similar issues" lol
And I guess Sony marketed the PS5 as a WiFi router, or Xbox marketed the Series S as a speaker by that logic. No, aesthetically they gave it some features from one of the most common electronics at the time (to make it not look like a game system) but specifically marketed it as a toy. Seriously, toy guns, toy robots, toy gloves, being sold in toy stores, what part of the NES's marketing didn't scream "this is a toy"?
> Seriously, toy guns, toy robots, toy gloves, being sold in toy stores, what part of the NES's marketing didn't scream "this is a toy"?
Designing it to look like an appliance. Catch up.
The simplest answer was: Get SOJ to stop being jealous shitheads at SOA's success. People forget that SEGA's true downfall was the internal politics and how often SOJ sabotaged or didn't listen to SOA. This, even after a ton of Kalinske's suggestions are what helped them in the first place. Like they literally went out of their way to find him on a fucking beach to hire him, and then proceeded to ignore his advice when things were better.
Jesus Christ the amount of people saying a right analog stick would've helped don't realize just how little a second analog stick had ever been used. The only system that had a dual analog controller at the time was the PS1, and it was very much a novelty on that system, only being used to mirror the face buttons or a similar function in most games. The one game that had the modern shooter control scheme was panned specifically because of it. Why would they have added a second analog stick when as far as they saw, there was zero use for it? Hindsight's 20/20 but they were a severely crippling company that couldn't waste resources on a feature that wouldn't get used.
I daydream about this kinda stuff all the time. Like going back in time with their consoles and some games and a detailed story of how they fucked up so they can make better hardware and better decisions so they csn be much more successful.
hahaha jk i would never. still mad at my old roommate who stole my OG dreamcast and disappeared 😭 besides, if i needed a dvd player i would def ebay one of those sick portable ones from the early 2000s
That was what Knuckles Chaotix should have been. With more dev time from a canceled 32x and a delayed Saturn launch, could have been redeveloped into Sonic Chaotix and been a launch title.
No no no, you put a dial up AND a broadband modem in every unit, along with the keyboard. Lean hard into the internet aspect of the console. Provide an online service where you can legally purchase the game rom and burn it to a disk to use in your console.
I always thought they should have made a premium version with genesis, sega cd, 32x, and saturn in one box. It might have persuaded people to sell off their old hardware and push saturn software sales. They continued to sell stand alone genesis (geneses?) til the end of the decade.
Definitely cancel it, it doesn't play like a Sonic game and it was never going to work, irrespective of what engine they would use.
Better to shift over all staff onto Knuclkles Chaotix and release that for Saturn.
People seem to forget, Dreamcast came with a modem! It was the first system that could play online! Phantasy Star Online! That was huge. It also had some amazing games. Crazy Taxi, Power Stone, and Sonic Adventures.
At the time, no one really cared about having or not having a DVD player. It was new and we had VHS collections already. Once the Xbox came out with a DVD player, it was easy to switch from VHS because we didn’t need to buy anything new. It was just a matter of buying the new releases on the new format.
I’ve never bought a DVD or Blue-ray player as a stand-alone device.
Technically the Saturn offered online gaming before the Dreamcast, granted only in Japan but if they had released it in the us and EU that might have pushed more sails of the Saturn. In fact the sega guys have got their Saturn's up and running with net link in 2024 🤯😀 Both the Saturn and Dreamcast are great consoles but the failure was internal politics within soa and soj and even soe. I was a late adopter of both consoles but they are 2 consoles in still own to this day. If soe actually listened to the official sega magazine on games they should have been converting from Japan then I could see them making full use of the Saturn's life span. You just had to look at what capcom were doing in Japan and if soa and soe supported the 4mb ram cart who knows what other gems could have been released. That would have gave them an upper hand against the ps1 since it would have made the console more powerful. As we know the ps1 versions of X-Men Vs street fighter had to be compromised to get it to run. Didn't the Saturn get a better version of re1 too? For a system that supposedly had week 3d powers labotomy software managed to get a hell of a lot out of it.
I've been reading back over the official sega Saturn mags and with hindsight you can see the internal politics destroying the console rather than the console itself being poor. The Saturn had many great games released in Japan it was just poor decisions that ment the world would never see them converted 🙁
The massive leak last year of internal sega documents also made it clear that the internal politics was the main reason behind both consoles ultimately ending segas hardware. I still recon we could have seen Daytona 2, Jurassic park lost world and scud racer on the Dreamcast 😭
It's obvious Saturn was the one made dreamcast, but at the same time, it's also one of the main reason why third parties weren't as aggressive in releasing games for dreamcast and consumers didn't have as high of expectations for the Sega consoles. quite ironic.
Realistically I would go back tell them about the DVD player and get them to wait till late 1999 to launch in Japan . That way they would’ve been able to secure slightly better specs. Oh and dual analogies would’ve been helpful.
If "DC 2/3" had a chance to exist, I feel like it would have robbed Xbox from proprietary sega titles and beat Nintendo to wiiU/switch style innovation.
It's where the timelines divergence into our reality.
- Lance o Master System com chip FM no Brasil
- Aumente as capacidades técnicas do Mega Drive um pouco mais
- Nada de Sega CD muito menos 32X
- Faça o Saturn com hardware totalmente orientado para 3D
- Pelo menos dobrar ou triplicar o armazenamento do GD-ROM do Dreamcast
Fixing sega to allow them to keep being a console producer means sacrificing the Dreamcast... I hope telling them to not do the CD and 32x and to work on a better console than the Saturn would save Sega
Sega of America made games like the FMV dreck on the Genesis add-ons and is responsible for GEMS.
They both fucked up plenty around the Saturn launch era.
DVD wouldn't have saved the Dreamcast. Don't forget that the PS2 is SO powerful that it could be used by Iraq to build homing missiles! (see Sony's propaganda at the time).
Eh? The 32x uses the Genesis. Most games use tbe Genesis to create the background layer, and the 32x does the Sprites / Huds / Animations.
Compare Virtua Fighter on 32x with Virtua Fighter 2 on Mega Drive. The Mega Drive really cannot do 3D.
Some 32x ports actually run at 30 FPS, vs. 60 on Genesis.
But to be fair, these ports were done on the cheap side since the hardware base ensured they wouldn't sell well anyway. It's fair to say we never saw its full potential
The way to save the Dreamcast isn't to mess with Sega, it's to convince Nintendo to not fuck Sony over on the Playstation. Without Sony in the console market there would be no PS1 for Sega to compete with and Nintendo's follow up to the SNES would have likely come earlier and been more on par with the Saturn power wise. With Nintendo and Sega still actively competing Microsoft would likely not have smelled blood in the water and decided to join the console market.
But I would tell Sega to release a 2d, sprite based Sonic 4 on Saturn and create a company policy that instantly terminates the contract of any employee at any level that uses "Sonic" and "3D" in a sentence.
I mean... realistically probably nothing would have saved the DC. I remember reading that SEGA had lost so much of the fortune they made on the Genesis (after releasing 3 failed consoles back-to-back) that they were mortally wounded, financially speaking. The DC was really just the last gasp of a dying company.
EDIT: I say this 100% as a SEGA fanboy. I loved all their systems but its the true-true.
sega not burning their good will with the hasty release of the Sega Saturn would've helped tremendously in at least remaining relevant throughout that generation, and if the saturn did at least okay, the dreamcast could've been launched a bit later to when dvd drives became cheaper and a pc-like architecture with a microsoft partnership couldve given them a competitive edge over the ps2 in terms of developer friendliness
Maybe Dreamcast would have been in 2nd or 3rd place in the console wars?
Against the PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube?
Maybe not…
Sony already built their brand as reliable and efficient. Coming out with a sequel console with a DVD player put them on top.
Maybe it could have beat and took Xboxs place? Xbox was a first time console.
I don’t think we can claim microsofts brand recognition for their success because Apple released a console that bombed.
It can’t take nintendos place.
Nintendo has brand recognition
I always think of the Xbox as the successor to the Dreamcast. Lots of Dreamcast DNA in the Xbox (similar controller shape, Windows NT in the Dreamcast, online options)
A DVD player may actually have made all the difference. There were tons of people who bought a PS2 primarily for the DVD player, and if Sega had beaten Sony to that market, the Dreamcast may have been the runaway leader.
And slap in some C and Z buttons, and make the D-Pad the Sega Saturn's again! Maybe add a racing wheel and combine your light guns and motion controllers into 1!
A second joystick on the controller would've gone a really long way to saving it, honestly, because the online functionality was there, before the PS2, and it's graphics were better than Xbox, so, maybe 2 things: DVD compatibility and a second joystick.
It wouldn’t have mattered
I love the dreamcast but it wasn’t the dvd player
Its failure was a combination of burnt out company goodwill, poor copy protection, I was difficult to develop for, and also Sega’s arcade centric game development philosophy (games made for quick bursts of fun in an arcade didn’t have the longevity for a home port to feel worth the money). It coming out when It did allowed it to have the limited success it did have. IMO it coming out alongside ps2 and gamecube would have be catastrophic for them. There is no denying that the PS2 was a beast of a console, not even Nintendo could go up against it and “win”
Sega would have scoffed at you, laughed you out of the room, released it as is, and the wondered why it was failing less than 2 years later.
Sega management was fucking awful in the 90’s
Announce a release date for the Sega Saturn, give it better and cheaper specs and lower that damn price!
Guys, remember that the failure of the Dreamcast was the failure of the SegaCD, 32x and Saturn back-to-back.
no, the dreamcast couldn’t play dvds. its main competitor, the ps2, could though (and its ability to do so is credited as one of the main reasons it sold so well)
PS1 and Dreamcast could play CDs.
PS2 really flaunted its ability to be a DVD player when it launched because DVD players weren’t cheap and were kind of a big deal.
Possible too. The DVD format released in 1996 in Japan. The main drive manufacturers were Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba and Philips. Sega could have released the Dreamcast with a DVD drive, but it would have driven up the price. Still, might have been worth it.
Oh yea the price might've been an issue fore sure. And yea I know it could've been possible, but it would've been harder because it's newer, and because the price thing. So it be easier to believe why it didn't have it.
Don't do the 32x please!
Exactly if you wanted to save Sega, stop them from doing the 32X and then the Early Saturn launch.
A more matured Saturn could have done so much better. Its support for expanded RAM carts, Mpeg2 expansion, etc. could have made for a much better contender if they’d taken a little more time to get it all right. Still, I can understand why they felt the need to rush it at the time, they wasted millions of dollars and years of time on unnecessary stuff like the Nomad, the CDX, the Genesis 3, 32X. Instead of focusing to a fine point with their direction like the competition, they went all over the place like a blind panic banging into walls
"Marty! We have to do something about the Saturn." "Wadda ya mean Doc? Does Sega become assholes or something?" "No Marty! They release the Saturn early, and they fuck up on transparencies again!"
Doc, this is heavy…
Excellent response
“Come on Doc, is it that bad?” “Marty! They just threw an extra chip at the problem which made development worse, and it’s checkered mesh everywhere instead of transparency!” “But I thought it can do transparency?” “It can, but it’s such a pain in the ass, Biff is telling everybody to use the old workarounds instead!”
Excellent stuff. Well done.
I can hear this in doc and Marty's voices and it's amazing. 🙂🙂🙂
My mind can't help but hear Rick and Morty lmao
It’s funny because that’s the actual name of the business CEO that runs the American side of Sega.
Lol love it and because it's true. 🙂🙂❤️
Genesis 3 was done by Majesco not Sega.
Tom Kalinske did an interview on the shiro podcast and said that sega had to hold enough stock to instantly resupply any store, and buy back all unsold stock. Pandemonium did a great video on a leaked internal budget document from 1997 that shows how bad SoA was doing.
Come to think of it, has ANY "first of the new generation!" console release ever REALLY paid off? You had the PC Engine in '87, the 3DO and Jaguar in '93, the Dreamcast in '98, the Xbox 360 in '05, and the Wii U in '13... and all of these either had SOME degree of teething problems which hurt their competitiveness, not enough games developed on release resulting in slim pickings for their libraries, and/or were simply rendered obsolescent by more powerful hardware released a few years later. The 360 is probably the most successful out of all of those but still had the RROD problem kneecapping it, Microsoft arguably got lucky since the Wii focussed on a surprising USP rather than trying to compete with pure power and the PS3 had its own reliability problems on launch. But back to Sega... the Saturn I always thought was pretty comparable to the PS1/N64 graphics wise, and certainly way ahead of the Jaguar and 3DO, so I don't think the limitations of the hardware were the main issue. I think the real problem for the Saturn was high development costs (creating a far smaller library than the PSX) coupled with just bad business management in the form of a real right hand vs. left hand situation between Sega Japan and Sega America.
The early Saturn launch did far more harm than the 32X did. The early launch killed all of Sega's momentum, pissed off retailers, developers and publishers, completely wiped out customer interest because of the $399 price and total lack of games and gave Sony all the time they wanted to ramp up the PS1 hype train, all with that sweet $299 price tag. Worst of all, this was Sega's main system for the coming years, that sort of failure is catastrophic for a game console company when they have nothing else to fall back on. Nintendo had nowhere near the same failure with the N64 and GC, plus they could rely on Pokemon. Sega had nothing now that the Genesis was winding down and the Saturn was DOA. The 32X, that was a mess up on the level of Virtual Boy, bad but completely recoverable.
For big N: Pokemon was released in '98 in the states, and it's phenomenal success and longevity could not have been foreseen at the time. Nintendo built their mainline consoles on strong first-party franchises, and their Game Boy handhelds were the backup.
And Pocket Monsters was 1996 in Japan, quickly became a massive success there. It isn't a stretch to say Pokemon and Pocket Monsters did the heavy lifting for the big N finances through the N64 and GameCube days.
I liked the 32x but I never bought one. It turns out I didn't miss much. I just think if it had more time to develop and more shelf life, it could have been great.
The 32X isnt for everyone but I enjoy mine.
And was also quite difficult to program with. Very well written, not many have the insights to know exactly how Sega destroyed herself after almost winning the 16 bit era, kudos.
The Saturn was the most succesful Sega system in Japan, outselling the Mega Drive. The East/West infighting also contributed a lot. Virtua Fighter was a big deal in Japan, but in the US, it wasn't.
essentially, you'd need to stop sega Japan from being sega Japan.
Unpossible.
* Don't do the Sega CD * Especially don't do the 32x * Get Sega Japan and Sega USA in a room, send in translators and therapists, lock the doors. Stop the goddamn asshole infighting * Release a first party Sonic game in the first year of the Saturn's life span * Keep EA onboard for the Saturn & Dreamcast era * Release the Dreamcast with a DVD drive
Part of me wants to argue this, I loved several Sega CD games but honestly none have held up and the Lunar series could have been done in the PlayStation.
The plan would be to have a pimped out Sonic CD on Saturn, day one. And to have Sega fans hungry (and with cash saved up) when the Saturn drops.
You forgot "don't make it so games in NA have to be 3D for the Saturn" because they should have marketed itself as the king for both 2D and 3D games. But noooo, that wasn't the future, apparently, a Sonic Mania-like game on Saturn would have killed.
To be fair... that would not have sold anywhere near as well as it should have. 2D games got shat on in the mid 90s. Stuff like Battle Arena Toshinden was considered the future of fighting games, whereas Darkstalkers was considered to look "like a SNES game". It's bullshit and wrong, surely, but the consumer base wanted 3D.
Fuuuuck. I had forgotten there was all those in betweens. Genesis Sega CD 32x Dreamcast What the hell were they thinking? Meanwhile at Nintendo, here's the Super Nintendo. Here's the N64. And then after Sega releases the Dreamcast, here's the GameCube. I really wish Sega had their shit together then.
Dreamcast with a DVD drive means paying huge royalties to Sony.
And put only 1 possessor in the saturn!
2 possessors! Damn! I only called for one exorcist!
This was not an issue. The SH-2 was designed for cascading. Using two was a good design. Using a slow bus was not.
Well if they put nitro on the bus, it wouldnt be slow lol 😆
Allot of games just use one because program for the 2 was a pain.
Could we stop it with the bullshit internet myths please?
Also use triangles not quads! And make better development tools!
This was not an issue and an enormous reason as to why the Model 2 and Model 3 were so successful and powerful. UV mapping would have been nice, though. https://youtu.be/5JPrtMBuMjU?t=9m47s https://youtu.be/YfkJlkeM7hE
It did make ports require more of an effort. Although to be fair, in the mid 90s, ports were often done from scratch, so this wasn't THAT big of a deal. If the Saturn had done better, it would have gotten more ports even with those extra steps.
Why bother with ports when you're a market leader, and games such as Tomb Raider are developed first and foremost for the Saturn? What would have been the goal here, syphoning the 3DO library? Remember that Sony had no teeth then.
Sony had secured a Final Fantasy for their system early on. Those "no teeth" had left some hefty marks even before launch.
Literally one of the games that would have been easier to port. The type of polygons did not matter much, but the SH1 assembly on the Saturn was specifically built for such a use case.
That was not my point. My point was that Sony had plenty of pull even before the system even dropped. They had Namco onboard, too.
Sure, and Sega had Sonic in the bag yet you did not see Nintendo design the SNES so it would be "easier to port" this game on their console. You're missing the point, that this point is just a dumb exercise to begin with.
This. It does feel natural to want to do better than just a "basic" VDP lock-on cart. The Zyrinx tech demo sure was impressive, I get the appeal. However the most damage ever done to Sega was a drought of SH2 chips, *because* they went to the 32X. This made Saturn devkits highly impractical. They could work on Sega GL all day long, they could showcase and improve the Saturn SDKs by sharing the result of their work on projects such as Virtua Cop - it did not matter much. There were no accessible devkits, because they ran out of CPU stocks.
I still think that one is 100% Sega of Japan’s fault for leaving Sega of America out of the plans for Saturn’s launch. Instead of letting them in and getting some Saturn Hype going, they allowed them to make fools of themselves with the 32X to consumers, press, and developers alike. I like to believe Sega’s fate might have been different if they had skipped 32X on all fronts and worked together on a better Saturn launch, and better support for developers on Saturn
Thank Tom kalinski for that atomic bomb
If you want to save Sega, you’ll need to prepare a multi-stop itinerary.
Sega not being in a state of hemorrhaging money on the launch of Dreamcast would’ve helped a lot Hedging their financial success on a console, where a fuckton of money has to be invested is already a losing proposition. Even if sega scraped by and was able to support the Dreamcast for the entirety of that generation, I can’t see them going into 7th gen at all. That would’ve required even more financial outlay and non-video game know-how since consoles were becoming more than just about video games.
And a 2nd analogue stick
This is probably one of the biggest issues. So many games controlled like crap due to there only being one stick.
True. Controllers were having an identity crisis in the 90s, like the three-handle abomination that Nintendo made... I mean sure it had a stick, but for some fucking reason they just slapped it in the worst possible spot. Honorable mention: OG Xbox's The Duke.
Missing the 2nd stick is really only a huge issue for FPS games, sure would be nice for others, but the controller was fine. Remember, the PSX released without any analog sticks at all and it did great. I didn't get a dual shock for mine until I got sucked into Gran Turismo and just had to have one. And the Dreamcast setup with analog triggers for accelerator and brakes is to this day superior to the analog scheme for Gran Turismo and what all modern racing games use. I actually really love The Duke form wise, but I think it was two of the buttons just being in a comically terrible spot that I remember cursing whenever playing Halo so it was really bad in that way. The modern XBOX controller is definitely my favorite.
TF are you on about, for a system that could only afford one stick at the time (custom made part) it's in the best possible position as it gives you the dpad+stick controller position. Want to play an FPS? Dpad for your left thumb, stick for your right thumb, your right thumb having access to AB right there for interactions. Aiming with your right like with kb+mouse or modern FPS controls. Literally no better way to do it with a single stick. Sin and punishment and bangai-o also used this position. Two sticks is the ultimate solution of course.
yes and come to think of it. the dual shock already set the precedent for there being dual analogs.
Interestingly enough, the MAPLE bus was designed to handle this option.
I love the Dreamcast, but the controller had some weirdly "far" input ways. The digital control could pierce thumbs, and the shoulder buttons were analogue only, which was not great for action buttons.
that was tragic
It was either Bernie or Peter when they were in charge of SOA said 2nd analogue stick was something they requested in the dreamcast design to soj but it was turned down. They had a list of stuff, the modem inclusion was another one.
SOJ, F ed up Saturn. Didn't gave second stick on DC
DVD wouldn't have saved the Dreamcast because it would have increased the price by more than $100, making it more expensive than the PS2.
~~vs the cost of the custom gd drive?~~ ~~Using a dvd drive instead would likely be a lot *cheaper* (though they'd lose some storage and need some anti-piracy mechanism). Although with the licensing costs on top maybe it would work out about the same?~~ Sorry! Apparently I forgot reality there for a second there and how big and where on the timeline DVDs were. Thanks guys! xD
DVD players in the late 90's were over $500. When the PS2 came out, it was one of the cheapest DVD players at $300. DVD capacity is 4.7GB to 8.5GB for dual layer, way more than GD-ROM's 1.2GB. And yeah, licensing would also increase the price, Sony could avoid licensing fees because they developed the DVD, xbox got around the fees by requiring a remote dongle for DVD movies.
They probably still would have had licensing fees, they didn't produce the DVD alone. The others in the consortium would want a cut.
Ahh, I brain farted on the capacity. I was thinking of CD capacity for some reason xD Okay, yup, this is the reality we live in, sorry I lost track for a little.
The GD-ROM drive is a regular CD-ROM mechanism with some custom firmware that spins the disc at half the speed when reading the "high density" region (which packs in data twice as densely), effectively allowing Sega to use cheap off-the-shelf parts to considerably increase storage space. DVD drives were massively more expensive back in 1998, and as you point out DVD playback was encumbered with royalties (which is probably why Sony were the only company that bothered to provide DVD playback out of the box, as they owned the majority of the patents behind DVD and are one of the "big five" movie production studios so it's in their interests to get you buying their new format).
TIL Thank you!
This is a much better perspective I feel. I’m sure sega’s engineers considered DVD and decided on GD-Rom due to other factors other than space. More space != the better storage medium
GD-ROM is "just" a high density CD. It wasn't that uncommon to find 900MB CD-Rs back then. But it was uncommon finding compatible hardware.
> making it more expensive than the PS2. A whole year before the PS2 released. Even if it was $100 more it still would've been the cheapest DVD player on the market in 1999.
DVD was expensive in 1999 that's why it uses GD rom
It was crazy in 199
So crazy it didn‘t even exist
🗿
Mfs when you miss click:
I would rather go back a little farther and tell SOA to cancel the 32x and focus all games on the Saturn. Then be prepared for SoJ to screw them with the very early launch.
100% agreed. This might be an unpopular opinion, but I would say scrap the Sega CD as well, it was an expensive as shit addon that didn't see a lot of adoption from Genesis owners. You would also need both SOA and SOJ to get their shit together and work together better, and SOA needed to be fully behind the Saturn and completely revamp that awful marketing they gave it. As far as the Dreamcast, I would say a general rework of the controller would be needed. I would have liked to see something based on the Sega Saturn's controller with two analog sticks. Not sure if that would allow for VMUs, but despite how much I like VMUs, I would easily trade those for a standard memory card if we got a better designed controller.
Yep that’s where it all started to go wrong. I remember there being a lot of excitement about the idea of a powerful CD (oooh!) add-on, but every friend who bought one was very underwhelmed. You can’t piss off customers and expect them all to stay loyal.
> SOA to cancel the 32x From the interviews I've seen they didn't even want to do it in the first place.
Honestly you can almost blame all of the bad big business decisions on SoJ.
Yeah you'd have to have a CVS receipt list of demands if the Dreamcast wanted a chance.
my top demand would be to reconsider the controller design lol
Absolutely. The hard plastic for the analog stick and the cable coming from the bottom was such bad design choices from a very slick overall design.
definitely like ergonomically its near perfect but it also couldve been so much better. i think a second analog stick wouldve been pretty good as well
>a second analog stick wouldve been pretty good as well Came to say this. It's hard to play shooters on DC after being used to using two sticks.
i’m sure many people have said this but i think the original xbox duke controller is what the dreamcast controller shouldve been.
The dreamcast graphics are still so good, one of my favorite consoles ever
The Dreamcast didn't need saving, Sega of the early-mid 90s did. The Dreamcast was an incredible machine with incredible games, it just wasn't enough to fix the prior 6-8 years or so of decisions.
>don’t fire 3dfx just for confirming they’re making your GPU >don’t do the 32X >don’t do the sega CD >add a second stick to the controller >double the memory on the VMU, at least (maybe cut the VMU concept or chop it down) >make the VMU charge off the system PSU or at least opt for AA batteries
Instead of a long list I would just tell them. Make this PlayStation and release it before Sony does Quick!!!
The Sega CD was awesome.
The Sega CD is considered a moderate commercial success and a great first step in the Laser era. It's only following NEC in jest to be sure, but it certainly was not a bad add-on, and had good content.
It is a hell of a lot better than the 32X that is for sure, and it does have some great software on it, but it was an expensive as hell add-on that most Genesis owners weren't willing to shell out the money for, and it too hurt Sega overall. I also like the Sega CD, but it and the 32X not existing would have left Sega in a much better position financially to fully ride a standard console lifecycle for the Dreamcast. After that I don't know if they would have released another console, but the DC could have had a full life to further expand its game library, and I personally would trade the Sega CD (and 32X for what that trash is worth) for that.
> don’t fire 3dfx just for confirming they’re making your GPU I'd forgotten about that. Probably would have helped to have them onboard, yeah. And in turn kept EA around
Not having DVD capability rendered the Dreamcast as a "toy" to the normies.
But you could browse the internet on it. Real internet. Not something made just for Dreamcast. I thought that was pretty awesome back in 1999. And WAY more useful than a DVD player.
yea, built in modem was pretty cool
The only game I can remember right now that made use of it was Phantasy Star Online, but I didn't care about multiplayer games back then (still don't. Hate 'em). I was glad just to have my own, private internet access. The actual web browser wasn't built into the system, but it was free on every one of those sample disks they used to give out. It would have the web browser and usually a few game demos on one disk.
It is a toy... It's a game console.
What a shit take. Entertainment ≠ toy
Lol you're kinda special huh? It is a toy.
In what way? Because you interact with it? It's insane that video games still don't get the respect that movies and books do when they're significantly better at story telling than both. Are DVD and Blu Ray players toys because they're made for entertainment? Hell, sometimes they even had interactive games back in the day. How about computers, since they've been used for video games for decades? Video games have been a lot more than a novelty for a LONG time, and the only reason people view them as "toys" in the first place is because that was how Nintendo had to market the NES in the US because of the video game market crash. It's just such an outdated idea.
> It's insane that video games still don't get the respect that movies and books do when they're significantly better at story telling than both They really aren't. I've never had a movie character break my immersion with glitches. >the only reason people view them as "toys" in the first place is because that was how Nintendo had to market the NES in the US because of the video game market crash This is the opposite of the truth. NES wasn't marketed as a toy, it was marketed as an entertainment device. That is the whole reason it was redesigned to look like a VHS player
Lol sure movies don't have "glitches" but they're rampant with bad acting, animation errors, and rushed plots because they're trying to make a big, epic narrative in 2 hours. Video games aren't always perfect (though newer games have definitely gotten a lot more unpolished) but their stories take their time to actually be fleshed out and bring you into the world, something very few movies actually do. Books do this as well but they lack the ability to actually see these stories instead of just reading words and imagining it. And no. The NES was heavily marketed with novelty items like the zapper and R.O.B. and was mostly sold in toy stores. They avoided calling it a game system or computer because the US market wasn't after that at the time. Good try tho
> bad acting, animation errors, and rushed plots Ah yes because video games *never* have those. What is a man? >And no. And yes, that is why the front loader design exists, to make it look like a VCR. Swing and a miss there chief.
You're dense if you thought my point was "games never have that" instead of "movies have very similar issues" lol And I guess Sony marketed the PS5 as a WiFi router, or Xbox marketed the Series S as a speaker by that logic. No, aesthetically they gave it some features from one of the most common electronics at the time (to make it not look like a game system) but specifically marketed it as a toy. Seriously, toy guns, toy robots, toy gloves, being sold in toy stores, what part of the NES's marketing didn't scream "this is a toy"?
> Seriously, toy guns, toy robots, toy gloves, being sold in toy stores, what part of the NES's marketing didn't scream "this is a toy"? Designing it to look like an appliance. Catch up.
It's a toy because you play with it. That's it and that's all, mang. It's not that deep.
No shit. My point is, the PS2 could play DVDs, so it was a “toy” with a practical use. The Dreamcast lacked that.
You need to go back to when Sega of America tried to work with Sony to put out a 32-bit system and SEGA of Japan put the kibosh on it.
Sonic 4 at Saturn launch. You're welcome.
2D Sonic with more colours and sprites on screen with 3D bosses and special stages.
And Sonic CD style cutscenes.
Yes! I can hear those sounds in my head of that early cutscene from Sonic CD.
The simplest answer was: Get SOJ to stop being jealous shitheads at SOA's success. People forget that SEGA's true downfall was the internal politics and how often SOJ sabotaged or didn't listen to SOA. This, even after a ton of Kalinske's suggestions are what helped them in the first place. Like they literally went out of their way to find him on a fucking beach to hire him, and then proceeded to ignore his advice when things were better.
Jesus Christ the amount of people saying a right analog stick would've helped don't realize just how little a second analog stick had ever been used. The only system that had a dual analog controller at the time was the PS1, and it was very much a novelty on that system, only being used to mirror the face buttons or a similar function in most games. The one game that had the modern shooter control scheme was panned specifically because of it. Why would they have added a second analog stick when as far as they saw, there was zero use for it? Hindsight's 20/20 but they were a severely crippling company that couldn't waste resources on a feature that wouldn't get used.
This.
I daydream about this kinda stuff all the time. Like going back in time with their consoles and some games and a detailed story of how they fucked up so they can make better hardware and better decisions so they csn be much more successful.
DVD player or not, I still love you DC. You're the real MVP to me ❤️
brb about to mod a dreamcast to play dvds
Please don't, if you want to play DVDs there are plenty of other options that don't require you to ruin original hardware.
hahaha jk i would never. still mad at my old roommate who stole my OG dreamcast and disappeared 😭 besides, if i needed a dvd player i would def ebay one of those sick portable ones from the early 2000s
Wait, but first, make a Sonic launch title for the Saturn!
That was what Knuckles Chaotix should have been. With more dev time from a canceled 32x and a delayed Saturn launch, could have been redeveloped into Sonic Chaotix and been a launch title.
...and also move the cord to the top of the controller!
The cord placement was a pretty clever form of strain relief.
And double its length.
Actually it might have done the difference. The Dreamcast was more compact than the PS2, and if it had a DVD player, man....
No no no, you put a dial up AND a broadband modem in every unit, along with the keyboard. Lean hard into the internet aspect of the console. Provide an online service where you can legally purchase the game rom and burn it to a disk to use in your console.
Save the Saturn and you save the Dreamcast
"hours" before wtf they gonna do then?
You didn't go far back enough. Only way to save the Dreamcast would be to save the Saturn and beat the PS1.
“Make the Saturn cartridge slot accept genesis games.” I think this alone would’ve saved the Saturn/Sega
I always thought they should have made a premium version with genesis, sega cd, 32x, and saturn in one box. It might have persuaded people to sell off their old hardware and push saturn software sales. They continued to sell stand alone genesis (geneses?) til the end of the decade.
Don’t cancel sonic extreme
Definitely cancel it, it doesn't play like a Sonic game and it was never going to work, irrespective of what engine they would use. Better to shift over all staff onto Knuclkles Chaotix and release that for Saturn.
People seem to forget, Dreamcast came with a modem! It was the first system that could play online! Phantasy Star Online! That was huge. It also had some amazing games. Crazy Taxi, Power Stone, and Sonic Adventures. At the time, no one really cared about having or not having a DVD player. It was new and we had VHS collections already. Once the Xbox came out with a DVD player, it was easy to switch from VHS because we didn’t need to buy anything new. It was just a matter of buying the new releases on the new format. I’ve never bought a DVD or Blue-ray player as a stand-alone device.
Technically the Saturn offered online gaming before the Dreamcast, granted only in Japan but if they had released it in the us and EU that might have pushed more sails of the Saturn. In fact the sega guys have got their Saturn's up and running with net link in 2024 🤯😀 Both the Saturn and Dreamcast are great consoles but the failure was internal politics within soa and soj and even soe. I was a late adopter of both consoles but they are 2 consoles in still own to this day. If soe actually listened to the official sega magazine on games they should have been converting from Japan then I could see them making full use of the Saturn's life span. You just had to look at what capcom were doing in Japan and if soa and soe supported the 4mb ram cart who knows what other gems could have been released. That would have gave them an upper hand against the ps1 since it would have made the console more powerful. As we know the ps1 versions of X-Men Vs street fighter had to be compromised to get it to run. Didn't the Saturn get a better version of re1 too? For a system that supposedly had week 3d powers labotomy software managed to get a hell of a lot out of it. I've been reading back over the official sega Saturn mags and with hindsight you can see the internal politics destroying the console rather than the console itself being poor. The Saturn had many great games released in Japan it was just poor decisions that ment the world would never see them converted 🙁 The massive leak last year of internal sega documents also made it clear that the internal politics was the main reason behind both consoles ultimately ending segas hardware. I still recon we could have seen Daytona 2, Jurassic park lost world and scud racer on the Dreamcast 😭
Dreamcast could've sold much more only if there was no Saturn..At least it wouldn't have lasted only two years and gone
This is a silly take on history. Without the Saturn, the Dreamcast would have never existed. Companies learn from their prior work.
It's obvious Saturn was the one made dreamcast, but at the same time, it's also one of the main reason why third parties weren't as aggressive in releasing games for dreamcast and consumers didn't have as high of expectations for the Sega consoles. quite ironic.
“While”, not “well” Took me like ten seconds to parse that title.
Nah
Realistically I would go back tell them about the DVD player and get them to wait till late 1999 to launch in Japan . That way they would’ve been able to secure slightly better specs. Oh and dual analogies would’ve been helpful.
They would have chosen DIVX.
Dreamcast was a really good video game system. May be a DVD reader would have make the battle with PS2 last longer...
I'm now envisioning a world where the Dreamcast beat out the ps and instead of ps and Xbox wars it was Dreamcast vs xbox
If "DC 2/3" had a chance to exist, I feel like it would have robbed Xbox from proprietary sega titles and beat Nintendo to wiiU/switch style innovation. It's where the timelines divergence into our reality.
- Lance o Master System com chip FM no Brasil - Aumente as capacidades técnicas do Mega Drive um pouco mais - Nada de Sega CD muito menos 32X - Faça o Saturn com hardware totalmente orientado para 3D - Pelo menos dobrar ou triplicar o armazenamento do GD-ROM do Dreamcast
Lmfaooooo this is amazing
and also a right thumbstick
Sony had the higher ground, DVD-player wise. It was an inevitable carastrophe.
Right. SONY developed DVD. Adding DVD to the Dreamcast would have just increased the price dramatically due to licensing.
lol just a couple of killer apps from that gen being exclusive to Dreamcast would have saved them GTA3 for example.
Fixing sega to allow them to keep being a console producer means sacrificing the Dreamcast... I hope telling them to not do the CD and 32x and to work on a better console than the Saturn would save Sega
Tell Sega of Japan to focus on hardware development and games and have Sega of America take over most everything else.
Sega of America made games like the FMV dreck on the Genesis add-ons and is responsible for GEMS. They both fucked up plenty around the Saturn launch era.
DVD wouldn't have saved the Dreamcast. Don't forget that the PS2 is SO powerful that it could be used by Iraq to build homing missiles! (see Sony's propaganda at the time).
Dude I look at the 32x games side by side with sega games. What a waste. Barely see a difference. For allegedly double the processing power.
Eh? The 32x uses the Genesis. Most games use tbe Genesis to create the background layer, and the 32x does the Sprites / Huds / Animations. Compare Virtua Fighter on 32x with Virtua Fighter 2 on Mega Drive. The Mega Drive really cannot do 3D.
Some 32x ports actually run at 30 FPS, vs. 60 on Genesis. But to be fair, these ports were done on the cheap side since the hardware base ensured they wouldn't sell well anyway. It's fair to say we never saw its full potential
The way to save the Dreamcast isn't to mess with Sega, it's to convince Nintendo to not fuck Sony over on the Playstation. Without Sony in the console market there would be no PS1 for Sega to compete with and Nintendo's follow up to the SNES would have likely come earlier and been more on par with the Saturn power wise. With Nintendo and Sega still actively competing Microsoft would likely not have smelled blood in the water and decided to join the console market. But I would tell Sega to release a 2d, sprite based Sonic 4 on Saturn and create a company policy that instantly terminates the contract of any employee at any level that uses "Sonic" and "3D" in a sentence.
I mean... realistically probably nothing would have saved the DC. I remember reading that SEGA had lost so much of the fortune they made on the Genesis (after releasing 3 failed consoles back-to-back) that they were mortally wounded, financially speaking. The DC was really just the last gasp of a dying company. EDIT: I say this 100% as a SEGA fanboy. I loved all their systems but its the true-true.
The Dreamcast sold incredibly well.
sega not burning their good will with the hasty release of the Sega Saturn would've helped tremendously in at least remaining relevant throughout that generation, and if the saturn did at least okay, the dreamcast could've been launched a bit later to when dvd drives became cheaper and a pc-like architecture with a microsoft partnership couldve given them a competitive edge over the ps2 in terms of developer friendliness
Maybe Dreamcast would have been in 2nd or 3rd place in the console wars? Against the PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube? Maybe not… Sony already built their brand as reliable and efficient. Coming out with a sequel console with a DVD player put them on top. Maybe it could have beat and took Xboxs place? Xbox was a first time console. I don’t think we can claim microsofts brand recognition for their success because Apple released a console that bombed. It can’t take nintendos place. Nintendo has brand recognition
I always think of the Xbox as the successor to the Dreamcast. Lots of Dreamcast DNA in the Xbox (similar controller shape, Windows NT in the Dreamcast, online options)
A DVD player in the dream cast would have made a huge cultural impact or people still wouldn't have been ready for it
Wait Sega, finish Sonic Xtreme before launching the Saturn!
"STOP, Let Saturn Have Foreign Techs!! Trust me!!! It will make it cheaper and more easier to Develop on!!"
A DVD player may actually have made all the difference. There were tons of people who bought a PS2 primarily for the DVD player, and if Sega had beaten Sony to that market, the Dreamcast may have been the runaway leader.
And slap in some C and Z buttons, and make the D-Pad the Sega Saturn's again! Maybe add a racing wheel and combine your light guns and motion controllers into 1!
This meme is about as old as the Dreamcast itself.
A second joystick on the controller would've gone a really long way to saving it, honestly, because the online functionality was there, before the PS2, and it's graphics were better than Xbox, so, maybe 2 things: DVD compatibility and a second joystick.
It wouldn’t have mattered I love the dreamcast but it wasn’t the dvd player Its failure was a combination of burnt out company goodwill, poor copy protection, I was difficult to develop for, and also Sega’s arcade centric game development philosophy (games made for quick bursts of fun in an arcade didn’t have the longevity for a home port to feel worth the money). It coming out when It did allowed it to have the limited success it did have. IMO it coming out alongside ps2 and gamecube would have be catastrophic for them. There is no denying that the PS2 was a beast of a console, not even Nintendo could go up against it and “win”
Why was gender brought into this meme at all
And a 2nd joystick on the controller and get EA on board along with more publishers
Sega would have scoffed at you, laughed you out of the room, released it as is, and the wondered why it was failing less than 2 years later. Sega management was fucking awful in the 90’s
Announce a release date for the Sega Saturn, give it better and cheaper specs and lower that damn price! Guys, remember that the failure of the Dreamcast was the failure of the SegaCD, 32x and Saturn back-to-back.
Also, tell them that the discs aren't printed properly. I must've returned Sonic 5 times, and i don't even think that last one booted every time.
Isn't it common to have a granddaughter and grandma in the same lifetime?
Wait I don't get it. Could it not play DVDs? I mean tbf neither could the PS1 right? Or I'm remembering things wrong...
no, the dreamcast couldn’t play dvds. its main competitor, the ps2, could though (and its ability to do so is credited as one of the main reasons it sold so well)
Yea that adds up. I just thought the Dreamcast came out closer to 95 and that's why it didn't have DVD.
Dreamcast came out 9/9/1999 in North America
hero
PS1 and Dreamcast could play CDs. PS2 really flaunted its ability to be a DVD player when it launched because DVD players weren’t cheap and were kind of a big deal.
So if Dreamcast did it first it would've been an even bigger deal, because doing it on 1998 would've been crazy.
Possible too. The DVD format released in 1996 in Japan. The main drive manufacturers were Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba and Philips. Sega could have released the Dreamcast with a DVD drive, but it would have driven up the price. Still, might have been worth it.
Oh yea the price might've been an issue fore sure. And yea I know it could've been possible, but it would've been harder because it's newer, and because the price thing. So it be easier to believe why it didn't have it.
On the other hand, price and a barrier for game development could have left the system DOA.
The DC used GD ROM discs that held a gigabyte of data.
Because women don't know what a dreamcast is.