The picture above was Google’s GDC advertisement to what would be the reveal of the Google Stadia, a Google streaming box that will allow you to steam your games at ‘4k 60fps’. The photo that was posted by Nibellion shows off failed gaming products including the NES Power Glove, the famous Atari E.T. and lastly the legendary Dreamcast.
While I don’t want to wish bad omens on Google’s Stadia gaming entry, I’m pretty sure it isn’t going to have half the users of SEGA’s Dreamcast which sold close to 10 million units in about 2 years. But what are your thoughts on this and Google’s gaming entry?
2/2021 Update: Why tack on an update for a 2 year old article? Several comments are saying this is fake news, that we need to retract it, that this is photoshopped, etc. This is a real photo, as you can see from this Tweet showing two angles of the E.T. game on display. What is likely is that later in the event, the E.T. and PlayStation swapped places. But the point stands that the above photo is real and this did happen. So… NO RETRACTION!
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Wow, that’s such bad form. There are many more examples for Google to pull from (see: Virtual Boy, Jaguar etc etc).
I’m not being a whiny fanboy here — I expect more than low blows from Google as they enter a new market.
Or better examples of failed products would be Glass, Buzz, +, Schemer, or Reader. Wait… All of those are Google products that failed miserably.
The only thing I appreciated about the Google conference was Erin Hoffman-John…
especially her t-shirt…
REZ vibe!!!
What streaming box? It looks like someone was too salty to not do journalistic research…
The difference between the Dreamcast and the Power Glove or ET is that the Dreamcast actually did what it was designed to do. Comparing them is incredibly insulting. Those were cynical products rushed to market, if they represented the dreams of their creators they are hollow reflections at best.
This is insulting. At first I’m interested, but now it’s decided that I won’t buy Google Stadia. Simply because of this? Yeah, simply because of this.
If they wanted to put something Sega related, put in the Saturn or the 32X. Not the Dreamcast which is remembered fondly and is getting new homebrew games to this day.
The amount of resources Google has in 2019 is orders of magnitude greater than the resources SEGA had in the late 90’s. Google could easily sell WAY more of their platform than the Dreamcast, especially if they’re willing to operate their gaming division at a loss.
Bad form and very ignorant.
Failed gaming products with the Dreamcast in that list? First off, people failed the Dreamcast, not the other way around, Dreamcast was initially a huge success and broke all previous records and was one of these systems that should have continued to have been successful and would have been if not for the fact it didn’t have a full run. So why was that?
‘Fail’ seems to be the nets favourite word these days.
The Dreamcast did not ‘fail’ depending on how you look at it, it wasn’t as successful as the PlayStation obviously but it was more successful than the Saturn, 32X, Mega CD and Wii U, and could have at least done as well as the MegaDrive/Genesis if it kept going and would see SEGA back to their previous position in a larger industry, it just didn’t see it’s full potential because the plug was pulled on it early, that word can’t just be randomly applied without getting all the facts in from all angles first.
It’s the same situation with the early iteration of the MasterSystem in Asia/Europe – the SG-1000.
Sega upgraded their hardware more than they upgraded their software, Nintendo did the opposite.
Sega didn’t play by the same rules as Nintendo so if you are judging it by Nintendo standards then yes, poor comparison because they had different standards and strategies in place, it’s why Sega released far more hardware overall than Nintendo has and continue to do with arcade consoles.
See here far example on why it wasn’t a fail ~ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qBDx83UZ1nw
Yup. Nope. Not buying this new console. Might seem, petty, sure… But they don’t even have basic knowledge to know that Dreamcast wasn’t even a failure. It’s parent company was. That’s just disrespectful to the craft. That’s like an artist making fun of a Picasso painting.
Sega didn’t fail either. Sega did everything it could to make Dreamcast a success, and it would have been if it wasn’t withdrawn after the 2000 holiday season – which saw massive success, but ironically it was because of that massive Dreamcast success that Sega was heamorraging money, Sega was losing £14 for every Dreamcast sold as it was forced into a price war.
That picture is photoshopped. ET is not there in real life, the PlayStation 1 is. Here’s how the display really looked: https://twitter.com/imranzomg/status/1108035388558303232/photo/1
This news post needs a retraction, as Google took no shots at the Dreamcast. It honored it by including it in this display of video game history.
Good catch. This makes the display even more confusing though. With the list of dates on the bottom that don’t correlate with the items on display, I’m at a bit of a loss on what all of it means.
Thanks for pointing this out. I feel a bit suckered!
Your link doesn’t seem to work.
But yea, point taken, this is fake news, and the context is totally totally wrong.
Dreamcast did not fail but was short lived in its otherwise original vision for Sega.
And Google was actually paying homage to Sega here.
Wait a minute… So that pic is a hoax? Damn.. I can’t believe I fell for it.
I was initially mad at this just by looking at this. But as Danthrax mentioned above ET isn’t actually there. I think this was meant to show some of the risk takers by placing it next to the statement: “anything you dream can be built”
Agreed. I think this is more of a nod to risk taking within the games industry than past failures.
I’ll admit I’m now expecting the Stadia to crash hard. I’m sorry but when you have to go “our thing is better than these things” I kinda’ assume you have no real confidence in your product and that it’ll be bad.
That’s a poor and ignorant way of looking at things, it suggests you can’t gather facts for yourself and make weak judgements because of it.
How about remove this post or update it since the picture is obviously not real. Clearly this was an homage to Sega, so actually, hey, let’s correct the error and move on.
It’s obvious?
Based on comments and link above, it is obvious. Back to the original rationale behind my comment, why the heck is this post still up and/or not corrected?
That was definitely in poor taste for something that is so experimental it probably won’t take off in its current incarnation. I don’t see streaming being viable at the moment for anything past the 4th gen of games, 5th if being generous. Much more gimmicky than the Dreamcast by far.
That’s disgusting behaviour by Google. What a way to get rid of potential customers. I do like the empty space next to E.T. however. Makes a great spot for the Google Stadia.
Regarding the comments of this being fake or photoshopped: The above image is REAL. Here are two photos, including the one above: https://twitter.com/AllGamesDelta_/status/1196833081082204160
ET was very clearly there. These are two angles and the light, reflection and even red from the Stadia podium is reflecting off the ET items. It’s real.
Now, it is possible that they later swapped ET with the PlayStation, as it was noted on Twitter that “The ET stand is actually on a different platform entirely with stuff like Nintendo Power and the Gameboy.”
TL;DR: Our story is NOT fake. This photo IS real. Google later swapped the ET and PlayStation items.
I want to just comment real quick for the future historical record even though this is an old article — Google contracted a marketing firm that contracted The Video Game History Foundation for consulting help with this display. There was literally no ulterior motive — because there was no real direction at all. It had several different forms as “console timeline”, then “cool innovations in gaming”, and in the end, they essentially just asked for some random stuff that “looked cool” and stuck it all together. It sure came across hilariously bad, though!