What if SEGA had taken the risk to compete with PS2?

[jonboy101]

I think the better question would be giving up on the Saturn too early. The system could have and should have gone on to 2000.

[semmie]

I think the better question would be giving up on the Saturn too early. The system could have and should have gone on to 2000.

interesting interesting.
cause if they would v supported saturn more then the anxiety of the consumer would never have died on sega.
thats just said straight up my thumb

and as ROJM said wasnt it that sega became populair just later on. e said usa. but i saw in europe everyone starting to buy dc. it was cheap i must say.

[jonboy101]

No, the anxiety people felt when they shelled out their hard earned cash on one of Sega's rather expensive machines predates the Saturn. Remember, in 1996, they were releasing games on something like six consoles - MegaDrive, Saturn, Master System, Game Gear, Mega-CD, 32X and Pico. Sega never managed to focus during that time, so a lot of the systems never lived up to their potential. Hell, they also had the Neptune being hashed out, and within a year they began working on Eclipse and two separate 128 bit projects.

At the end of 1996, Sega dropped support for everything but Saturn. They let a number of quality Genesis games go unadvertised. They killed the 32X, roughly a year and a half after it was released. Consumers were pissed. So we're third parties.

Next year, in 1997, the company said the Saturn was not the future of Sega. It took two years. Two. Understandably, the system sold horribly in 1997, and barely at all in 98. How many games did Sega put out on Saturn in 98? 3-5?

If Sega had focused on the Saturn, never spent money on the 32X, or Neptune, or Eclipse or any of that, the system would have done fine. Sega could have rebounded from a disastrous launch by 97, and all the money they could have saved would have gone in to games. Moreover, many of the games released early in the Dreamcast's life cycle would have gone to Saturn, and since many of them started on Saturn anyway, they could have been completed cheaper and more quickly than they originally were. Bringing back things like the Sega Scream would have helped to. It seems like the company could have done just fine sticking with Saturn for two or three more years, and probably could have probably fixed their image problem in time for a Dreamcast in 2000 or 2001. 

[ROJM]

No, the anxiety people felt when they shelled out their hard earned cash on one of Sega's rather expensive machines predates the Saturn. Remember, in 1996, they were releasing games on something like six consoles - MegaDrive, Saturn, Master System, Game Gear, Mega-CD, 32X and Pico. Sega never managed to focus during that time, so a lot of the systems never lived up to their potential. Hell, they also had the Neptune being hashed out, and within a year they began working on Eclipse and two separate 128 bit projects.

At the end of 1996, Sega dropped support for everything but Saturn. They let a number of quality Genesis games go unadvertised. They killed the 32X, roughly a year and a half after it was released. Consumers were pissed. So we're third parties.

Next year, in 1997, the company said the Saturn was not the future of Sega. It took two years. Two. Understandably, the system sold horribly in 1997, and barely at all in 98. How many games did Sega put out on Saturn in 98? 3-5?

If Sega had focused on the Saturn, never spent money on the 32X, or Neptune, or Eclipse or any of that, the system would have done fine. Sega could have rebounded from a disastrous launch by 97, and all the money they could have saved would have gone in to games. Moreover, many of the games released early in the Dreamcast's life cycle would have gone to Saturn, and since many of them started on Saturn anyway, they could have been completed cheaper and more quickly than they originally were. Bringing back things like the Sega Scream would have helped to. It seems like the company could have done just fine sticking with Saturn for two or three more years, and probably could have probably fixed their image problem in time for a Dreamcast in 2000 or 2001.

But your forgetting that the gaming audience had drastically changed by 98-99, and they had no clue what the saturn was let alone Sega's previous add on hardware. The old gaming audience that did have a grudge against Sega either went back to Nintendo, went with PSX or went to PC gaming or dropped out altogether. PSX didn't hit the mainstream until after FF7 and that's when they started to draw a audience who weren't longterm gamers. by 99 the damage was done as this new breed of gamer believed all the BS that Sony spun, Playstation made gaming grown up(when that had started in the previous generation) Sony made gaming cool(which started with the Genesis and even then back in the golden age with atari) Sony made gaming mainstream(it already was mainstream or sony wouldn't have bothered to join the console race in the first place) and Sony moved gaming into the highstreet(which it already was in the highstreet). Another real disgusting factor with this new audience was what happened with the DC. Not so much in the states but definatly it happened in the UK. When the DC was ignored despite the many great games for it. Now gamers want o play the best games regardless of what system its on. The reason why the Genesis vs SNES battle was so compelling was because each side brought out a new great game or killer app every few months or every year. And each time you not only saw the sales of the game be high butt he sales of the system as well. That is one part of gaming that defines the gamer consumer. During the abysmal psx period this didn't happen. They waited for the PSX2 and then when it failed to deliver the best games, still waited. I'm sorry but that was not a gaming audience that was dominant, just a bunch of bandwagon jumpers who had a warped idea about games and thought of it as a fashion peice ratherthan something to express or improve a particular skill.
People can try to intellectulise it about, well its because Sega did this and that but they are forgetting that real gamers are a forgiving bunch. With all the shit that we as an audience had to put up with during the years by numourous companies? We always come back because we still want to play the perfect games. If we werent then Sega would have been out of buisness way before the DC came out and Nintendo after the stuff they pulled down the line? I know a lot of nintendo fans who hasn't forgiven them for the Liberman video council/violence fiasco but they still went back and brought the following nintedo games and systems. What happened during 98-2001 was a black mark in gaming and not the actions of a gaming audience. Luckly some sembelence to actual gaming has returned now with the xbox360(remember the xbox was technically a falure but it managed to get the proper gamers back in the fold which by the time the 360 came around made that system as a more viable competitor.) In my whole life it was a depressing sight to see and thanks to that i wouldn't officially support any Sony products(Ie buy the system through legal sources). Im not saying Sega cant get the blame for what they did but what people seem to forget what that the dynamics of the audience had changed. A lot of gamers be they hardcore or general gamers weren't driving the games audience during that time, half of them became PC gamers and we are seeing what happened when they came back to the console market when a domininat field in PC gaming ended up becoming the mainstay in modern console gaming, the FPS. If anything though was that the Sega audience hasn't recovered from the fallout of the Saturn and DC. Where the Sega fan is few and far between and is now dominant by fans of a particular Sega franchise rather than Sega gaming overall. And that's sad to see.

[CrazyT]

For me it was piracy, now I'm 40 years old with a good job and am able to collect original copies of games, back then I was on minimum wage with a new born baby and a mortgage so it was an easy decision to go down the copy games route.

I regret this now as me and many thousands of others put paid to possibly the best console ever which i now play on most days (I'm building an arcade machine based around it)

Yeah actually I(we) have been guilty of this as well for the exact same reason. Little money, most of us were still young so we didn't have a job either. And begging your parents kinda sucked so when we found out there was a big market of people selling DC copies for the cheapest possible prices, we jumped on the bandwagon pretty quick. It's not that we didn't buy 0 games after that, but defenitly a lot less than we would have before finding out about the hacking. When we found out HOW easy it was ourselves, it was a simple matter of downloading and burning. Couldn't believe it was "that" easy :S

When I look back, I highly regret it, but then again it was really SEGA's fault. SEGA saturn still has a better security for hacking, which is odd when the console was made with earlier technoligy.

[Barry the Nomad]

I'm a boy scout. I don't think I've ever pirated a game, at least when the company was actively selling copies in stores. The first time I've played a game on an emulator was, I think, Genesis roms in the early '00's. I also have attempted to play GBA games, but they suck emulated.

I've never copied and played any SEGA games from the Saturn era through to the Dreamcast era, though I did attempt (and fail at) burning Propellor Arena a few years back.

I've never even touched pirate copies of MS or Sony titles. In fact, I don't even think I have anything in my collection that would constitute as a pirated or copied game. 

--

My reasoning is mostly laziness, and the fact that there is so much trial and error. Also, if I care enough to pirate a game, I'd want to buy it anyway. So why pirate?

[Team Andromeda]

It was going to be a lose-lose situation, I'm afraid.

For a number of reasons:

-The Playstation brand in 90's was as strong as Nintendo;
-A big deal of loyal SEGA fans were pretty much upset that SEGA had abandoned it's Saturn console;
-As impressive as the Dreamcast was in those days, it had peaked as far as overall performance in 2001, just as the PS2 was still in it's early infancy, I can't remember the exact details, but I do remember at one point Tecmo saying that the Dreamcast was barely able to handle Dead Or Alive 2;
-Piracy, often cited as one of the easiest consoles to crack, till the PSP came along;
-Lack of DVD player, the Playstation 2 arrived at the right time just when people were moving away from Video-CD;
-SEGA not reaching the intended userbase, I don't think SEGA ever released the Dreamcast's actual sales numbers, that was telling;
-Major IPs that were made to be console sellers,but most of 'em underperformed;
-Not enough marketing, or rather effective marketing;

I could go on.

Yep Pretty spot on .

For me it was piracy

Not really people seem to forget how piracy made PS sales explode - that console must have been one of the most pirated consoles around  and it never hurt SONY at all.

[ROJM]

Absolute tosh. I think Sega's marketing was effective during the early part of the DC  lifespan but a few things got in the way, mainly SOA blowing their marketing budget on a MTV promo/movie that never worked, which left no money for anything else and Sega Europe's ad campaign getting banned by Ofcom.
Sega's marketing problem was the same as it is now, not enough is set aside for a marketing budget.

2) Piracy. Sega dealt with that problem with the second/third generation DC systems that wouldn't play pirate discs.

3)The DC couldn't handle Dead Or Alive 2? Should tell it to the DC.

And regardless how loyal Sega fans felt about the DC it didn't really stop the DC having a very strong launch in america or a good launch in Japan. I think Europe/UK was pretty bad. So the saturn comment is not only slightly erronous, it as i was saying before didn't change or effect the DC considering the saturn's marketshare was never that big.

[max_cady]

With the Dreamcast, it had a pretty poor release in Portugal. I remember going to that huge Toys 'R' Us store in Oporto and seeing rows of Dreamcast consoles just sitting there on the shelf. My parents bought mine for Christmas. It never got sold out over here.

Playstation 2 on the other hand... You can pretty much walk into a convinience store and still see a bin with tons of games (not just those trashy budget titles, but stuff like Resident Evil 4, Just Cause, GTA III and several others).

[Team Andromeda]

I think Sega's marketing was effective during the early part of the DC  lifespan but a few things got in the way, mainly SOA blowing their marketing budget on a MTV promo/movie that never worked, which left no money for anything else and Sega Europe's ad campaign getting banned by Ofcom

SEGA America did it best with limited funds it had and it run a very effective and quite brilliant campaign, unlike that French Baboon in charge of SEGA Europe who adversing was to have prime time TV adverts with not a hint of game footage and instead line the pockets of Robbie Williams , spend a fortune on Football sponsorship with 4 teams across Europe with out a single decent football game to call your own and come with this 6 billion players logo with out a single on-line game for months and then Pal users couldn't enter their own ISP details (and so doing so that killed with on-line side in the UK ECT)

In the DC era it was SOA that was able to produce healthy games and Hardware sales, but they were badly let down by Sega Europe and SOJ .

) Piracy. Sega dealt with that problem with the second/third generation DC systems that wouldn't play pirate discs

Piracy never really killed the DC- The PS was one of the easiest and most widely moded consoles of all time , but SONY had the name on the street and enough mum and dads paying for games and consoles on the High Street to counter what it lost in sales to copies, SEGA didn't sadly.

Almost anyone that had a PS had it modded to play copies

The DC couldn't handle Dead Or Alive 2? Should tell it to the DC.

How said that - They must have been mad. Given DOA II was developed from the ground up on NA@MI hardware and was one of the very 1st 3rd party games to be shown off on the system
Saturn Mag did a speical on the game in last ever issue


In the end what killed the DC was the likes  lack of support from EA,not enough 3rd parties giving the DC Big name exclusives , SONY epic Japan PS 2 launch (bull shit hype and demo's  and konami showing off MGS II at E3
 



 

[segaismysavior]

Almost anyone that had a PS had it modded to play copies

Oh please, I didn't know a single person that had one and pirated games, and I forgot you even could. With DC, all you needed was a CD burner and no extra effort to have it modded. Just cause an older system had a similar capacity for ripping off games doesn't minimize the impact of piracy on SEGA's ability to keep their system afloat.

Saturn was the first system I had ever seen play burned copies, but it was still a small percentage of owners doing it in 1998 with their fancy 2X CD writers. Plus the swap trip is pretty annoying, I only use it to play Burning Rangers and Panzer Dragoon Saga.

[ROJM]

SEGA America did it best with limited funds it had and it run a very effective and quite brilliant campaign, unlike that French Baboon in charge of SEGA Europe who adversing was to have prime time TV adverts with not a hint of game footage and instead line the pockets of Robbie Williams , spend a fortune on Football sponsorship with 4 teams across Europe with out a single decent football game to call your own and come with this 6 billion players logo with out a single on-line game for months and then Pal users couldn't enter their own ISP details (and so doing so that killed with on-line side in the UK ECT)

date=1356686846]
or that ex footballing SOA president, too.

In the DC era it was SOA that was able to produce healthy games and Hardware sales, but they were badly let down by Sega Europe and SOJ .

Probably,which is why i think they should of stuck with it. The sales for the period of 2000/01 indicated that the system was picking up its sales base in the US before they announced officially the demise of the system. But obviously they couldn't with the markets they had to support and the money that it would have cost to carry on.

Piracy never really killed the DC- The PS was one of the easiest and most widely moded consoles of all time , but SONY had the name on the street and enough mum and dads paying for games and consoles on the High Street to counter what it lost in sales to copies, SEGA didn't sadly.

No piracy didn't it, i was saying that sega sorted out that problem with the chip lock. It was actually the second sales element that helped did in the DC. A lot of gameshops at that time was selling DC games for 20 quid or less and half of the titles were pratically new, which made me wonder if these were second hand titles at all. And this was happening during 2000. If there was a gamestation or similar in a particular town across the UK for example, DC owners didn't need to bother to pay 40 pounds for a new game when they could wait and get it for much cheaper a month down the line. I believe that this seriously impacted on the sales of games at least in the UK.

How said that - They must have been mad. Given DOA II was developed from the ground up on NA@MI hardware and was one of the very 1st 3rd party games to be shown off on the system
Saturn Mag did a speical on the game in last ever issue

mermories...good old days..sigh.....

In the end what killed the DC was the likes  lack of support from EA,not enough 3rd parties giving the DC Big name exclusives , SONY epic Japan PS 2 launch (bull shit hype and demo's  and konami showing off MGS II at E3

Partly but Sega had proven they can survive without third party support before or the whole thing with the Megadrive/genesis never would have been able to acheive the feats it did. I think its a combination of these things you said and including bad management, bad marketing, not enough Sega local games, not enough Sega famed franchises etc etc.. and extremly bad luck which seems to plague the big blue even now.
 



 

[Kevin-N]

I think Sega quited to fast, but Sega had bad marketing in europe ( compared to the mega drive timeline whe in Belgium had even a Sega promo bus ), there where also shops that not even sold the system and many people waited for the ps2. The ps2 also had a dvd and sold good because it was cheaper than a stand alone dvd player. Here in Belgium where i live was only one store that sold the DC and also told it to the people it was a better game system than the ps2. the shop was closed when the dreamcast was quited. It's a shame that the Dreamcast was doomed, i still play with it every week, even my son enjoy's it also and he is only 4 years old. When he is playing on the 360, he plays sonic & all stars transformed. ( so i make him already a sega fan  ;D ).

[Team Andromeda]

Oh please, I didn't know a single person that had one and pirated games, and I forgot you even could. With DC, all you needed was a CD burner and no extra effort to have it modded

You must have been the only one then , it was also piss easy to mod or softmod the X-Box and loads of people did to play Emu's ECT. It never really hurt either Sony or MS has they had the name of the street. There was and is wide spread piaracy onthe  Nintendo DS ( a system even easier to mod than the DC) - Did that hurt the money making machine that was the DS, not at all.

Probably,which is why i think they should of stuck with it.

SEGA America did , it was SOJ that was forced to pull the plug given it was losing money hand over fist .

mermories...good old days..sigh

Well who ever said that was silly - Given it was a NA@MI title to begin with

Partly but Sega had proven they can survive without third party support before or the whole thing with the Megadrive/genesis

If they were't selling the DC at a loss I would agree with you . Its a shame DC did poor in Japan and the UK it could have been a different story otherwise

I think its a combination of these things you said and including bad management, bad marketing, not enough Sega local games, not enough Sega famed franchises etc etc.. and extremly bad luck which seems to plague the big blue even now.

Spot on really . It was a combo of things , such a shame has the system and SEGA really did deserver to do better . They put right so many of their past mistakes and we really trying their best in hardware and Software terms



 

[crackdude]

The problem in Europe was that the Dreamcast never had a true good football game.


Football is close to number one reason consoles appeal to the mass market in Europe. If they had shown intense footy graphics before the PS2 came in with FIFA 2001, it would have sold millions more.


Sega neglected EA's hugest money making console moving franchise, making only NFL, NHL and NBA equivalents.