The final home console Sega developed in the 90s was the Sega Dreamcast. It was a hugely promising and ambitious machine, delivering many of the things that future consoles would consider to be standards, but it was let down by poor marketing and an inability to escape the curse of the Sega Saturn. Let\u2019s take a look at Sega\u2019s ill-fated but ultimately underrated console and figure out just what went wrong for this once-giant of console manufacturing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Dreamcast initially sold well<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\nAt first, Sega was pretty satisfied<\/a> with the sales figures for the Dreamcast. Sales figures in North America, when the console launched in 1998, were impressive; Sega actually set a Guinness World Record for the fastest-selling console, with 372,000 units of the Dreamcast sold in a single 24-hour period. In less than two weeks, Sega managed to rack up 514,000 sales, apparently surpassing Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace <\/em>in terms of day-one figures. It looked as though the Dreamcast was going to be everything Sega wanted it to be after the relative disappointment of the Sega Saturn, but let\u2019s back up a little and examine the Dreamcast\u2019s predecessor first.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Sega Saturn was a flop<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/sega-saturn-1024x567.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe reason Sega had a reputation to claw back in the first place was down to the Sega Saturn. The console was attempting to compete with the Nintendo 64<\/a> and the Sony PlayStation<\/a>, both of which had absolutely killer apps (in the case of the N64, gamers loved games like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time<\/em>, while the PlayStation had games like Crash Bandicoot<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Saturn, meanwhile, could only muster a handful of exclusives, none of which were system-sellers. By far the greatest game available for the Sega Saturn was Panzer Dragoon Saga<\/em>, an expansive JRPG with an innovative combat system, but it wasn\u2019t a big hit in the West, leading Sega to largely ignore the legacy of that series for a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt also didn\u2019t help that Sega pushed its Saturn release date forward<\/a> to compete with the PlayStation, alienating developers and leaving a huge gap between Sega and its partners when it came to Saturn support. The console subsequently received very little third-party support and promptly flopped, meaning it was all to play for with Sega\u2019s next machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Dreamcast was sunk by the PlayStation 2<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\nIn the end, Sony\u2019s PlayStation 2 console sank the Dreamcast, and it would likely have sunk its other rivals as well if they weren\u2019t so well-established already. Nintendo could weather the storm thanks to a lineup of excellent first-party titles, and Microsoft had the backing of one of the world\u2019s largest tech conglomerates. However, Sega were now comparatively small fish in a huge pond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The PS2 had DVD playback support, something the Dreamcast lacked. This turned out to be surprisingly important for gamers; they wanted a machine that would let them watch movies and play games without needing to swap cables over, and the PS2 would serve just that purpose. By contrast, the Dreamcast didn\u2019t offer this functionality, leaving it at a severe disadvantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was also the thorny issue of backwards compatibility. Gamers that did have a Sega Saturn back catalogue were disappointed to discover that the Dreamcast wouldn\u2019t play it, while Sony engineered backwards compatibility into the PS2, allowing gamers to play their PS1 titles without swapping the SCART over. The GameCube and Xbox didn\u2019t have backwards compatibility, either, which is partly what helped the PS2 sell so well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sony marketed the hell out of the PS2<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\nAnother reason the Dreamcast unfortunately died was that Sony was simply willing to spend more marketing money on the PS2. The console\u2019s much-touted Emotion Engine was a big focal point of the marketing; ironically, Sega was being hoisted by its own petard, one created by \u201cblast processing\u201d<\/a> during the Genesis marketing blitz.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSega just couldn\u2019t compete with Sony\u2019s marketing spend; the PlayStation giant even managed to get legendary movie director Steven Spielberg on-side to talk up the PS2 and tell gamers why they should buy it. Next to that kind of clout, Sega was utterly powerless, and it showed in the way they were unable to sell the Dreamcast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Dreamcast had some decent games, but no system-sellers<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\nThe PS2\u2019s lineup at launch may have been a little thin, but within a year or two, the system had some of the most hotly-anticipated games around. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty<\/em>, Final Fantasy X<\/em>, and Grand Theft Auto 3 <\/em>all helped to make the PS2 an absolute monster when it came to sales, while the Dreamcast could only lag behind with its relatively paltry lineup.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt\u2019s true that the Dreamcast certainly had some great games going for it. Shenmue<\/em>, while a very odd game by today\u2019s standards, arguably pushed the medium forward in many ways, and Sonic Adventure<\/em> was a leap forward for the Blue Blur in terms of tech. There just weren\u2019t any Dreamcast games<\/a> that gamers could point to and declare as system-sellers; it was a good curio, but nothing more.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn the end, the Dreamcast fell victim to a number of issues. It had no marketing budget, it had no major games it could rely on, and although it was technically ahead of its time – online gaming! – it wasn\u2019t enough to beat out Sony\u2019s more convenient, more accessible machine. The Dreamcast could have succeeded if it had been released in a less enlightened era, but the PS2 was poised for dominance, and the Dreamcast was just one of Sony\u2019s many casualties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The gaming scene today looks very different to how it did back in the 90s. At that time, Nintendo and Sega were riding high, with Sony\u2019s PlayStation a new and unproven unknown. Microsoft had yet to release its Xbox, although that console would debut with the next generation, and although PC gaming was still a … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":7337,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"close","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,174,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-videogames","category-nostalgia","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7334"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7334"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7653,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7334\/revisions\/7653"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
The Sega Saturn was a flop<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe reason Sega had a reputation to claw back in the first place was down to the Sega Saturn. The console was attempting to compete with the Nintendo 64<\/a> and the Sony PlayStation<\/a>, both of which had absolutely killer apps (in the case of the N64, gamers loved games like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time<\/em>, while the PlayStation had games like Crash Bandicoot<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Saturn, meanwhile, could only muster a handful of exclusives, none of which were system-sellers. By far the greatest game available for the Sega Saturn was Panzer Dragoon Saga<\/em>, an expansive JRPG with an innovative combat system, but it wasn\u2019t a big hit in the West, leading Sega to largely ignore the legacy of that series for a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt also didn\u2019t help that Sega pushed its Saturn release date forward<\/a> to compete with the PlayStation, alienating developers and leaving a huge gap between Sega and its partners when it came to Saturn support. The console subsequently received very little third-party support and promptly flopped, meaning it was all to play for with Sega\u2019s next machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Dreamcast was sunk by the PlayStation 2<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\nIn the end, Sony\u2019s PlayStation 2 console sank the Dreamcast, and it would likely have sunk its other rivals as well if they weren\u2019t so well-established already. Nintendo could weather the storm thanks to a lineup of excellent first-party titles, and Microsoft had the backing of one of the world\u2019s largest tech conglomerates. However, Sega were now comparatively small fish in a huge pond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The PS2 had DVD playback support, something the Dreamcast lacked. This turned out to be surprisingly important for gamers; they wanted a machine that would let them watch movies and play games without needing to swap cables over, and the PS2 would serve just that purpose. By contrast, the Dreamcast didn\u2019t offer this functionality, leaving it at a severe disadvantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was also the thorny issue of backwards compatibility. Gamers that did have a Sega Saturn back catalogue were disappointed to discover that the Dreamcast wouldn\u2019t play it, while Sony engineered backwards compatibility into the PS2, allowing gamers to play their PS1 titles without swapping the SCART over. The GameCube and Xbox didn\u2019t have backwards compatibility, either, which is partly what helped the PS2 sell so well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sony marketed the hell out of the PS2<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\nAnother reason the Dreamcast unfortunately died was that Sony was simply willing to spend more marketing money on the PS2. The console\u2019s much-touted Emotion Engine was a big focal point of the marketing; ironically, Sega was being hoisted by its own petard, one created by \u201cblast processing\u201d<\/a> during the Genesis marketing blitz.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSega just couldn\u2019t compete with Sony\u2019s marketing spend; the PlayStation giant even managed to get legendary movie director Steven Spielberg on-side to talk up the PS2 and tell gamers why they should buy it. Next to that kind of clout, Sega was utterly powerless, and it showed in the way they were unable to sell the Dreamcast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Dreamcast had some decent games, but no system-sellers<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\nThe PS2\u2019s lineup at launch may have been a little thin, but within a year or two, the system had some of the most hotly-anticipated games around. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty<\/em>, Final Fantasy X<\/em>, and Grand Theft Auto 3 <\/em>all helped to make the PS2 an absolute monster when it came to sales, while the Dreamcast could only lag behind with its relatively paltry lineup.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt\u2019s true that the Dreamcast certainly had some great games going for it. Shenmue<\/em>, while a very odd game by today\u2019s standards, arguably pushed the medium forward in many ways, and Sonic Adventure<\/em> was a leap forward for the Blue Blur in terms of tech. There just weren\u2019t any Dreamcast games<\/a> that gamers could point to and declare as system-sellers; it was a good curio, but nothing more.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn the end, the Dreamcast fell victim to a number of issues. It had no marketing budget, it had no major games it could rely on, and although it was technically ahead of its time – online gaming! – it wasn\u2019t enough to beat out Sony\u2019s more convenient, more accessible machine. The Dreamcast could have succeeded if it had been released in a less enlightened era, but the PS2 was poised for dominance, and the Dreamcast was just one of Sony\u2019s many casualties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The gaming scene today looks very different to how it did back in the 90s. At that time, Nintendo and Sega were riding high, with Sony\u2019s PlayStation a new and unproven unknown. Microsoft had yet to release its Xbox, although that console would debut with the next generation, and although PC gaming was still a … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":7337,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"close","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,174,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-videogames","category-nostalgia","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7334"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7334"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7653,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7334\/revisions\/7653"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe reason Sega had a reputation to claw back in the first place was down to the Sega Saturn. The console was attempting to compete with the Nintendo 64<\/a> and the Sony PlayStation<\/a>, both of which had absolutely killer apps (in the case of the N64, gamers loved games like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time<\/em>, while the PlayStation had games like Crash Bandicoot<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Saturn, meanwhile, could only muster a handful of exclusives, none of which were system-sellers. By far the greatest game available for the Sega Saturn was Panzer Dragoon Saga<\/em>, an expansive JRPG with an innovative combat system, but it wasn\u2019t a big hit in the West, leading Sega to largely ignore the legacy of that series for a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It also didn\u2019t help that Sega pushed its Saturn release date forward<\/a> to compete with the PlayStation, alienating developers and leaving a huge gap between Sega and its partners when it came to Saturn support. The console subsequently received very little third-party support and promptly flopped, meaning it was all to play for with Sega\u2019s next machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the end, Sony\u2019s PlayStation 2 console sank the Dreamcast, and it would likely have sunk its other rivals as well if they weren\u2019t so well-established already. Nintendo could weather the storm thanks to a lineup of excellent first-party titles, and Microsoft had the backing of one of the world\u2019s largest tech conglomerates. However, Sega were now comparatively small fish in a huge pond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The PS2 had DVD playback support, something the Dreamcast lacked. This turned out to be surprisingly important for gamers; they wanted a machine that would let them watch movies and play games without needing to swap cables over, and the PS2 would serve just that purpose. By contrast, the Dreamcast didn\u2019t offer this functionality, leaving it at a severe disadvantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was also the thorny issue of backwards compatibility. Gamers that did have a Sega Saturn back catalogue were disappointed to discover that the Dreamcast wouldn\u2019t play it, while Sony engineered backwards compatibility into the PS2, allowing gamers to play their PS1 titles without swapping the SCART over. The GameCube and Xbox didn\u2019t have backwards compatibility, either, which is partly what helped the PS2 sell so well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another reason the Dreamcast unfortunately died was that Sony was simply willing to spend more marketing money on the PS2. The console\u2019s much-touted Emotion Engine was a big focal point of the marketing; ironically, Sega was being hoisted by its own petard, one created by \u201cblast processing\u201d<\/a> during the Genesis marketing blitz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sega just couldn\u2019t compete with Sony\u2019s marketing spend; the PlayStation giant even managed to get legendary movie director Steven Spielberg on-side to talk up the PS2 and tell gamers why they should buy it. Next to that kind of clout, Sega was utterly powerless, and it showed in the way they were unable to sell the Dreamcast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The PS2\u2019s lineup at launch may have been a little thin, but within a year or two, the system had some of the most hotly-anticipated games around. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty<\/em>, Final Fantasy X<\/em>, and Grand Theft Auto 3 <\/em>all helped to make the PS2 an absolute monster when it came to sales, while the Dreamcast could only lag behind with its relatively paltry lineup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s true that the Dreamcast certainly had some great games going for it. Shenmue<\/em>, while a very odd game by today\u2019s standards, arguably pushed the medium forward in many ways, and Sonic Adventure<\/em> was a leap forward for the Blue Blur in terms of tech. There just weren\u2019t any Dreamcast games<\/a> that gamers could point to and declare as system-sellers; it was a good curio, but nothing more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the end, the Dreamcast fell victim to a number of issues. It had no marketing budget, it had no major games it could rely on, and although it was technically ahead of its time – online gaming! – it wasn\u2019t enough to beat out Sony\u2019s more convenient, more accessible machine. The Dreamcast could have succeeded if it had been released in a less enlightened era, but the PS2 was poised for dominance, and the Dreamcast was just one of Sony\u2019s many casualties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The gaming scene today looks very different to how it did back in the 90s. At that time, Nintendo and Sega were riding high, with Sony\u2019s PlayStation a new and unproven unknown. Microsoft had yet to release its Xbox, although that console would debut with the next generation, and although PC gaming was still a … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":7337,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"close","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,174,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-videogames","category-nostalgia","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7334"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7334"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7653,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7334\/revisions\/7653"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Dreamcast was sunk by the PlayStation 2<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Sony marketed the hell out of the PS2<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Dreamcast had some decent games, but no system-sellers<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n