Sega was too early with several innovations like online game downloads, which meant they weren’t profitable enough. Technically however they were ages ahead of the competition who later gladly absorbed their knowledge.
Comment on How it felt to watch this awesome console fail back in the day
SteveFromMySpace@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
Sega was already in dire financial straits after the Saturn, so they panicked during the Dreamcast and ended the console’s life cycle very early making developers abandon it within just a couple years.
I’m not sure if there’s anything they could have done differently to be honest. Push them over the edge with the price war during the Saturn. If I remember correctly they were losing about $100 before PSX did its first (very early) $50 price drop and they had to keep up, so that became -$150/ea before the console was even a year old. It was disastrous.
Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 1 month ago
SteveFromMySpace@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
The Sega Saturn is a prime example of how that was not the case. They brute forced it and it cost a fortune as a result. Sony matched it with generic parts for cheaper in a shorter amount of time.
Poppa_Mo@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Wasn’t the deeper story on this a bit more sad? I thought Sega made a bunch of rash idiotic decisions with their product lines, not originally because of Nintendo and Sony, but because of NeoGeo?
They were so convinced NeoGeo was going to be the be all end all of gaming, both home and arcade, so they shotgunned a bunch of ideas out then panic killed several of them?
SteveFromMySpace@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
Only decision Sega made in direct response to their competitors was the price drop after Sony kind of forced them to. I didn’t really say anything beyond that
marx2k@lemmy.world 1 month ago
wtf did happen w neogeo
Poppa_Mo@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Ahh no, not saying you were wrong, just checking my decrepit old memory.
SteveFromMySpace@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
Word
ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 1 month ago
They released 32x, Sega Genesis, then Sega Saturn so freaking close to each other that really left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.
Dreamcast came out with Sonic, Shenmue, Power Stone and then the most perfect version of Marvel Vs Capcom 2 and started to become attractive.
Then everyone discovered how to pirate Dreamcast games. Like it was so stupidly easy. People in my campus started giving copied Dreamcast games away.
SteveFromMySpace@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
No one is saying Dreamcast didn’t have a great library. The problem was Sega was on the brink of financial ruin when it launched and it simply didn’t move units due to its price point, awkward timing between consoles, and as you said prior saturation with their consoles.
jordanlund@lemmy.world 1 month ago
It was actually the opposite problem… they sold plenty of hardware. But they lost money on every sale and didn’t make it back on software purchases as was the plan.
In fact, the Dreamcast had sold more than the Xbox and Gamecube combined for the first several years of their lifespan.
DosDude@retrolemmy.com 1 month ago
There was also the playstation 2 releasing about 6 months after the dreamcast, with dvd capabilities, when dvd players were expensive as fuck. People were using them as a DVD player. Basically the same reason the playstation 3 sold decently at all in it’s first years.
SteveFromMySpace@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
the Xbox was a financial disaster that was basically a massive loss leader by a larger company that could absorb it just to tee themselves up for next generation. Microsoft’s Xbox division was $2bill in the red when it was all said and done.
the GameCube sold the worst of all consoles the Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo at 21 mill total. Xbox 24mill. You’re also cherry picking your numbers it seems to ignore Dreamcast’s final count at 9mill units sold. First years are only part of the story. The story is they did very poorly.
Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
I remember nobody trusting Sega to not abandon yet another console after a year like all the others so a lot of people stopped buying their brand.