Lair's low scores...

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

You're a man with common sense.

[The n00b]

That's one Ceph post I can get behind. I'd also like to add that poor Sega support of their American division also led to the downfall of the Saturn and all those add-ons. The Sega cd should have been cool but too much arrogance from Sega Japan held it down.

[Shatterhand]

Master System got an "ass-whuppin'", but thats because no one knew about it and Sega was relatively new.

It was very popular here in Brazil The NES was oficially released here at the same time the SNES was (i.e. , too damn late) so it's hard to compare both. But I think the SMS sold more than the NES clones we had around here.

[jp]

Reality check.

I talked about Sega with a couple of non gamers (adults) the other day. They remembered the Mega Drive, "and some CD system". The name Saturn didn't ring a bell, and they had never seen or heard of Dreamcast (they knew PS1 and 2).

That's failed marketing for you, and it's Sega's own fault. It's nonsense to blame any other company for Sega's shortcomings. Sega fucked up royally in the 90s (after their successful Mega Drive/Genesis). Failed add-ons (bad in-house communication), failed console (Saturn): Due to bad architecture (slapped-on 3d capabilities [failure to understand in advance that gamers wanted 3D=bad market research], premature release, high price and bad software lineup upon market entry; bad software lineup period. And it doesn't matter that the Saturn provided you and me with lots of enjoyment; the rest of the (non Japanese) world regarded it as a failure. By then everyone but a few devoted fans lost all faith and interest in Sega. And then enter the Dreamacst: Worst. Marketing. Ever.

In short: Sega killed itself. Had the people at Sega better anticipated what consumers wanted and coordinated their efforts better, then they would still be in the console business. However, they completely and utterly failed at marketing. End of story.
Move along people, there's nothing more to see here.

Are you kidding me? The Dreamcast was SUCCESSFUL in the US. In the two years it existed, it actually sold and did fairly decent for Sega. I don't care what your two random "non-gamer" adults remember, anyone that is a gamer what-so-ever knows what the Dreamcast is and, for the most part, hold it in high regards (I can't even begin to count the random people that know of and give props to the Sega Dreamcast).

The Dreamcast's marketing was fine. You had popular acts at the time talking about it, Sega had fairly good commercials running for their games, and they had a solid selection. Their main problems being the lack of EA games and eventually the lack of GTA. But apparently you don't recall that the Dreamcast was (at the time) the fastest selling system ever (over a million in two months).

Yeah, that sounds like just like Sega's previous consoles doesn't it?

Of course, by the end of its 2 year lifespan the DC had sold well over 10 million units. 10 million. You know what other system has sold 10 million units in two years? The Xbox 360. You know what probably won't sell 10 million units in 2 years? The PS3. In fact, didn't the original Xbox only sell something like 13 million world wide? I could be mistaken.

Regardless, for you to deny to DC was a success is... rather asinine. In 2 years the Dreamcast did some impressive numbers. Want to know the contributing factors to its demise?
1. Sega bleeding money.
2. Sony's hype machine.
3. Piracy.

And anyone that says otherwise was apparently not paying attention to the Dreamcast AT ALL when it was alive.

[neorichieb1971]

I doubt Sega didn't have a clue what the consumer wanted. The consumer wanted AM2 model 2 hits to come to Saturn somewhat intact and playable. Sega decided to release Saturn without most of this gubbins built in and PS1 showed that Ridge Racer arcade was closer to PS1 than Daytona was to Saturn.

2 years later Model 3 hit with VF3, another Sega success. In fact, the only time Saturn did better than PS1 was Xmas 1996 when Virtua Cop, Virtua Fighter 2 and Sega rally were released almost on top of each other. After that the Saturn was finished.

Sega left too much of a power gap, with the arcade counterparts leaving Sega fanboys with disappointment after disappointment for the home version. By the time Dreamcast came out, the demographic had changed once again, it wasn't about 3D anymore, it was about the adoption of DVD and 3D. Sega read it wrong again and paid even more dearly with a better product. Unfortunate.

[dave4shmups]

Reality check.

I talked about Sega with a couple of non gamers (adults) the other day. They remembered the Mega Drive, "and some CD system". The name Saturn didn't ring a bell, and they had never seen or heard of Dreamcast (they knew PS1 and 2).

That's failed marketing for you, and it's Sega's own fault. It's nonsense to blame any other company for Sega's shortcomings. Sega fucked up royally in the 90s (after their successful Mega Drive/Genesis). Failed add-ons (bad in-house communication), failed console (Saturn): Due to bad architecture (slapped-on 3d capabilities [failure to understand in advance that gamers wanted 3D=bad market research], premature release, high price and bad software lineup upon market entry; bad software lineup period. And it doesn't matter that the Saturn provided you and me with lots of enjoyment; the rest of the (non Japanese) world regarded it as a failure. By then everyone but a few devoted fans lost all faith and interest in Sega. And then enter the Dreamacst: Worst. Marketing. Ever.

In short: Sega killed itself. Had the people at Sega better anticipated what consumers wanted and coordinated their efforts better, then they would still be in the console business. However, they completely and utterly failed at marketing. End of story.
Move along people, there's nothing more to see here.

Are you kidding me? The Dreamcast was SUCCESSFUL in the US. In the two years it existed, it actually sold and did fairly decent for Sega. I don't care what your two random "non-gamer" adults remember, anyone that is a gamer what-so-ever knows what the Dreamcast is and, for the most part, hold it in high regards (I can't even begin to count the random people that know of and give props to the Sega Dreamcast).

True, the IGN Playstation team was talking to one of the guys on the Warhawk development staff, and he still loves, and plays, his Dreamcast. And everyone I've talked to speaks well of it. It was also the first console to offer online play, so some say that it was the first "true" next-gen console.

But I've also heard what you said, JP, that the lack of EA support hurt it pretty badly.

And in the end, it's the games that people want that matter, which is where MS has got it down, right now, with the 360. Although I would disagree with the statement that Halo 3 is all MS needs; there were two Halo's on the original XBOX and it still didn't come out on top.



I

[D]

Reality check.

I talked about Sega with a couple of non gamers (adults) the other day. They remembered the Mega Drive, "and some CD system". The name Saturn didn't ring a bell, and they had never seen or heard of Dreamcast (they knew PS1 and 2).

That's failed marketing for you, and it's Sega's own fault. It's nonsense to blame any other company for Sega's shortcomings. Sega fucked up royally in the 90s (after their successful Mega Drive/Genesis). Failed add-ons (bad in-house communication), failed console (Saturn): Due to bad architecture (slapped-on 3d capabilities [failure to understand in advance that gamers wanted 3D=bad market research], premature release, high price and bad software lineup upon market entry; bad software lineup period. And it doesn't matter that the Saturn provided you and me with lots of enjoyment; the rest of the (non Japanese) world regarded it as a failure. By then everyone but a few devoted fans lost all faith and interest in Sega. And then enter the Dreamacst: Worst. Marketing. Ever.

In short: Sega killed itself. Had the people at Sega better anticipated what consumers wanted and coordinated their efforts better, then they would still be in the console business. However, they completely and utterly failed at marketing. End of story.
Move along people, there's nothing more to see here.

Exactly, I am a Sega fanboy, but they furked up. Those IDIOTS.
They could have had it all. They were making consoles and they had lots of great 1st party arcade games that they made themselves
Let's all laugh real hard at how they managed to screw all that up. If I couldn't laugh about it, I'd cry.
But yeah, the ps3 sucks more than the other nexgen peripherals.
I like the sixaxis, but people forget it's extra and does not even need to be incorporated in every game.

[CMoon]

Yup, also have mixed feelings about Ceph's post:

Can't speak for the Sega CD system, but the Saturn definitely seems to have been killed off more by difficulties between Sega Japan and Sega US than anything else. I recall the US division being infuriated that they had effectively been abandoned by Sega Japan. I don't think it was the bad architecture, but lack of support and good US titles that really brought this one down. In the US, the Saturn was another gamecube; seemingly a lot of promise up front and then no delivery of games and finally just dying on its own accord.

The Dreamcast however, that's just wrong! The DC seemed very strong to me at the time, delivering with game after game. I think the real answer here is money. If Sega was in Sony's position right now, it would be bankrupt and have to fold; but Sony has the deep pockets and can fund systems that lose hard at the beginning of their lifespans.

The Dreamcast was a good system with a lot of great games but no budget to compete with the likes of Sony and Microsoft. If anything, I think Sega had already learned its lesson about marketing and was playing it smart, but by this point in the game, it was too little - too late.

[Ceph]

Don't get me wrong, the Dreamcast's lineup of games was as good as it gets. Not showing them to the (non-videogame-nerd) masses is where things went wrong.

Dreamcast's bad marketing may very well have been due to Sega being near bankrupt at the time, I don't doubt it. I remember only one single TV-spot that showed gameplay footage, and from ECCO of all games.... Not good.

On the other hand Sega wasted Millions on sponsoring several unknown European soccer teams. Way to go.

Most people were still used to PS1 graphics at the time; showing footage from Sonic Adventure, Shenmu, Virtua Fighter 3tb, Virtua Tennis, Virtua Striker, Soul Calibur II, House of the Dead 2, Code Veronica etc. on TV would have made a huge impact. Alas, it was not to be.

Pretty much every time in recent years I showed someone who didn't know Dreamcast back in the day some of the games, they were very surprised to learn that the console was released in 1998 (because it looks so much better than everything else from that time).

[dave4shmups]

Ok, so a patch for analog control was released, and IGN gave their impressions, but still didn't change their score: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/866/866161p1.html

Has anyone here played Lair with the new patch?