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0 pointsPostOnce9y ago0 comments

I knew a lot of people who owned a Dreamcast and no games.

No modchip required, no soldering, broadband penetration on the rise, filesharing was now a thing.

I completely understand the Saturn's botched launch and limited number of retail outlets, but the Dreamcast had the best launch of all time up to that point and broke sales records.

I'm not convinced piracy is not in fact the cause of the Dreamcast's demise.

I really did love the Dreamcast, built in modem and the second-screen VMU.

If you don't think piracy killed it, what do you think killed it? The PS2?

0 comments

toast09y ago

No EA Games, when Madden was huge; no DVD player, and the PS2 hype cycle was perfectly timed and had an even better launch. Wikipedia sales numbers for the PS2 and Dreamcast say the PS2 sold 10.6M by March 31, 2001, whereas the Dreamcast was dead by then and only sold 9.13M. Sega also had troubled finances as a result of the Saturn.

PostOnceOP9y ago

the 2K Sports series negated the need for EA and sold so well that EA sought out an exclusivity contract with the NFL so that 2K would be killed?

The DVD drive after the ps2 was released probably would be a huge factor though, if the dreamcast wasn't in fact already dead which it was.

I'm sure some business school guys have written papers on this, I should find them. Would be interesting to read all the opinions on Sega's near death and exiting the hardware business.

834579y ago

I actually preferred the 2k football games so EA getting exclusivity there was annoying.

ricksplat9y ago

I believe Sega also had some institutional issues. There was a documentary a while back, can't quite remember the name. Something about the corporate structure a lot of the business was based in the US while the technical knowledge was based in Japan and thru some skulduggery they ended up torpedoing themselves ...

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