Why the dreamcast failed

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Luke

Why the dreamcast failed

Postby Luke » January 31st, 2009, 7:29 pm

[QUOTE=aa]Noone even had enough courage to admit that Sony won through its marketing campaign as much as it won through the hardware of its PS2. So many people look cynically at Sega but almost seem to worship the abilities of the PS2!
[/QUOTE]I respect your opinions. But I personally don't believe that Sony even had to market that hard to sell the PS2. After the huge success of the original Playstation, I think a lot of people were going to buy it regardless. But again, the fact that it had the ability to play DVD's and PS1 games.. and was said to be more powerful than the Dreamcast (debatable?), those were its main selling points. And with something like that, you don't even really need to advertise - people can read the specifications for themselves.

I love my Dreamcast. But I love my Playstation 2 even more! Especially lately, since I've been finding so many great games for under $10!!

aa

Why the dreamcast failed

Postby aa » February 1st, 2009, 1:26 am

If it was true that Sony did not have to market that hard to sell the PS2 after the monumental success of the PS1, then the PS3 should have been a huge success and an instant hit when it was released.

The PS2 was even more successful than the PS1, so this only seems logical. But the PS3 did not become an instant hit, and lags behind the Wii and the 360 in this generation's console wars.

Thus Sony did have to market hard to boost the PS2's sales. 

Also, do not forget the fact that some developers for the PS1 had originally been skeptical of the PS2 because it was considerably harder to develop games for the PS2 than it was for the PS1.

 So not every developer welcomed the PS2 with open arms when it was first released, but they eventually did so.

I also doubt that people can read specifications for themselves: how many people truly know the difference between Blu-ray and HD-DVD?

How many people think the Blu-ray is a revolutionary step up from DVDs, and how many skeptics have questioned the purchase and up-grade to high-definition TVs?

Do not forget that in 1995 most people could not tell the difference between CDs and cassettes, and don't most people agree today that CDs were more revolutionary than DVDs?

Moreover, could people tell the difference between the graphics of the Dreamcast and the PS2 back then when (and if) they were asked to compare the two?

I thought most people were swayed more by what they saw with their eyes rather than what they read about computer specifications.

And to top it off, in 2000 PS2 games were about 10 times as expensive as they are now.

 And if I may be so bold to proclaim this: the Sega 32X supported backwards compatibility with Genesis games but this feature dragged the system's polygon capabilities down and helped made it one of the most infamous systems ever known today.

I know that times change as years go by, but if people ignored backwards compatibility back in 1994, then could not they have similarly overlooked it in 2000 if not for Sony's marketing campaign?

Luke

Why the dreamcast failed

Postby Luke » February 1st, 2009, 2:25 am

[QUOTE=aa]If it was true that Sony did not have to market that hard to sell the PS2 after the monumental success of the PS1, then the PS3 should have been a huge success and an instant hit when it was released. [/QUOTE]In theory, yes. But the original price tag was too much for a lot of folks. Plus, the launch titles weren't all that impressive. Resistance: Fall of Man being the best out of the bunch

aa

Why the dreamcast failed

Postby aa » February 2nd, 2009, 6:13 am

The original launch titles for the PS2 were not very impressive either.

In fact I would favour the PS3's launch titles in terms of quality than the PS2's launch titles.

It is true that Resistance: Fall of Man was not as good as it could have been, but it was still miles better than Perfect Dark Zero, which was a launch title for the Xbox 360.

There is also Motorstorm, which is a fantastic racer for this system and does a very good job of showing off this system's graphical capabilities.

Even the Critic gave this title a solid rating of A.

But what about the launch titles for the PS2?

They were very mediocre at best and did not do much in showing off the PS2's graphical capabilities.

Isn't it a fact that more people who bought the PS2 at launch in Japan did not buy any games for the system and did not do so for the next few months?

I am sure I read in "The Ultimate History of Video Games" (which is a reliable source of information by the way, with frequent quotes and references to what the top developers and eyewitnesses had said at the time) that at least half of those people who bought the PS2 at launch in Japan only bought the hardware and used it for playing DVDs only.

 It was only after several months that they actually began to buy software for the machine.

I cannot even remember the PS2's launch titles released at the end of 2000.

A spinoff of Resident Evil may have been released by Capcom (but which is not regarded as a top quality game by most critics today) in 2000, but apart from that I do not think that any noteworthy titles were released for the PS2 at launch.

It was surely much more lackluster than the bucketload of quality titles released for the PS1 at launch (Ridge Racer, Tekken, etc.) in 1995.

Also, do not forget that the initial price of the PS2 was a $100 more expensive than the price of the PS1 at the end of 1995 (Sony had reduced the price of the PS1 from $299 to $199 in December of 1995), so that even in 2000 gamers were forced to spend more money in buying the PS2.

Moreover, the price for the Dreamcast was still $100 cheaper than the initial price of the PS2, and yet the Dreamcast backfired while the PS2 monumentally succeeded.

So although the PS3 was indeed a very expensive console to buy at launch, do not forget that the PS2 was not a cheap console to buy at its launch either.


Oltobaz1
Posts: 1605
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

Why the dreamcast failed

Postby Oltobaz1 » February 2nd, 2009, 10:26 am

Actually, Tekken wasn't part of the PS1 launch... Battle Arena Tohshinden was, as the first 3d fighter available on the system.


Luke

Why the dreamcast failed

Postby Luke » February 2nd, 2009, 2:11 pm

[QUOTE=aa]There is also Motorstorm, which is a fantastic racer for this system and does a very good job of showing off this system's graphical capabilities. Even the Critic gave this title a solid rating of A.

So although the PS3 was indeed a very expensive console to buy at launch, do not forget that the PS2 was not a cheap console to buy at its launch either. [/QUOTE]
Motorstorm wasn't a launch title in Japan or here in the United States.

The PS2 sold for $299 at launch. The PS3 had two models, which sold for $499 and $599 respectively. That's a $200/$300 price difference. That's pretty significant. Why would you even try to argue this point anyway? A large majority of gamers complained that the PS3 was too expensive at launch! Were you just born yesterday?

That's part of the reason the 3DO failed, ya know - it was too expensive.

N64Dude1
Posts: 1242
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

Why the dreamcast failed

Postby N64Dude1 » February 2nd, 2009, 7:53 pm

If expense was everything you'd the winners would like

Atari 2600 ($199) actually won
Atari 5200 ($199) got killed in Crash
Atari 7800 ($149) crushed by NES which was $50 more
Sega Genesis ($190) crushed by SNES which was an extra $10
Nintendo 64 ($199) whopped by PlayStation which was an extra $100
Dreamcast/GameCube ($199) same situation as the N64
Wii($250) actually winning

Expense doesn't mean too much,it's all about crap and loads of it oh and jeers from gamers [with exceptions of 2600 and SNES all successful consoles were jeered at by gamers and had 95% crap and 75% of gamers jeering.Next of all to aaS3 had no good launch titles and even PS2 titles were better [SSX vs. Resistance,SSX clearly wins]. The last time a successful console had a good launch[Wii doesn't count right now] was probably SNES.Last time the cheapest console won that actually hit mainstream before Wii was the 5200

If brand was everything,then Magnavox would've crushed Atari and we'd still be stuck with consoles that play PONG.


aa

Why the dreamcast failed

Postby aa » February 3rd, 2009, 10:23 am

Tekken was a part of the PS1 launch, in the way that I originally meant games that were released in 1995 for the PS1.
 
Since the PS1 was released in September of 1995, I would think that whether Tekken was released in September or December does not make much of a difference.
 
I am sure that Motorstorm was one of the launch titles of the PS3.
 
Was not Motorstorm sold along with Resistance: Fall of Man when the PS3 was released?
 
I have no idea what any other PS3 launch titles were, but I thought I was pretty certain that Resistance and Motorstorm were released by Sony at launch.
 
The Sega Saturn sold for a $399 price tag when it was initially launched (although the price was dropped to $299 in December 1995), and as videogame systems had always been getting steadily more expensive generation after generation, the $499 price tag may not have been surprising in 2007 if the economy had been normal in that year.
 
I cannot deny that the PS3 was an expensive console when launched, but I am sure that in 2008 the prices for the console had been lowered to $399/$499 (judging by what I have noticed in Australia and New Zealand in that year, anyhow).
 
The $399 is only what the initial price of the Saturn was at launch in 1995, and yet few people blame the failure of the Saturn solely on its price.
 
But from what I have seen and heard, almost everyone is blaming the failure of the PS3 on its price tag.
 
The $499 version may be expensive, but it offers very high tech multimedia for its time and an enormous hard drive.
 
Since the 360 offers only DVDs for gaming, there could still have been a huge incentive to buy the PS3.
 
The up-grade from VHS to DVDs came after a long period in which people had used VHS.
 
But Sony is offering Blu-ray on its PS3 only 7 meagre years after the addition of the DVD player on the PS2 in 2000.
 
The 3DO was also released with a $700 price tag when it was launched, and it did not offer a noticeable improvement from games on the SNES or on the Genesis in 1993.
 
Most 3DO games which were released at launch looked decidedly 2D and Starfox for the SNES easily topped the graphics of any of the 3DO launch titles.
 
The 3DO was also released by developers and companies which were almost completely unknown to most gamers at the time.
 
The PS3 was different: it was cheaper than the 3DO for a start, it featured revolutionary Blu-ray gaming, its games looked much better than their PS2 counterparts, and it was released by Sony.
 
In 1993 the videogame market was also declining to a downturn, which remained until 1995.
 
The 1993/94 years were bad for most game companies and Sega had to replace ordinary Genesis packaging with the cheaper and more ugly-looking cardboard packaging.
 
For the Atari 2600 being initially priced $199 is not in fact very relevant, however, as most people bought the console in the early 1980s when the console sold for something like $99.
 
I also do not think that SSX is a clearly better game than Resistance: Fall of Man, as the latter was actually a decent first-person shooter considered by critics to be on par with Gears of War for the Xbox 360.
 
The Wii priced $250 is winning today because¡¦ go and read my ¡°The bad economy killed the PS3¡± thread.
 
And in fact expense does mean a lot to most gamers, and majorly motivates decisions by gamers to purchase a console.
 
Almost every console has quality software (at least one game that is good), but practically expense IS a major issue.
 
I also do not think it to be relevant to compare the Magnavox released in 1972 with the PS3 in 2008.
 
The videogame market practically did not exist in 1972, so how could one come up with the theory that Magnavox would have crushed Atari and that we would still have Pong?
 
Magnavox was not even a well-known brand.
 
The Atari 5200 also did not win anything, as its sales were far below what Atari had expected for the console in 1982.
 
I also cannot understand how the PS2 was jeered at by 75% of all gamers, as about 75% of gamers had purchased the console during its lifespan and bought games for it.

Atarifever1
Posts: 3892
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

Why the dreamcast failed

Postby Atarifever1 » February 3rd, 2009, 11:20 am

The Dreamcast failed because people cannot be trusted to make correct choices, but are allowed to try anyway.  Proof:

Viewership numbers for reality TV
Celebrity endorsements swaying votes in elections all around
Smoking
Failure of the Saturn
Failure of the Dreamcast



Luke

Why the dreamcast failed

Postby Luke » February 3rd, 2009, 2:11 pm

[QUOTE=aa]I am sure that Motorstorm was one of the launch titles of the PS3.   Was not Motorstorm sold along with Resistance: Fall of Man when the PS3 was released?   [/QUOTE]In Europe maybe. But not in Japan or the U.S.


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