The Gaming Historian - Sega Dreamcast (Part 2)

The launch of the Playstation 2 on March 4th, 2000 was a huge success for Sony. On launch day in Japan, 600,000 Playstation 2's were sold. Since there were only about 1 million Dreamcasts sold in Japan, and about 2 Million sold in the United States, Sega concentrated their efforts in the US Market. Peter Moore stated "you have to fish where the fish are biting." Sega also split up their in-house development. Rather than keep top designers such as Yuji Naka, who programmed Sonic the Hedgehog, and Yu Suzuki, creator of Shenmu under Sega's roof, they split them up into independent developers for the Dreamcast. This was actually a smart move, as these new independent developers could experiment and vastly expand the Dreamcasts library. However, the power of the Playstation 2 was obvious. Many developers of Dreamcast games hoped to see their creations on the Playstation 2 one day.

On March 10, 2000, Microsoft announced the X-Box. Microsoft noticed the Playstation 2 taking over living rooms and having the ability to do more than just play games. Their new console was being made to compete against that. Sega was now on a clock. Either they build up their user base now, or fall. Sega of America soon announced SegaNet. For 21.95 a month, you could take advantage of Sega's internet service, which would allow fast online gameplay, web browsing, and more. If you signed up for a 2 year subscription, You would recieve a Dreamcast and a keyboard for free. However, things were still not looking good. Many executives at Sega openly advocated ending Sega's hardware business. The playstation 2 was on it's way, and the Gamecube was announced. But, Sega had a small gleem of hope in September of 2000.

Due to part shortages in Japan, Sony could not ship as many consoles to the US as it had hoped. Not only that, but the launch titles for the Playstation 2 were not impressive. It also cost twice as much as the Dreamcast. Dreamcast sales surged during the 2000 holidays, but it was short lived. On January 24th, Sega announced that they would discontinue the Dreamcast. They had plenty of inventory stocked up, and with bad sales, there was no need to produce any more consoles. Sega officially stated they were pulling out of the hardware business and now making games for multiple platforms.

Many new games were still being released for the Dreamcast and even some accessories, such as a Broadband Adapter that replaced the 56k dial up connection. But basically, the system was ending. It took 22 months for Sega to sell 6.5 million Dreamcasts. It took Sony only 15 months to sell 10 million Playstation 2s. So here is the ultimate question: what went wrong for Sega?

Here are a few reasons why the Dreamcast failed.

#1: The Playstation 2. It was simply much more powerful than the Dreamcast, and the inclusion of a DVD Drive really hurt. Believe it or not, DVD's were not very popular in Japan before the Playstation 2. After the PS2's release, the DVD market exploded. The Xbox and Gamecube announcements were like a nail in the coffin.

#2: The Dreamcast lacked third party support. Many of the Dreamcast games were made by Sega, and some third party developers such as EA Sportsrefused to make games on the Dreamcast after the Saturns failures.

#3: Game Piracy. During the release of the Dreamcast, another new technology was gaining popularity on PCs....the CD Burner. Hacker groups online soon began ripping the images off the GD-Roms via the Serial port or Broadband Adapter, and creating images that could be put on a CD-R. Because the Dreamcast requires no hardware modifications to read CD-R discs, pirated Dreamcast games were extremely popular.

As of now, 10.6 Million dreamcasts have been sold. So why do people love the Dreamcast? Maybe its because it felt like a real gaming system. After Sega's previous flops, the Dreamcast was a breathe of fresh air and a reminder that Sega could still make awesome systems. Even today, independent developers make games for the Dreamcast. The Dreamcast is just a great console, and an amazing finale for the company. Sega...you will never be forgotten...your name will forever be immortalized in history.