SEGA DREAMCAST

I had alot of fun playing Space Channel 5. This is a game that I missed out on during the Dreamcast era. During this climate of remasters/remakes Sega should make a sequel or remake for Space Channel 5. Send it to the Switch and watch the money roll in.
 
This was kind of a fun exercise to go through this series from Sega Lord X, where he looks at fictional "what ifs" on ways to save failed consoles. He's done this with a few consoles in the series but just recently made one for the Dreamcast. Who lived through this launch, and what do you think?



(1) Management - Agree with his point here on fixing the divide between the American and Japanese offices, as this was a huge issue that caused major issues with Sega, starting with the mid Genesis era (and I imagine earlier, just that Genesis was successful so the failures afterward were more easy to see). I suppose this point goes far beyond the Dreamcast, though.

(2) Hardware - Easy to agree with the RAM upgrade from 16 MB to 24 MB, but obviously can't calculate how that would effect the cost to make. However, it would still fall short of competitors, since the PS2 had 32 MB of RAM, so maybe if you're going up to 24 you might as well see if you can hit 32 MB.

(3) Dual-Sided CDs with proprietary mount - Disagree with this, as in an alternate reality it would have to use a DVD drive for more storage space for games, and to be a cheap DVD player (remember that this series allows for the power of hindsight, and the PS2 was the cheapest DVD player in Japan, which resulted in a huge boost of sales)

(4) External DVD Drive - See above - the combined cost of the Dreamcast + External DVD drive would cost more than a PS2. While his argument that "you can tell consumers that the external dvd drive saves wear-and-tear on your game drive" would be true, I don't think consumers by and large would care. They would want the cheaper all-in-one unit, and don't want to plug in more stuff. Plus you don't get to use DVDs to make games. However, I get that adding a built in DVD drive would make the console more expensive, too (especially in our alternate reality where we add more RAM)

(5) Controller - Definitely agree that in retrospect the controller isn't really great compared to other Sega controllers, and would have benefitted from a 2nd analog stick. I wouldn't abandon the "diamond" face buttons though, since that pretty much became a standard in 3D gaming. I'm also unsure about every single controller having a built in screen and taking that off the VMU, since VMU gaming was a small selling point (not sure how successful it was in retrospect). If anything, I would just remove the screen entirely if this was a concern, especially if we're looking to offset costs

(6) Dreamcast Online - Disagree with removing the built in modem, as this was a major selling point of the system and a competitive advantage. Even if the online service wasn't quite "ready for launch", if you make it an extra peripheral you risk dividing the audience instead of making it accessible to all customers from the start. Say, if you hear about Phantasy Star Online and to play you need the game + the modem peripheral, instead of just the game.

(7) The Name - Sorry dude, but no, haha. To give an actual answer, you can't name a console after a weapon, and it sounds too "try hard" to call it Katana.

(8) Electronic Arts - An interesting point here but one I would ultimately agree with, since not having EA was one of the major dominoes that led to the demise of the Dreamcast. Essentially, would you give up on making the 2K Sports series to have EA games on the console, since they wanted sports exclusivity? (all EA games, not just sports)? Also consider that Sega had to spend money to acquire Visual Concepts.

I think this also considers that the hardware decision that EA was upset about "didn't happen", but I would have to scrub through again.

Remember that this considers things from a business perspective and not from a gamer perspective, so I think this is kind of a no brainer. Also, people didn't quite hate EA at this point, haha. However, my one thought is that if the Dreamcast would have hypothetically started slow "again", would EA have jumped ship and now you don't have a first party sports series?

(9) License Deals/First Party - It would be too difficult to assume "this just happens", but yeah, of course making more deals with third party studios, acquiring studios, and making great first party arcade ports would've been helpful. I also like the idea of making upgraded versions of Saturn games, like Panzer Dragoon: Saga. Wouldn't complain about Phantasy Star V, either. It would probably need to be a new story, though.

(10) Shenmue - Hooooo shit here we go. Again, the point here is that you're doing this from the perspective from pure business for the overall health of Sega. Obviously I don't think anyone on a Shenmue site would agree that this game should've been canceled, haha.

I would say the point I would make is that in this hypothetical do-over that we'd hope for 25-30 million console sales, which if the pace kept up could be about 3-5 million sales of Shenmue. Then you have a franchise that would have a few sequels and could've gone up to Shenmue III on the console, if not IV (:cry:)

(11) Advertising/Launch/First Year - Similar to point 9, this is another one of the things where it falls under "well, yeah, of course that would help". Essentially, finding strategic price drops and flash sales, while adding strategic pack-in titles. I'd say that while VGA output could be good to advertise, it's just too much of a power-user feature.

Closing Thoughts - If there was the DVD drive and upgraded RAM, I would have still hoped to sell the console for $249, but I'm not sure how feasible that would have been. If I could cut something to make up the cost, it would be the VMU screens but that would only be a fraction of the cost.
 
I disagree with him on almost everything. The only sensible thing he said was about increasing the ram from 16 to 24. Dreamcast even with 16 ram has better texturing than PS2 thanks to the hardware compression. The problem comes from the idea for easily porting Windows PC versions with Windows CE. With this method, games don't use the hardware to the full, but ports are made by small teams for just few months. Many of the more advanced WINDOWS games have development issues due to the DC only having 16 RAM. With 24 Ram (or even 32) more PC games can be ported (for the period of 1998-2002).

SEGA's biggest mistake is challenging Sony. This is impossible in that period. I understand why they do it though. Sony mostly take their audience (cool teens and young adults), not so much Nintendo's. Trying to survive as a second force, taking from the audience of Gamecube and Xbox is their only chance.

If the Dreamcast had sold more consoles and held on until the end in 2nd place behind the PS2 two things will happen.
1)Nintendo would have sold even less gamecube consoles, but they would have continued with Wii, DS, 3DS, Switch... Which would have been a huge success again.
2)Microsoft wouldn't exist after the big failure of the first Xbox. Without SEGA games, the first Xbox wouldn't have started with good sales. They would most likely mock it as a HALO machine.
 
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Didn't appreciate this video at all, just more stream of consciousness dialogue and opinions that don't make a lot of sense (like the name: who cares?).

I'm not at all praying for his downfall or anything, but his lower and lower view counts show that he's becoming really stale in his content and that people may potentially be losing interest in him (which is probably why he's doing non-Sega stuff, I'd think): there's SO MUCH to talk about, Sega wise and he's eschewing it for 3DO videos 🤦‍♂️
 
I watched one of his videos once and thought it was okay until he said the Yakuza series has bad voice acting. Killed my interest in anything he had to say right then and there.

But to keep things on-topic, I think this is a really cool development:



Not sure if it ever sees the light of day, but I hope it does.
 
Would be super cool if it did, I'm such a massive GTA2 fan and 3 was always my favourite of the 3D ones, so I would definitely get my hands on it.

As for SLX, I called him out on a video where he bashed Alex Kidd by purposely killing himself to show how, "impossible the game is," and said it was very dishonest of him and he took major offense to that and was acting condescending in response, like he was some big, important person.

Many of his videos at that time were not critical, but AGGRESSIVELY angry and hateful towards certain games, swearing in his dialogue (which I don't mind at all, but it read/sounded like he had something personal against a game, of all things) and just an overall lack of what made his content appealing in the first place.

And I was getting sick of him talking about Batman and how bad the Galaxy Force 2 port was, every other video, which has made me basically roll my eyes every time he does another video..
 
Thanks for sharing the info about the GTA 3 port. It looks really nice. Did not now that GTA 3 was planned for the DC in the first place.

There are lots of interesting games that were planned for the DC and did not get a release in the end.

ps: i just purchased another dreamcast game. F355 Challenge. Cannot wait to play it.
 
9dragons said:
Thanks for sharing the info about the GTA 3 port. It looks really nice. Did not now that GTA 3 was planned for the DC in the first place.

There are lots of interesting games that were planned for the DC and did not get a release in the end.

ps: i just purchased another dreamcast game. F355 Challenge. Cannot wait to play it.
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I had F355 challenge PS2 version and loved it
 
The fact that they got it running this well - and compatible with stock hardware at that - in such a short amount of time is crazy to me. Obviously there's still a lot of work left to be done, but this is a really nice update.

 
You Arcade Clerk said:
The fact that they got it running this well - and compatible with stock hardware at that - in such a short amount of time is crazy to me. Obviously there's still a lot of work left to be done, but this is a really nice update.

Click to expand...

Looks really cool. The devs should study the way Headhunter deals with level chunks. Draw distance shouldn't be that abysmal awful on DC.
 
www.threads.net

Justin Moriarty (@jmoriarty84) on Threads

Yesterday, I said it was the 28th anniversary of the Dreamcast in Japan, it was the 26th. Sorry for the mistake. Anyway, one of the launch titles for the Dreamcast in Japan was Godzilla Generations. If I have one guilty pleasure, it's this...
www.threads.net www.threads.net

Let's say if I have a guilty pleasure game, it's certainly Godzilla Generations for the Dreamcast which was Japan only. You can play as Heisei Godzilla, 1954 Godzilla, Mecha Godzilla, Manila, Godzilla USA...and a giant Dr. Serizawa from the 1954 movie... When I played as 1954 Godzilla, I just had to destroy Ginza as a homage to the original movie and -1.0.
 
RyoHazuki84 said:
www.threads.net

Justin Moriarty (@jmoriarty84) on Threads

Yesterday, I said it was the 28th anniversary of the Dreamcast in Japan, it was the 26th. Sorry for the mistake. Anyway, one of the launch titles for the Dreamcast in Japan was Godzilla Generations. If I have one guilty pleasure, it's this...
www.threads.net www.threads.net

Let's say if I have a guilty pleasure game, it's certainly Godzilla Generations for the Dreamcast which was Japan only. You can play as Heisei Godzilla, 1954 Godzilla, Mecha Godzilla, Manila, Godzilla USA...and a giant Dr. Serizawa from the 1954 movie... When I played as 1954 Godzilla, I just had to destroy Ginza as a homage to the original movie and -1.0.
Click to expand...
That game is ton of fun once you get into it. Important not to be confused with Maximum Impact edition. I have memories of being pissed looking at the screenshots in magazines and learning it wasn't leaving land of the rising sun.
Import games in Canary Islands were hard to come by. I managed to emulate it long ago at last.
 
Seaman said:
That game is ton of fun once you get into it. Important not to be confused with Maximum Impact edition. I have memories of being pissed looking at the screenshots in magazines and learning it wasn't leaving land of the rising sun.
Import games in Canary Islands were hard to come by. I managed to emulate it long ago at last.
Click to expand...
what was it like buying games in the canaries like overall?
 
Aedan Tampling said:
what was it like buying games in the canaries like overall?
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Back at the PSX and DC short lifespan days, it was pretty much like the spanish peninsula so similar to every other european country. But compared to UK it was hard to come by console games at bargain prices (other than psx platinum, 2nd hand games wasn't popular and legal imports just forget about it).
If you were "lucky" you could've find a few bootlegs in some indian shop (usually at rip-off prices) or some pirate selling imports. I got Parasite Eve pirated, the only game I bought like this. But because they didn't have a video signal NTSC/pal converter, it displayed in black & white.
PC games market was more rich in title variety and bargains.
 
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Seaman said:
Back at the PSX and DC short lifespan days, it was pretty much like the spanish peninsula so similar to every other european country. But compared to UK it was hard to come by console games at bargain prices (other than psx platinum, 2nd hand games wasn't popular and legal imports just forget about it).
If you were "lucky" you could've find a few bootlegs in some indian shop (usually at rip-off prices) or some pirate selling imports. I got Parasite Eve pirated, the only game I bought like this. But because they didn't have a video signal NTSC/pal converter, it displayed in black & white.
PC games market was more rich in title variety and bargains.
Click to expand...
Damn that sounds wild west.
 
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