A question for all sega veterans.

[gamevet]

I need to step in here, the DC never died, infact it sold better then the genny, Sega just stopped making the DC for no reason, they decided to get out of hardware development, fine, but instead of letting the current generation run It's course, they chose to stop making the very successful DC (really, sonic Isn't Sega's trademark, bad decisions is sigh).

WTF are you talking about? The DC didn't sell over 20 million units.

[Zoltor]

WTF are you talking about? The DC didn't sell over 20 million units.

Don't count the entire lifespan of the Genny, don't be a fool lol, only count like the first couple of years, the same length the DC was on the market(the DC sold better).

[TheSonicRetard]

Don't count the entire lifespan of the Genny, don't be a fool lol, only count like the first couple of years, the same length the DC was on the market(the DC sold better).

Uh, no moron, the Dreamcast sold 10.6 million units world-wide in 4 years. Even ignoring the fact that by the final year, sales had dried up to the point where sega LITERALLY could not give them away (via their Sega.net campaign), total revenue sold for the megadrive worldwide (not net, i.e. money solely taken in from sales) during the first 4 years of its life is $2,146,000,000. Dividing this number at a conservative $199 price point (the original mega drive price, which ignores a few price drops that happend during that time period) puts the megadrive at 10.7 million units sold until 1992. Again, this is a conservative estimate, the Megadrive likely sold MORE than that because the math assumes there was NEVER a price drop, meaning, when the genesis dropped to $99, using that math, each 2 megadrives sold only got counted as 1. AND the megadrive picked up steam at that point, because we know it sold 40 million units ltd.

You're a goddamn moron. Even only adjusting for the years the dreamcast was alive, it sold 100,000 less units than the Megadrive, and it had lost all steam, while the megadrive was picking up steam.

It's amazing how consistently wrong you are about literally everything.

AND Even ignoring all of this, the dreamcast sold at a loss. The software was meant to carry the system, and the best selling dreamcast game of all time was Sonic Adventure, selling only 2.5 million units world-wide. Sonic 1 on the megadrive sold 4 million units, and Sonic 2 sold 6 million units.

There is literally no criteria you can use which makes the Dreamcast look like it was selling well.

[gamevet]

Don't count the entire lifespan of the Genny, don't be a fool lol, only count like the first couple of years, the same length the DC was on the market(the DC sold better).

No it didn't. Outside of North America, the Dreamcast was not selling well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Dreamcast

By September 2000, even before the PlayStation 2 arrived in the United States, the Dreamcast suffered from slowing sales going into the fall season. The Dreamcast's online capabilities through SegaNet, and a price cut from $199 to $149 USD around the second half of 2000 (which made it half the price of the PS2, part of an advertisement campaign to take advantage of PS2 supply shortages) did little to regain sales momentum. At that point, Sega had only sold 2.6 million Dreamcast consoles, far below the 5 million mark which was considered by analysts to be the installed base needed to attract new developers. Sega had loss an estimated $163 million, which was too much to make back on game sales and royalties (despite the Dreamcast having several titles that sold over one million).[10] Observers generally regarded Sega as an underdog against Sony.[19]

On January 31, 2001, Sega announced that production of Dreamcast hardware was to be discontinued by March of that year[32] although the 50 to 60 titles still in production would be published.[citation needed] The last North American release was NHL 2K2, which was released in February 2002. With the company announcing no plans to develop a next-generation successor to Dreamcast, this was Sega's last foray into the home console business. Massive price cuts were quickly instituted in order to move the abundance of unsold hardware and the system had quickly dropped to prices as low as US$49.99 new.[33] By late 2002 in the UK the Dreamcast was sold brand new for as little as £39.99 and was subject to incentive giveaways with contract mobile phones.

The Dreamcast's sales numbers were inflated by Sega pretty much dumping inventory. The system's sales had dropped dramatically by the end of 2000.

[o.pwuaioc]

Back on topic, no, I didn't find it weird. Just a little disappointed, but by then I wasn't that interested in what Sega was offering anymore. Sega, like Nintendo, just couldn't live up to their golden days, in my opinion.

[Iron Lizard]

It made me hate people more then I already did. The Dreamcast got off to such a good start. I remember people waiting in lines to buy the thing. To me it felt like Sega was back in the game for real. Almost like when the Genesis started to take off. Then people started abandoning ship with the spectre of the PS2 looming on the horizon. Just more proof of how fickle people really are. Then Sega having to make games for everyone else just seemed like an act of desperation validating all of the "I told you so's " out there.

I do remember being somewhat impressed by Nintendo's reaction which was fairly classy.

[TVC 15]

I was only around 12/13 when the Dreamcast was discontinued, and strangely didn't pick up on or care to notice press reports regarding the Dreamcast weakening retail performance at the time, I just thought the good times were here to stay, and I didn't have the internet so I was not aware how bad the Saturn had done commercially too.

I remember coming home on the train from London after a family Holiday with my Grandmother, clutching the Official Dreamcast Magazine with the news inside and feeling absolutely hopeless, it felt like the good guys lost. I think more than anything the Dreamcasts whole demise only worsened my Sega-fanboyism for a period, I refused to buy a PS2 that generation and would, looking back, probably quite annoyingly had I been on the end of it berate my friends PS2 purchases.

The Dreamcast was the first console I bought for myself, using a little bit of my inheritance money after my Great Grandma died. So I had a special attachment to it, I felt I'd also finally got on the crest of the next gen wave, my N64 came late in the systems life and I felt quite pissy I'd got to the party so late. The Dreamcast was supposed to last me a good few years, but it never worked out that way did it.

I've come to terms with all that now, but it geuninely irates me when I read or hear the bandwagon that surrounds the Dreamcast and Sega in general now, not the history of failure propagandised by base generalisations in gaming media, but people retroactively changing there original opinions, and telling me how great Sega was and how its sad there out of the hardware business, and how they very nearly purchased a Dreamcast in the day. The same fickle monkeys who bought into the whole PS2 fad and wouldn't have given the Dreamcast the time of day at the time, bloody bandwagon jumpers.

I do remember being somewhat impressed by Nintendo's reaction which was fairly classy.

What was there response if I might ask, I don't recall Nintys press response?

[Bones Justice]

I just didn't like the idea that Sega's games would be split-up amongst multiple consoles. I wasn't going to buy three different systems so that I could play any of Sega's games. I still haven't.

[Mr Smith]

Sega making games for Nintendo wasn't the end of the world, however, I was gutted the first time they pitted Mario and Sonic together. It wasn't an awesome platform game in which the very fabric of space and time risked collapsing beneath the awesomeness of these two 16-bit legends officially going head to head (we had, after all, played such classics as Mario v Sonic in the late 90's/early 00's from what is now download.com). What we got was two icons reduced to mincing around the fucking Beijing Olympics. Who cares about the Olympics anyway? What a tragedy! Where was my inter-dimensional battle across space, time and awesome itself? Where were the exploding skyscrapers, exploding galaxies and exploding everything else? Where was the game where the very turning on of the console was tantamount to an orgy with 20 beautiful women? Why are Sonic and Bowser doing the fucking triple jump instead of fighting in a battle which shakes the very stadium to the ground, causing the entire planet to implode upon itself and exterminating every species on earth? Why am I pressing pointless button combos to do some gymnastic shit instead of causing the might of Sega and the might of Nintendo to collide and possibly create an entire new Universe within its wake? Why am I doing a 100 metre sprint instead of sprinting into the heart of an exploding star where the final battle for supremacy will begin? Sega and Nintendo should burn for such sinful tosh.

[sheath]

Sega canceling the DC was a worldview changer for me. I knew I would never be excited about a hardware launch again, that risk takers would never survive in the industry without megalomaniac corporations backing them. I was so pissed at Sony and ea that I was glad to see Sega go true multiplatform. I dared to hope that their stellar quantity and quality of software releases would continue. Sadly, that did not happen. Sega did manage to make a handful of great games I wanted to play across the ps2 gc and Xbox's entire life, but that was the equivalent of one year on a Sega console.

[Gogogadget]

Then people started abandoning ship with the spectre of the PS2 looming on the horizon. Just more proof of how fickle people really are.

How does supporting another console make them fickle? The Playstation was a huge worldwide success, and highly touted as one of the greatest consoles ever made, and the PS2 could still play all those old PS1 games and DVDs, why wouldn't anyone support it?

EDIT: Agreed with Mr Smith also, when you say Mario vs. Sonic, why is it at the olympics? That should of been a platformer.

[Olls]

Sega making games for Nintendo wasn't the end of the world, however, I was gutted the first time they pitted Mario and Sonic together. It wasn't an awesome platform game in which the very fabric of space and time risked collapsing beneath the awesomeness of these two 16-bit legends officially going head to head (we had, after all, played such classics as Mario v Sonic in the late 90's/early 00's from what is now download.com). What we got was two icons reduced to mincing around the fucking Beijing Olympics. Who cares about the Olympics anyway? What a tragedy! Where was my inter-dimensional battle across space, time and awesome itself? Where were the exploding skyscrapers, exploding galaxies and exploding everything else? Where was the game where the very turning on of the console was tantamount to an orgy with 20 beautiful women? Why are Sonic and Bowser doing the fucking triple jump instead of fighting in a battle which shakes the very stadium to the ground, causing the entire planet to implode upon itself and exterminating every species on earth? Why am I pressing pointless button combos to do some gymnastic shit instead of causing the might of Sega and the might of Nintendo to collide and possibly create an entire new Universe within its wake? Why am I doing a 100 metre sprint instead of sprinting into the heart of an exploding star where the final battle for supremacy will begin? Sega and Nintendo should burn for such sinful tosh.

Clearly irrefutable.

[Kamahl]

Clearly irrefutable.

As is everything else Mr. Smith says.

[Black_Tiger]

It was no big deal. It was a couple generations after 16-bit and Sega was now planning releases for all platforms, not just Gamecube. Nintendo was also a niche underdog console by that point and Sony was more of "the enemy" than Nintendo.

Plus, during the Genesis days, lots of Sega games appeared on NES and PC Engine. The time for fanboy freak out would have been back then.

[Da_Shocker]

LOL @Mr Smith

At first that shit hurt like hell. I was hoping that M$ would end up buying Sega so they could focus on software for the Xbox but that didn't happen. After awhile though I simply didn't care and moved on. I still buy Sega games every now and then and I keep wishing that they would give us more of there awesome back catalog games that haven't been ported yet, rather than milk the fuck out of Genesis compilation and DC games.