Peter Moore on why the plug was pulled on the Dreamcast
- Thread starter Eroke
- Start date
I hear ya. The PS2 didn't grab me. I was more into DC and GCN, at the time.
I'll concede and say the Xbox team probably was inspired by what not to do, but they had a much more cohesive plan of how the online was going to be really a pillar for the console (even though it wasn't ready until the following summer). Having a standardized Ethernet port + hard drive puts it ahead in being more influential in my mind
Yeah, it'd be more like Microsoft calling it quits after another generation like the one they just had. It seemed like Sega had always been there, but you could only be so surprised.
It probably didn't help, but the Dreamcast had an attach rate of like 8 or so. People were buying games for their Dreamcasts, there just weren't enough people buying Dreamcasts.
And most people probably weren't downloading too many Dreamcast games in 2000, given the file sizes.
I did some digging, found some old archives in the web archive. Most of the threads don't work, and it's kinda before and after the sega announcement, but atleast you can see some of the aftermath.
Oct 2000
March 2001
I only ever knew one person with a DC and he only kept it for a few weeks before he traded it in for a PS2, GT3 and a rush hour DVD.
I remember at the time that the DVD drive was a huge thing because not only did you have the next PS but also a dvd player.
I was a GC guy during that gen and my younger brothers shared a PS2 so I missed out on the DC. Last year I did look into buying a DC and finding some games but I'd never really have the time to play the thing as much as I'd like.
I remember at the time that the DVD drive was a huge thing because not only did you have the next PS but also a dvd player.
I was a GC guy during that gen and my younger brothers shared a PS2 so I missed out on the DC. Last year I did look into buying a DC and finding some games but I'd never really have the time to play the thing as much as I'd like.
My one and only Sega console ever, and I still love it. Some of my fondest memories are of playing SoA and Sonic Adventure 1/2 on this. As much as the N64 wowed with 3D graphics, Dreamcast was the first time that 3D graphics WOWed me
Dreamcast Mini, please.
It deserves discovery by a new generation.
Sonic Adventure
Sonic Adventure 2
Chu Chu Rocket
Soulcalibur
Sega Swirl
Power Stone
Power Stone 2
Crazy Taxi
Crazy Taxi 2
Marvel vs. Capcom
Marvel vs. Capcom 2
Jet Set Radio
Skies of Arcadia
Resident Evil - Code: Veronica
Shenmue
Grandia II
Virtua Tennis
Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future
Dead or Alive 2
Hydro Thunder
Ready 2 Rumble Boxing
House of the Dead 2
Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
Space Channel 5
Phantasy Star Online (with revived servers)
Just do it, Sega.
Just do it.
It deserves discovery by a new generation.
Sonic Adventure
Sonic Adventure 2
Chu Chu Rocket
Soulcalibur
Sega Swirl
Power Stone
Power Stone 2
Crazy Taxi
Crazy Taxi 2
Marvel vs. Capcom
Marvel vs. Capcom 2
Jet Set Radio
Skies of Arcadia
Resident Evil - Code: Veronica
Shenmue
Grandia II
Virtua Tennis
Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future
Dead or Alive 2
Hydro Thunder
Ready 2 Rumble Boxing
House of the Dead 2
Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
Space Channel 5
Phantasy Star Online (with revived servers)
Just do it, Sega.
Just do it.
The mood in Segas dedicated IRC channel was grim as fuck. We were furious. I still miss that community. Forums have nothing on being able to chat with Sega employees and compete in the trivia contests and shit for tshirts, dreamcast magazine subscriptions and 1st party games.
Put Zombie Revenge and Cannon Spike on there. And Seaman, for giggles.
I never ended up playing Seaman. Didn't it require a microphone?
Crap, you're right. Funnily enough my first thought was Typing of the Dead.
Haha, I thought of that too. I legit LOVED that game.
(Seriously though. Original PSO with new servers. I'll pay $50 just for that.)
Peter Moore's right there. The industry was moving towards more AAA cinematic style experiences whilst Sega were still making arcade games for the most part. That and they just didn't have the mindshare to compete with Sony.
In the end, not only did Sega's arcade business crumble but also their console hardware business too.
In the end, not only did Sega's arcade business crumble but also their console hardware business too.
What were these rumors about, I loved my PS2 but that was just due to the games so maybe these rumors were hardware related?
My favorite console of all time. And he's exactly right (as usual), Sony started a pretty heavy desinformation campaign saying stuff like "Next gen starts when we say so" or something along those lines, along with the "emotion engine" bullshit , and the public went with it, missing one of the best lineups ever in a 18 month period.
I thought Dreamcast died because it was bleeding money and then Sega ran out of money (not helped by Bernie Stolar stabbing the Saturn in the neck while Sega had no other product to sell for a couple years), and then Sega saw the PS2 looming on the horizon (which just about anyone could have predicted as an upcoming giant from the reigning industry leader) and realized that there was no chance that they could bleed their way to victory against it. Nevermind the rivals coming after PlayStation 2, like Nintendo.
Sega had a great product with the Dreamcast, but they had no clue what to do with it.
As soon as Sega realized that this opened the door to piracy (which didn't really kick into high gear until after Sega canned the DC), Sega deleted that useless feature. There are some rare "version 2" Dreamcasts out there that are entirely unable to play pirate CDs, because they can't boot multimedia CDs. The problem is, Dreamcast barely survived beyond it's launch. If Dreamcast had survived, the piracy door would have been slammed shut. As is, it looks like Dreamcast security was completely obliterated. Because nobody ever saw Sega's response to the breach.
Saddam Hussein was trying to buy PS2s to use as guidance systems for his SCUD missiles.
Sega had a great product with the Dreamcast, but they had no clue what to do with it.
You could burn Dreamcast games to CD and play them on unmodified hardware because Sega thought it might be fun to let people boot code from multimedia CDs. They didn't realize that videogames=bootable code.
As soon as Sega realized that this opened the door to piracy (which didn't really kick into high gear until after Sega canned the DC), Sega deleted that useless feature. There are some rare "version 2" Dreamcasts out there that are entirely unable to play pirate CDs, because they can't boot multimedia CDs. The problem is, Dreamcast barely survived beyond it's launch. If Dreamcast had survived, the piracy door would have been slammed shut. As is, it looks like Dreamcast security was completely obliterated. Because nobody ever saw Sega's response to the breach.
George Lucas wished that he had known about the PS2 before he had made the Special Editions of the Star Wars movies, because a PS2 would have made his movies better for easier.
Saddam Hussein was trying to buy PS2s to use as guidance systems for his SCUD missiles.
Wow PS2 level CGI... LMAO
Don't be so hard on them they were only a generation off. The PS3 was great for cloud computing
The dreamcast was not able to change former Saturn owners minds here in the US and Sony built a strong enough brand that it took the mindshare about a year after its launch. I know it sounds like a generic answer but, it honestly is the truth. Dreamcast was a great console way ahead of its time. I played the shit out of it.
This should be included aswell. Sega were extremely out of touch.
www.gamespot.com
Peter Moore Told Sonic Creator To "F**k Off" When Sega Didn't Believe It Was Fading
Sega's devs accused Moore of falsifying evidence of the company's increasing irrelevance with gamers.
www.gamespot.com
Mostly just rumors about how insanely powerful it was going to be. Like it was going to blow the Dreamcast out of the water with it's graphics. I remember the prevailing attitude at the time was people passing on the Dreamcast because they'd rather wait 6 months (or whatever it was) and get the more powerful PS2. When it came out it was definitely better but not on the level people built it up to be and by that time the Dreamcast was effectively dead.
Man the Dreamcast was great. So many people choose to ignore it and wait for PS2 for all kinds of reasons but the "it's so powerful they want them for missiles" was always my favorite. Like it's not because of games or DVD, just "if it's that strong it's obviously better". I wish games could have paused in that era for a bit, so many new games and game types, so much experimenting.
i heard that as an excuse, but I would guess that the amount of Dreamcast owners that had access to a computer AND burner plus images, or to someone selling bootleg discs even, was probably relatively low. They missed some sales, no doubt. But if they had kept going, and hadn't been psyched out by Sony, they would have sold plenty of games and had a much beloved system on-going.
Now I can't unthink of drunken Sony execs calling up Peter Moore prior to the PS2 launch to sing 'You'll Never Win Again'.
Anyway, the DC seemed pretty much DOA here in Europe, after the Saturn failed to make much of a dent in the N64/PS1 duopoly.
IMO PS2 announcement killed DC, the biggest selling point was the DVD drive, back then a DVD player was expensive, my first DVD player was a PS2, PS2 wasn't the only factor, Sega slowly destroyed itself for years, PS2 just hammered the final nail..
Man, seeing those names and that site layout makes me feel ancient.
I don't think I'll ever have that feeling again, like I did once I bought the Dreamcast and played games like Sonic and Soul Calibur for the first time, or PSO, MSR, heck even Virtua Tennis, not to mention Shenmue, House of the Dead 2, F355 Challenge, RE: CV, Crazy Taxi, etc.
I was sooo impressed by the graphics, it was such a huge leap over PS1 at that time, it was crazy good. Somehow I ended up liking so many different games for the Dreamcast. PSO was the first real online RPG for me at it was really special, playing with people from all over the world with those auto translation features of words, in order to communicate with someone from let's say Japan.
There were so many games that I will remember forever I think, a lot of different types of games, very high quality in my opinion and some of the best (arcade) games ever. I can only hope for a decent Dreamcast Mini, but it will never capture that experience again.
I liked the PS2 and many other systems, but that graphical jump was really special with the DC. It's the console I'll always "like" and remember in a very positive way, same as the Amiga for Computers.
I was sooo impressed by the graphics, it was such a huge leap over PS1 at that time, it was crazy good. Somehow I ended up liking so many different games for the Dreamcast. PSO was the first real online RPG for me at it was really special, playing with people from all over the world with those auto translation features of words, in order to communicate with someone from let's say Japan.
There were so many games that I will remember forever I think, a lot of different types of games, very high quality in my opinion and some of the best (arcade) games ever. I can only hope for a decent Dreamcast Mini, but it will never capture that experience again.
I liked the PS2 and many other systems, but that graphical jump was really special with the DC. It's the console I'll always "like" and remember in a very positive way, same as the Amiga for Computers.
Talk about sour grapes. Funnily enough, he doesn't even mention how his former employer EA contributed on DC's demise, and that MS is the company that's most often associated with spreading FUD. I can't recall any FUD campaigns against DC.
Burning and playing Dreamcast games now is dead simple (if you still have a CD burner in your PC and some extra CD-Rs lying around), but in 1999-2001 most people didn't have CD burners. Still less of a barrier than PSX, but yeah. I was pretty into the DC and didn't even know how easy piracy was, meanwhile most PlayStation owners I knew pirated everything.
What I remember was most people I knew not really giving a shit about DC and waiting for PS2. GameCube and Xbox were on the horizon too (though more for the enthusiast/hardcore crowd, since PS2 massively outsold those as well).
Shit, looking back the DC had a lot working against it. The controller couldn't really handle ports very well since it had so few buttons.
Finding out the system you were bought for Christmas at 14 was ceasing all development in just a few months was a bit of a kick to be fair, but it was an amazing console. It was just like having an arcade cabinet in your house.
It was indeed a part of the kill, though, but it wasn't one factor that murdered the Dreamcast.
For me it was more about the type of games these systems had.
SEGA bet big on short, arcade-y experiences like VirtuaSoccer, JSR, CrazyTaxi, SoulCalibur etc.
Sony had that too plus longer, more sophisticated experiences like FF, MGS, Gran Turismo etc.
+ DVD player
+ EA Sports *
+ Piracy
*NBA and NFL 2K were on par with EA but they simply didnt have a proper football game for Europe. No PES or FIFA is a death sentence for any console here.
Man, I really miss that game. It's a shame that part 2 isn't BC on Xbox One.
Sega killed themselves with the Mega CD, the 32X and the Saturn before finishing the job with the Dreamcast. It was just a slow, drawn-out seppuku.
Yeah, Sega let their creative do whatever they wanted at the time which led to all these incredible and weird games. It's a shame it didn't work out for them but it's not all that surprising either.
I disagree with him. I owned all the Sega consoles and the Dreamcast was a great machine but the reason it failed was because of what Sega had done in the past. Namely the Mega CD, 32X and Saturn. The gaming public had given up on Sega. Sad because they pretty much did everything right with the Dreamcast.
Dreamcast is an excellent machine with a killer library. As a retro console, I hold it in higher regard than my PS2. There, I said it.
Give me a home console with an arcade focus, and I'll spend money on it. It's that simple for me.
Give me a home console with an arcade focus, and I'll spend money on it. It's that simple for me.
You needed a mod chip or that action replay with the spring for later iterations. I think there was an earlier ps1 model that you would swap the cdr in after a real game booted but I may be wrong.
The Dreamcast was a cdr to boot other cdrs, then afterward the cdrs were self boot.
