Did piracy, the 32x, or something else kill the Sega Dreamcast?

[@Larry]

Annoyingly, Sega bundled the Dreamcast with a 33.3k modem in Europe, no idea why. Also the broadband adaptor was never released here, despite import ones being fully compatible with games.

[@Jenovi]

A number of things I didn't detail here, but of these, one of the most interesting is how successful the online component was in Japan. They were raking in the dough there. Unfortunately, it fell flat in rest of the world. The upgrade to 56k was a Sega of America demand as the most common connection speed was 56k. At the time this releases, I either just got a local number for internet or was close to getting one. Before that, internet was a long distance phone call.

[@SteveDFM]

Hello you!

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

Sega bundled European, Australian, and early Japanese models came with a 33.6 kbit/s modem, not just European models. Asain models had no modem at all. You seem to forget or maybe don't understand, the telecoms situation in Europe at the time, lots of different standards, aging exchanges here in the UK. SEGA annouced BT as the preferred supplier across Europe, and ICL, BT would be responsible for the European network infrastructure including dial-up and Internet access, local hosting and billing services. ICL would be in charge of the design, build and system integration of the online Dreamcast service.. The 6 Billion players advertising was a joke, the UK communications infrastructure wasn't there. And BT data showed majority of net users still using 33.3K modems. Plus, putting in a faster modem would of put UK price higher, it was only a last minute decision that meant we got a modem as standard at all. Those are the reasons why

[@Larry]

@@thefurthestmanfromhome1148 interesting, so them claiming it was 56k was a lie?

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

@@Larry Sega have repeatedly lied when advertising their hardware. The Saturn, advertised in Japan as a 64-bit machine, they just added the 2 32-Bit chips to get that figure. The Dreamcast isn't a true 128-bit machine, it just uses 128-bit architecture. They've been as bad as Atari and Sony when it comes to lying when advertising their hardware. Them claiming 56K model modems would only be a lie, if they advertised them at a time retail machines weren't fitted with them or in regions where they used slower, cheaper modems.

[@jasonblalock4429]

Another issue with pirated Dreamcast games which probably slowed their uptake is that they were often objectively worse than retail. The Dreamcast's GD-ROM disc format could hold up to ~1GB, but a standard burned CD-ROM could only store ~750mb. So content like videos, dialogue, or music were frequently removed to make the game fit on a CD. Or if the pirate was really going the extra mile, they might have manually re-encoded various assets to reduce the bitrate\filesize. Either way, the game suffered for it - sometimes unacceptably so. My personal favorite example I found was a pirated version of Omikron - The Nomad Soul which was missing all its music. They ripped out all the music from a game whose biggest selling point was that David goddamn Bowie did the soundtrack. Needless to say, I bought it instead.

[@Jenovi]

This is spot fricken on!

[@CHMernerner]

Yeah pirated versions of Sonic adventures don't have Japanese voices unlike genuine ones because of that.

[@TheSuperPlayer707]

In other words, Dreamcast was doomed before its release. SEGA was in deficit years before the launch of Dreamcast. The console division was wasting too much money with failures like the 32X and the Nomad, and held out in development 6 consoles at the same time in 1995, and then it's when started the deficit. No matter if Dreamcast could sold well the company directly wouldn't manage to produce any console without having more losses than profits. That's what killed the console division, their previous failures from which they weren't able to recover. Thanks for still making videos, Jenovi!

[@Jenovi]

Thanks for watching Lucas.

[@TheSuperPlayer707]

@@Jenovi thank you for explaining this all with so much clarity, Jen. Like I said, we're missing you.

[@elgoog-the-third]

"SEGA was in deficit years before the launch of Dreamcast. " As it turns out, that was actually not the case.

[@alexander_mejia]

Excellent business break down. We don’t have too many people analyzing the business aspects of these companies so I’m glad you’re here.

[@Jenovi]

Thank you Alex, I highly appreciate you and the work you've done behind the scenes for this channel.

[@jacksparrow4111]

Great video! Here we lived those years in a different way: my area had been predominantelly of Sega fans in the Master System and Megadrive eras. Sega lost a lot of followers on how they managed the launch of the Mega CD and the 32x, so when the 32 bit gen arrived many fans (me inluded) jumped to the PlayStation. The support they gave to the Saturn in Europe wasn't also great, so when the Dreamcast finally launched, even if it was a fantastic hardware with many great games, most of us just waited for the PS2. So in my opinion, piracy didn't kill the Dreamcast, it was Sega's decission to launch a lot of expensive hardware and then just drop support in the 16 and 32 bit era that mined the confidence of Sega fans directly afecting the launch of the Dreamcast. Sad story as the Dreamcast is a great platform with a great catalogue that nobody would believe that was launched in almost only 3 years.

[@Jenovi]

Thanks for sharing Jack, I always enjoy hearing the experiences from other folks across the world.

[@onaretrotip]

This was superb mate. Great to see a take on this topic based on research and facts rather than conjecture and assumptions. EA are such dogs. When 2K's NFL games started selling well they responded by buying the NFL rights.

[@Jenovi]

Oh man..... Funny you should mention that, It's on my slate for upcoming videos. Really appreciate you watching this. Hope you and the fam are doing well.

[@Waifu4Life]

Finally, someone made a video telling the real story! I worked retail during the 6th generation console, we knew about that stuff. The only thing I would add was the fact that SEGA could have sold more Dreamcast units if the PS2 would have been more expensive or if SONY hadn't manage to keep the majority of their PS1 consumers to hold off to get the PS2.

[@TheMajinV]

"The Saturn is not our future" really felt like the sentence that hurt Sega the most during that period. That, and how badly they handled winding it down to follow up. Stolar restricting what games came over from Japan certainly didn't help, either. I'm sure a number of the RPGs and later fighting/2D games left over there would have at least pushed a few more console sales while everyone was waiting for the Dreamcast to launch.

[@Jenovi]

100%, and more important, game sales. As limited as console sales were, the game sales were crazy good and profitable.

[@theblocksays]

2D sprite games were the Saturn's major strength over PSX, I was so pissed that the Capcom Dungeons & Dragon's arcade game port for Saturn never left Japan, if that was his fault then he was part of the problem too!

[@G.L.999]

Legends say that Bernie Stolar was in corporate espionage with Sony behind the scenes to derail Sega out of the hardware race just so it was only for Sony to profit off of!

[@hitkid2456]

More like "we have no future in hardware".

[@GeoNeilUK]

@@theblocksays "2D sprite games were the Saturn's major strength over PSX, I was so pissed that the Capcom Dungeons & Dragon's arcade game port for Saturn never left Japan, if that was his fault then he was part of the problem too!" Because the Saturn was going to be a 2D console a la PC-FX that had its 3D capabilities added on later in development. The PSX on the other hand was all about 3D because it was designed initially as the SNES' version of the Mega CD (with added 3D) so the PSX's 2D graphics were added on after the deal with Nintendo collapsed.

[@paulpatrick885]

The vast majority of gamers were waiting for the PS2. The Sony hype machine for the PS2 was incredible. It also offered a DVD player which was a compelling feature. The Dreamcast offered a massive upgrade from PS1 but too few PS1 owners were willing to upgrade to a Dreamcast and simply waited for PS2 to launch

[@RetroGameLivingRoom]

I completely agree. The market actually shrank in 2000 for the first time since 1984, and analysts said it was for the exact reason you just stated.

[@poisonouslead85]

@@RetroGameLivingRoom I knew people who purchased a PS2 at the time because it was the cheapest DVD player on the market at that point in time. DVD was such a compelling feature that it basically won the generation for Sony.

[@RetroGameLivingRoom]

@@poisonouslead85 I was a retailer and saw people buy a PS2 and just the DVD remote at launch as well. People said they'd bought the console for the DVD player. It was compelling in 2000. But by 2001 PS2 had brought the DVD player price down to Earth. This is all purely anecdotal evidence, of course. But for something more direct, Nintendo and Microsoft will readily admit that DVD playback wasn't something important in their market research, and both companies decided to forego DVD playback out of the box. GameCube would require the Panasonic Q, and Xbox a special remote and receiver. PS2's advantage of DVD playback was an important propaganda win in 2000, but not much beyond. It contributed heavily to the hype, which in turn is the cause of the market downturn of 2000.

[@jonathan_tong93]

@@RetroGameLivingRoom the Sega Saturn struggled in 1997 when the Nintendo 64 and the Sony PlayStation reached it's peak long before the Dreamcast was launched in Japan in late 1998

[@jonathan_tong93]

@@poisonouslead85 the Dreamcast never had games from Electronic Arts, Rockstar Games (including Rockstar North), and Squaresoft

[@TopSpot123]

I love when you tackle a subject that is considered 'common knowledge' and combat it with information contemporary to the subject. When history is written, the facts of the time should lead the narrative. With that said, I still think the absence of EA was more damaging to the Dreamcast than game sales figures would suggest. Most console launches are fraught with the unknown. Consumers won't know at launch if the console is will be a long-term success, how much of a technological jump it is compared to the current or competing next-gen hardware, etc. At launch, 3rd party publishers, especially, take on more development risk than later in a console's life when more data exists for buying trends and sale projections. Console launches are a chicken and the egg scenario. You need a healthy install base to justify game development, and you need good games to build a healthy install base. And in a lot of ways, a console's future is also like currency. It only succeeds through the faith that it will succeed. There were a number of things eroding that faith in Sega including the lackluster life of the Saturn (outside of Japan) prompting the earlier than typical development of its successor and the looming PS2 being specifically marketed to foil the Dreamcast. I feel EA announcing that they would not support the Dreamcast added yet another bit of doubt in the DC's viability. This would affect consumer confidence in a way that game's sales figures wouldn't show, but console sales figures might. DC had a strong initial showing (Sega fans), but it tapered off over time (general gamers) due to any number of these factors. They had a very narrow window for success, and they missed it. And I don't doubt EA and Square's absence affected the long term plans of other publishers and developers toward the system. The Dreamcast represents a multifaceted case study. I personally think it failed for every one of the commonly listed reasons, death by a thousand cuts. I think it could have survived a few of these factors for longer, but not every factor working in unison.

[@Jenovi]

Great post. I'll share this thought with you I left on another comment. I don't believe Sony (or EA) had a real impact. The system was selling well, but even at 4-6 times the rate that it did, Sega was still in a difficult place and I'm not sure it would have been enough. I mean, that's the real deal here. It was doomed from launch and not much could change the path Sega was on. Even it the Dreamcast final year, Sega was still losing around 1/2 a billion USD. They were doomed and the Hail Mary..... well, I'm not sure it was ever going to work. They simply were out of money and time.

[@st1ka]

I'm so happy to see you're back man! Also, wow! How do you manage to speak on camera for so long without stuttering or pausing? I can't do that lol

[@Jenovi]

Thanks! Returning to KZbin after a long pause is a struggle. It's like you're a new channel in KZbin's eyes.

[@st1ka]

@@Jenovi I know what you mean. The algorithm doesn't seem to like when people take breaks :/

[@Spaghettaboutit]

I think it's also important to remember that back in the day a place like EB Games might only get 2-3 copies of a Dreamcast game in stock - so my friend and I might be the only people who were able to buy Tech Romancer at the local EB Games - which was 13 miles away from where we lived, and we lived in Southern California - so not even THE major game chain in the most populous state had a whole lot of Dreamcast games available for a casual gamer to buy. Sure they had shelves full of Dreamcast games back in the day, but you were really rewarded for being well informed on the system because the more obscure games were pretty damn rare.

[@Jenovi]

I feel the pain here. It's a reason I actively started preordering games. The rarest one was Cubivore. I knew they wouldn't get it in unless I ordered it in advance.

[@sppspharmdude]

Dreamcast: the console of hope and risk. They tried... but it still has a warm place in our hearts.

[@Jenovi]

100%

[@ShadowAngel-lt8nw]

While objectively it's a crappy console, with one of the worst first party controllers of all time and shit library with at best 10 games worth playing. It's simply the by far most overrated console of all time.

[@snapdragonzoroark]

​@ShadowAngel-lt8nw Do your nation a favor and never vote or publicly share your opinion again Thanks A console that to this day still had one of the most succesful video game launches of all time and sold decently for its entire time on the market (especially by a company with a horrendous reputation that was deficit spending like the US government) has to do something right to pull in so many consumers and grow a cult following over the years Your opinion is just objectively incorrect, the dreamcast wasn't anywhere on the same tier as the PS2,snes,NDS or switch but it was still a fine system and it's failure was due almost solely to segas past mistakes that finally caught up with them.

[@rars0n]

GREAT video! So glad that KZbin finally decided to let me watch it! I could probably write a book on my thoughts about the Dreamcast, but I'll try to be as brief as possible. Suffice to say, I agree with you. Here's a few more thoughts. Just to get it out of the way, I was a Nintendo fan. Sony and Sega launched their 32-bit systems and I eagerly, if somewhat impatiently, awaited the much-delayed N64. And as much as I love that console still, it always felt like number 3. The majority of cool stuff was for the PSX, and to a lesser extent the Saturn. Even though I was aware that the Saturn was eventually struggling, I still envied a LOT of the games available on it. (I own a Saturn and it's one of my favorite consoles.) I grew rather disappointed with the lack of games, and more importantly the high price of carts for the N64. I liked the PSX well enough, but I knew that Sony was full of hype. The Dreamcast was coming soon and it had a number of innovative features that even later consoles didn't have, like the VMUs. I kind of wish Sega had the foresight to incorporate rumble into their controllers, but I digress. The Dreamcast was REALLY EXCITING! It was a glimpse into the next generation of gaming! And I've never been an early adopter, but damn it seemed like there was a lot to be had for $200. It doesn't hurt that the launch lineup was pretty great. In my mind, the Dreamcast was bound to be a huge success. Bernie totally shot Sega in the foot. When you have no new console ready for the next two years, what good does it do you to tell everyone the thing is effectively dead??? I respect the man for his accomplishments, by damn that was dumb! Way to ensure that Sega Saturn continues to flounder in the US! I worked in retail in 1999. At my Circuit City store, we didn't even have a Dreamcast kiosk. But I'd go to Toys R Us to play the Dreamcast and I'd hear people talking, saying things like "Oh it looks great, but I think we should just wait for the PS2." I was dumbfounded by people buying Sony's hype, but I think it was clearly a factor. Albeit a small one. Also I do think the DVD player aspect helped get it into SOME homes. But let's be real for a second: people weren't clamoring to spend $300, still a lot of money, on a format that they owned zero discs of, which cost $20+ per disc at the time. The average consumer is fairly slow to adopt new formats, and I'd argue rightfully so, and $300, while relatively cheap, was still expensive for a player. Hell, I owned DVDs because I had a DVD-ROM drive in my computer at the time, and I didn't care about the Dreamcast not being able to play DVDs. And regarding piracy, I was one of a very few people who had a CD burner in high school. It was expensive and burning discs was slow and they often didn't come out right. Never mind the dial-up. I have little doubt that Dreamcast piracy was pretty prevalent even early on, however because of the GD format it often meant that things were cut from the games to fit on standard CDs. As well, Playstation piracy was practically in full effect by then. End result: even for me, Playstation pirating was less of a headache than Dreamcast pirating. I avoided pirated games and just bought them instead. I knew other people who pirated Dreamcast games, but by then, Sega had long abandoned the console. So yeah. I do think Sony hype slightly hurt the Dreamcast. And maybe there was a little bit of consumer resentment due to the way they treated the Saturn and 32X, although as a non-Sega fan at the time, it didn't deter me. But the bottom line is that Sega didn't, or couldn't, hold out long enough. I also wonder whether the 3dfx hardware would have been better-suited to the console then the PowerVR stuff. That would have been pretty awesome IMO.

[@Jenovi]

Funny thing is Sega had all the patents and ideas ready for twin analogue stick + rumble support and never put out. Many thanks for sharing your thoughts Adam. This was a great comment.

[@dougr.8653]

Ladies and gentlemen, Jenovi is back!

[@FallicIdol]

A Christmas miracle

[@Jenovi]

I am! 😆 It feels good returning home to my place on the internet.

[@TheSuperPlayer707]

@@Jenovi awww… you're so cute when you want, Jen

[@ctg8563]

Best early Xmas present of 2020. I had dial up in 1999.

[@dougr.8653]

The attach ratio of Mega Drive was around 16 by 1. The Dreamcast attach rate was so high because it had very good new IPs in the first two years. Let's all agree that the release titles from PS2 were almost only sequels.

[@fortheloveofnoise]

**Laughs in TimeSplitters**

[@Jenovi]

Some of my favorite games are PS2 releases. The DC have some amazing games too though.

[@jesuszamora6949]

@@fortheloveofnoise Yeah, the PS2 had some bad launch window games, but I don't remember it being that dominated by sequels.

[@mutalix]

Truly a fantastic well narrated and indepth look into dreamcasts demise. There are alot of videos on KZbin talking about the same thing, but never about the points and reasons in this video. Gladly subscribed, keep up the great work!

[@Jenovi]

Thanks 🤠

[@RetroAdvisoryBoard]

Worth the wait! The research and digging that went into compiling this.. Just brilliant.

[@Jenovi]

Many thanks Rob. Always happy to see you swing by. 😁

[@revjim123]

I don’t know why Dreamcast failed, I’ve only got my perspective. The only Sega console I ever bought was the Genesis. When the CD came out I thought the games didn’t look good enough to upgrade, especially all the FMV stuff they were hyping. But when the 32X came out it looked terrible to me. And then shortly after the Saturn which didn’t seem like it had anything notable at launch. After so many misses there was no way I was going to invest in a Dreamcast, seemed like another product that was gonna flop and be immediately buried. I think if Sega had not done the 32X and waited till they had more product in the pipeline for Saturn they would have fared a lot better.

[@SaviorGabriel]

Yeah, I've always looked at the failure of the Dreamcast as Sega's many missteps leading up to it all catching up to them. I figured in hindsight, it was hard to sell a new system when they had 3 prior release within such a short span of time, and none of them really lit the world on fire.

[@G.L.999]

They shouldn't have done either Sega CD and 32X.

[@hitkid2456]

@@G.L.999 I mean, look at NEC. They did that CD add on business too, and their next gen console was even more of a bust than the Saturn. It was practically stillborn.

[@segamon]

@@SaviorGabriel The Sega CD did really well, actually. The 32X and the US Saturn launch, however, were terrible flops that angered consumers and retail stores alike.

[@SaviorGabriel]

@@segamon Well, I never said the Sega CD didn't do well. Just that there were too many systems that came out too quickly.

[@Gorilla_Jones]

I have a really long diatribe on this. But I'll spare you the agony. I was in the industry back then at a professional level, meaning my company was in the business of securing future orders, current stock and we regularly met with Sega, Nintendo and Sony. Hell, we had several meetings with 3DO and trip on how to market the 3DO back in the day. What killed the Dreamcast was Sony's hype machine! Period. Sony even went so far as to pay certain gigantic retailers to make sure end caps and high traffic areas with their product. Making sure that competitors products were either buried or in less attractive locations in the stores. I have first hand knowledge that a MAJOR retailer had an unwritten mantra to say that the Sony product was XY or Z when reality was different. And to say the Dreamcast was "old tech". This was being done at every single one of these locations country wide. Sony still does this to this day FYI. Finally, the DVD player was a nail in a coffin that was already going into the ground. So piracy was actually a tiny tiny tiny portion of that market. Sega hit the wall of the Saturn and Sony's unstoppable juggernaut marketing. Simple as that. We couldn't believe the calls from buyers months before the PS2 even launched. I almost forgot EAs role in this shit show. SMH. I guess this did end up being pretty long. 😁 Edit:. My opinion of Stolar....he was "abrasive". Great work as usual Jenovi.

[@jasonblalock4429]

Heh, just casually name-dropping "Trip," eh? ;-> But yeah, Sony's FUD machine was hard to beat. The extent to which they dominated that generation was almost absurd.

[@Gorilla_Jones]

@@jasonblalock4429 Hehe, yes. True story. During a meeting in Manhattan my CEO invited trip for an after lunch with us at Ruth Chris and Trip was getting into his limo and said "sorry, I've got pending business, next time". In the limo were two smoking hot blondes. Probably his Admins..... Legend

[@Jenovi]

Thanks Mr. Jones. You know, and I'm sure I've said this a few times before, I'm not sure the Dreamcast selling 4 times the units could have saved it. The plan was flawed from the start. It really only went head to head with the PS2 for 5 months or less, depending on the region.

[@bulletproofvita]

Totally agree, Sony's advertising was insane. Just like the Saturn no one knew about the Dreamcast. Sony had such a monopoly in the PS and PS2 years.

[@DemiGodX]

i think it was hype for the PS2 that ultimately killed the dreamcast. I remember during the time Sony denied the existence of a PS2 and right when Sega announced the dreamcast, Sony announced the PS2 immediately after. This was also a time when VHS was the main format and the PS2 is probably a lot of people's first DVD player. The talk around school was to wait for a PS2. why get a dreamcast when the PS2 is going to come out and be so much better. And if i recall, consumers started losing trust in Sega due to the Sega CD and 32x failures. I got a dreamcast around 2001 when Sega dropped the price down to 49.99 and i must say, it's one of my favorite consoles. Though it is a bit overrated. I dislike the controller too. But man the Dreamcast introduced me to a whole lot of new concepts such as homebrew, coding, disassembling games, hacking, modding, online play, a lot of great memories with the dreamcast. Recently hackers discovered a way to play burned games on a unmodded PS2. Imagine if that was discovered in the early days of the PS2 lol its a double edge sword but i think it would have been awesome

[@TheSouthernSegaGentleman]

This video should have a mic drop at the end!

[@Jenovi]

😆. Appreciate you stopping by.

[@Jacksonzole57]

The Dreamcast was such a marvel at its release, it blew away the N64, games were incredible, everyone who bought one loved it, I enjoyed it 10 times as much as ps2

[@Jenovi]

and everyone who owned a N64 knew this too.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

Sega's own marketing people were telling Sega to get out of the hardware business during the Saturn Era, saying how can we compete? We don't even have our own bloody manufacturering plants

[@RetroGamePlayers]

Great video man! I bought the Dreamcast at launch with as many games and accessories as I could afford and kept buying games throughout the life of the system...BUT I worked at a computer repair store and we did burn games like crazy. It was too easy, and we had a T1 with Plextor burners just sitting there. But I did buy probably 2 games a month at the same time I was playing burnt games.

[@Jenovi]

Lucky dog! We did have a T1 line at the High School. I got into some trouble with it. It's the only connection I experienced that was better than dialup for years.

[@benjiroberts4434]

Every real study of piracy done ever shows the people who pirate the hardest tend to be in the top 5 or 10% of media consumers by purchases.

[@Pan_Z]

It's wonderful how you approach these videos with multiple sources from an industry perspective. A lot of channels come at these eras from a consumer and/or personal perspective (which is a perfectly fine style). But rarely do we see the story from the companies' eyes, and rarely so well informed.

[@Jenovi]

Thank you so much. Tons of research and work goes into these videos before the camera ever turns on. I appreciate you watching.

[@GameplayandTalk]

I think the most important takeaway here is that the Dreamcast hardware was too expensive to manufacture, all the other inside-company drama and potential "failure factors" aside. As a consumer I had always assumed the Dreamcast was cheap to manufacture, given its relatively low retail MSRP (especially later on in its life, where Sega marked it down heavily). Boy, how I was wrong! That attach rate idea is interesting. In the later parts of a system's life in particular (like in the case of the Saturn, pointed out in this video), I wonder how arbitrary or not the numbers are. In the Saturn's case in particular, by 1998, many chains were blowing out its library at ridiculously low prices, making the attach rate seem a lot more impressive now than it probably actually was. I'm also curious if companies viewed bundled software counting towards this, which could potentially pad things out as well (especially in the Saturn and Dreamcast's case, where they both featured frequent hardware/software bundles). Having lived through that era and not knowing the cost to manufacture the console, I had always felt the Dreamcast's downfall was due to a variety of factors, with piracy being just one of them. The EA thing was another, with the hype of the PS2 being another big one. Piracy may not have been as big of an issue as some make it out to be, but I still doubt it helped things either. This is purely anecdotal, but I knew a bunch of people during my high school years when the Dreamcast was on the market, that refused to buy anything on the system and just pirated everything. Yes, disc burning wasn't a common ability for the typical person, but like other black markets, all it took was a small group of people with the know-how to make accessing these goods easy for others. I had one of those guys in a class of mine that basically made a side hussle out of pirated discs, and I even acquired a few myself (though to be fair in my personal use case, they were homebrew emulation compilations, not retail games; I still bought all my games at retail). I see this story repeated often from others. After watching this video, I do wonder that if EA games were available on the Dreamcast, would that have mitigated some of the negative impact the PS2 hype had on the system? That first PS2 holiday season in particular, when the Dreamcast was getting some of its best games, was highly affordable after being heavily discounted, that even with PS2 systems being unobtainium, people still passed on Sega's system. I'm curious if that holiday season would have played out differently if the Dreamcast had more support from the then-latest big-name companies, like EA (and yes while the 2K series was mostly great and seemed to do well on the system, a lot of players wanted what was familiar to them, which were the franchises by EA). Anyway, thanks for the video. Really got my mind rolling on this one, ha. I try not to dwell on the "what ifs" of past consoles these days (especially in regards to the Dreamcast, been there, done that), but it can be an interesting mental exercise once every now and then.

[@benjiroberts4434]

Sega engineers really did try to basically bring home current arcade tech and it really wasn't cheap, you gotta remember the tech of the era and it makes a lot more sense. Workstations at the time that could handle n64 dev were $200k+ in 1997 dollars.

[@CandisClassicGameShrine]

Loving the new studio! Also, great video on the Dreamcast. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone go as in depth on this as you and it was solid. Welcome back!

[@Jenovi]

The research on this one took forever. I started it back in October 2019. I appreciate you checking it out and glad someone noticed the new studio. You would be the only person so far to make mention of it. Hope you're doing well Candi. Happy Hollidays to you and the family.

[@joek0620]

Great video! I came over from Wrestle With Gaming channel and I love your documentary style videos and I love that you, WWG, and Gaming Historian all have unique, but great styles when filming your documentary videos. Keep up the good work! New subscriber for sure!

[@BasementBrothers]

Very succinct. Nicely done! The NEC chip shortage for the Japanese Dreamcast launch meant that the system didn't have the momentum needed to reach a healthy adoption rate in Japan. Sega didn't have the means to keep it going, but I sometimes wonder what if they could've held out for longer. They must have decided they could make more money publishing on other consoles rather than competing with them.

[@Jenovi]

The story of Sega's life. Crazy how much the Saturn launch mirrored the Dreamcast launch. Hope you're doing well.

[@Spaghettaboutit]

Thanks for making this! I've been saying this for years, but didn't have the hard researched data to back it up. It just made no sense that piracy would have made much of an impact as someone who grew up in that era.

[@Jenovi]

You're very welcome. Thank you for watching.

[@sloppynyuszi]

I remember visiting my brother in Chicago in 2000, and he had a T3 cable internet, and I remember online video and flash cartoons not needing to load. Then I went back to Australia. If you wanted backwater internet on the 2000s come down here. I didn’t experience decent internet speeds until I moved to South Korea in 2007. I downloaded everything I missed out on growing up 🤣

[@dreamcast3607]

I think the fact it was launched at $200 instead of the $250 recommended by Japan and not going with the stronger 3dfx chips really hurt it more than anything

[@worsel555]

Currently watching and 3.5 minutes in, THANK YOU for pointing out what seems like only you and I remember: what it was ACTUALLY LIKE back then. I didn't know about pirating DC games until about 2003-4, well after the DC was dead though I was like you and had a stack of burned PS1 games (We had one of the first CD writers at a blistering 2X write speed!) thanks to a plug mod before Sony took out the serial port in later revisions of the hardware.

[@SirPumpkinSlice]

I pointed that out a while ago. Most people don't comprehend how much trouble and expensive it was to pirate games in that era. It just was not a concern for the average consumer. Even in the Wii era it was a pain.

[@jasonblalock4429]

@@SirPumpkinSlice Speaking of pains, in the case of the Dreamcast, for a long time you had to have one of a relatively small number of specific CD burner models, on top of having to use a specific burning software suite. As I recall, it wasn't until a year or two after the Dreamcast's demise that the process became relatively streamlined. (And even then, only if you had access to broadband, which was still pretty rare in the early 2000s.)

[@worsel555]

@@jasonblalock4429 yeah, the early ones you had to be able to overburn a disk and turns out I also had one of those too just by dumb luck.

[@Jenovi]

Funny enough, I knew a number of folks with PSX mods allowing burned games. I knew no one who had burned Dreamcast games, and this was Sega country. I knew a number of Dreamcast owners.

[@davidste60]

In the UK you bought burned games from a dealer. No one complains that it's a pain to make your own cocain.

[@jonbourgoin182]

Resident Evil Code Veronica made me extremely jealous of Dreamcast owners back in the day

[@Jenovi]

Never played it. My first RE experience was via the GameCube.

[@bulletproofvita]

I owned it, fantastic ressie evil game, play a copy anyway you can.

[@G.L.999]

@@Jenovi Mine was via N64 with RE2(port of the PS1 version and a damn fine one at that).

[@Fattydeposit]

When I recently exhumed the Dreamcast collection from back in the day (shared with a brother), I logged 24 original and 78 pirated titles. I don't feel quite so conflicted about the high ratio of bootlegs now I know our collection was more than double the size of the average one.

[@Jenovi]

24 is a huge amount! You should consider your support above and beyond!

[@benjiroberts4434]

A huge reason people went to backups and copies for the DC is because the best games usually sold out and most of them never got reprints. The biggest offenders were Marvel 2 and Grandia 2. I remember buying a USED copy of marvel 2 for $70 ($5 over msrp) off Ebay during early 2001 right after christmas. It literally never got reprinted. But jank like Sonic Adventure and Virtua Tennis got multiple print runs and multiple editions (original, sega classics label, etc).

[@rickvug]

Excellent video and bang on in your analysis. I'd also say that the 32x and Saturn situation in North America had a large impact but not nearly as important as the financial considerations explained in this video. Great work.

[@andrewclegg9501]

First I thought piracy killed it, then realised my own experience was that I only ended up with pirated discs after Sega had discontinued it. Only around for 2 years here in the UK. It's the first modern console, when 3d got good.

[@Jenovi]

I think that's about the average experience with the system.

[@sirenspear]

It's the implication of piracy, long term, that was critical. You wouldn't invest in a platform that had an open door like that, regardless of how many people in the current moment were taking advantage of it. It's just a ticking time bomb, and it absolutely helped the Dreamcast die. In hindsight, now we all pirate discs after the fact, because in the end, there isn't any reason not to. The irony is, if they kept releasing content, most of us would've kept buying it.

[@SameNameDifferentGame]

Piracy was probably a non-zero factor, but as you said, the attach rate was high anyways. And beyond that, fewer than 9m units?! If piracy was such a boon, wouldn't people have bought up DCs for all the FREE GAMES?! But people like simple narratives. "The Dreamcast failed because of piracy." "E.T. was the worst game ever, that's why the American market crashed in '83." And so on.

[@Jenovi]

This.... 100% this. I'm of the opinion that even at 4 times the sales, Sega couldn't hold out. The finical situation was just too dire.

[@G.L.999]

And that's why I hate cynical and jaded people. Gets on my nerves because they don't take anything seriously!

[@GeoNeilUK]

"But people like simple narratives. "The Dreamcast failed because of piracy." "E.T. was the worst game ever, that's why the American market crashed in '83." And so on." Yeah, it's never that simple. the American crash IMHO was more down to there being too many platforms, lack of quality control on the consoles and no enthusiast press... and that's before we get to Atari holding onto the 2600 for far too long and the 5200 being not very good... and Americans gaming on consoles and not even considering computers as gaming platforms when in Europe that's pretty much all we had. One game for one console does not crash an entire industry.

[@GimblyGFR]

Excellent work, Jenovi. I applaud the way you can tackle a topic like Dreamcast sales figures and make it really interesting. That is not an easy task since numbers can become boring if the subject is not correctly addressed. The discussion on piracy is a really, really interesting one. I've always had the feeling that companies tend to exaggerate the real damage that piracy inflict on sales. And not only in the software and video game, market. After watching this video, I'm now really interested in the current state of Dreamcast game sales (new games, reproductions, etc). It is great to have you back.

[@Jenovi]

The system is one of the most popular to develop for. I think this year alone, there was 4-6 new games of high quality released. Kind of wild really. If you check out my friend OnARetroTip kzbin.info he just covered one. He covers tons of this stuff. It's a great channel.

[@GimblyGFR]

​@@Jenovi Not only new games. There were a lot of Atomiswave to Dreamcast conversions released too. The Dreamcast is alive and well in 2020. I am a subscriber of OnARetroTip. Actually, I subscribed to your channel and Pete's around the same time, and I truly believe that both deserve more subs and more views.

[@JustAnotherGamerUS]

You’ve outdone yourself, homie. First the Sega Failed video, now this one. Truly excellent work. You’re helping change social cognition for what happened to Sega’s home console venture. I look forward to your future videos on this topic!

[@retroprojections]

As good as advertised! Thank you for a wonderful, factual explanation of what really went wrong with Sega. All was not lost though, the Atomiswave was born from the ashes... For whatever that's worth.

[@Jenovi]

Really, a number of solid things have continued to come from Sega and it's subsidiaries. I'm rather glad the Dreamcast didn't tank the company. Thank you much for watching.

[@G.L.999]

Legends say that Stolar was in corporate espionage with Sony prior to becoming Sega of America's new president. Because even though he stepped down from working with Sony, he still had business ties with them. And believed that if they could discontinue the Saturn early, plus dropping the price of the Dreamcast losing money as a result at launch, they could accelerate Sega's demise as a hardware manufacturer much faster; which in turn, will force Sega to leave the hardware business and go 3rd party! Personally, I don't know how true any of it might be, but I wouldn't put it past the idea. So, take it with a teeny grain of salt.

[@ClockedIt]

Sega without a doubt sealed their own fate, but with me working in retail at the time, I still also largely point my fingers at gamers/consumers. They fell victim to the hype that Sony marketed and even when directly shown software that put Sony exclusives to shame, consumers turned their cheeks and continued to say 'I'll wait for the PS2'. Marketing when done right is a killer and Sony done marketing right. Just a shame gamers and consumers fell head over heals for it. Great video.

[@jasonblalock4429]

Well, I'd say that Sony's DVD gambit worked wonders. When the PS2 came out, it was the cheapest DVD player on the market. And a lot of people think Sony deliberately rigged it that way, although I don't think it's ever been officially confirmed. Tons of people bought one first for the movies, and then later started collecting games. That's the explanation I usually hear for the PS2's slow burn attach rate, anyway.

[@Jenovi]

It's true of the Xbox and N64 also. Still, with 9 million units sold, there was room to make some money and survive. Unfortunately, it wouldn't happen, and going for a market leader approach was ill advised in retrospect.

[@BubblegumCrash332]

Dude your videos are pure gold! I really appreciate the research you do for these.

[@Jenovi]

Thank you very much for the kind words, and for watching.

[@jeremybowers3181]

Glad to have you back man!! A lot of insight into sega's past I was completely unaware of very thoughtful and engaging. 👊💥🇺🇸

[@Jenovi]

Thanks Jeremy. It feels great to have another video out.

[@jonathan_tong93]

The Sega Dreamcast was the last video game console from Sega, which used Gigabite Disc Read Only Memory or GD-ROM. The Dreamcast used it's GD-ROM that led to it's ceased production on March 31, 2001, as lack of support from Electronic Arts, Rockstar North, and Squaresoft contributed to the former's discontinuation, as the Dreamcast only had few Women playing

[@nekonekopanicnekonekopanic7335]

this is one of your best vids so far man keep it up super informative and really well done

[@Jenovi]

Thank you! I very much appreciate the kind words.

[@_kikaso]

What a well-researched and thoughtful video. Really appreciate the fresh perspective. Thank you!

[@Choralone422]

Excellent video! I agree with every point you brought up. Other item that may have some legs with regards to the Dreamcast is that many retailers were gun shy about Sega in general after the 32x disaster & the soft showing of the Saturn especially after what many saw as it's early cancellation in 1997 due to Bernie's comments. So if you're the average consumer who is looking to buy a game console in late 1999 or early 2000 and the store has big displays for the PS1 & N64 (who at the time both had tons of games out) with the Dreamcast tucked away in the back (with a much smaller selection of games available) which console do you think you're going to be interested in? Plus, once the PS2 hype train due to it's DVD capabilities got going when it launched in 2000 that only made things worse for Sega. Seasoned gamers knew the Dreamcast was a good system but the average non-gaming person most likely didn't. DVD was a HUGE selling point for the PS2 to the average consumer. Even my own wife (who was NOT a gamer) back in the spring of 2001 was on board with me buying a PS2 for $300 because she wanted a 2nd DVD player for our house. We had bought our first standalone DVD player in 1999 for almost $500 so a 2nd one that also played PS1 and PS2 games for $300 was easy for her to get on board with! Given Sega's fragile financial state they just couldn't hang on long enough for the Dreamcast to become profitable enough to help carry the whole company. I'm sure the figures for the amusement division in 2000 were even worse than 1999 as arcades worldwide were in serious decline then.

[@PabstOban]

I have a video idea! When I thought of it, you were the first person that popped into my head for someone that would do it justice. Working Designs... What they were, what they did, how it all ended, and the disappointing ports that came after they went defunct.... maybe uncover why the original vocals and translations weren't kept (which was kinda what Working Designs became famous for... their excellent English ports).

[@Jenovi]

I've thought of just this idea before. It would be fun, but require more contacts than I currently have.

[@michaels9917]

The Dreamcast was my favorite system. Arcade perfect ports (to me at least) of Sega's top shelf IP was everything to me.

[@Jenovi]

I too think it's a great system. Only downfall IMO was the controller. Something I'm sure that would have been addressed had it maintained a spot on the market.

[@michaels9917]

@@Jenovi the controller was a mess...especially considering how amazing the Japanese saturn controller was.

[@wiredupretro]

Incredible insights in this video. Thanks for making it!

[@Jenovi]

Hey my friend! Very happy to see you swing by. Happy Holidays, hope you and the family have an incredible Christmas.

[@wiredupretro]

@@Jenovi Merry Christmas to you and your family, as well! Keep up the good work!

[@NoelComiX]

I love my Saturn. Bought it in 1996, still playing it. I never got burned DC games until 2009.

[@Jenovi]

I think your experience is fairly standard... including loving the Saturn.

[@NoelComiX]

@@Jenovi hey! Yeah i still use my jr high saturn as a visual cd player and got a modded one for International gaming :) love your channel!

[@KGRAMR]

Good to see you back with a really well done video Jenovi :D

[@Jenovi]

Thanks my friend. Glad you enjoyed this one.

[@jeffstephenson9316]

I know I can always come to this channel to get true information on these retro or new video games keep doing what you're doing

[@Jenovi]

Thanks Jeff, appreciate you stopping by and for the kind comment.

[@akalyx]

just what i needed...thank you, jenovi. looking at HDD specs (can't imagine prices) from 1999, they range ~13-30gb, my un-rared roms are ~1.32gb...realistically 10 roms on a drive, 30 days dl time = \

[@Jenovi]

Drives were expensive back then too. I clearly remember my first 1-2 gig drive. It wasn't cheap.

[@welikewhatwelikenetwork1213]

Another phenomenal video. Such a great breakdown in comparisons to other consoles. Definitely seems like a ton of work went into the research.

[@Jenovi]

I started this one in October 2019. It required a ton of work. Many thanks for watching it, it's highly appreciated.

[@welikewhatwelikenetwork1213]

@@Jenovi That's incredible. Always love how thorough you get in videos like this. The work you do definitely shows on screen.

[@HYDRAdude]

Yeah I never bought the "piracy killed the dreamcast" argument considering there have been plenty of other platforms with more widespread piracy, such as the PSP, DS, Xbox, etc, that all did well enough.

[@KingOfAnime247]

Wow. Very informative. What I learned is that pirated games and EA not publishing games on the Dreamcast is not the reason why it failed. It was because of confusing business stuff that I have a hard time understanding lol.

[@Jenovi]

😂

[@GalacticKid2006]

SEGA had a reputation for releasing products with a short shelf life and little support, backed by big promises. The Sega CD, Sega 32X, Sega Saturn, and many smaller peripherals. they were rushed onto the market, with either low quality support (CD, 32X) or lacking enough content (Saturn) to justify them. 3rd party developers were not happy about developing for hardware that was a "failure" so to say. You can't blame anyone for assuming the Dreamcast would be a cash grab like the 32X.

[@mrbig2648]

Great analysis! Glad you are back to making videos again.

[@Jenovi]

Me too Billy! Many thanks for checking this out.

[@FurySanctuary]

1998/2000 in France 56k. 2003 adsl (256k). only companies in very large cities see even that the capital had a good internet speed

[@hababacon]

I believe Sega announced it was $171 to manufacture the Dreamcast in a magazine back in the day. They made $1 on every DC sold, transportation and store profits took up the rest. Sega had deals with NEC where the first 5 million chips were free. DC went downhill after Sega hit that 5 million chips. I don't recall the Power VR cost, but I recall reading the SH4 was sold to Sega at cost or about $30 per chip made.

[@maneco88]

Great video, dreamcast was one of my fav. And nice background music

[@Jenovi]

Thank you for watching! I had so much fun with the Dreamcast over it's life. Many solid memories.

[@show-me-retro]

Love the Dreamcast, one of my favorites. I think piracy was a problem but I think the lack of DVD player was a bigger factor. I had many friends that avoided it for that reason only back in the day, opting for a PS2 instead. Whether they ever used their PS2 to watch dvds was irrelevant, they just wanted that option. It didn't stop me from buying one but interesting how things were back then

[@Jenovi]

Hey Pat! Certainly that was true, though Sega showcased a unit with built in DVD and intended to launch it shortly after the PS2. One interesting tidbit is that the PS2 and Dreamcast were only on the market directly competing for a few months.

[@producerevan88]

I'm so lucky to have never really had slow internet at home. We had cable internet lines installed in the mid-late nineties as a test since we were in a cul de sac in a nicer area I'm assuming. Before that we didn't do the whole family internet thing and still faxed and used the library.

[@CollinKenny]

Awesome; thank you! Glad you are back.

[@Jenovi]

Thanks Collin, it feels great to be back. 😁

[@AbbasKhan9364]

Another awesome retrospective vid, man. Keep it up!

[@Jenovi]

Thank!

[@sega-re-trop-vieux]

As always your video is so great to watch and great information. Keep going with such nice video in the future!

[@Jenovi]

Thanks! Working on a new series now.

[@PandaMoniumReviews]

Return of the King!

[@Jenovi]

😆 Feels good to be back!

[@rdavisct1986]

You are not wrong about piracy , I recall back in 2000 i would see a new game come out in a commercial and I would simply go online to download it then burn and play it without needing a physical mod chip installed.

[@coolfactor118]

one thing i remember from back in the day is that the reason people were buying the ps2 over the dreamcast was it had a dvd player and at the time dvd was still expensive and you could get a ps2 for the same price or sometimes even cheaper than the dvd player!!!! so what i saw was people buying the ps2 for the dvd player!!!

[@beeaye7944]

I think the death of Sega as a hardware manufacturer can be directly traced back to the Megadrive's failure in Japan. This spurred Sega's leadership to push for a replacement--while also spurning their successful American division, which lead them to be blindsided by the emergent Playstation, and eventually forced to rush out the Dreamcast.

[@Jenovi]

I think you have a very valid position here.

[@xtremegold2950]

sega was mainly a arcade manufacturer ... by the time they release the dreamcast in the west.. nobody care about its library. arcade style games and sonic adventure alone was not gonna save.. thats why it fail .the machine only lasted 1 year in half ..from september 99 to march 2001 and was not piracy or dvd player .. lack of games is what killed the dreamcast + the previous backlash they got from the 32x

[@redstratus97]

Great video. On the consumer side the Dreamcast had great games. But the looming PS2 with its DVD tech was hyped up so much that it still made news when the Dreamcast came out. It seriously was like “well you can get this but you can wait a year and get a DVD player as well for the same price”. All that talk didn’t help things. When the X-Box came out I knew the market was saturated. No way all consumers could support 4 systems. I knew one was going to fail. It turned out to be Sega.

[@hellcas300-6]

The best video that I ever watched talking about the Dreamcast question.

[@rars0n]

KZbin failed me again, by not notifying me. I'm just going to point this out before I've watched the whole video, you've got both a Game.com behind you AND a Gizmondo? And that cream-colored thing which I can't put my finger on... looks like an old radio, but that blurry logo is screaming "Fender" in my brain. I can't figure it out!

[@Jenovi]

Great eye! The cream colored item is a Telefunken West German made radio. It's been in a few videos. Also, that is indeed a Game.com and Gizmondo. I have nearly a full set of games for each system. I'm currently working on a series of videos covering the Gizmondo.

[@rars0n]

@@Jenovi The Gizmondo is truly a VERY unique piece of gaming history if for nothing more than the story surrounding it! I always look forward to more of your videos! Thanks!

[@Jenovi]

I started on that video, but was worried folks might not watch as it's a bit of an unknown system outside the hard core collecting audience. So first an Unreleased series covering it, then the Mini Doc.

[@GameTechRefuge]

Great video as ever Jenovi. Another must watch.

[@Jenovi]

Thanks my friend.

[@DarkBlueBaker]

I ❤️ my DC, it's one of my favorite systems. Piracy may have been an issue but IMHO, there were three things that nailed the Dreamcast's coffin shut. Number one is the delicate hardware. My very first DC blew up within 24 hours of purchase. I never have gotten used to the grinding you hear when loading. I don't even think a Neo Geo CD was noisy and my Sega CD was whisper quiet in comparison. Number two is the controller/VMU. Now I don't know about you but I LOATHE the cord on the controller. Why put it on the bottom where more force is going to pull on the connector? I tend to hold my controller higher and I have to sit closer so I don't hurt the cord. The holder on the back for the cord was an interesting idea and I'm not going to knock that. That analog permanently rubbed off some thumbprint too. It wasn't kind to a hand much either. That VMU though. I think I had more problems with my VMU eating batteries or just flat-out dying on me. Number three (I saved the most obvious for last) is a lack of a DVD player. Sony knew what they had and to a degree, so did Microsoft. You can get DVD playback on an OG Xbox but it's not native like the PS2. I know, I know, it's supposed to be a game console not an upgraded VHS. Sony took a gamble many other console manufacturers had and lost. 3DO and CD-i were supposed to be all in one media players and they flopped hard. Sega had the option of a DVD drive but were off put by the cost. I get that Sega wasn't exactly flush with cash at that time and adding a DVD drive could've delayed the DC and drove up the price. Just my opinion but Sega screwed themselves on the Saturn outside of Japan by releasing the garbage into the international market. I would have loved US versions of Last Bronx and the remaster of Phantasy Star II. The people in charge did not know the consumer market outside of Japan and cut the Saturn at the knees, leaving the Dreamcast on shaky ground from the get go. I've said for years that if Sega had skipped my beloved Sega CD and released Neptune in 1992 instead, Sega could still be making consoles.

[@RobsonRoverRepair]

So the 3dfx stock to SOA staff was interesting I'd never heard that before. I wonder was that exactly why SOJ went the power vr chipset route instead.

[@cameronbrett6254]

I believe PowerVR was a popular choice for Japanese arcade hardware. As an interesting anecdote, Rave Racer was planned to have a PC port exclusive to PowerVR cards from what I remember

[@RobsonRoverRepair]

@@cameronbrett6254 I also wonder was the power vr more natively compatible with Windows ce. Another completely under utilized aspect of the dreamcast.

[@Jenovi]

You know, I really have no idea and there's not much info out there. Either the 3dfx has a major issue and time was up, or the Sega of America executives accepting stock and pushing this hardware soured Japan once it was discovered.

[@thomasp3165]

one of the few channels to mention that the dreamcast was supposed to launch at $249. this would have perfectly positioned sega, as they planned i'm sure, to drop the price to $199 once the ps2 hit.

[@Jenovi]

100%

[@jesuszamora6949]

Dreamcast's death was the death of a thousand cuts. Their reputation in the West was shattered after the 32X and Saturn were dumped too soon after their debuts, the ease of pirating with unmodded systems (that's a distinction between the Dreamcast and everything that came out between the first affordable CD burners and Sega's final console) meant that many of the people who DID buy the system didn't buy games for it, the PS2 was coming up (with Sony bullshotting hardcore), and EA had dropped support after having been royally screwed by Sega in the Saturn days. Sega might have been able to weather the piracy or the imminent PS2 on their own. As for EA, Nintendo's been doing well for years without anything but token support from them, so it's clearly possible. However, all those things put together, along with Sega Japan's well-deserved reputation for incompetence (even their "success" with the Saturn in Japan had more to do with Nintendo fumbling the ball with the N64 there than anything else) and the gutting of the international divisions that had made them so successful outside Japan meant they really had no chance.

[@decline1822]

I remember downloading Dreamcast games on my 33.6 modem. I'd mostly stick to smaller games like Crazy Taxi. Prior to DC I was renting PSX games from Blockbuster and copying them. I was a pirate child.

[@lonron5018]

I just found your channel, great content!

[@kiticanax1421]

This is by far an extremely wide the best video of the Dreamcast's downfall. I'm so sick and tired of "piracy!" and "EA!" getting used as an argument. Bravo!

[@thehumbleone1983]

Jenovi does some Great video on Sega history 👍👍👍👍👍

[@RetroGameLivingRoom]

Great job debunking the long repeated myths that piracy and EA killed Dreamcast. What are your thoughts on the year 2000 market downturn? It was the first one since 1984, and if I recall correctly, was ~10 percent for the console market. I've wondered if Sega incorrectly read the tea leaves, and if it contributed to them exiting the console business.

[@Jenovi]

I don't think so, and I don't believe Sony had a real impact. The system was selling well, but even at 4-6 times the rate that it did, Sega was still in a difficult place and I'm not sure it would have been enough. I mean, that's the real deal here. It was doomed from launch and not much could change the path Sega was on. Even it the Dreamcast final year, Sega was still losing around 1/2 a billion USD. They were doomed and the Hail Mary..... well, I'm not sure it was ever going to work.

[@CasperEgas]

The price over here in the Netherlands was 600 guilders. Which would be around 300 dollars. So the 200 dollars is exclusive to North America.

[@Jenovi]

That's INSANE!

[@CasperEgas]

@@Jenovi that would include the 19 percent tax at the time though.

[@RolfWrenWalsh]

I got a MegaDrive for Christmas in 1990, but didn't become a Sega fanboy until 2001 after buying my Saturn Sunday, August 18, 2000, 32X first week August 2001, Mega CD first week November 2001, Dreamcast Sunday, January 16, 2002, and my Master System first week December 2007. I blame piracy, and the lack of a built-in DVD drive (at least in Japan). Imagine if Sega had the cash to have put a DVD drive in the Dreamcast (I personally blame the 3DFX lawsuit for not having one). The Dreamcast having a built-in DVD drive in Japan ALONE would have saved their hardware division hands down I believe. Afterall, the majority of Japanese buyers of the PS2 were buying it solely for its DVD playback due its price compared to standalone DVD players at the time. The Dreamcast was enough of a hit in the USA, that it was fine with just the GD-ROM, nevermind having a built-in DVD player (though it would have been an even bigger seller in the States if it had). But Japan man.... What could have been.... It's funny you mention modding your PSX. Every single Mega CD game I had initially was a CD-R. I actually didn't buy my first Mega CD game until late 2002. I also pirated the hell out of the Dreamcast and Saturn, and obviously ROMs for the MegaDrive, 32X, and Master System. I have since purchased every single game I ever pirated for my Dreamcast, Saturn, and Mega CD plus much much more. As a collector of over 20 years, and owning over 2500 console games, I use emulation as a means to play a game to see if I like it, and then buy it domestically in the USA, or Import it from Japan or Europe (Hell, as of buying RBI 95 yesterday for 32X, I now own 28 of the 31 US 32X carts. I am only missing Brutal, BC Racers, and Web of Fire. I will most likely get a repro of Web of Fire though.). In fact, I think I own just as many Japanese Super Famicom games as I do USA Super Famicom games due to how cheap they were (all the SFC Dragon Quest games for example for $15), and due to fan translations. Edit: After finishing the video, I agree with you on piracy not being the issue. Hell, in my mind, you would think piracy would HELP hardware sales a bit. Spend $200 on a Dreamcast, but not a penny on games? Yeah, software sales suck, but hardware would/should be flying off the shelves you'd think. Whoa whoa whoa!!! I have considered myself a "Sega Scholar" for 20 years, but NEVER KNEW about the 3DFX stock thing!!! Also, EA claimed that Katana was the worst they worked on? It was a PowerPC 603e and a Voodoo2!!! They had experience working on the Voodoo2, and even had stock in 3DFX!!! I call absolute bullshit. Not to mention the PowerPC 603e was common as dirt on the Macintosh front!!!

[@neozeed8139]

Areas in the states that did have high speed sure contributed to piracy. I knew people with binders full of copies and copy parties once CD’s were sub $10 for a blank.

[@Fellipe2k5]

Problem in my view is that Dreamcast was released while the PSX peaked in popularity in 1999. Iconic games like Tony Hawks and Final Fantasy 8 had just come out and big games like Gran Turismo and Resident Evil 2 had come out the year before. It was very difficult for Sega to enter the market with the competitor on fire. And in 2000 there was unprecedented hype for the PS2. Sony in 1999 until 2005 was the era that were Goliath. So much so that the Gamecube and Xbox sold a little more than twice as much as the Dreamcast with more than twice the time on the market.

[@G.L.999]

And let's not forget about Nintendo with DK64 coming and Pokemon that was becoming the big craze as it was back then!

[@partoftheproblem4899]

Factors included the Genesis, CD, 32x combo that support was quickly dropped for, and the Saturn vs the far superior ps1. While I agree the Dreamcast was a great system and one of my personal favorites. By the time it was released, people had lost faith in Sega. Playstation was hitting its stride with the ps2 and the market was saturated with consoles. The Dreamcast didn't stand a chance.

[@jasonblalock4429]

Yeah, that was the American experience, anyway. Releasing the 32X and Saturn almost back to back just wasn't a good call - especially when the 32X cost almost as much as a full console. And Sega's internal strategy was even MORE confused. Around that same time, they spent a LOT of money making their own superpowered version of the SuperFX chip for Mega Drive games, but it was ultimately only used for one title. Because they just couldn't agree on a single path forward for the platform. (That game was Viruta Racing, btw. So, to make things even worse, releasing it for stock Mega Drives robbed the 32X of what could have - and probably should have - been a console-selling exclusive.)

[@Gorilla_Jones]

FYI the Saturn and 32X is not as important as you think. It just isn't. Read my post above.

[@ViperVisor]

No MUST HAVE game. If you bought one you loved it because you were actively looking at the library of games and good stuff was there.

[@G.L.999]

Back in 95/96, Sonic was expected on Saturn in the west. In Japan, not alot of he Japanese public had any clue who Sonic was if you can believe it. The first time for alot of the Japanese public ever saw Sonic was on the logo of Nights into Dreams by Sonic Team during the Saturn years. Imagine how worse things could've been if Nintendo didn't launch the N64 with Mario 64? The market would've been further alienated!

[@Bibvock]

Such a fantastic system! Great vid👾

[@fizzyfuzz5878]

Damn you Bernie. It's like he didn't understand or care how much money Sega was losing at that point and why the hardware needed to be sold for more.

[@G.L.999]

Legends say that Bernie was in corporate espionage with Sony behind the scenes to drive Sega out of the hardware race. Especially considering the fact Bernie helped manufacture and launched the PS1 into the western markets before becoming the president at SOA!

[@Vanessaira-Retro]

Imagine if the Dreamcast had DVD capability AND had the VMU portable MP3 player at or near launch...

[@worsel555]

Imagine what it would have cost. People tend to forget how much money DVD players cost back then in the States and it was double in Japan. Sony took a loss for a couple years putting one in the PS2 and in Japan it was the cheapest DVD player you could buy.

[@Vanessaira-Retro]

@@worsel555 Got to spend money to make money. I was working retail back then and I very much remember the PS2 beening the cheapest DVD player on the market and it paid off extremely well for Sony in the end.

[@Jenovi]

Almost happened. Funny enough, the pulled it due to cost. Sega just couldn't justify the cost. The did play on a dvd add-on + later inclusion in a revised system. Unfortunately, the system didn't hold on long enough to see it happen.

[@worsel555]

@@Vanessaira-Retro Yes, because they could absorb the massive monetary loss and Sega was not in that position. When the PS2 launched it was losing Sony around $150 per unit, back when the DC was in development the cheapest home DVD unit was $300. No way they could have ate that much money and no one would have dared to recreate how expensive the 3DO was because the DC would have easily been $600+ at launch. Run a business sometime, you may rethink your whole view on spending money to make it as it rarely turns out that way unless you have a long time to recoup those costs, Sega didn't.

[@jasonblalock4429]

Turning the VMUs into MP3 players would NOT have been practical. At all. When the DC came out, MP3 players still cost several hundred dollars. (Solid state memory was extremely expensive at that time.) And none were as tiny as the VMUs. Even if making an MP3 player that small in ~1998 was possible at all, the pricetag would have been astronomical.

[@stepheng8061]

Man mid October is late this year lol I kid glad this came out hope the move went well!

[@Jenovi]

😆 In my defense, I was quite sick for a month. Things are coming together, I mean, hey, I even got a video out.

[@willmistretta]

What killed Dreamcast? 1. Lack of a DVD player. 2. Sega's recent track record (32X, Saturn, etc).

[@pdoherty926]

Thanks for this. Video game history should not be anywhere near as fascinating as it is.

[@Jenovi]

😁 Thanks for watching.

[@zanychelly]

Sega punched themselves in the face... It could have been released with a price tag of R$299 with one game and Sega would have a smaller loss and needed less attach rate.

[@snapdragonzoroark]

300usd was too much especially for a sega that was essentially defaulted itself to the same position it was in 1989 250usd dreamcast + continued support for the saturn could have bought sega enough time to start racking in serious software sales and make the DC more efficient to make leading to the console itself being sold at a considerable profit

[@iwanttocomplain]

I still don't understand why the Dreamcast was pulled. Any bank in the world would be falling over itself to lend Sega money. 1 billion is small change to a bank if your revenue could pay that back at even %5 in a matter of 10+ years (to keep the console on the market for at least 5 years). Bernie Stolar was surely a corporate mole, sent by Sony. Saying they were discontinuing the Saturn without asking. Cutting the price by 25% without asking. If he was any good he would have pushed to have some of the Japanese library localised. The Saturn beat the PSX in Japan because the software was superior. Customers are not mugs (unless they buy Nintendo machines). Just looking at how many games were cancelled for the 32X and DC from premature discontinuation announcements is mind boggling and surely would have turned those machines into big successes. What I'm saying is that despite all the sales figures pointing to the DC becoming a huge success, the decision was made to remove all consumer hardware from sale, despite sales being so strong, (the best start to any console in history?). So how does strong sales amount to a loss of money. Yes, the development and manufacture of the hardware is costly but that's expected. It's always 3-4 years before profit is made on a console. There is still a missing piece to this puzzle. What business orthodoxy would not stay the course when the potential profits would have made Sega one of the worlds most profitable companies? Which bank wouldn't support that? Especially considering Sega's assets could easily match the loan even if it would be sad to lose ip's and businesses. All the signs point to corporate sabotage. My finger is pointing at Sega USA. Nintendo are more wily than Seag which is why they are still successful. They know that if they break their company into two, like Sega did, that offshoot could become vulnerable to influence fro competing interests. Sega's American software division consistently produced the worst output in the company's entire history and the hardware development team were coerced by 3DFX as you pointed out. Sega of America failed to market the Sega CD, 32X or Saturn with any proficiency at all. Putting Sonic as a pack in and lowering the price are no-brainers, not a genius move. But in Europe the picture is even more confusing. Virgin marketed the Master System well. "Do me a favour, plug me into a Sega" was a great as and sold me (also it shoed game footage). After that Sega was the one for me. But I never saw an advert for a Sega console after that point in my entire life. Apart from the Mega CD. But those adverts were not good. That is an understatement. Coupled with the fact that Sega neglected to make good games for it. Batman Returns had a nice engine but the level designed was awful. So I never heard of the 32X or Saturn and the DC I only heard about from a news article. But the DC was pulled from UK shelves after only 6 months. I always assumed it would be profiteering after the 3DO and CDi and Jaguar debacles, in short I guessed it to be around £500 - way over my limit of about £200. I simply never was only £200 on launch, it's likely I would have found the money. The media plays a big part in painting the picture of a product and you tend to just go with it. Someone trashed something and you consider yourself informed. This was Sega's whole tenure on the hardware business. Attacked from all sides. Whereas Nintendo had the Midas touch. No-one criticises Nintendo pathetic hardware or tedious, poorly designed software but it thrives. As Superhands once said (Peep Show reference) "It's not who you know, it's who you blow."