Dreamcast what ifs

[SuperDanX]

Hi everyone!This my first time here and im too excited!I feel like im home!Im a newbie to the fourms but not to gaming,so i hope you will excuse me if this topic has been done!My question is what if instead of abandoning the dreamcast and the hardware market,sega had continued to support the dc and realeased all of there post dc realeases as dc exclusives,such as outrun 2,virtua fighters 4,hotd 3 etc,etc along with some solid 3rd party support,where would sega and the dc be today?Also why when sega went multiformat did multiformat not include there own hardware the dc!I would have thought it was the least they could of done!How pissed off was/am i about that!

[anephric]

The "SEGA abandoning the DC" question is entirely dependant on economics... SEGA needed money, SEGA didn't have any. Simple as that, really. Multiformat ports (and SEGA still had all the market acumen of an Etruscan Snood when it came to these) were a desperate way of raising quick capital.

There's no point of musing "what if" because there was no way it could've/would've happened.

[SuperDanX]

Agreed!But the point of my thread was meant to be more a rose tinted kind of what if,rather than the cold hard light of day kind!As for the dc being included in sega muliformat stragey,they owed us that much at least!

[brokeback]

you shouldn't be too pissed off. I remember I was titsed about it originally but I have a 100+ game collection for my DC and they are all good games.
The dreamcast is a great console and always will be.

[charlesr]

Welcome!

[Big Seany]

The Dreamcast is the finest console I have ever owned. At times I wonder whether I actually need my PS2 - but then I remember - Gradius V.

So many quality games for the DC - whether it be 2d fighters, driving sims, shmups, 3d fighters, rhythm actioners, light gun shooters - you even have a grade-a RPG. Awesome.

[SuperDanX]

Im not to pissed off although i'll standby what i said,i just cant stop thinking how great it would have been to see outrun 2 etc on the dc,i know theres hundrends of cool games for the dc(i just bought marvel vs capcom 2 for it!)but its never enough is it?Dont get me wrong i l.O.V.E sega but the dc deseverd to be included in there multiformat stratagy at least initialy imo!P.S does anyone know if outrun 2 is coming to any other formats?Lot of love to all the ntsc-uk peeps!:-)

[gamerade]

Sega totally distancing themselves from the DC after moving to software only, abandoning games development 'overnight' for their own machine was not quite the death knell I expected. Especially as chart figures show that even now (in Japan at least) DC software outsells games produced for other consoles when they appear. (though not in the numbers that high profile companies require)
The hardware was capable of better than PS2 quality software, unfortunatly joe public jumped for VHS again or more likely was pushed by the gaming press.
TBH this was more to do with the rampant software piracy (look ma no mod-chip) than any DC shortcomings, meaning that even the software side was not profitable enough for Sega, however revolutionary.

[charlesr]

I thought DC piracy arrived relatively late in the DC's life. Did I get the wrong end of the stick?

[SuperDanX]

I think sega just didnt care about the dc or dc owners anymore,they just went chasing after the ps2 money,give the people who did support the dc nothing and the ps2 vf4!I find it hard to belive a couple of ports of vf4 and jsr future would have sank the ship,it wouldve been nice as a 'thanks for the support'over the years kinda way!Having said that if the dc had have contined where would it be today?Sure it could match the ps2 blow for blow in 01/02 but where would they have been in 05?We will presume the ps2 would still be the market leader but who would 2nd,3rd and 4th be?And why?

[gamerade]

I recall reading an article on the infamous UTOPIA 'boot disk' in one of the import magazines (EGM/Gamefan?) around 2000. How soon after the DC appearance this is I'm not sure, 'aquaintances' who would never buy a console until they could copy/play games for nothing or as little as possible bought into the DC soon after. Sega sold the consoles at a loss, hoping to recoup money from software sales that never appeared.
Games development costs money and pirate software only sells blank media. Only option is to move onto a format that is either harder (DVD/Gcube) or more expensive (Modding) to pirate or sells enough units to offset the losses.
This obviously shows that piracy CAN kill off a console, even one as formidable as the DC, the PCEngine of its generation.

[Baseley09]

The hardware was capable of better than PS2 quality software, unfortunatly joe public jumped for VHS again or more likely was pushed by the gaming press.

Funny you use that analogy as Sony were champions of Betamax and got poo pood.

The only reason I got a Playstation was because of piracy, same for 70% of all other buyers I knew..........shame it didnt quite have the same effect for Dreamcast.

[charlesr]

You don't need a bootdisc to play copies on the DC. They just work. Thought the utopia was to allow playing imports (just not as good as DC-x).

[m0nk3y]

Originally you needed a Utopia disk to boot 'back-ups'. But then the Self Boot Inducer software was created, based upon how Utopia works, allowing 99% of back-ups to self boot. It injects the hacked audio track into the game to allow it to boot.

[Big Seany]

The copies thing for DC - a few months back I bought what I was led to believe was a legit US copy of Last Blade 2. It arrived, and all appeared to be very convicing, until I discovered there was no instructions, just an inlay. For some reason I forgot to insert my DC-X, and was amazed when the game loaded up on it's own. I then realised I had bought a pirate copy. Luckily I had only paid a few quid for it, and the game is awesome, but it dawned on me then that piracy must have been widespread as f*** if you need no chip or boot disc to play copies on a DC.