> What ultimately did it in was the PS2 -- a superior console in virtually every respect
I beg to differ. Graphically it was, but it should be given it was two years younger. Sound quality it was too but honestly very few people would have noticed on the typical set up of that era.
However the Dreamcast has 4 controller ports built into the console itself, rumble packs from day one, a portable gaming unit (ok, that was a bit of a novelty), support for using your save games on actual arcades, easy way of sharing save games, online gaming (a good 4 years before the competition too!), downloadable content (which was typically free back then).
The Dreamcast was easily the more interesting console out of the two of them. If the reputation of the two companies had been equal then the DC would likely have won out. But the PS1 was already a proven success and Sega had messed their fans about with all the failed Megadrive /Genesis addons. So a great many gamers didn’t even give the Dreamcast a chance. In a sense, their expectations became a self fulfilling prophecy.
I was gutted when the DC failed. No console before nor since has really captured my imagination quite as much as the Dreamcast did. But ultimately I wasn’t surprised either because Sony had already won even before releasing the PS2. Few people cared about Sega (or Nintendo) at that point.
AS I remember it, the mindshare of the PS2 even so long before launch was immense. Sony's marketing killed the Dreamcast with ridiculous promises that really didn't pan out. You can't just look back and compare the systems, the idea of the PS2 killed the DC.
Yep. A good example was the branding of the PS2's processor as the "Emotion Engine," (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion_Engine) which in the runup to release got hyped as some kind of fundamental breakthrough in computing that would let the PS2 render things like faces with so much detail they'd be able to break your heart. This was all bunkum, of course, but it ensured that all the media oxygen got sucked into debates about how amazing the PS2 was going to be when it eventually shipped, instead of talking about consoles like the Dreamcast that you could buy right then.
> A good example was the branding of the PS2's processor as the "Emotion Engine," (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion_Engine) which in the runup to release got hyped as some kind of fundamental breakthrough in computing that would let the PS2 render things like faces with so much detail they'd be able to break your heart.
That reminds me of the hype around the PS3's cell processor. There was a lot of videos comparing the graphics between the PS3 and the Xbox360 that showed really no difference between the two. I don't know enough about processor architectures to know how awesome it really was. However, I imagine that a game studio making a game for both platforms would use the least common denominator of both consoles, causing them to look the same. Also, it's probably in the best interest of the studio for a game to have a consistent look across platforms.
I wonder if the cell processor was really as awesome as it was made out to be. Going by what one heard, you'd think Sony was losing money from manufacturing costs with each console sold. Then again, maybe it's true in a sense. While the PS3 was $600 and had bluray movie playback as some small feature, bluray players cost around a $1000. It was crazy to see people eyeing those things, considering buying them.
If that's true, it explains why Sony removed the feature allowing you to install a custom OS on the PS3. There was at least one group that was building a supercomputer out of PS3s. Removing the feature was probably to limit losses from sales to people that were not buying their PS3s to play games on them.
It was still shitty of them (and I wish illegal) to remove a feature, but now it makes sense. I wish they had limited the removal to only units not yet sold though. It's not like people that were using their PS3s for supercomputing would run the update anyway. It would only be those that were playing games and were restricted without running the latests updates.
the cell processor was a great processor. It's actually more powerful than what's in the PS4 at the moment but no where near as friendly to develop for.
I don’t recall Sony marketing the PS2 that heavily compared to the DC (nor even the Xbox). But memory can be fallible.
The argument I was proposing was that the mindshare was in anticipation of the PS2 because of how the PS1 vs Saturn war panned out. Gamers can be loyal pack animals and Sega had already lost their fan base before the DC was even released thanks to the success of the PS1.
> Dreamcast with ridiculous promises that really didn't pan out.
I don’t get your point there. Everything the DC promised to do it delivered on. Technically speaking it was a success - very much ahead of its time in a great many ways. It just didn’t sell.
Sony did all sorts of marketing stunts to keep the idea of the PS2 in the limelight. They spread stories about how Iraq was trying to buy them for their weapons program because they were so powerful, etc.
None of those superior features were things people particularly cared about. Most people didn't have good enough internet for online gaming at the time. Most people never went to arcades (isn't the point of a console that you don't need to), 4 ports is nice but an adapter fixes that easily, and it's not meaningfully more portable than a PS2.
> Most people didn't have good enough internet for online gaming at the time.
That's not really true though because the requirements for online gaming were also lower back then. I agree people didn't have broadband but the DC's online games worked fine with a dialup modem and in fact it used a slower modem than was common in PCs at that era (33k baud as opposed to 56k) that people also used for online gaming.
> Most people never went to arcades (isn't the point of a console that you don't need to)
Consoles were always intended as a compliment to arcades, not a flat out replacement for them. Plus Sega often had a Crazy Taxi (or whatever) cabinet in student bars and other trendy places as well as the usual places dedicated for gaming.
> 4 ports is nice but an adapter fixes that easily,
I agree it's hardly innovative but it's yet another thing you need to buy. Another expense and another device you need to have the foresight of owning before your mates pop round with a handful of controllers. So I think the real question should be: "why the hell didn't the PS2 have 4 ports when every other console of that generation did (Gamecube, Xbox, Dreamcast)?"
The thing I remember as a kid was the hype for the PS2 building right as the Dreamcast was released. This was still in the era where most families would only have one console, so they ended up saving their money aiming for a PS2 instead of a Dreamcast.
I think if the Dreamcast was released sooner or later it would have done better than it did. Either before the PS2 hype, or closer to the PS2 so the hype died down a bit.
I beg to differ. Graphically it was, but it should be given it was two years younger. Sound quality it was too but honestly very few people would have noticed on the typical set up of that era.
However the Dreamcast has 4 controller ports built into the console itself, rumble packs from day one, a portable gaming unit (ok, that was a bit of a novelty), support for using your save games on actual arcades, easy way of sharing save games, online gaming (a good 4 years before the competition too!), downloadable content (which was typically free back then).
The Dreamcast was easily the more interesting console out of the two of them. If the reputation of the two companies had been equal then the DC would likely have won out. But the PS1 was already a proven success and Sega had messed their fans about with all the failed Megadrive /Genesis addons. So a great many gamers didn’t even give the Dreamcast a chance. In a sense, their expectations became a self fulfilling prophecy.
I was gutted when the DC failed. No console before nor since has really captured my imagination quite as much as the Dreamcast did. But ultimately I wasn’t surprised either because Sony had already won even before releasing the PS2. Few people cared about Sega (or Nintendo) at that point.