With the Dreamcast last seen in action since 2002 in North America Sega has long been out of the console wars. Gamers have called it the “system before it’s time” because of it’s superior processing power and online capabilities. The Dreamcast was loved for more than its power as it also boasted a solid lineup of games: Sonic Adventure, Crazy Taxi, Power Stone, Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, and Street Figther 3 are just some of few titles that won the heart of gamers. Even after the death of the Dreamcast, Sega had announced they would once again enter the ring of hardware. This is 2011 and still we wait for Sega’s next console. Why hasn’t Sega already made this Dreamcast 2 is just to powerful that ones eyes would melt from the power? The bigger question is what is the state of Sega at the moment that would not allow them to create a new console.
I have always had a soft spot for Sonic in my heart but I just can’t seem to like the little blue hedgehog anymore. Is it just me or has Sonic just gone downhill since his Sonic Adventure days. With titles like Sonic and the Secret Ring, Sonic Free Riders, Sonic the Black Knight, Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Heroes shouldn’t there be love for the little game. At least with more of the more recent titles Sonic has seem to have lost his way carrying swords, and fighting off weird bad guys (other than Eggman). It seems that finally the fans have spoken and have asked Sega to return Sonic to his former glory in Sonic 4 episode 1. One would think Sega would deliver better Sonic titles since they no longer have to focus on hardware sales. Sonic Sega’s bread and better has been so well recieved by game reviewers since after the death of the Dreamcast.
Even though Sonic has not been on the top of his game, Sega has still been producing the hits. Games like MadWorld, Bayonetta, and Vanquish have gotten great scores and shown that Sega is not a one trick pony. This should give Sega the cash flow they need to create the earth shattering Dreamcast 2. Hold the presses, they didn’t sell well! These games were good and better than good just pure fun! How could Sega not sell these games? Well to start they are new franchises so Sega would have to promote the hell out of these games. This is where Sega falls short and usually under promotes a game that is actually good. Sure there were commercials for Bayonetta and Vanquish but both came too few and far between.
Is this really all Sega’s fault. In 2004, Sega was acquired by Sammy which makes most of its money in Pachinko machines. My finger wags at the true evil doer holding back any future systems by Sega which is Sammy. Sammy is just looking out for its profitability through selling consoles for profit is a hard business. Usually companies have to undervalue the price for people even to buy it which means losses to begin with. Nintendo has made the most so far off of hardware sales in this generation of games but now is losing money. It took Microsoft five years to make profitable sales out of the Xbox. Sony still has not made the profits that they would hope to make off the PlayStation 3. Making a console is more than just throwing a couple million of dollars into development and putting a cup into a box. Sega-Sammy (at least the Sammy part) is not willing to take the high risk of creating a console.
In closing, Sega has to push a lot more software if it ever wants to make a Dreamcast 2. First return Sonic back to his former glory and make a Sonic Adventure 3. Secondly, promote new games far ahead of their time so that way, gamers know how good these games are. Thirdly, pray that the first two steps work to give Sega more profits. Last but not least, pray that Sammy lays off the Pachinko machines and learns that consoles are the way to go!
This was a pointless and misleading story. The End
You didn’t even answer your own question, for shame.
@everyone- The answer is no. Sega-Sammy does not have funds to compete in today’s console market.
The true question is why would Sega wish to compete in the console market? Your question assumes that the market is still viable when many analyst are beginning to predict that “consoles” as we know them today are going to become dinosaurs in the coming years.
With devices like Onlive’s gaming console (which is now planned to be integrated into VIZIO televisions), Apple’s iOS product line, and the rapid growth and deployment of Android based devices (Phones, Tablets, Televisions); gaming is beginning to splinter and the idea of a ‘console’ by today’s standards competing with these new technologies is rather slim.
Sega’s best bet would be to begin a ‘Dreamcast’ Phone running a custom build of Android. It would be cheap, could be licensed out so they wouldn’t have to make it in house, and it would be able to play the massive numbers of already existing Android apps, while also playing custom Dreamcast apps that only it could use.
Of course, it doesn’t have to be a phone persay, could be a Android running PMP (Much like how apple makes the Ipod Touch which is just the ‘non-phone’ version of the iphone).
This strategy allows them to enter a much broader market, build on already advancing technologies, and be out very little money from their own pocket.
…Just a thought.
@Erika Hills- You have a good point if Sega was ever going to enter into the market it is far to late for them. It does sound like a good idea since Sega really does not have a lot of money to spare.
Whoever wrote this article doesn’t seem to speak/write English very well. In any case, this video analyzes the possibility of a Dreamcast 2 much better than this article: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGbjHkUUh08
MAKE A DREAMCAST 2 I WOULD BUY IT AND SEEL MY PS3 LOVE SEGA NEVER HAD DREAMCAST BUT HAD SATURN LOVE IT SO COME ON MAKE A DREAMCAST2 IT WILL WORK THIS THIS FOR SUR LOT OF PEOPLE WANT A DREAMCAS2 SEAG DREAMCAST 2 ALL THE WAY
sorry but yeah, poor article..
You should consider proofreading future posts. This article feels like it was written by a 12 year old. Also, please come up with something substantial to write about in the future. This was a waste of time.
Sega, to my opinion, is next to Nintendo when it comes to making fun games. The ’80’s had been kind to Sega- for their 8-bit and 16-bit games. I still think that a video game oriented company could have bought Sega and not Sammy. That way it would be able to help Sega financially, sort of make it bounce back gradually into the hardware industry again.
Do you get paid for writing this stuff? You’d think a college graduate who claims to write a lot would be able to articulate a point. This article was a complete disaster. Go back and look!
“Sammy is just looking out for its profitability through selling consoles for profit is a hard business.” – Just one of many wtf’s. Are you drunk?
In reply to Erika Hill:
While I agree that it’s a bad idea for Sega to enter into the console arena, I disagree about the extinction of consoles. First, the game industry is larger than the movie industry, and most of the money rests in the console market.
I’m sorry, but OnLive, smart phones, and ipads aren’t going to put a dent in the console market. OnLive is never going to take off because it relies on people having high speed internet, and not just any; you need at least 3MBPS just to run it, with a recommended of 5MBPS. Did you know that the United States ranks 16th in the world as far as broadband speed goes? The average speed in America is 4.9MBPS, which isn’t even the recommended level for OnLive. Only 57% of Americans have some form of broadband, and that includes pathetic satellite internet, which is unusable for gaming purposes. As far as adequate high speed goes, only 30% or so can even use Onlive. So, OnLive isn’t going anywhere. It may not die, but it’s not going to grow until we experience massive growth in broadband availability and speeds.
As for phones, they are definitely a huge market. App stores are becoming big business. They are even making phones with better processors so they can play more demanding games. However, do you really expect any type of mobile device app to compete with a full fledged, AAA title, such as a Halo, Mass Effect, or likewise? No way. Developers pour tens of millions of dollars into console games. You aren’t going to see that kind of investment in an app anytime soon. Mobile devices aren’t going to take away any more sales from console gaming than the PSP or DS already do, which is little if any. People use those devices for entirely different purposes.
Consoles aren’t dying, no matter how many reports you read. We may be leaning towards a digital era in entertainment, so the discs may die, but consoles themselves aren’t going to die. America just isn’t connected enough to broadband for us to rely 100% on our purchased content to be stored in the cloud. Besides, who really wants to lose all of their games if their internet crashes?
I’d buy one.
grammar and punctuation, jesus christ
My first console in college was the Sega Genesis. Diehard fan, still have the system. I thought it was so sad when they screwed people over not once but twice. Sega Saturn and then with the dreamcast. I remember being at a convention watching some kid play that dreamcast and I would tell him, dont buy it. You’ll get screwed. I was trying to pass on my experience with sega of getting screwed in the market and he looks at me and says “No way man this thing is going to blow everything away.” I walked away and just laughed. 3 month later sega announced it was dropping the product. See we as human beings have a short term memory or lack of care of what was in the market. Several people have said “In this industry there can be a first and maybe a second, but no third” Don’t believe me ask microsoft about there phones. And for some stupid reason people keep buying them too. Sorry but if Sega comes out with a dreamcast 2, I hope to tell more kids (not that they will listen) avoid it like the plague. You’ll get screwed.
This is the most awfully written and under researched article I have ever read. I was lost halfway through due to your incomprehensible writing style and sentence structure. But you seem to be claiming that Sega developed Madworld, Bayonetta and Vanquish, clearly giving no credit to actual developers Platinum Games and Director Shinji Mikami. Sega act in a publishing role now, and its perhaps for this reason, that there will be no new hardware. After all what’s more lucrative gambling millions on a new hardware project or publishing great games for all systems. Pull your head out of your arse, and no mention of Sonic Colours, the genuine return for the blue spiky one. You ARE ashamed of yourself.
This isn’t a good article. There will never be a Dreamcast 2 as Sega is no longer in the hardware business. The Dreamcast was not successful, it’s ridden a wave of nostalgia for a decade because it did have a memorable library at the time. Those games didn’t include Street Fighter 3 or Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 though. Don’t get me wrong, they were good but they were arcade games first. They also both wound up on Xbox and PS2 (but then again so did Crazy Taxi).
Go play the DC games on Live or PSN or get the 360 compilation. Most people today would not find them fun. Crazy Taxi was fun at the time… but got old fast. Sonic Adventure was never ever a good game and even the terrible recent 3D Sonics are far superior to it. It was average at the time and we were okay with it because the DC had nice graphics and it was his first outing in 3D.
Another ‘popular’ DC title is Shenmue which is a TERRIBLE AND BORING GAME. People only want a sequel because the story was unfinished. But that’s probably a good thing. Shenmue 2 wasn’t released in the US on DC but it did come out on Xbox were it tanked horribly.
DC did have the original Soul Calibur which was excellent and vastly improved over the arcade version. I suspect that game alone is responsbile for a lot of DC sales. Crazy Taxi 1&2, Space Channel 5, and Samba de Amigo were repetitive but still fun. DOA2 was pretty good. RE:CV was excellent at the time. It had decent ports of Sega’s Model 3 and Naomi (DC-based) arcade titles like VF3, Sega Rally 2, HOTD, etc. It was the first online-focused console with an optional keyboard. It had a VGA adapter. The controller had a weird VMU thing. NFL2K1 was the best football game around at the time. Phantasy Star Online was kinda popular. Jet Grind Radio was very original.
But then the PS2 came out and many of the above games were ported (or had superior sequels) on other consoles after Sega quit hardware. I find it laughable that people continue to debate that the DC was somehow more powerful than the PS2. It most certainly was not. The PS2 rendered games very oddly though utilizing interlaced fields of half the vertical resolution. This produced unsightly ‘jaggies’ that most people said was a result of lacking AA which the DC had. That’s not true, PS2 had AA but the interleaving fields made some games (like DMC and Ico) look like a jagged mess. Some games on both consoles suffered cause of this, but made up for it in other ways. For example, DOA2 was more jagged on PS2 (and was a launch title) but had much better lighting and particle effects along with 60fps cinemas. Other games looked identical like RE:CV. But when you start comparing games like MGS2&3, SC2&3, Tekken 4, Shadow of the Colossus, GOW, GT3&4 there is just no comparison. DC is not capable of that quality, its best-looking game is Shenmue 2 with its sharp poloygons and soft textures and poor framerate. PSP is more powerful than DC. Yeah I went there because it’s true
How can the PSP be more powerful than Dreamcast when PS2 isn’t? Jokers are always around. The fact is that the DC was never pushed because of the lack 3rd party support. Sega had to make it all alone. No support > no games > no DC sales > no cash > Game over. If the PS2 had passed the same that DC how good you think the games will look after just 2 years? People judge DC by its games, not by his hardware. So take it: The Dreamcast video card is, at least 2x more powerful than PS2 video card. If you don’t believe me you can check somewhere, and then you can laugh at yourself, joker.
Right now the console market is so competitive that it would be a bad idea for Sega ro rejoin the battle. If Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo were ever to drop out that would be the time…but I just don’t see that happening for quite awhile.
this guy can’t write.
an interesting topic, but I would like to see someone do some actual research and write a GOOD article about it.
sega DREAMCAST 2 ..Man i live for a day to watch that heppen…Dreamcast its the best of its era 128 bit
Did the author even read this crap through before posting it?
“Why hasn’t Sega already made this Dreamcast 2 is just to powerful that ones eyes would melt from the power?”
Wtf?!?! You’re writing an article not posting a comment, and besides, you’ve been waiting for a DC2 all these years? Seriously? I still have my old DC in a drawer, yes it was a fantastic piece of kit, but within 2 or 3 years of release everyone could see it wasn’t as popular as it should have been, and it finally died a lonely miserable and forgotten-by-many death. If you told me they were making a sequel way back then I wouldn’t believe you, nevermind now!
There are some points that I definately agree with, Sonic sucks now, the DC had great games, it was powerful before it’s time, and it lacked in advertising … but the article failed from the end of the first paragraph, just like the DC did.
The dreamcast is set to be realeased IN 2013!!!!!!!!!!! – Check the video below, for a small trailer, and additional information realeased last week by sega.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXmCrR8jRmM
cant wait!! xD LOOKS QUALITY!
Now every body just look on the bright side, You will always have SONY & MICROSOFT for the rest of your miserable friggin lives.
Because theres no DC2 and never will be!
HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!
Agent dingleberry grew up in the farm!