Remembering the Sega Dreamcast

[manimal]

Will never forget Shenmue.......Going to look in the garage for my copy

 

[FeathersMcGraw]

Nostalgia is strongly hinting that I plug mine back in for some Crazy Taxi. But I bet I'm just going to wind up throwing a VMU through my TV playing Ikaruga.

 

[Adrenaline]

Originally posted by: mmntech
I was all about the Genesis back in the early 90s. Then I went PC exclusive until 2007. I wish I had a Dreamcast though. Gotta love MVC2.

You can get MVC2 on the XBox 360 or the PS3 for $15.

I traded my DC in towards my N64 if memory serves me. I regret that a little to this day.

 

[novasatori]

ecco on dc was one of my favorites

 

[MODEL3]

Originally posted by: FeathersMcGraw
Nostalgia is strongly hinting that I plug mine back in for some Crazy Taxi.

Same here.

 

[magomago]

Originally posted by: zerocool84

Originally posted by: smackababy

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17

Originally posted by: erwos

Originally posted by: Juddog
Tons of TV's nowadays have VGA inputs, and the main draw back then was to plug into your computer monitor. I also played soul calibur on it, and no game I played wasn't able to be played through the VGA adapter, so I'm not sure why some wouldn't work.

I agree... but if you're running your home theater setup through a receiver, separating sound and video like that is annoying. Hence why component support would have been a nice option. Notice that all three of its competitors offered such support...

As for VGA compatibility:
http://www.epforums.org/showthread.php?t=42182

The Dreamcast's VGA out is better than the component output of PS2/GC/Xbox if I remember correctly. It was very well done and was aimed specifically at computer monitors. I don't know that the competition at the time (PS1/N64) had component output, and I'm not sure the PS2 did initially (or if it did it didn't really matter much since it wasn't 480p capable) so its not like Sega really screwed up there (and remember they were looking into doing a significant add-on). Since it didn't have digital audio out either, splitting the audio/video wasn't a big deal (S-Video ruled at the time so receivers at the time focused on that and composite video input).

The funny thing is, it seems like everyone likes the Dreamcast, and the people who bought one at launch are especially fond of it. Makes you wonder how it managed to fail (granted we're talking enthusiasts and not mainstream, and it probably didn't help that most enthusiasts had a ridiculously easy time pirating the software for it).

There was a pretty good sized thread not even a month ago for the 10 year anniversary of the system. I expect Queasy might integrate this thread into that one.

The Dreamcast failed, IIRC, due to cost of making the system and add-ons. The VMU was amazing, but expensive. The controllers were very nice and the game library was good. Sega had announced it would be their last console if it failed, so it was almsot doomed from the start. This console was ahead of its time, just as the Saturn was. Poor Sega.

No it failed right around the time PS2 was coming out. 3rd party support was not large cus of how the Saturn was. Lack of huge 3rd party support and PS2 is was killed it.

Uhhh and shitty Sega Advertising. Blaming the PS2 is the easy way out. Yeah it had the hype, but Sega made many mis steps on its own, especially when it came to marketing. Remember the fucking Space Channel 5 media blitz? Worst fucking decision ever. They should have pushed the games that they knew would sell - the 2k series (which Visual Concepts did a smashing job on....it made not having EA on the Dreamcast a lot easier to take), Sonic, Fighters, Crazy Taxi etc. etc. Later on you simply saw very little to no advertising for some games!
I love my DC through and through...but saying that only lack of 3rd party and ps2 hurt it is fogetting that quite a bit of blame falls on Sega themselves.

Atleast they still exist today making good titles

edit:

we also have to consider the really bad communication between SoA and SoJ which created the blunders like Sega CD and 32X and Saturn marketing issues (where SoA was really pushing the 32X as the next thing to play on, and it gets cut off and abruptly dropped when SoJ decided to let them know of the Saturn. It was essentially the video game industry version of surprise buttsecks). I'm sure to many burned videogamers, even a well done Sega launch for the DC was not enough for them to quickly jump on the bandwagon.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Originally posted by: erwos

Originally posted by: Juddog

Originally posted by: erwos
Why is it that people here cannot distinguish between TVs and receivers? I know what the hell I wrote, and I wrote it that way for a reason.

The other thing people haven't mentioned is piracy... you could burn discs and the DC would play them. That's a killer on the licensing revenue.

Why would you want to plug VGA into a receiver though? That makes absolutely no sense.

Same reason I would want to plug my Xbox 360 or Wii into it, of course. It's one less device that needs to have the input switched when I want to use it. My TV stays on HDMI-1 all the time these days...

You're completely forgetting display tech at the time. Going VGA was a much easier way of enabling high quality visual fidelity. There were very few HDTVs and they were priced well out of reach of typical gamers (VGA output was easy, getting component output would have been more work for much less payoff). It also allowed easy output to projectors which primarily had VGA input at the time. I have no clue why you would criticize Sega for not having one when there's no way they would be able to expect how things would turn out, let alone on your receiver 10 years later.

 

[stag3]

jet grind radio and crazy taxi ftw

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17

Originally posted by: erwos

Originally posted by: Juddog

Originally posted by: erwos
Why is it that people here cannot distinguish between TVs and receivers? I know what the hell I wrote, and I wrote it that way for a reason.

The other thing people haven't mentioned is piracy... you could burn discs and the DC would play them. That's a killer on the licensing revenue.

Why would you want to plug VGA into a receiver though? That makes absolutely no sense.

Same reason I would want to plug my Xbox 360 or Wii into it, of course. It's one less device that needs to have the input switched when I want to use it. My TV stays on HDMI-1 all the time these days...

You're completely forgetting display tech at the time. Going VGA was a much easier way of enabling high quality visual fidelity. There were very few HDTVs and they were priced well out of reach of typical gamers (VGA output was easy, getting component output would have been more work for much less payoff). It also allowed easy output to projectors which primarily had VGA input at the time. I have no clue why you would criticize Sega for not having one when there's no way they would be able to expect how things would turn out, let alone on your receiver 10 years later.

Not to mention, PC cards didn't even have component yet.
The ps2 had custom hardware to support it, and didn't even universally support progressive scan.
The gamecube used a separate digital to analog converter chip to go from RGB to component.
The xbox and one of the first graphics chips that actually supported component output I think, and if not, it probably also used a converter chip.