With a lifespan of only three years, the Dreamcast is one of those failed video games that left their mark. Launched on November 27, 1998 in Japan and on October 14 of the following year in Europe, the Dreamcast nevertheless had everything in its favor: a surprising catalog, a hitherto unmatched power and the possibility, rare at that time, of power to stay connected online.
However, Sega, then a console manufacturer, discontinued its console after selling only 8 million copies. It was March 31, 2001. 25 years after its arrival in France, the Dreamcast remains for many a true textbook case, which almost plunged its manufacturer into an unprecedented financial catastrophe.
A quickly obsolete overwhelming console
The complete failure of the Saturn, predecessor of the Dreamcast launched in 1995, pushed Sega to launch a new generation of consoles, a year and a half before the Playstation 2, which was to hit stores in 2000. Sega then planned to continue to offer a gaming experience close to arcades.
“At the time of its launch, the Dreamcast was undoubtedly the most powerful console on the market, and by far. But a year later, it was surpassed by the PS2, although the power gap between the two machines was not huge either. “comments Oscar Lemaire, video game industry specialist from Ludostrie and author of the book “The Dreamcast Story” in Third Editions.
Among the cult Dreamcast games we have licenses that still exist today: “crazy taxi “It was one of the console’s biggest hits in the West and one of the precursors of freedom of movement in the open world,” recalls Oscar Lemaire.Shemnue is another of these precursors, conceived directly as a console game, but with the disadvantage of experimenting with something that was still very little mastered.”
“The Dreamcast has ceased to exist in the media”
The Dreamcast will first suffer a pitched battle between Sega Japan and Sega of America. The two divisions do not agree on the way forward, neither at the level of marketing nor current development: “Even if Mega Drive had managed to beat Nintendo in the US, Sega Japan was not very happy with the way in which Sega of America had managed it from a marketing point of view,” explains Guillaume Leviach.
The boycott of Electronic Arts, which will never agree to offer an episode of FIFA or NFL on the platform, will not help either, especially in the United States.
The cause is known: Sega develops its own sports games internally, NFL 2K AND NBA 2K. “These are games that scared Electronic Arts, which saw them as dangerous competition for its own sports games, to the point of wanting to force Sega to cancel them.”
Sega will also end up selling its sports licenses to Take-Two (owner in particular of Rockstar, the studio behind GTA), which is having success with NBA 2K.
25 years later, if Sega still finds it difficult to talk about the failure of its console, a logical culprit stands out: the Playstation 2.
“As soon as the PS2 came out, the Dreamcast ceased to exist in the media,” recalls Guillaume Leviach, who also remembers that, ironically, Sega president Isao Okawa died just 15 days before the console was discontinued, he decided two. months before.
“That’s what the independent developers of the time say: they were interested in the Dreamcast, they would have been happy to work on it, but they knew that it was in their financial interest to focus on the PS2 first and learn to master it,” adds Oscar. Lemaire. “They knew it would work better and, like a self-fulfilling prophecy, that’s a big part of the reason it worked so much better.”
He concludes on a note of optimism: “Sega fought well with the Dreamcast, and it’s tragic for them, but they found themselves facing the strongest competitor in console history.”
A statement that recalls Microsoft’s current luck with Xbox, which struggles to convince gamers to buy its consoles, while its games enjoy success… on Playstation 5.
Almost thirty years after its arrival on the market, the Dreamcast has finally become a cult console for an entire community. Modders have set out to create a specific version of Minecraft for the machine, and their official games sometimes sell for hundreds of euros.
There was even talk, in 2023, of a “Dreamcast mini”, a miniature version of the console in the tradition of the NES mini and Super NES mini. But cost issues eventually caused Sega to abandon the project. One more time.
Source: BFM TV
