Android – Dreamcast Deja Vu Part 1: The Situation

[triverse]

It is quite a hot debatable topic, why the Sega Dreamcast died so quickly and resolutely as far as commercial publishers are concerned. One of the popular reasons is, quite simply, piracy. Sega made some effort at keeping the Dreamcast unique and hard to break into but crackers and hackers will do as they do and it didn’t take long before they had custom code running on Sega’s, then, new console- Sega’s Swan Song console.

 

Read the rest of the article at Gaming on Batteries - http://gamingonbatteries.com/android-dreamcast-deja-vu-part-1-the-situation/

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

Piracy which pretty much plagued all consoles of the era and continues today was a very minor part of the Dreamcasts demise. Sega themselves, bad management and even more so trust lost with fans and developers played a much bigger part. Though Sega's effort on Sports titles was pretty damn good (Sega Sports/ Visual Concepts) not being supported by Electronic Arts with Sport and other titles was a major blow to Sega/Dreamcast, one of the reasons I started to despise EA long before it became popular to do so. Lastly, Sony's marketing blitz, promises and faithful Japanese market and the promise of a next gen console with built in DVD support which was still pretty pricey now you could have the next gen Sony console AND DVD player in one. Sega burned a lot of bridges with fans and developers back with multiple add-ons they killed off support for, the early release of the Saturn to shelves to the surprise and anger of developers leaving a dry spell for some time during the Saturn debut. All of these things made piracy seem almost insignificant in comparison.

Edited December 25, 2012 by OldSchoolRetroGamer

[triverse]

While I agree with you that there were a lot of bridges burned and Sega didn't have have the best reputation as far as consoles went by the time the Dreamcast hit, you can't deny the support it did receive. Capcom, Eidos, etc all were there early on but eventually left when sales weren't high enough for them to continue supporting the system. Sure, there were a lot of gamers that didn't purchase a Dreamcast but the large number that did, there simply wasn't a corresponding number in game sales. That is because of piracy.

 

The next part of the article will focus much more on Android and what Google needs to do to improve things with the OS.

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

Sure, there were a lot of gamers that didn't purchase a Dreamcast but the large number that did, there simply wasn't a corresponding number in game sales. That is because of piracy.

 

 

Uhm the minor protection methods held at first, it was some time until that piracy became possible and rampant and I still say the reasons I mentioned were still a much bigger part of the Dreamcasts failure, sorry but the piracy issue came later on and keeps getting blown out of proportion in it's hand in the Dreamcasts demise. Though SEGA hit it big with the Dreamcast launch it was still already in dire straits from past mistakes and the impending rumour of the SONY offerings caused many to overlook the Dreamcast and wait (consumers and developers). Quotes from the team that developed the Dreamcast have dismissed the piracy as being a main part of the problem in several articles I have read over the years. We can agree to disagree and leave it at that.

Edited December 25, 2012 by OldSchoolRetroGamer

[+Gemintronic]

I'd have to agree full on piracy happened very late in the Dreamcast scene. If anything, homebrew EXTENDED the Dreamcast scene well beyond its expected lifespan. To this day new indie games are coming out.

[Austin]

Just going by personal experience from that time period, if Dreamcast piracy was as rampant in other areas of the country as it was in mine, then it was definitely a problem. Not before or since has a mainstream console been so easy to pirate, and so quickly for that matter. No hardware modifications required, and at the very most all you needed was a boot disc. No external device plugged into your system, no spring to keep your tray up. Even idiots could figure this one out. It also didn't really happen that late in its life. It was about right at the halfway point (remember that the DC only lasted a little over two years in the mainstream marketplace). Fall 2000, at the very latest, is when I noticed there was a problem.

Edited December 25, 2012 by Austin

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

To be clear, though any home user could download , burn and play Dreamcast games not every one could just copy them. YES once you had a burned game on CDr you could make multiple copies to your hearts content but the original images from retail games had to be ripped either through networking a Dreamcast or other methods, yes anyone could find and download and burn but it was only those with the right setups and knowledge were able to rip and repack the disc images for us users. Just clarifying as I know some seem to be under the impression all you had to do was stick a retail Dreamcast game disc in their PC and use any burning software to make a copy anyone could use which was far from the case. The scene/warez groups did the work, early attempts did indeed require a boot disc, as well often much was ripped from bigger games or downsampled to fit on a CDr. As methods improved even most titles that required a boot disc were remastered to be self bootable.

[Austin]

But that's exactly the thing--Thanks to the hackers and the ease of sharing files back then (peer to peer ala Kazaa, etc), the work was already done for everyone else. It was easy.

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

But that's exactly the thing--Thanks to the hackers and the ease of sharing files back then (peer to peer ala Kazaa, etc), the work was already done for everyone else. It was easy.

 

Yep and you can bet many many more Dreamcasts sold once that happened lol. In fact sales went up by 150% after the first pirated games started to appear BUT this was STILL behind Sega's hopes and expectations. Sales dropped on the Dreamcast before any bootleg games showed up, you can find a lot of info if you search to support this. Again, your welcome to think piracy had a more than a minimal impact or "remember it" as you do but the info is out there, if you can disprove the points I brought up earlier were the real reason Dreamcast failed I welcome it. Sorry but to suggest that piracy was anything more than a very minimal part of the Dreamcasts demise is wrong period, sorry no matter how you remember it lol, do the research yourself if you have any doubt. I've NOTHING to gain from this obviously, I do get tired of myths and unsubstantiated rumour when the facts are easily found. Of course your welcome to go on remembering it as you will and believe what you will.

Edited December 25, 2012 by OldSchoolRetroGamer

[KiwiArcader]

Sega = the Commodore Business Machines of the console world. Poor marketing outside of the USA, lack of resellers coupled with low numbers of machines being made available in non-USA markets put them on the back foot from day one. While the PS2 was a juggernaut on the horizon when you saw the shoddy graphics on some of their games compared to the Dreamcast SEGA could have easily held its own with the right advertising. Having a dedicated gaming console was no impediment to Nintendo after all. Piracy wasn't that big a deal to SEGA themselves as they didn't exactly flood the market with software for the console. Besides that, with the black sports branded consoles they plugged the MIL-CD piracy hole anyway. No, what killed the Dreamcast was SEGA's bottom line caused by poor management and a rapidly declining arcade market and the Dreamcast was an easy target. Still ... when you put Windows on a console (Windows CE on the Dreamcast) it was only a matter of time before someone would find ways around the protection scheme.

[Simon_G]

when you put Windows on a console (Windows CE on the Dreamcast) it was only a matter of time before someone would find ways around the protection scheme.

 

Although it was not the WinCE environment that was cracked, it was the boot loader for the Mil-CD Format that left the gaping hole. Have to agree that it was mainly down to the dropping of support for the MegaCD and 32x that screwed Sega over the generation before, oh and EA not supporting the console was MAJOR!. The piracy thing made little difference to the consoles demise and as others have said, actually kept it alive, albeit not commercially.

Edited December 26, 2012 by Simon_G

[Asaki]

...just like rampant piracy killed the Nintendo DS!

 

 

 

 

.........oh wait......

[chrisbid]

Sega needed a hail mary touchdown to stay afloat in the console business against three other giant companies. The DC did well enough in a 2 console market, but would've been obliterated in a 4 console market. Killing the Dreamcast and going third party was a matter of company survival.