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Post by Moo on Nov 16, 2010 11:48:33 GMT
I think other consoles had internet browsing before the DC, I cant vouch for how good they were though. Also I could never get it to work. :C
I love the DC though, I firmly believe it thoughoughly kicked the PS2 and Xbox's arse in terms of graphical capabilities. I can play many DC games without flinching at the graphics, which I certainly cant do with a lot of PS2 games.
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Post by Beeth on Nov 16, 2010 13:53:19 GMT
I really regret that to this day, I've never had the opportunity to play a Dreamcast, though I've seen one in action and have been very impressed by how ahead of its time it was. I actually wanted one as my next-gen console after the PS1 until it emerged what in inexplicable flop it had been. Maybe it jumped in there too quickly, maybe it had something to do with Sega's poor handling of the 32X/Mega CD/Saturn, or a combination of the above.
But yes, the Saturn was, in retrospect, a disaster. I remember playing one that belonged to a cousin for a while (same time I had my PS1) and going through all the supposed big-name titles: Sega Rally Championship, Touring Car Championship, Daytona, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Cop etc. (most of which I now, incidentally, have on PC). Nothing wrong with any of these in terms of gameplay, but they were waaay too short and, essentially, were just arcade ports. Very poorly handled overall, I even remember I was glad of having my PS1 at the time as the Saturn games didn't last me 5 minutes. I basically completed half his collection in a single weekend!
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Post by Retro on Nov 16, 2010 15:17:35 GMT
The Dreamcast would've beaten every games console on the market if Sega hadn't made such a monumental hash of the Saturn, it had all the potential to be far better than PS2, the only thing that really let it down was the lack of third-party software support, which is directly attributable to Sega's handling of the Saturn. Just imagine what the gaming world would be like if the 32X and Saturn could be erased from history completely! Dreamcast would've ruled the last generation of consoles and probably would've most likely followed it up with a more-than able rival to the PS3 and Xbox 360, instead of throwing in the towel as they did. This is, of course, just speculation, but when you think how ground-breaking the Dreamcast was (first console to offer internet browsing, first console to offer VGA-compatability and far graphically-superior to the market-leading PS2), it really didn't live up to its potential. Agreed....mostly. There are some things in there that I doubt would have happened. Although Sega's rep with the Saturn had been diminished, the Dreamcast being slaughtered by the PS2 was as much down to Sony bringing in a new way to market on a much larger scale. It was really the first console to really get into the "market to everyone" buisness that is now a staple for ever console on the market now-a-days. Sega's release methods and advertising were old fashioned in comparison, even if their console was way ahead of it's time. Personally, I believe this led more to it's downfall than Sega's rep. In fact sometimes I wonder whether the Dreamcast did "fail" so much as was blasted out of the water by a competitor that just took the market to a new level. To those mentioning online...yeah it wasn't the first. Hell, the Megadrive had online gaming. No, seriously.The Dreamcast was however the first practical console with it. Despite running a 56K speed, you could play an MMORPG on it in the form of Phantasy Star Online. That's pretty damn incredible. If it was allowed to run it's course, I think the PS2 would have shown itself a more graphically capable machine in the long run. You look at say...God of War 2. I can't see the Dreamcast having pulled that off. But damn if it wasn't good in it's own right. We never got to see what it could truly do.
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Post by Nam on Nov 16, 2010 15:22:04 GMT
The Dreamcast would've beaten every games console on the market if Sega hadn't made such a monumental hash of the Saturn, it had all the potential to be far better than PS2, the only thing that really let it down was the lack of third-party software support, which is directly attributable to Sega's handling of the Saturn. Just imagine what the gaming world would be like if the 32X and Saturn could be erased from history completely! Dreamcast would've ruled the last generation of consoles and probably would've most likely followed it up with a more-than able rival to the PS3 and Xbox 360, instead of throwing in the towel as they did. This is, of course, just speculation, but when you think how ground-breaking the Dreamcast was (first console to offer internet browsing, first console to offer VGA-compatability and far graphically-superior to the market-leading PS2), it really didn't live up to its potential. ... You really assume too much of Sega. Assuming everything stayed the same, but the Saturn hadn't bombed, the Playstation probably would've still been successful as it got a few key games as exclusive, key to this Final Fantasy VII. This game was probably Sony's biggest Killer App in '97, and stole a lot of peope who otherwise would've brought from Nintendo. Nintendo of course would've still been fine making [censored]-tonnes of money off of the popularity of Pokémon, but Sega would've still struggled. Graphically, the Dreamcast wasn't really that much better than the PS2, if at all, and still wasn't as good as the Xbox was. But neither of this matters, because the key selling point to the PS2 in the early days was that it sold for £300 at a time when DVD players were a lot more. The PS2 had a mountanous hold on the last generation, to the point where you can still get PS2 games new. Nintendo only survived the last generation on it's "selling only for profit" strategy, and the fact that they'd made a [censored] tonne off of handhelds. Of course the PS2 was helped by it's games, Metal Gear Solid 2, Final Fantasy X, and a few others making peope stick with Sony after the psone, but it's unlikely that even if the Saturn had been a better console, with much better third party support, it could've been in any position to compete with Sony. Microsoft are only still competing because - well it's Microsoft, and they have [censored]loads of money, and Nintendo had to do something radically different in order to compete this time around. What could Sega have possibly done to compete against all that? Even if the dreacast had been a success, it wouldn't've been enough for this generation, and they'd've probably crashed again.
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Post by Moo on Nov 16, 2010 16:22:17 GMT
Also the Saturn pioneered Tomb Raider. :B Triangular boobs and all.
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Post by Balls on Nov 16, 2010 16:23:33 GMT
I do think the problem was in part caused by the Saturn's colossal failure, but it was mostly simply because of Sega's failure to secure pretty much any third party support other than PS1 ports.
Some of this can be attributed to to its early release, but then I don't think the XBox 360's success has been harmed by being released "too early" (though it's hard to say whether the 360 was released early, or the PS3 was released late).
Basically, the DC came out at a time when people weren't ready to upgrade. That would be fine if they decided to give reasons for people to upgrade. Most of its third party game library consisted of things like Tomb Raider Revelations, Toy Story 2, Dino Crisis, Tony Hawk's 2 and stuff. Sure, opinions on those games my vary, but these were ports with no improvement over the original PS1 versions. What's the point in having that power if you're not going to use it?
With odd exceptions like Street Fighter III, there was just nothing besides Sega products to get people on the DC.
As for its potential power and such, I guess we'll never know. It might have ended up exceeding the PS2, but it might not. The PS2, XBox and GameCube all had some impressive looking games.
God of War II, as Retro pointed out, was absolutely stunning and probably the best looking game on the PS2. To use another example, GameCube's Resident Evil 4, which rivaled a Hell of a lot of the early 360 line-up. To say the Dreamcast could have done that is such a stretch because you never really know what developers will be able to do a few years down the line. I'm even surprised at some of the visuals the Wii's been putting out with some of its high profile titles.
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Post by Baron Canier on Nov 16, 2010 17:06:48 GMT
Sega themselves call the Saturn "the stillborn".
I have good memories of playing Virtua Fighter 2 against my sisters, however.
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Spudiator
Artist Hume
High Priest of the Religion of Football
STC-O's resident footy obsessive
Posts: 2,815
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Post by Spudiator on Nov 16, 2010 19:16:07 GMT
I do think the problem was in part caused by the Saturn's colossal failure, but it was mostly simply because of Sega's failure to secure pretty much any third party support other than PS1 ports. As I understand it, the DC's poor software support was a direct consequence of The Saturn's colossal failure though, that's what the Wiki article for the Saturn suggests anyway: Also: Now granted both of the quoted paragraphs are noted as "Citation Needed", but it seems quite probable and easily believable that this would be the case.
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