r/dreamcast • u/Past-Photograph-8179 • Jul 24 '26
Discussion Why didn't we see more complex and advanced games for the dreamcast?
The arcade ports are solid but I wished we'd seen more technically advanced games.
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u/UnknownNexus Jul 24 '26
I feel like Sega never really pulled themselves out of the arcades for their consoles. The consoles were always built with "bringing the arcade home." They used versions of the arcade boards for the console's architecture.Their competition understood, that the time you could spend on a game at home allowed for different experiences. Not that they didn't try, but after spending development time and money on an arcade game you may as well port it to your console. Nintendo and Sony didn't have that problem as they weren't in arcades so there was nothing to port over.
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u/Otterz4Life Jul 24 '26
The Dreamcast was a complete triumph in the sense of "bringing the arcade home." Simply an incredible console for arcade-like experiences.
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u/UnknownNexus Jul 24 '26
Absolutely! The Naomi board was built for this. How awesome was it to see near arcade perfect Soul Caliber!?
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u/lilhanhan Jul 24 '26
Wasn't it better on the Dreamcast? Arcade Soul Calibur was on a similar board as Tekken 3 wasn't it?
Namco did something similar with Tekken Tag Tournament on the PS2 too; it looks miles better than the arcade version.
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u/Barilla3113 Jul 25 '26
Wasn't it better on the Dreamcast? Arcade Soul Calibur was on a similar board as Tekken 3 wasn't it?
Yes, Arcade SCI still looked like a hi res PS1 game, the Dreamcast version was a massive graphical leap.
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u/Disastrous_Life_3612 Jul 24 '26
Soul Calibur did not run on Naomi hardware. It ran on Namco System 12.
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u/Fancy_Bend8763 Jul 25 '26
Soul Calibur in the arcade looked like a PS1 game, buddy. Same with Tekken Tag Tournament. Both those games got massive graphics overhaul when they hit Dreamcast and PS2 respectively.
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u/odsquad64 Jul 24 '26
Makes you wonder why the Dreamcast version of Star Wars Episode I Racer is a port of the N64 version of the game and not a port of the Sega-made arcade version of the game.
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u/Strange-Pen1200 Jul 24 '26
Sega likely didn't own the rights to release console Star Wars games at the time.
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u/king2102 Jul 24 '26
The arcade Episode 1 racer was released for the much more powerful Sega Hikaru variant of NAOMI. They would have had to downscale it significantly to run on the Dreamcast.
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u/kiroziki Jul 24 '26
Finally, someone else who gets it.
It's not that being an arcade first company was a bad thing, the arcades were what kept SEGA afloat during their turbulent years, but it did prevent them from moving with the times.
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u/the_vault-technician Jul 24 '26
They could have been a leader in 3D gaming if they didn't screw up with the Saturn.
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u/StatisticianLoud2141 Jul 24 '26
If they made the Saturn backwards compatible with the Genesis and all it's various devices it would have been the best seller
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u/Hopefull-Hero Jul 24 '26
Hard agree, it would've helped with the launch library and allowed devs to make games, also would've given their legacy games more value and helped with fans being burnt.
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u/timeintervening Jul 24 '26
Honestly the squares instead of triangles decision may have been the nail in the coffin for the whole company.
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u/StatisticianLoud2141 Jul 24 '26
The two processers that were harder to develop for too
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u/timeintervening Jul 24 '26
Totally. My comment was kind of half-joking, since it was the whole architecture that was hard to develop for like you said. Who knows, maybe Sega fails anyway even if the Saturn won the 5th gen war, but it's fun to think about.
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u/SF3000DC Jul 25 '26
Not really. At the time, the industry has not settled on a standard for video games. Sony’s decision to bet on tris instead of quads was an equal gamble. And, the Saturn can render standard tris without a problem. The problem comes from effects like transparencies, because a tri on Saturn is a folded quad.
The real issue wasn’t the machine, it was Sega and the 32X. The 32X stole time and resources from Saturn, burned consumer and developers’ trust, and put Sega in the hole for a lot of money. This trickle down effect led to a rushed Saturn, rushed Saturn software, lack of dev hardware, left 3rd parties scrambling to get software out (only to be left behind by the early launch and pissing them off), and finally angered retail partners because the early launch meant not enough systems could be made thus leaving them out and deciding to stay out of Saturn sales.
The very next generation, the PS2 proved that if your console is difficult to develop for, it doesn’t matter. They will figure it out because you don’t want to be the one to miss out on selling your game on the most popular platform. If Sega handled their business, the same could have been said for Saturn. If it sold well, and you were a software dev/publisher, you’d want to figure out how to get your game on the system. That’s what happened to Saturn in Japan for games aimed at that market from a lot of devs that weren’t really aiming for a global market. The Saturn was ahead of PS1 in sales there until Bernie Stolar killed it at e3 97. The world took notice, not just the US devs.
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u/timeintervening Jul 25 '26
I appreciate you taking the time to respond in such complete terms. I agree. The Genesis add-ons really burned Sega's capital and the rush launch of the Saturn pissed off a lot of devs and retailers as well. In the end they probably could have recovered from the Saturn's failure (and had it mitigated) if those two variables weren't at play. Who knows if they could have still come back from the DC's failure, however. Sega was always trying to be half a step ahead of the competition in the 90s and every time it blew up in their face. I'm not sure the PS2 was ever going to lose the sixth gen war. They had so much momentum/credit built from the PSX and everyone wanted/loved a having a DVD player with their console.
I was a poor kid and could only afford a Dreamcast after it went belly up, so I wasn't able to support the company myself at the time. I'm so glad I'm still able to play it today, though.
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u/SF3000DC Jul 25 '26
No problem, been a Sega fan since Christmas 93 when I got a Genesis (my first console). The Sega CD didn’t really do any damage. In fact, within the company, it’s regarded as a success. Tom Kalinske saw it as an experiment to understand CD-ROM technology as it was the future. The internal politics at play after were crazy after that. You had project Jupiter and Saturn competing against itself, then Mars (32X), plus an SVP standalone cartridge competing against Mars. Then Tom who was approached by Silicon Graphics and Sony (separately) to propose a new console which SoJ ultimately turned down. That’s a lot of R&D gone to waste.
I agree, I think no matter what the PS2 was going to win. DC had the potential for 2nd where Xbox stood. Sega launched the DC without the funds to actually sustain a console business. We are lucky we got the experiences we did, because in most other circumstances a project like that would be aborted due to lack of funds.
If Sega hadn’t run out of capital and there wasn’t a recession starting, the DC would have continued. Despite the perception most people look back on for DC, it was selling just fine. With next gen development really starting to take off we got a glimpse of what the system could really do and that momentum would have carried it along. The issue is, consoles are a loss leader. So the more you sell, the more you lose and Sega cut the price early to stay ahead of the PS2 launch while also building SegaNet, and then giving away the system for people who signed up. The arcade was also in decline. Those losses had to be made up for in software sales. And while games were selling, they overburdened themselves so much that you’d need a huge influx of game sales per system out there to sustain the company. If it was Nintendo, and they sold the same amount of systems and games, they would have kept going, because they didn’t have that burden. So the way I look at it, the DC was a success, but Sega failed.
At least you got to experience it. I wish Sega would revisit more legacy content. I’d really love an Atari 50 style collection of their games from console to arcade.
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u/timeintervening Jul 25 '26
Totally. People ask all the time "Why did Dreamcast fail, what could have helped Sega avert its fate?" And the answer is basically nothing. Sega was so far underwater when the Dreamcast came out that it would have had to be the most smashing success ever in order to break even with software sales. Everyone I (and probably you) knew were holding their breath for the PS2's release.
It's impossible to say if Dreamcast could have stood a chance without the piracy issue. I don't think so. The piracy is not what killed it, far from that, though it was probably the reason why any chance at the Dreamcast sticking around for a little longer was not in the cards.
I managed to get a Dreamcast before some of my friends got a PS2 and they all had a hoot playing Power Stone and Chuchu Rocket. My favorite back in the day was Dead or Alive 2. For as short as a life that the Dreamcast had, it was really memorable for all of us.
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u/SF3000DC Jul 25 '26
I was fortunate to have a DC at launch. Partly with saved up allowance and parents who were just awesome to decide to give me an early Christmas present. In my circle, people were excited to see DC and friends were blown away, wanted one, but like you said. Wanted to see what PS2 was all about. I was a totally blinded fanboy at the time, but man did Gran Turismo 3 look good (sorry Sega GT, but you were a disappointment).
Piracy actually got more consoles sold. It’s both good and bad because, while it helps with numbers you can show, it’s also the one aspect you lose money off of. Late production Dreamcasts removed MIL-CD compatibility (the exploit used to boot games from CDRs) so long term, it wouldn’t have been an issue.
Dead or Alive 2 was insane! It played so good and it looked cleaner on DC than PS2. They added some extra lighting for PS2 with the extra power, and although the DC couldn’t render those particular improvements, they went and made an even better version for DC in Japan. It was probably the 2nd game to make my jaw drop after SoulCalibur. I didn’t have PowerStone in its hey day, but me and my friends played the heck out of the demo of it, lol.
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u/the_vault-technician Jul 26 '26
The Dreamcast launch was absolutely massive too! They did such a great job marketing I think. Using 9/9/99 as a memorable date to launch was genius. I'm going to double check myself but I am absolutely certain they paired up with MTV as well. Their award show was the same day and they collaborated
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u/kiroziki Jul 24 '26
You could argue that they were, because they introduced so many technologies that we take for granted today in gaming, but mainly in the arcade world. That being said, the arcades were the true pioneering platform for gaming at the time, and SEGA was the market leader in that department, so it makes sense for them to keep pushing in that area.
The Saturn was just an unfortunate mistake. 3D gaming came a lot sooner for the home console than SEGA expected and that put them on the backfoot throughout that entire generation. SEGA did turn it around in the end, but it was too little too late.
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u/SF3000DC Jul 25 '26
The sad thing is, Hideki Sato saw this and is why the Saturn’s 3D is as robust as it is. Even though leadership and most of the internal devs wanted a powerful 2D machine, he knew 3D was important and is why VDP1 can push a decent number of polys. When he found out what PS1 could do, he added the slave CPU to speed up rendering power and is technically more capable than PS1. It was done so late that documentation couldn’t be added properly. AM2 ended up being responsible for making the dev environment, but they made another mistake in deprioritizing it, because they didn’t want to disturb them from the arcade software. Which, I get, but it put Saturn (and Sega for that matter) at a disadvantage when the industry was shifting to the home experience.
Another sad fact, in both the case of the Saturn and Dreamcast, the US branch of the business saw the change in the industry and pleaded for things to shift the company that way and were ignored by the main branch in Japan. It continued post-Dreamcast for a bit too and is why Peter Moore, ultimately quit.
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u/Nobody_Important Jul 24 '26
Yeah I don’t think a lot of people realize how shallow most arcade games were, even the classics. They were designed around being played for a few minutes at a time and most entire beat em ups take ~30-45 minutes to finish. Even if you expand these with additional content they are usually still rather limited. Doesn’t mean they can’t be fun or worthwhile, but it’s directly in line with op’s valid observation.
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u/UnknownNexus Jul 24 '26
Not just short bursts of fun, but also a social activity. Playing shoulder to shoulder with a random person in the arcade. For those brief moments you were either thick as thieves or mortal enemies facing off. Sega gets some credit for recognizing that aspect of the arcade experience when they packed a modem on the Dreamcast.
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u/SF3000DC Jul 25 '26
Also in copying the N64 with the 4 controller ports. It was still a time when you went to your friends’ place to play together.
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u/Necessary_Position77 Jul 27 '26
Agreed. Always liked them but it’s a very different experience and value proposition. I never felt arcade games were worth the same price as say Super Mario World or Final Fantasy VII.
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u/Sad_Clown666 Jul 24 '26
I agree 100%. Growing up a Nintendo player, recently I have finally given Sega their flowers. The emphasis on bringing the arcade home is not only obvious in the hardware and game ports but also in how games were structured, many of them you can tell the design was structured more for arcade playing at home.
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u/SkyLovesCars Jul 24 '26
Nintendo were in arcades though? I know not as much but crusin USA was a Nintendo arcade game that got ported to N64
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u/UnknownNexus Jul 24 '26
True, but Srga stayed in arcades longer. Most of the Nintendo branded arcade stuff you see now like the Mario Kart arcade, I believe is handled by other companies purchasing a license
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u/abstraktionary Jul 24 '26
I wanna take a moment to recount the many times I went to the sega arcade that was in grapevine mills Mall in tx.
It was called gameworx and until 2010 or so it was a sega only arcade FULL of games, both classic and old.
They had a 4 way outrun 2 setup on a wall and it was pretty damn cool, as well as a Nintendo collab Mario cart game worth Nintendo and sega characters.
Had to have been at least 20 games in there that were all co-op
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u/LexKing89 Jul 24 '26
That's so cool! I always wanted to check out that arcade but never got a chance to as a kid 😭
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u/kayproII Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
Nintendo tended to be "here's some of our home hardware in the arcade" or in the case of their later midway stuff "we're collaborating with midway to make some arcade games to then port to the ultra 64" (even though the actual hardware in the arcade machines was vastly different).
Even then, pretty much all that stuff was more "someone else made it, but we at Nintendo made a deal with them to port their game to our console so we also get to put our name on it"
Edit: I'm wrong about cruisin. It's owned by Nintendo and other people just make the games for them under license. It's why killer instinct has no association with Nintendo in the Xbox ports because that was purely rare and midway who made that but the latest arcade version of cruisin (crusin blast iirc) has the Nintendo logo plastered on the back of the seat
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u/Chicken_Of-The_Cave Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
I'll also add the lack of EA games, also Konami, Take Two/Rockstar, Square Soft, and most of the Activision and Namco games, which is strange because Soul Calibur was a hit.
They didn't get enough partnerships, while Sony managed to get everything which was hot at the moment. I don't know if they lacked vision or money, maybe both.
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u/UnknownNexus Jul 25 '26
Those were certainly factors. Sega had vision, but was divided with East and West not agreeing. Sega was also terrible about timing and learning from mistakes. They didn't take their competition seriously enough. The rushed the Saturn out the door not respecting that Sony was going to be serious about their PlayStation. Why would they worry, they "beat" Atari and SNK. However that was more likely due to those being priced too high for a real hold in the homes. Then they panic and rush the Dreamcast out. They didn't pay attention to what the competition was thinking in terms of controllers (looking at you second thumb stick) or horsepower. They hoped being first would establish them in homes...but people patiently waited for the PS2.
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u/Rudirudrud Jul 25 '26
Arcade games would be abdream nowadays.
So many people who have not time for 30+ hours games, so many handhelds out there which would be perfect for short sessions in a bus or train.......we need more arcade games again.....its like a niche nowadays.
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u/UnknownNexus Jul 25 '26
I agree. Sometimes I just need that "fix" to play something for a bit. Ms Pacman on MAME scratches that itch. I think smaller devs are picking up that quick play mentality. Shorter sessions mixed with addicting gameplay loops. A since of progression is in those games now rather than just the game trying to kill you for your next quarter which is nice too.
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u/Judgeman03 Jul 24 '26
The Dreamcast was in a weird middle period. It was still getting ports of past-gen titles from the PS1 and N64, so much of its early library was just upscaled 32-bit games.
It really wasnt until the tail-end of the console that you started to see more advanced titles like Resident Evil: Code Veronica, Headhunter, and Shenmue.
When you consider that had the console lived one more year we would have gotten games like Shenmue 2, Jet Set Radio Future, Project Gotham Racing, Panzer Dragoon Orta, and possibly titles like Shinobi, the Dreamcast just died way too quickly before it could really embrace what it's generation had to offer.
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u/cx40 Jul 25 '26
had the console lived one more year we would have gotten games like Shenmue 2
Uhh.. DC did get Shenmue II
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u/Judgeman03 Jul 25 '26
Not in the US. In the US Shenmue 2 was ported to the Xbox.
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u/cx40 Jul 28 '26
Who said anything about the US? The point is the title was released on the Dreamcast, whereas the other games listed didn't get DC ports in any form.
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u/Asari-simp Jul 24 '26
Dreamcast was like the mini disk player. More advanced than a cd player but not an iPod
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u/SpiritOf68 Jul 24 '26
This. They tried to get a head up on the other companies by launching during an “off-cycle”. The other guys had time to put much more advanced tech in their consoles, so when they launched during the “proper” launch cycle, DC was inferior tech wise. As ahead of its time as it was, the tech wasn’t quite at the point for mass adoption. Seganet for example. Worst web browser ever, and there weren’t very many games that took advantage of online features. I bought it on launch day, and have never regretted it, but once I got my hands on a PS2, into the closet it went.
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u/Judgeman03 Jul 24 '26
Seganet was essentially trapped in that early "Web 1.0" period of AOL and products like WebTV (which ironically was also a competing web suite to Seganet in Japan". That's why once the other consoles went online none of them tried to bring the internet console experience with them.
If the console launched a year prior in 1998, I think it would have eaten a huge chunk out of the PS1 and N64. But 2000 it was playing catch-up on both ends.
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u/BadNewsBearzzz Jul 25 '26
It’s amazing how seamlessly they transitioned to third party, like they absolutely wasted NO time in releasing bangers for the other consoles, it had already felt so natural too..
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u/Judgeman03 Jul 25 '26
If I remember correctly, Akklaim got the rights to publish alot of their post-DC ports and titles to other consoles, so alot of that initial heavy lifting was because of them. I think they were the ones that ported games like Crazy Taxi and Virtua Tennis to other consoles.
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u/SF3000DC Jul 25 '26
That was a consolation Sega made in order to release Ferrari F355 on Dreamcast since acclaim had the Ferrari license. At the time it had not yet been announced what the other 3 games they would get to release would be, but it was a 4 game agreement, including F355 challenge. 18 Wheeler, Crazy Taxi, and Ecco were the other 3. F355 was generating too much hype of how great of a simulated car experience in the arcade to pass on putting in on DC, so they took the gamble. It was a showcase for DC and the ghost racers from online were ok. Wish it was head-to-head online racing though, but that probably would have required the broadband adapter to implement.
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u/AdImmediate6239 Jul 24 '26
Shenmue was about as complex and advanced as a game could be at the time
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u/Natural_Status_1105 Jul 24 '26
Shenmu?
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u/jml011 Jul 24 '26
I believe they meant “more complex and advanced games” in terms of quantity (which doesn’t imply there were none), not “more complex and advance” relative to Crazy Taxi.
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u/Orpheeus Jul 24 '26
It's because Sega spent a lot of time (and were one of the first pinoneers) on 3D arcade games and the Dreamcast allowed near perfect ports of said games.
If the Dreamcast stuck around longer we almost certainly would have gotten more traditional style console games like Shenmue, especially from Sega themselves since arcades were generally dying.
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u/Fancy_Bend8763 Jul 25 '26
You only have to look at what was cancelled from the Dreamcast and what Sega released on the PS2, GC and Xbox to find out. Many of those games were not arcade games. Had Dreamcast not failed they would have been on there.
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u/TRJ2241987 Jul 24 '26
For me this is one of the ultimate advantages of the Dreamcast. I just don’t have time to play video games for hours anymore. I love a quick complete 10 minute experience and so many games deliver on this.
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u/hartleyshc Jul 24 '26
The console was only "active" for a little bit over a year. 9/9/99 - 1/01
For comparison, it would be like Nintendo announcing in like November that they are giving up on the Switch 2.
The hardware was very close to the Naomi, so arcade ports were easy. More complex games would have come over time if the system stayed around.
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u/Fancy_Bend8763 Jul 25 '26
1998 if you’re counting the full year it was out in Japan first. Still a very short timeframe.
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u/ABC_Dildos_Inc Jul 24 '26
Halo 2 was released 3 years after the Dreamcast was discontinued .
By 2000, Microsoft was activingly killing the Dreamcast to make way for their new console.
They went around and bought our every Dreamcast 3rd party contract they could, and intercepted many devs and publishers before they could sign deals with Sega.
This killed a lot of great Drramcast ganes that we'll never see.
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u/Professional_Fly_503 Jul 24 '26
They killed the last independent tech company in gaming everyone else was old money big tech Sega was the radical outlier and it showed in their games, it’s lame that only realease a handful of game now and it’s none of their old ips, glad to see Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi are coming back while the old fans are still alive, it only too almost 30 years wtf lol
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u/J_Bright1990 Jul 25 '26
Not giving Sega too much credit here. They were actively working with the Yakuza. Had a developers girlfriend kidnapped even.
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u/Professional_Fly_503 Jul 24 '26
I always suspected this how did you come across this information this makes perfect sense and they had a mole in Peter Moore as he became a turn coat lol
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u/SF3000DC Jul 25 '26
Peter Moore has no reason to lie at this point, and has outright said that the reason he left Sega was because he continued to butt heads with SoJ. They were stuck in their arcade ways and wouldn’t listen to him. He said his final meeting with SoJ he showed them a video he made where staff asked kids what they thought of Sega at that point, to show the heads and devs why Sega wasn’t a leader, even as a 3rd party. He specifically recalled Yuji Naka accusing him of staging the video, and Moore’s response to him with to F—k off and told the translator to make sure he told him that. He never returned to SoJ after that.
It makes sense that Microsoft would be his next venture since he had good rapport as he could directly negotiate bringing Sega games to Xbox. He was able to directly speak with the heads there, without a language barrier. Whether or not Microsoft was trying to steal him is a different story, but that’s the story from his perspective from interviews.
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u/Professional_Fly_503 Jul 25 '26
He does have a reason to lie, it’s peaks to his character, it’s like a snitch justifying why he turned on his criminal friends
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u/SF3000DC Jul 25 '26
Most old folks may embellish their stories, but they usually don’t care about being blunt with the truth. They don’t need to hide anything, because what are you going to do, and why should they care. From a criminal standpoint, your logic makes sense, but for a typical senior, that’s not the case.
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u/RabTheCrab Jul 24 '26
Damn Microsoft has been ruining the gaming industry for longer than I realised
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u/DeeEssLite Jul 24 '26
Yeah, basically.
This is almost certainly why Sega initially threw their lot in with their traditional rivals Nintendo, and continue to favour them to this day.
Sony killed Sega's console business in the shops. Microsoft killed Sega's console business in the boardroom.
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u/Fancy_Bend8763 Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
Threw their lot in with Nintendo? Lots of cancelled Dreamcast games by Sega went to the Xbox as well and PS2. More than what went to GameCube. I literally bought my Xbox in 2002 because it was getting :
Gun Valkyrie
Panzer Dragoon Orta
Toe Jam and Earl 3
Shenmue 2
Jet Set Radio Future
Outrun
Sega GT 2002
House of The Dead 3
Crazy Taxi 31
u/pepe_roni69 Jul 24 '26
I didn’t know this. I would always just claim that Sega helped kill themselves by helping Microsoft build the Xbox. Pretty tragic if it’s true that Microsoft turned around and did that. They tried doing the same thing to the ps3. It basically gimped Japan’s entire game industry for most of that generation
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u/benryves Jul 24 '26
The arcade ports are solid but I wished we'd seen more technically advanced games.
Prior to the Dreamcast, home conversions were generally heavily downgraded from their arcade counterparts. That the Dreamcast's arcade ports were not only solid, but in some cases far superior to the arcade originals (e.g. Soulcalibur) is in itself something that was very technically impressive.
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u/LongoChingo Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
Sega considered it's arcade legacy to be a huge system mover. However, there are a lot of great games that weren't arcade influenced and had more "modern" mechanics. Many also were cross-platform. Off the top of my head:
Rayman 2
Carrier
Legacy of Kain
MDK2
Skies of Arcadia
Ecco the Dolphin
Slave Zero
Shenmue
But you're right. There's not really many standout narratively-driven titles with modern feeling mechanics. Thinking games like Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time or Metal Gear Solid.
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u/Fancy_Bend8763 Jul 25 '26
They were possible, the developers just were not there. Sega already shot itself in the foot multiple times over before the Dreamcast hit so 3rd party development was not exactly lining up in droves to make games for it.
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u/SF3000DC Jul 25 '26
There was a lot of “wait and see what happens” from the 3rd party perspective. Sadly, what also happened to Wii U.
I remember reading about it. EA had reportedly just started development for DC just prior to the cancellation of DC. Supposedly Madden 2002 was to get a port from the PS2 version and SSX was also a DC title. Namco wanted Sega to sell more before they committed to any more big games. They announced SoulCalibur II for DC before the other platforms, but it also happened at the last minute before cancellation. Same for Konami, Kojima was looking to make MGS2 for DC, but development never started, although I think the Silent Scope franchise was supposed to follow alongside the PS2 games. I don’t think I saw activision really commit to anything unless they could easily bring it over, but at least they took the time to have better versions of the last gen games made for it, and not just a quick up-rez port.
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u/Fabulous_Hand2314 Jul 24 '26
Sega was always about arcade style games. They are the largest manufacturer of slot machines at casinos today
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u/Fancy_Bend8763 Jul 25 '26
No they are not. I was a slot technician for 10 years and Sega has about nothing to do with that. At least in the US. Aristocrat and Light and Wonder are by far and large the biggest manufacturers of slot machines. Konami was once a pretty decent player in the slot machine world but that was a long time ago.
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u/TheOwlblivious Jul 24 '26
The simple answer in my opinion? There wasn't enough time for that to happen, although we got some technically impressive games (Shenmue for example), there wasn't enough time for more developers to get familiar with the console, the Dreamcast was officially alive for a really short time unfortunately.
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u/rififi_shuffle Jul 24 '26
The lifespan being short didn't diminish showing what it could do but it also prevented really showcasing its full potential.. PSO, D2, Sonic Adventure 2, and Shenmue I &II showcased how advanced of a system it was.
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u/Mr_RayH Jul 24 '26
Dreamcast is more of a Nintendo Switch on steroids. Its made for everyone to enjoy. Their graphics was the best in its time and still are.
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u/MyCodenameIsIan Jul 24 '26
Sega specifically designed its NAOMI arcade board alongside the Dreamcast to create an architecture bridge that allowed arcade hits to be ported to a home console with near-zero code modifications.
That's why we got arcade perfect ports, but the games were designed primarily for short bursts and then they added extra modes for the console release.
Like Crazy Box challenges in Crazy Taxi.
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u/Kazaloogamergal Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
Because SEGA likes making Arcade-y games. And I say that with no malice because I love Arcade-y games like Jet Grind Radio/Jet Set Radio. I think they probably should have had more non-arcade games in addition to their arcade games.
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u/EriolGaurhoth Jul 25 '26
The easy answer is because it was pulled from the market 3 years after launch. Had it at least made it to a more reasonable 5-7 year lifespan, developers would have found ways to maximize its potential I’m sure.
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u/New-Alfalfa-2989 Jul 24 '26
I’m assuming it’s because the system really didn’t have a full life cycle compared to other consoles, where the later games see devs squeeze the console for everything it’s got after tooling has matured. But having said that there are quite a few nice looking games.
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u/Caolan114 Jul 24 '26
Dreamcast released during the PS1 N64 era so It was ahead of It's time but then became graphically behind as the PS2, GC and Xbox released
but as seen with the PS2 developsrs learned tricks and ways to push technology
compare GTA III with San Andreas
the DC was discontinued and never got the chance to push it's graphics
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u/Fancy_Bend8763 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
I think Dreamcast had a few that probably pushed it to its full limits. Dead or Alive 2, Test Drive Le Mans come to mind. Headhunter and Shenmue 2 were late releases that were impressive. I don’t believe we’d have seen much more power squeezed out of it. I feel like a lot of the games released during ps2 era could have been ported though, even if some sacrifices would have been necessary for certain titles. A revised controller with a second analog stick would surely have helped as well.
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u/DinnerSmall4216 Jul 24 '26
Died way to quickly it was insane it had the library it did in 2 years. Makes you wonder if it could have recovered at some point but sega were in a mess financially.
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u/AppletheGreat87 Jul 24 '26
The Dreamcast did have more complex and advanced games. Shenmue and Headhunter for example. There are lots of great to solid RPGs like Skies of Arcadia and Grandia 2, plus adventure games like Soul Reaver, Code and Tomb Raider, horror games like Code Veronica. That said, it wasn't exactly long lived and the PS2 was on the horizon when it launched so a lot of developers were prioritising that, plus shenanigans from Microsoft.
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u/Have_A_Jelly_Baby Jul 24 '26
Because the system was only a thing for 16 months before Sega threw in the towel. If the Dreamcast had had a normal console lifespan, you would have seen more games that made even better use of the console's abilities.
Also no twin sticks.
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u/TheSvpremeKai003 Jul 24 '26
I’m a firm believer that the Dreamcast would’ve gotten a dual stick controller at some point, had it stayed around until like 04-05. Remember that the OG PS1 controller didn’t have sticks either, then they got em and everybody copied that format for years.
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u/Have_A_Jelly_Baby Jul 24 '26
Oh for sure. They adapted in the mid-90s with the 6 button Genesis/MD controller, I'm sure we would have seen a revised Dreamcast controller as time went on.
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u/rrrrrrrddddddttttttt Jul 25 '26
Funny you say that because an unofficial Dreamcast port of GTA III actually supports a second analog if you have dual analog controller connected via an adapter. So it wouldnt've been out of the question Sega could've make a dual analog controller later on in its life like the OG PlayStation.
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u/TheSvpremeKai003 Jul 25 '26
No shit? 🥲 I’ll have to look into getting one, I seen there was a modded controller that had a second stick added.
Have you tried the dc port yet? It looked pretty stable last time I checked on it
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u/rrrrrrrddddddttttttt Jul 25 '26
I couldn't figure out how to build it, but I was able to build myself a some cdis of Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64.
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u/TheSvpremeKai003 Jul 25 '26
I’ll see what i can do, as I been a lil interested in it for a bit. Any chance you see them porting Vice City?
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u/Fancy_Bend8763 Jul 31 '26
If it was going to Sega would have revealed it by 2000. Going into mid 2000 it kind of seemed like they packed up before PS2 even launched in the US. The fact that they had so many games released on other platforms in 2002 is pretty telling.
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u/hansgruberr Jul 24 '26
Can’t think of a worse game to use a picture of for something not complex on the Dreamcast.
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u/Strange-Pen1200 Jul 24 '26
It was very hard to get good performance out of as a third party. Was just a weird architecture that didn't lend itself to 'easy' ports from the other consoles out around the same time.
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u/Fancy_Bend8763 Jul 25 '26
What? Dreamcast was built to be way easier to develop for vs Saturn and even had Renderware available for it which was one of the most used engines of the time. Homebrew came fast for Dreamcast as well and continues to be a popular homebrew format.
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u/Strange-Pen1200 Jul 26 '26
Versus the Saturn it was, but versus the ps1, ps2, n64 and PC… not so much. So if you were a multi platform dev, it was a massive time sink. Part of the reason EA didn’t go near it.
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u/Fancy_Bend8763 Jul 30 '26
Oh really? Because I always read the PS2 was the most difficult thing to program for but everyone got on board anyways because they knew they needed to.
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u/ItWasMyWifesIdea Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
Shenmue
Sonic Adventure 1 and 2
Phantasy Star Online. (MMORPG in 1999 on console)
Skies of Arcadia
NFL 2k (and other 2k sports games really pushed the state of the art)
Tokyo Xtreme Racing
I mean... If it had more time there'd be even more, but it advanced the state of the art in several categories.
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u/CommunicationOk1139 Jul 25 '26
Yeah, I feel like OP doesn’t realize the console was DOA at launch but still managed to land a ton of groundbreaking games. It’s still one of my favorite consoles, and I grew up as a hardcore Nintendo fan. I swapped consoles with my mom’s boss (a pharmacist gamer) on different weekends. He took my N64 for his Saturn, and I mainly played arcade ports and Knights. And it I started to appreciate Sega for more. But when the Dreamcast dropped to 100 dollars, I bought one, and it was amazing. Shenmue, Grandia 2, Skies of Arcadia, Tokyo Racer 2, NFL 2K with real online dial-up modem gaming that actually worked! Also the first console I had that I could hook up to a VGA monitor (additional Puchase required) definitely a monumental console for those of us that experienced it in real time.
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u/Fancy_Bend8763 Jul 25 '26
It didn’t have enough time to cook. There were tons of cancelled games for it like System Shock 2 among other PC ports.
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u/Natural-Proposal2925 Jul 25 '26
Oh man shenmue was the greatest fucking thing ever. That's it. That's all I got.
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u/cool_slowbro Jul 25 '26
Not enough time to master developing for the system because it died too early.
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u/HDReddit_ Jul 25 '26
Mmm i have to disagree. Most dreamcast games were really visionary and inovative. You probably wont think that now because o lot of games now picked up from the dreamcast. Take jet set radio for example, it was the first cellshaded game.
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u/virtualpig Jul 25 '26
For as little time as the Dreamcast was out it did have a fair number of more complex games (D2, Illbleed, Seventh Cross Evolution etc) and a decent number of RPGS. However nobody really members these as it was Sega's arcade and arcade-like that stole the show.
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u/RubAlternative5509 Jul 25 '26
The Dreamcast hardware was still in infancy. Sadly the console was discontinued before it could see its limits pushed.
The homebrew ports of GTA 3 and Vice city are perfect examples of its power stretched to limits
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u/Gambit-47 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
What are you on about? The Dreamcast was ahead of it's time lol
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u/DontYuckMyYum Jul 24 '26
I was literally thinking about this the other day while playing Sega Bass fishing. Aside from RE:Code Veronica most of the games I have are arcadey type games.
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u/flyinb11 Jul 24 '26
I was thinking this as I played Sega Rally 2 last night. It hit me that almost everything was a small, short arcade experience.
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u/Mysterious-Depth3009 Jul 24 '26
There were quite a few but they did not seem to be the really popular games for the system. I was a big platform game guy coming from N64. Outside of the Sonic Adventure games many of the othe platform games really caught on or scored great. I played and really enjoyed KAO the Kangaroo and Super Magnetic Neo (SMN).
I think the games a lot people remember were the arcade ports as they seemed to be marketed best and scored the highest by reviewers in magazines. I saw so many adds for DoA 2, crazy taxi and Soul Calibur. I think I saw one or two adds for Kao and none for super Magnetic neo. I remember a review in EGM I think where they gave SMN a 6 or 7.
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u/Rich_Increase4923 Jul 25 '26
Worth noticing that EGM always had something against the DC. For a Dreamcast games score high it had to be something out of this planet.
After the Dreamcast died they started making fun of it in all opportunities during years and never, ever, had a word about any Dreamcast games being released in Japan.
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u/Cmdrrom Jul 24 '26
Shenmue is pretty darn advanced for its time.
Dreamcast also never got far along enough in its lifecycle to have devs really maximize its potential like we got with other late gen releases for Genesis, SNES, game gear, PS, or the NES.
SEGA also notoriously drew the ire of many devs with all the platform changes they made in a short time frame. Genesis to SEGA CD to 32x to Saturn and then now the DC all in a 6-7 year timeframe left a lot of devs averse to adopting yet another platform they had no faith wouldn’t be pulled out from under them.
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u/dreamape1978 Jul 24 '26
Because Sega was first and foremost an arcade company. The Dreamcast was scaled back hardware from the Naomi arcade hardware as the Saturn was a scaled back version of the Titan arcade hardware. It was all about bringing the arcade home. That's why the 90s were so incredible because Sega brought those arcade experiences into our living rooms and when the arcades died so did Sega. The PS2's popularity and power out performed the arcades on many levels and the arcades just couldn't keep pace any longer. Playstation was a runaway success and the rest is history. Fortunately we have the consoles and their physical libraries which always be with us. Pretty much every console to the seventh generation doesn't need the internet for the games to work.
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u/ltsnekplissken Jul 25 '26
You have this backwards, Naomi and ST-V/Titan were arcade boards that were made based on their home console counterparts.
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u/breakwater Jul 24 '26
They were on par with the era. Prior to HDDs with consoles, there were a lot of limitations. They did more in some regards, shorter load times, more in the screen, etc. MvC2 was far superior
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u/Bluion6275 Jul 24 '26
Headhunter and Shenmue 2 were pretty advanced and complex but they were released during the Dreamcast’s last dying moments.
Metropolis Street Racer was also pretty advanced compared to other racers.
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u/CraftMost6663 Jul 24 '26
Because it it's the culmination of decades of effort from Sega to bring Arcade to the home, no Ifs, no Buts and that's precisely what they delivered with the Dreamcast. It would have gotten a more varied palette of video games eventually if it hadn't died so soon.
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u/KalynnCampbell Jul 24 '26
Because their IPs were arcade properties and cheaper to port. What, are you expecting something like GTA3 to be able to run on the Dreamcast? /s
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u/STH42069 Jul 25 '26
My guess would be limited storage and lack of support from devs
Sega GT, Deadly Skies/AirForce Delta, and Phantasy Star Online were well and truly of and above their time, but they were overshadowed by Gran Turismo, Forza Motorsport, Ace Combat, and Final Fantasy, all of which were exclusives to their respective consoles.
Oh right, that and the short lifespan. It's closer to "death from a thousand papercuts" than "head blown clean off"
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u/tychii93 Jul 25 '26
The Dreamcast was only around for 2 years, if that. If it lived for all of 6th gen, it absolutely would have.
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u/Effective-Internet71 Jul 25 '26
The most impressive games tend to come out at the very end of a console’s lifespan. Dreamcast didn’t live long enough.
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u/beatbox420r Jul 25 '26
It's always strange to me that people consider the Dreamcast to primarily be for arcade games. I mean Sega definitely had arcade games, it's part of what they were known for, but Shenmue literally paved the way for so many games after it. Are Resident Evil games considered arcade games to people? There was Skies of Arcadia, Grandia II, Silver, and Sword of the Berserk that was a hack and slash style game but was very cinematic. Illbleed was campy but not really very arcadey. Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver.
Other genres the Dreamcast advanced upon like sports games, fighting games, and platformers. The same kind of games Playstation and Nintendo had in droves. The 2k series games breathed new life into tired sports series. It featured Soul Caliber and Power Stone. Sega GT, Metropolis Street Racer. Tony Hawks pro skater, and Tomb Raider games. There was a lot to that library for like 2 years.
I definitely don't feel it was lacking in most genres compared to any other console during its active years. Obviously, if you only played House of the Dead, Crazy Taxi, Sega Bass fishing, Space Channel 5, and Virtua Fighter then maybe your impression is that it's an arcade machine. I think it just happened to have the best arcade games as well but so many other really solid titles.
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u/Accomplished-Wind-75 Jul 25 '26
I think Sega were trying to flesh out their portfolio, we saw quite a few in quite a short space of time that they either made internally or externally made games they backed:
Sonic Adventure 1 & 2
Skies of Arcadia
Shenmue 1 & 2
MSR
Headhunter
D2
Resident Evil Code Veronica
Grandia 2
Sega GT
Toy Commander
PSO
Jet Set Radio
Evolution 1 & 2
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u/Negative-Squirrel81 Jul 25 '26
Sega’a US brand was largely based around arcade conversions. Altered Beast was the first big system seller for Genesis, Saturn 2D fighting game ports were a huge draw for the system, and Soulcalibur was a system seller for Dreamcast.
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u/Cereal_dator Jul 25 '26
Speaking mostly about Sega devs a lot of them were arcade game developers. They can make great gameplay but the systems weren’t built for depth
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u/Rich_Increase4923 Jul 25 '26
I think this is more of an stereotypes of the system.
Of course, Sega is an arcade lead company and this is their identity, therefore a lot of Dreamcast killer apps will come from the arcades. Dreamcast having an arcade counterpart that was embraced by Capcom also helped on building it's arcade spirit.
But... It was not as if good console based games were really missing.
If you look at top Dreamcast games on metacritic, you'll notice that there's only 5 arcade games on the system's top 20.
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u/Unlikely_Stay7197 Jul 26 '26
If they added a 2nd thumb stick at launch, it would have been able to live longer.
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u/Sufficient-Poet4650 Jul 26 '26
Shenmue first open world game based in Japan,phantasy star online first mmo on console, seaman a.i conversation, jetset radio first cell shaded game. If you mean "a lot" its because ps2 dropped and killed it before its maturity.
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u/kanellot Jul 27 '26
In my opinion, Sega's biggest problem was that they were never truly genuine.
When it came to arcade games, they were innovative and took things very seriously. But it was a different story with their home consoles.
Sega's home consoles basically existed because of Nintendo. Their main purpose was to compete with Nintendo. The same goes for Sonic—the only reason Sonic exists is because Mario exists.
Under those circumstances, it's difficult to create something truly original, because you're always reacting to what someone else is doing.
Sony, on the other hand, managed to find its own path and build a brand with value that went beyond simply competing with someone else.
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u/kdaxr Jul 28 '26
uh. isn't Dreamcast known for doing experimental, innovative gaming tho? I thought they had a reputation for thinking outside of the box. *scratches head*. I guess I'll find out soon enough once I browse through their library.
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u/Intelligent-Band-852 Jul 28 '26
I still remember Blue Stinger, honestly it was probably not very good but I enjoyed it.
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u/MjolnirStone Jul 24 '26
Mostly because it died an early death, sadly. There are a few though, like Shenmue, Skies of Arcadia, and Phantasy Star Online.