Monday, August 12, 2013

A Sega marketing vet on why the Dreamcast failed

I'm not sure if I've ever made it clear here, but I'm a huge fan of Sega's final console, the Dreamcast.

I bought one at launch, and I distinctly remember being blown away by its compact size, its heft and its power (in terms of graphics). Its catalog of games also blew me away, thanks to titles like ChuChu Rocket!, Jet Set Radio, Samba de Amigo, Shenmue and Space Channel 5, among others.

Sadly, the system wasn't meant to be, as they say, and it was discontinued in North America less than two years after it made its debut.

Tadashi Takezaki, Sega's "head of project implementation department, president's office," talks about why the system was such a flop--when it comes to sales, at least--in a just-published article at polygon.com. (Which, it has to be noted, is based around quotes pulled and translated from a recent issue of Famitsu.)

In that piece--penned by Kevin Gifford, proprietor of what used to be one of my favorite gaming blogs, magweasel.com (it's rarely updated these days)--Takezaki shares that "when [Sega] developed the hardware, we looked over the mistakes we made with the Saturn and completely reworked our approach.

"We did our best to make the console approachable to a mass audience--from the system's design and coloring to the name itself," he adds. "As a result, we went with a compact, simple design with a warm color scheme, something completely different in look from older Sega systems."

As for why the system failed, Takezaki says "it was because we were forced into a discount war when we were already losing money on system sales. Sony [whose PlayStation 2 came out March 2000 in Japan] was part of the team that developed the DVD standard, and they could develop a system around that completely internally with their own chips."

Sega, in the meantime, "was buying everything from outside companies, so it was at a distinct cost disadvantage," he adds. "We couldn't easily cut costs on manufacturing, the software wasn't selling the numbers it used to, and then we were forced to discount the system."

To read more well-worth-reading Takezaki quotes, check out the full article at polygon.com.

12 comments:

michaelstearns said...

I really liked this article. Even after the fact, it's unusual to see a hardware head like that being so straight forward about this sort of thing. The casual connection is also something I certainly never made on my own. It really raises a lot of what ifs that ultimately just make me really sad. ^^;

thegaygamer.com said...

I agree, Michael--most folks in this situation wouldn't be so honest, even years after the fact.


As for the system's so-called casual connection: it seems a lot more evident after the fact than it seemed at the time.


Maybe yet another example of how this system was ahead of its time?

Monster_Hunter2882 said...

I always regretted not owning a Dreamcast and to a lesser extent a Saturn. Oh well at least there are HD ports of some of Sega's own games now. As much as I hate to say it was probably a good thing Sega stopped making game consoles since Microsoft started making the Xbox, I can barely keep with 3 major console manufacturers let alone 4.

michaelstearns said...

Yeah, it's definitely not something we were thinking about at the time, and even if we were, they sneaked it in among all those perfect arcade ports so no one would notice. Now I can't stop imagining if the Wii had been a Nintendo+Sega team up! Arrgh!

Zaphod65 said...

I didn't own a Dreamcast, but a buddy of mine did. I came very close to buying one myself after playing the first 30-40 minutes of Resident Evil: Code Veronica at his apartment. I'm glad it was ported over to the PS2.

thegaygamer.com said...

Yeah, but by the time the Wii came around, Sega had lost a lot of its luster--at least in my opinion. They just aren't the same these days...

thegaygamer.com said...

Both the DC and the Saturn are great systems, Sam. I prefer DC in many ways, although the Saturn has a "fuller" games catalog, I think. Anyway, you're right about things being more than a bit crowded at the moment--and they'd be even more so if we had a fourth player in the mix!

thegaygamer.com said...

Ah, Code Veronica! I tried so hard to like that game, but I just couldn't--only because of the controls. Maybe I should give it a second chance someday?

Zaphod65 said...

I don't think you're missing much. lol

michaelstearns said...

Yeah this fantasy only works if they started on it right away, like the moment the Gamecube came out. xD

thegaygamer.com said...

Ha ha! Actually, that probably would've been the perfect time for it, as Sega still had some of its mojo back in the GC days :(

thegaygamer.com said...

Aw! Is Code Veronica kind of a hated entry in the series? I didn't know that...