Omg that Madeline games was one of the games my grandpa bought for me in his effort to make sure i was computer literate from a young age! Too bad all that time spent learning european currencies were for naught. Dont be too harsh on yourself or carry any guilt. You're a natural story teller and i hope you'll continue making videos!
Thank you. I need you to know that this specific promotion at Hollywood Video gave me one of my happiest memories with my mom. I spent all of 1999 savings up to buy a Dreamcast in September. July 15 was my mom's birthday, but she woke up early anyway and went to open an account to rent me a Dreamcast. I spent those two days playing through all of Sonic Adventure (no memory card 😭) and my mom thought it was the coolest thing she had ever seen.
Lol me too! I literally stayed the weekend at my sisters to try and get this! It almost didnt happen when they had to do the credit card hold of $350......or maybe it didn't happen because of that. Memory is all messed up now!
@@iambounceback I hope it did happen. even though those memories are so special to me, I absolutely love that people like us can connect on that kind of level and have those same special memories. it's so cool!!
@@loadcartoons It is! I called my mom to ask because I felt like we did! This promo sealed the deal for a lot of people and was the first of its kind! I remember first seeing sonic and being blow away. Powerstone is still one of the best games ever! The Dreamcast to me is one of the best consoles EVER!
Its crazy how many normal people were involved in the gaming industry back then. Nowadays you need years of schooling and Ash Ketchum years of experience to get an internship.
@@noneofyourbusiness1114I'm just speculating here, so please don't crucify me. I believe it's because gaming, while definitely increasing in popularity, was still niche and driven mostly by hard-core fans. So it was hard-core fans, aka Uber-nerds, whom mostly went into the business. Now with gaming's undeniable lead in the entertainment industry, you're likely to get a lot of Joe schmos and plain Janes with a college degree getting the jobs who played Wii Bowling and "running jumping Mario guy game" once. Now I know that sounds pretentious, but I think it's true. That and just pure greed. Greed forces it's way in the bigger something gets, no matter what kind of product it may be. We see it time and time again in any business. Greed allows for more anti-consumer practices to take root, and although the GRAPHICS quality has shot through the roof, everything else has taken a hit. That's what Greed does. "Look at the shiny new game, consumer! See how pretty it looks? Now pay us money for the micro transactions, bug ridden, censored, and lackluster non-imaginitive game we made!" Not to say there aren't still quality games out here now, but they're definitely less in numbers and DEFINITELY less experimental.
@@NealBauer There, there. This die-hard Dreamcast fan forgives you of your sins. While completely detestable, none of us are perfect =P All that aside, that was one awesome story and I loved the video! *New subscriber achievement unlocked!*
@@NealBaueryou didn’t kill the Dreamcast. Sony and the FCC did. Remember the Dreamcast could play burned CD’s. When the FCC heard that, they immediately contacted sega demanding the discontinuation of the Dreamcast or they would have to pay a heavy fine plus final sales numbers weren’t that good. Their was more inventory in the warehouse than their was sold and that was because of the PlayStation 2.
just which generation does the dreamcast fit in? the 5th? or the 6th? I've seen people compare it to the N64 and PS1 even though the saturn was Sega's rep for that era.
it's really fun getting to hear about the unsung moving gears of history. this felt like a story you'd hear from a family friend at thanksgiving, definitely subscribing. and i can't believe you worked on the madeline games, that was a surprising but welcome unlocked memory.
It's hard to explain that time period to younger generations. People were buying PS2 with The Matrix on DVD over the Dreamcast. Sony had such a loyal fanbase at that point, Sega never stood a chance. Great job on this video, you've added some interesting pieces to the story!
I'd argue PS still has a loyal fanbase, it's just not a one sided dominated market anymore, especially with a bolstered Nintendo, it's ironic that the two giants, once friends then rivals, both have loyal fanbases that make up for the majority of the gaming market (minus mobile).
@@mutalix yeah it wasn't an argument actually, I was saying that by that time period Playstation had a diehard userbase. Factor in Sega's bad track record and they were doomed.
@@poboxchristmas380 Agreed and agreed, b4 I got a PS, I was big time Sega fan, I really wanted to get a Saturn, but once I saw the PS games like Tekken 2, soul caliber (soul edge ), resident evil and especially ff7, it was over. Still got the DC and PS2 a year or so later, I was hopeful when I saw DC had a great launch, but just before PS2 launched it seemed like everyone just stopped buying DC.
Not to mention during the PS2 time is when the Xbox Original came out along with the original Halo game. It's really hard to get across how massive that was back then. TVs were also beginning to transition to flat screens from the old tube tvs and if somebody had a flat screen with halo it was absolutely STUNNING.
At launch, the other key factor for the PS2 success was the backwards compatibility with PS1 games, wich was a strong incentive for upgrade to a PS2, not even Nintendo had done it with the SNES or N64.
As a former employee of HollyWood Video , I can confirm that they did not know what they were doing . Half of the store's inventory was made up of copies of a movie called " Without a Paddle ".
It was an oddball franchise, blockbuster had all the best spots in town so they were down the street from blockbuster doing the same thing just not as good, their other competitor movie gallery was at least located in spots far away from blockbuster, doing things slightly different.
The Dreamcast was a mythic console in my neighborhood, which only a few kids had, only one of my friends. I really loved it. He had Seaman, Powerstone, and I believe he played Phantasy Star online on it. He also had UT99, which was the best console version, with the most content. (ps2 version had a lot less characters and maps). Can't forget he also had Jet Grind/Set radio as well.
i only had one friend who had a dreamcast and he kept talking about how superior it was to everything else, and he was right. but their advertising and marketing must have been bad, because everyone i knew loved video games, but i only had one friend with a dreamcast, and it just wasn't cool to like the dreamcast. now that i look back on it, maybe we all didn't expect it to be any good, after all their previous blunders leading up to it.
honestly the dreamcast's problem was sega's launch timing just sucked. i don't think it was bad marketing or anything else. the problem was sega released the thing too damn early. the N64 and playstation both still had a good 3 years left in their lifespan when sega launched the dreamcast - and the PS2, gamecube, and xbox were a LONG ways off still. so even if the dreamcast was objectively more powerful than anything else on the market when it launched, it's timing just made it feel like an "in-between" console and a lot of people (myself included) were content to just keep playing N64 or playstation and wait to see what the playstation 2, xbox, and "nintendo dolphin" were going to look like before dropping money on a dreamcast when many people had probably only bought their playstation or N64 a year or 2 prior and definitely weren't going to fork over money for a whole new console as early as sega wanted them to. honestly, the N64 in particular was really producing some impressive looking stuff in the 2nd half of its lifespan - stuff like conker's bad fur day, perfect dark, hell even the N64 version of san francisco rush 2049 really held its own even against the dreamcast version - and i remember at the time, and i'm sure i wasn't the only one, thinking "well the dreamcast looks cool and all but i'm not gonna run out and buy a whole ass new console yet when the one i'm currently gaming on isn't even that old, and nintendo / sony / microsoft are all coming out with actual next gen consoles in the future." - of course, the dreamcast in retrospect was arguably a more powerful console than the PS2 and is now one of my favorite consoles of all time, but the fact that sega released it so damn early just didn't make any sense, and made it feel like we could just wait for something *actually* more powerful and keep playing our current gen consoles in the meantime. sega should have just waited another year or 2 and released the dreamcast with a DVD player. they just released it during a time when most people weren't ready to buy a new console yet.
32X and Saturn flopping soured Sega fans. N64 & especially PS1 were riding high and the straw that broke the camel's back was PS2 and DVD playback. 9/9/99 was a huge success but the hype of the PS1 was too much. It was the best selling console of all time. It's the first console to sell over 100 million systems. For comparison the NES and SNES sold 60 and 50 million respectively. Still in 2023 the Switch is coming close but PS2 remains the best-selling console of all time. Sega couldn't outrun that tsunami. You couldn't watch The Matrix on DVD on the Dreamcast.
As a kid in the 90s I don't remember a single Dreamcast ad, strangely enough. My friend and I were the only two people I knew with Dreamcasts, and we were terminally online back in the days of AOL, Prodigy, and Qwest DSL. Gaming forums like GameFAQs were probably responsible for most of the hype back then. Also the Dreamcast was NOTORIOUSLY easy to play burned games on, making it highly attractive to homebrewers and poor kids just like us.
Sega, stopped support for all systems a yr before dreamcast came out sega had done it to themselves outside of genesis they kept releasing systems give them 2 yrs then stop supporting them as a parent sega had released genesis 89, sega cd 93, sega 32x 94, Saturn 95 now 99 dreamcast each 1 costed 200 to 300 bucks and was never compatible with the old system. Add to that sega was known for 3 things sonic/sports/fighting games EA wasn't going to be on system sega sports was good but no EA, that was a no go. Also as ridiculous as it was the DVD thing Sony ps2 was bought as a DVD player for half it's audience the new advanced sega couldn't play dvd
" Return fire " For the 3DO was so popular that it appeared in a obscure Paulie Shore movie that I failed to watch before also signing up for the ARMY . SEEING THAT MOVIE COULD HAVE PREVENTED ME FROM ENLISTING . I WAS SO STUPID (AND RELIGIOUS ) BACK THEN .
This was a fantastic video. The editing and narration were spot on. I am surprised that this channel only has 400 subs. I predict many more in the future.
Man, that list of games you purchased while working at electronics boutique gave me an instant memory flashback to me walking through the gaming aisle of my local rental store at that time. Bust a Groove felt like a hidden gem. Also, that cutaway to you from 1999 cracked me up. Great vid. Loved the dreamcast too.
I worked between Electronics Botique and Software Etc. EB was definitely the better of the two back then but I wound up purchasing WAY too much during my time there. At one point, I even picked up a used copy of Plumbers Don't Wear Ties out of curiosity which was beyond embarassing. I don't mean it was "beyond embarassing" in retrospect. No, I meant beyond embarassing that I got suckered in to believeing it was a game of any kind. Plumbers Dont Wear Ties was a freaking powerpoint slideshow that used 'BASIC' programming to move through the slides. Returning that to my place of employment (EB) was truly a walk of shame that I have never forgotten.
Neal, it's okay dude. You were literally just a paper pusher. You weren't the one who gave the order for a $6M rental purchase... *chambers round* But you can tell me who did
I think Sega's inability to grasp western culture and markets is what did them in..what works in Japan doesn't work everywhere. They could have made bigger deals and listened to the divisions in western countries more, instead of doubling down on what works in Japan. Genesis was so so strong until SNES came out, that is when they needed to start pulling out the stops, instead of being forever behind. I mean, shit, as far as most american's were concerned...Saturn was never "Good", it was just not a 3DO or an Atari Jaguar, it was what is wasn't, not what it was to the US market.
Oh Neal. I had just joined Sega in San Francisco a few weeks before Dreamcast launched. I was art director on an game called 10six. Launch date for the Dreamcast was 9/9/99, and everyone in the company got a free one. Another reason Dreamcast died was because of lack of developer support, most game publishers were already busy with other already established systems. Dreamcast also had all the makings of a DVR before it had been though of. Oh well, it was a fun ride.
Holy moly! I had completelty forgotten about 10Six! @_@ I can only imagine what it must have been lke for you arriving at Sega HQ in the summer of 1999: ua-cam.com/video/POT3plx0vBs/v-deo.htmlsi=5BkfaNZStjwPG-5s&t=43
Man you are a youtube channel that deserves more subs. Great to see the insiders view into an unfortunate past. Its like hearing a story about WW1 from your grandpa, their point of view is always more interesting than the books.
You suprisingly kept me hooked for the whole video. The Dreamcast is my favorite console and a little bit of my choldhood self died the day i found out that Sega was pulling out of the console business. I very much enjoyed your story telling, editing, humor, video clips and information that you provided in this video. I will say you may even have one of the key components to be a successful UA-camr, the voice. You have a voice that goes with the content and is very easy to listen to. With the proper microphone setup, you can make videos where people will listen to you for hours and hours if the content is interesting enough. I'd love to hear more of the gaming industry of the 90s and early 2000s from your viewpoint as that is when i was following the industry closely as well. Take care and good luck on your UA-cam adventure. Oh, and an early congrats for the 1K subscribers you're about to hit.
Holy cow, you're right! I'm just about to 950! That is insane to me. Also, I think I want this comment printed on a t-shirt as it's one of the nicest things I've heard in all my years do making three things. You da best!
@@NealBauerYou're up to 970. You'll crack 1K by tomorrow morning ;) Congrats! Also, if you need additional content to make, what about making a video on the gorilla that killed the Dreamcast. No, not Sony or Nintendo or you. It was Microsoft. But how is that possible if the Xbox and Dreamcast never actually competed at the same time? Well because Sega knew that it's little ol' self couldn't go up against the giants Sony, Nintendo and now the gorilla entering the ring, Microsoft. So it bowed out of the oncoming onslaught. The market isn't big enough for 4 players. But it is big enough for 3 major players as we have seen since the 5th generation of consoles. There's enough money to go around for 3, but not 4. That's why Sega had to bow out of the hardware business. Nobody talks about Microsoft being the reason they left the hardware business. It's always about piracy, or PS2 sales, or the previous failings of the 32X or Saturn. Never about the incoming tsunami that all 3 major players in the industry had to brace for. That's my view on the matter and I think it would make a great documentary video like the one you did here. Especially if you pull in sales numbers, etc. If Xbox didn't enter, Sega would have survived because they were offering what Microsoft was, internet playability. Just imagine all the Sega sports games being playable online in 2002-2005 with broadband support. Just imagine Crazy Taxi online where multiple people are playing the same Crazy Taxi map collecting passengers or Virtua Fighter online. How bought Soul Calibur online? Dayton online? How about HALO on the Dreamcast? It would have done wonders for Sega's reputation. But since Microsoft was going to do everything better with its deep pockets and it's 6.5 generation console (Xbox was half a generation ahead of all the others) the Dreamcast fell too far in the running to be considered a viable platform in consumers eyes. Just an idea and one I haven't heard anyone else talk about. Would love to see you narrate something like this. I'm a fan of the channel Jenovi and he does some good Sega content over there. Check him out and his what killed the Dreamcast videos as well. I'm excited for what's to come for you. Always nice seeing a channel sprout from the ground, sometimes for years and finally break through and reach the light. You've got what it takes to be one of those channels with hundreds of thousands of followers. The work will be tiring and exhausting but if games are what you love, share your passion and experience of the industry with everyone and it'll be worth it. Good luck.
Watching this video from the beginning I did not expect you to actually be involved with the gaming community in that time. It’s actually incredibly interesting to see documentation of that period of gaming compared to now where we can catalogue every month moment and release of the last 20 years.
Didn't watch the video yet but I am informed enough about Sega to know that THEY killed the Dreamcast by their incompetence and their childish behavior (notably rivality between Sega JP/US). No matter what your mistake was, bud, it probably didn't kill the Dreamcast as much as Sega itself did.
The desision to shelve the DC was taken when new management took over in 2001 at Sega. Nakayama wanted to be in the home market but the new guys didn’t
Looking back, I am thankful to have experienced that era at all. For those of us who were there, we lived in a world where SEGA existed, and still exists. You know, I believe the take away from Neal Bauer's post is that we even had a SEGA Dreamcast with which to create memories. What if we found a portal to a parallel universe? Where it is the same year, and you are the same person, but everything else is different? And what if the SEGA Dreamcast never existed?
The Dreamcast wouldn't have been able to compete with the ps2. I think coming out right before DVDs took over was a major factor. It's release date had bad timing, and the company was already in a bad position. If they were already in a good financial position they could have survived, but it was mistake after mistake.
The Dreamcast came out in Japan in November 1998. I wonder if it had also released in North America in 1998 how much of a difference that would have made. That would have made it two years before the PS2 instead of just one.
I disagree. What is weird is that Sega didn’t just sell the remaining stock. The sales slowed down after 2001, but there was still an install base. Officially discontinuing it seems unnecessary. It actually was comparable to the PS2 in technical terms. It had more video ram and a 480p signal as opposed to the PS2 480i video. So it’s got a better image. DVD aren’t all that when it comes to games. The GameCube held about 2GB. The DC was 1GB. Obviously PS2 was 5GB. But a lot of games even still used CD’s. Shenmue of 4 GD-ROM’s is annoying. In fact the loading in that game is so bad. But anyway. 1GB is really enough for most games. Did you know GTA3 quite far into development for the DC but was moved to the PS2. So the PS2 game is probably based on the DC code. That game would have been identical in terms of graphics for either console. But remember, the DC has a better image and texture quality quality. The PS2 would take a few years to get better textures as it was hard to program. But it was still only an interlaced image. I don’t understand why the official withdrawals from the market. The Saturn did the same thing in the US. It came out in 95 and they took it off the market in 97. So there was over a year without Sega consoles or games really, in shops in the US. The Saturn never even made itself known to me where I live. Anyway. What are the costs of leaving a console n the market? Counting money? All the investments have been made. RnD, manufacture, shipping, making games, admin. Then did you know it only lasted 6 months in the UK. So why go to all the trouble of making the thing and putting games on it then pulling it again? Just leave it on shelves. If it still sells games then publishers will want o publish for it and it will carve out a market. But with no new games coming out, you have no choice but to buy a PS2 if you want new games. Or a GameCube or XBox. It would have been crazy though, with PS2, GameCube, XBox and Dreamcast all competing. I think those consoles were all a bit different. So the DVD thing is a bit overstated. Also the pirating thing. The reason i’s sales slowed down was because the PS2 ad campaign had stolen the limelight. But it was still untested. The release lineup was a bit average. It really needed to actually compete with the Dreamcast, even without a DVD drive in practise. But I think they were not on sale concurrently in any given territory. But if they had both competed for at least two years. I don’t find it hard to imagine that the DC would have eroded and limited the PS2 market share significantly. Especially if the online was operating well. I’d rather have online than a DVD player, wouldn’t you. It was a bit of a stitch up for Sega. That seems to be self inflicted. Why not remain in competition with Sony for at least two years and see if sales pick up again. There were actually selling steadily when they were discontinued. So consider the proposition for a teen in 2002 in a hypothetical scenario. The DC is available. Most of the games are on there and the Sega exclusives aren’t ported elsewhere. The online is lighting up. Alien Front Online even has voice chat. The PS2 has maybe better graphics but you just can’t put your finger on why they’re a bit blurry and shitty. But you can play The Matrix on it. But your folks have a DVD player in the living room... How many times can you watch The Matrix? Maybe bollocks to DVD’s. Online play is more interesting. The DC had no reason to fail other than the company literally refusing to sell it any more. Because to leave it on the market loses money. But I don’t understand how that works. Surely leaving it on the market cannot lose money even if they are only selling, say 1 million a year. Which they were.
@@iwanttocomplainThe fact that the console was cracked very early on was probably the deathblow for the console, as sega relied heavily on software to make money. When everyone was burning discs and not buying official software, there was no longer a reason to keep the console going.
@@HerecomestheCalavera There weren't enough chip manufacturing plants ready to deliver the latest precision standard used on the DC; that is why they delay regional releases (Japan is much smaller than the US)! The DC's lack of desirable games available on the PS1 is the main reason why it failed!
@@vidjenko8349 well I remember going into student flat with an XBox 360 and a pile of burned DVD’s. Like hundreds. They had the Rock Band setup and everything. Pirating doesn’t hurt sales rather much, even though that’s counter-intuitive. On the DC it was worse though, because there’s a lot of learning involved in how to get the discs to work. You need good quality blank cd’s, you need to research each about so much stuff surrounding burning discs and all the intricacies. Also, the games might have lower quality video, sound and textures to bring 1GB down to 700MB. If anything it made it desirable to buy the console at least. But it’s a minority of people. It’s like pirating movies. It’s difficult and technical for most people so it doesn’t impact the industry.
I was one of those lucky kids that had a dad that rented the Dreamcast and got to play Sonic Adventure before anyone else. I loved it so much for my 10th birthday I got the Sonic bundle Dreamcast that came with the blue VMU, Sonic Adventure, Sonic Shuffle and the Japanese demo disk of Sonic Adventure 2. and TO THIS DAY not only my favorite console but some of my best memories before my mother passed away when I was at the age of 11. all because we were able to rent it for those 2 days. Thank you.
I think the biggest loss of the Dreamcast dying is that we don’t really see a lot of fast paced arcade-like games anymore. There’s plenty of indie games that are like that but you gotta really dig for a lot of them. otherwise you mainly have fighting games and Mario Kart holding the fort on that. At least old-school beat ‘em ups have been making a comeback over the last few years even if most of them are more on the niche side.
That's very true, I remember booting up Outtrigger a couple of years ago and I couldn't believe how much fun I was having with the fast and frenetic gameplay. Despite that it was just bots and no campaign.
@@user-vi4xy1jw7e Indie games release at a very fast rate, even if there’s a lot of them that are like these kinds of games they’re still a minority that fly under the radar easily.
This video was definitely the highlight of my day -incidentally, it's my birthday. I started it for shit and giggles and then I surprised myself glued to the screen. Thanks for all the hard work and the research, you got a new subscriber. Cheers!
Happy belated birthday, my good Arnaldo! Apologies for being late on the reply but I just got back from my mother's birthday so I was celebrating with you in spirit! :D
You sir have wonderful production. And also a stellar cadence in this long form video style. Loved this video, man. Keep these kinds of videos comin'! 🤘
Dope and hilarious video. I got my Dreamcast on Christmas of 1999. I was 11. Great memories. To this day, Shenmue (& 2) are my favorite games of all time
You are too kind and you have some great taste in games, too! 😊 Thanks for watching and for the compliment. Looks like I'll be making more of these in the future.
Thank you so much! I was out of town last week when this video blew up. On the plane back home, I started two entirely new scripts for videos that I've already started filming. If there's anything you'd like to see (or anything I can improve), please let me know as I want to continue to share these kinds of stories and grow as a channel.
Unless you told them to rush it withOUT a DVD player there was nothing you could do. PS2 with that built in DVD player sealed the deal with the casuals and every dad and dude bro who wanted one.
In the 90s in Peru we played famiclones, one of the most popular was one called " Max play" and of course we played the Super Nintendo; yes in the 2000s it was all about the playstation 2 and playstation 1, the psone model was extremely popular here.
@@iwanttocomplain we didn't have a tectoy like Brazil had. So Sega was only seen on foreign tv channels, and magazines. I would have loved to play a Sega Master system , Megadrive / Genesis, Saturn in the 90s though.
This is one of the most interesting videos on the Dreamcast I've ever seen. We forget that people making the decisions aren't all in the corporate board rooms, but middle management who makes day to day decisions on things. Great, great video. Thank you so much for sharing.
Great video, and thanks helping to make GameCrazy a really cool place. It was so cool going in there and grabbing a ton of SNES and Genesis games I missed out on. Good memories there with staff giving me a couple of extra cents to cover purchases 😅
I stumbled onto this video by the graces of YT algorithms, this is a great docu-history on Dreamcast and Sega's follies, you're production quality is great! I laughed at your comedy cuts and humor (visual representations) 🤣 Gladly subbed, please tell more industry stories from your pov, hope to see more from your channel!
When I got the Dreamcast at launch I was simply blown away by Sonic. That game was fast and was absolutely fantastic. I was also crazy to try the online capabilities of the system, but that was available in Austria much much later. When the Dreamkey Version 2.0 finally arrived I connected my Dreamcast to the 56k connection and tried out the chat function. I asked someone: "Where are you from?", and the reply was "From the US." It may sound silly nowadays, but I was running through the flat and told my parents that I am chatting with someone from the US! It was MINDBLOWING! Later we switched to a cable connection and we hadn't the 56k modem anymore. Unfortunately the LAN adapter wasn't available, because the Dreamcast was already at the end of its lifetime. Great memories, amaaaaazing machine.
Ya know, i dont care if ya did, you where there through it all. Thank you for trying your best in the industry! And thank you for the history lesson. I love my dreamcast. Had to buy a Arcade of Soul Calibur lmao This was a great video, and i really enjoyed learning. I also have SA1 and SA2 and so glad i got to play them on the OG system. I dont think you killed the Dreamcast, but if you really think you did? I forgive ya. I feel the death of the Sega Console market was more of a "Death by A Thousand Cuts"
Is this why you've waited all these years to say this? Hard to imagine that one person is to blame for a 30-40 million dollar loss for a company when there were other contributing factors that had a snowballed effect which is what lead to the fall of Sega as a console manufacturer and as a major titan in the video game industry.
Dream cast was the system I loved the most growing up. I was a mall rat in 7th grade. I would skate to the card store in my mall and trade and play magic the gathering and pokemon like everyday. And EB's had a dream cast like a year before it came out with the demos. So let's just say I was a master at power stone and ready to rumble before it even released. I saved up all summer long doing side jobs mowing lawns and detailing cars and preordered it. My dad took me to the mall on 9-9-99 late at night for a Sega Dreamcast launch party. I won the power stone tournament and the game. Had a great times with friends and this system. My favorite system ever. Man 1999 was the best year ever. It was the last golden days of my childhood before girls and life stuff. Ugggg nostalgia.
Nah, I think you had the right idea. Console rentals was a great idea, I grew up on Mega Drive and PS1 rentals and in 1999 I'd have spent money on that to trial out a Dreamcast at home. The late 90s and early 00s were a really uncomfortable, unpredictable time for Hollywood, Blockbuster and anyone involved in movies or rentals, the Internet was about to arrive and start smashing all expectations. Great video btw
The industry was so small back then there's always 1-2 degrees of Kevin Bacon to any story. I have a story about Katamari Damacy's us launch and why I call myself The King of Cosmos to this day. If this video does well enough, I just might have to share that story next. 😅
The thing with the Dreamcast is that even if it hadn't been discontinued so harshly, I can't imagine how it would have trucked on through the 2000s. The PS2, Xbox and GameCube were full of enormous, complex games that quickly made the DC's library look rudimentary and dated. I don't see a scenario where it would have remained competitive against Vice City, Halo and The Wind Waker. Sega diehards may argue for Shenmue, but I think those games are far too quirky and specific to ever become nearly as mainstream as GTA. The right analogue stick also became a much bigger factor in games design that generation, and I don't think the Dreamcast was ready for how significant multiplatform games like TimeSplitters 2 would become. The GameCube was already struggling to attract publishers, and I can only imagine that would have been much more true for the less powerful Dreamcast. The Dreamcast was a great console, and there's a lot of good reasons to own one. I just don't think it could have been successful long past the nineties.
You are so wrong. PS2 came out with crap for a freaking year and dreamcast library was amazing. Heck for a year the ps1 liberary was better than the ps2 libary. Xbox mostly sucked, and gamecube had amazing first party stuff but little else.
@@calebfielding6352 I don't think there's much point in trying to convince you, but I'm enjoying the "what if the Dreamcast continued" thought experiment, so I'll elaborate, regardless. This isn't about how good each console is. It's about how much market interest they gained, and how good a fit for the mainstream audience they were at the time. The PS2's library in its first year was relatively weak, but it didn't matter. The systems sold as soon as they hit store shelves off the back of hype for DVD playback, Metal Gear Solid 2, Final Fantasy X and Gran Turismo 3, leading into a fairly strong lineup for late 2001/early 2002. Excitement for the Dreamcast had dried up pretty dramatically by 2001, with big sequels like Sonic Adventure 2, Crazy Taxi 2 and Shenmue II failing to match the sales of their predecessors. It's hard to imagine the kind of game that would build excitement for the console after that. The bulk of hit Dreamcast games were arcade ports, which was a scene that was rapidly declining by the 2000s. I could see an alternate future where the console gained a cult audience in Japan through home versions of rhythm games like Taiko no Tatsujin, but there weren't many big fighting games or lightgun shooters past the first couple years of the decade. Sega's relationship with EA would have really hurt the system, given the significance of multiformat titles like FIFA and SSX Tricky on other platforms too. I'm not much of an Xbox fan, personally, but there's little denying how that platform moved the industry forward with its built-in hard drive and Xbox Live infrastructure. The Dreamcast's online support would have looked very rudimentary if it was to try to compete with that, and that controller wasn't ready for how significant dual-analogue FPSes would become. I'd argue that much of the GameCube's appeal came from their relationship with Capcom, and it's possible that might not have happened if Sega kept pushing the Dreamcast. Capcom really supported the console with games like Power Stone, Marvel vs Capcom and Resident Evil: Code Veronica, and there's a chance they would have continued to see the Dreamcast as their main platform if Sega continued to support it. That's debatable though, given how quick they were to shift towards the PS2 with Onimusha and Devil May Cry. Really, I don't see how the Dreamcast could have lasted much longer than it did. The best case scenario I could picture is if Sega had launched a successor around 2003, and they'd already upset Saturn owners with how harshly they dropped support for that platform in 98. The market had lost faith in them as platform holders, and they were too eager to jump ship when something hadn't caught on. I think it was inevitable that Dreamcast only lasted a few years.
@@rotallyPumpered mate, XBox live was only for idiots to play Halo or some crap. The DC had loads of online games in lots of genres. Phantasy Star Online. If you liked that game you had to go out and buy it again because I assume the DC servers closed. Excitement declined when the PS2 came out. But it was still selling. It’s entirely possible the sales would have risen after the PS2 came out. Because 30million GameCubes and XBoxes still sold alongside the 150million PS2’s. I think if the DC carried on it might have come in second place that generation. It was quite capable of playing even the most complex PS2 or XBox games. The graphics would be a bit simpler than the XBox or even GameCube for sure. But remember the PS2 is only a couple of years newer than the DC. But it was handicapped with complicated hardware. The PS2 had 32MB of system ram and 4MB video ram. The DC ad 16MB of system ram and 8MB video ram (compressed up to 32MB). So the DC, with compression, actually had more ram than the PS2 which didn’t have a hardware texture compression pipeline and used it’s main ram for textures, when that was understood how that could be done. So the DC was clearly superior in terms of image quality (progressive scan) and fast video pipeline. Whereas the PS2 had a good amount of system memory so less loading from the disc and _potentially_ more complex games. The PS2 could also handle more polygons and other effects. But it lacked anti aliasing. Although the soft interlaced image compensated a bit. But the DC had Windows CE if you wanted to port something quickly from PC with the direct x library. Most developers used the SH-2 cpu assembly language because it was developer friendly. Giving close contact with the hardware. People have said that the DC peaked in terms of it’s potential early for these reasons. I don’t think so. There are always efficiencies to be found in programming and disc loading routines to speed things up and add complexity. I’ve no doubt that would have continued. Although the PS2 was mostly developed using 3rd party software due to the complexities of the hardware. So it’s potential is more of a mystery. Because people just don’t have time to keep learning the PS2 indefinitely. They might have to do three ports of the same game. So the PS2 would suffer, probably more than the DC in more complex games, as developers are separated from the hardware and don’t understand it. Making it expensive to write for and more prone to ineficiencies. The XBox was even worse in this respect. Whilst it was the most powerful of the consoles, it was using an intel bus system to drive the motherboard, with a Power PC cpu. So memory management was abstracted and handled on the hardware level. So development became less able to find efficiencies easily without in depth knowledge of Microsoft kernels. XBox games have a typically higher resolutions, above 480p. But the consistency of the frame rates suffer. So the graphics are fancy. But the games aren’t running smoothly and the developers are not to blame. The DC failed because Nakayama left the company and the company became run by people who felt, in 1999, for some reason, that the future of the company was not in the home console market. I feel that is short sighted. By having a platform, the company was more productive and the potential for market gains are much higher. I just don’t understand how, even with everything going wrong, how the DC failed. It was better than the PS2. It had online. It could have released a two stick pad. IT’s just more interesting. From my perspective at least. You’re mistaken if you think the console market is realising it’s potential at any given time. I dropped out of consoles with the DC because they weren’t offering up what I was looking for. I can’t be alone.
The Dreamcast would have held on for a bit. The rumor is that GTA3 was originally in development for the DC, but time ran out for the console. Head Hunter on the DC seems like a pretty fair estimation of what GTA3 could have looked like on the Sega console. The quirkiness of Shenmue does not take away from the size and complexity of the game. Sony released its first Dualshock into the life of the PXS/PS1(bundled with Ape Escape). Sega could have also released a dual analog controller for the DC. Sega had several RPGs on the Dreamcast, Grandia 2, Skies of Arcadia and Phantasy Star Online in it's short time on the market. It no doubt would have more if the console have continued. The DC was also a pioneer of sorts for online console gaming; yes, there were consoles that had modems an online services before, but the DC kind of proved that it could work, in games like Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 Arena, you had multiplayer on online, even with/against PCs at the time(and it tended to be an easier affair going online with the console than PCs of the time). Phantasy Star Online also laid the foundation for some online games as well. There were other games that took advantage of the online abilities. It could have been an ideal platform for a Halo like game that would have been online from the get go (maybe even bundling a dual analog with such a title). The Gamecube's issues with publishers may be due to their unique media; while the PS2 and Xbox used DVDs, the Gamecube employed a proprietary disc size (said to be DVD in data format). Games a dev made for either Xbox or PS2 could use the same bulk supply of DVDs to ship the game, you need an entirely separate supply for the Gamecube (if Nintendo was even allowing someone else to publish and distribute title on their console). Nintendo was pretty hesitant on the online side too. This is all a 'what if' exercise though.
I know a lot of this is tongue-in-cheek, but seriously, the problems Sega had were way bigger than one PO. The Dreamcast was released way too early. It could never hope to compete with the coming hardware generation. That being said, that era of games, the Dreamcast especially, had the best vibe about it. So optimistic, as if tech would free man as opposed to enslaving him like it does nowadays. Cheers for keeping the Dream(cast) alive. -Someone who misses that era dearly
Sega kept screwing themselves over and over. I seem to remember the dreamcast having little to no security aside from the GD disk system. They assumed since no one could read the disks that they wouldn’t get pirated. The same people who had that thought put a damn maintenance data port on the back of it. Combine that with the fact that broad band was now everywhere, you could rip a Dreamcast game from the GD disk and put it online for download. I also seem to remember the games being small enough to fit on a regular 700MB disk. It was a perfect storm of bad decisions.
This is a fantastic video, it’s so well put together! At a time when it’s hard not to get distracted when watching long form videos on UA-cam, you kept my attention with great story telling, humour and fun edits. Keep it up 💪
Hey, this is a really, really good video. This is an excellent example of storytelling and using b-roll footage to enhance the overall flow. I really loved all of the Jurassic Park and Golden boy references. I was wondering do you edit your own videos or do you hire an editor?
Thank you so much for your kind words (and great username). In my old life, I was filmmaker and animator. Some of those skills stick around which is why I'm recording and editing videos on UA-cam and TT. these days. Keeps me creative, useful, and (apparently) relevant. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Never saw the clip of that infamous e3 95 moment! I wonder if SEGA made the Saturn sprite based to serve the arcades, since it was also repurposed for teh ST-V Titan
Do you plan on doing any more videos about the Dreamcast, or older games in general? Since the Dreamcast is in your top 5 consoles I'd be interested to know what games you were into for it. I was a HUGE Dreamcast fan back in the day. My top games would be Shenmue 1&2, Skies of Arcadia, Grandia II, and Headhunter. There are many other good ones but those are the top ones I can think of right now. Did you ever get into any of the emulators released for the Dreamcast? NesterDC was a NES emulator for DC and it was awesome back then. I had emulated on my PC for years at that point but on the Dreamcast was great because you could play it on the TV and it almost felt like playing on the original console. I'd also be interested in hearing about those consoles in particular are in your top 5. Specifically the 3DO! lol I had one several years ago and tried out many of the games. The best ones to me were Family Feud,Sewer Shark and Wolfenstein 3D. The 3DO was a neat console it just didn't have many good games for it imo.
Thanks for your comment and, yes, I do make retro/older gaming videos from time to time. I did a series called "Collectibles Roadshow" where we talked about the value and shared stories about games in our collection. As for the 3DO, there were some good games on the system such as Star Control 2, Return Fire, Need for Speed, Road Rash, and an arcade-perfect version of Street Fighter II. I still have the console hooked up in my office which I play on Livestreams now and again.
Great video, very detailed. Also loved the Golden Boy clips as well as that Tenchi Muyo poster from your at the 20:59 mark. Don't beat yourself too hard about it, Sega did it to themselves.
I never thought I'd be siting here 20+ years later, watching a video about the DreamCast, made by someone that worked on Disney Magic Artist Studio. My brothers and I "played" that game all the time, where even now I have those sound effects burned into my memory. That's awesome, thanks for sharing this story. May the DreamCast live on
It's good to find a fellow 2D animation/computer programming major of the 90s take a sideways journey through growing and destroying some fundamental ground in the evolution of videogaming! Heck, even your route of migration is like mine in reverse - LA to Portland to Seattle to the Great Lakes. I had a great journey of exploding the fighting game and music simulation scenes throughout the 90s and 2000s and having my own big three rejections in the Seattle/Redmond area; at that time, namely Nintendo, Microsoft, and Valve. Never really worked "pro-industry," but rather ended up developing for Street Fighter Remake (think MUGEN before MUGEN) and Dance With Intensity (the predecessor to Stepmania). The Dreamcast is probably somewhere around my 6th top system but this is including portables, as well as the PS2 *and* PS3... it's about equal to the SNES in terms of quality, only being overshadowed by the number/variety of available titles produced and available for it (where 3DS almost eclipses everything). But yes, Dreamcast was bullshit expensive so I ended up trading my SNES and library to someone for a Dreamcast and *their* library for that, and it turned out to feel surprisingly fair and balanced. Dreamcast had the superior Street Fighter Alpha 3 experience too, and was the first to really feel good with it's controller. I liken the XBox evolving from the Dreamcast (ie: 4 controller ports, similar controllers, built-in modem) the same way I do Sony PSX evolving from the Nintendo 64DD; and the XBox series on a number of levels does feel like a logical predecessor to the Dreamcast. The only difference is that Sega doubled down on software instead of trying to compete against it, like N did with Sony. Still, it feels good to find a brother in arms out here and I hope you've found one as well.
Just remember, "I was just following orders" didn't work in the Nuremberg trials.... The dreamcast was the console that introduced me to my favorite series, Tokyo Xtreme Racer, so the Dreamcast will always have a place on my shelf.
I was staying with my extended family in Utah, a farming family. They asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I chose to rent a Dreamcast. There was no vmu in the rental… Painfully, everyday I would play Sonic Adventure, during these 3 days. And I’d try to leave it on at night but they’d always turn it off. I was almost at the end but they still turned it off… Which is fine I ended up getting my own Dreamcast later on, what a great machine. It’s interesting to know what really happened and what could have lead to the Xbox of all things. Maybe it was all these things, I always thought it was the seganet promotion where they gave away dreamcasts if you signed up for 2 years of the Sega-branded ISP. I assumed that could not have been profitable either. I loved the Dreamcast, and for 2 years it had a crazy library. So many games I truly loved.
We need a DC Mini. I loved my Dreamcast when I was younger, no kids, working for game money and just played it so much. Yes the PS2 is better and killed the DC but I hold a special place for the DC. Great video.
Phenomenal video, shocked you don’t have more subs. I can just picture SEGA execs ripping fat lines and shouting “We need to make ANOTHER console!! But it ATTACHES to our current console!! *snifffffffff* So they gotta buy both!! Genius!!”
Heeeeeyyyyyy. I recognize you. I saved up every dollar I could get my hands on to buy the Dreamcast when I was a kid. A lot of bad decisions were made. It was so close to taking that generation.
Well, the Dreamcast didn't hit until 1998 in Japan and 1999 in the US. The games I highlighted were from 1997, so... Without further ado, here are some my top games for Dreamcast: Street Fighter III: Third Strike Jet Grind/Set Radio Phantasy Star Online 1 & 2 Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver NFL 2K series Garou: Mark of the Wolves Virtua Tennis Quake III Arena Samba de Amigo Border Down Soul Caliber Rez ChuChu Rocket Bangai-O Crazy Taxi Metropolis Street Racer Crazy Taxi Ikaruga Le Mans 24 Hours PowerStone Dead or Alive 2 GREAT... now you've got me wanting to dig my games and controllers back out again. Well, there goes my productivity for the week. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Alright, I both love you and youre also my mortal enemy. My dude you have great ass taste and literally just reminded me of Ready 2 Rumble for the first time in a decade, I personally think the Dreamcast is the best system of my young childhood and I am to this day insanely impressed on the actual library of games available for it. Which is also why youre my mortal enemy. How dare you be involved with the downfall of the dreamcast it didnt need help to fail hahahaha
While my mission wasn't to become your mortal enemy, I'll do my best to not let you down again. I WILL DESTROY YOU, APATHETIC MOTH! MARK MY WORDS! DESTROY!!!!!
I remember that there was a Gamecube on my nearest toyshop showcasing Mario Sunshine, I usually skipped catholic confirmation vows to play for 2 hours straight, one time an employee aporach to me (and I tought to myself: “oh man Im dead, dream its over, well it was good while it last) then the man tells me: “hey kid, why don’t you put the book here so you can play more compfortable?” 😂 great memorie from my youth
Welcome aboard and thank you so much! Can't get over how well this video has been received and I'm working on cleaning up my channel so new guests don't have to see the clutter that has built up over the last ten years. Let me know what you'd like to see (or how I can improve) as I've learned a metric ton of what I've been doing wrong thanks to the comments on this video. 😅
Brother you are reaching here. I thought the title was an obvious clickbait. Sega’s internal fighting, bad marketing decision, piracy and console rivals destroyed them! But hey that was enjoyable and a great story to hear! Thanks for this!
I have! It's called "We're #2" and it's written from the perspective of a game store being absorbed into a large (moderately incompetent) corporate entity.
Well, the benefit of going to school for 2D was that I got to learn under Chuck Jones as he got his Honorary Doctorate. While that did absolutely NOTHING for my career, twenty-plus years later I was asked by Yale's Animation department to talk to their students about the importance of keeping their 2D skills sharp... ...which as ALSO done nothing for my career. :/
If it makes you feel any better, me and all my friends who worked at Hollywood Video in the mid 00s were stealing retail movies by just throwing them into the bin behind the counter and taking them out with us at closing. So in a way, we may have accidentally helped kill Hollywood Video.
Regardless of your involvement in the whole debacle, thanks for making a great video and working on old educational games that I definitely played in the computer lab!
Very interesting video! I wouldn't feel too bad about it though (hindsight and all). I appreciated the Golden Boy clips, too! That show is funny as hell! Make sure to change those air filters out
this is a fascinating video. you've got a new subscriber! personally i've always felt that the dreamcast's biggest problem was actually sort of similar to the saturn's - it's launch just wasn't timed well at all, even if sega had the fundamentals of the console down with the dreamcast a lot better than they did with the saturn. they just released the thing too damn early. when sega launched the dreamcast, the N64 and playstation still had a good 3 years left in their lifespan, and as such many of us who were playing on one of those two consoles - and had likely just bought an N64 or playstation a year or 2 prior - weren't suddenly going to give sega the money for a whole new console already, especially when sony, nintendo, and eventually microsoft were all going to end up releasing potentially more powerful consoles at the normal timeframe the next generation of consoles would be expected to launch in a few years later. at the time it gave the dreamcast the appearance of being some sort of awkward "in-between" console, just as the playstation and N64 were entering the 2nd half of their lifecycles and really showing off what they could do at the same time. i remember at the time thinking the dreamcast looked cool and all, but given the fact that i was playing or anticipating stuff stuff like perfect dark, conker's bad fur day, or hell even the N64 version of san francisco rush 2049, which holds up pretty well against the dreamcast version, sega's cool factor wasn't enough to make me invest in a whole new console 3 years too early when i wanted to see what the actual next gen console lineup was going to be first. and i'm sure millions of other people felt the same way. in retrospect, the dreamcast is absolutely one of my favorite consoles now as well, and is arguably an even more capable console than the ps2 ended up being. but sega shoving it out the door half-way between generation cycles was just a bad idea, and not a particularly good look at the time. you gotta give people more time to want or be ready for a new console. sega just didn't do that, and thusly for a lot of people the dreamcast was just that cool looking thing that none of us were going to go spend $200+ on when we hadn't even been playing our current-gen consoles that long yet. it just wasn't worth it.
Ha! It's funny you say that as I recently made a video on social media using a "older you" filter. Turns out I'm probably going to continue to look like Saul (Bob Odenkirk) for the foreseeable future. 😂
I just picked one up 3 weeks ago. I was able to borrow one and play "Code Name: Veronica," back in the early 2000's, but haven't had much experience with it otherwise. Still, I look forward to collecting a few titles, and seeing what I missed.
Dreamcast is my favorite Sega console of all time. Could you please make more videos about it? Also, how long did you stay with Hollywood? Would love to hear more of your experiences with the different companies you worked for.
Omg that Madeline games was one of the games my grandpa bought for me in his effort to make sure i was computer literate from a young age!
Too bad all that time spent learning european currencies were for naught.
Dont be too harsh on yourself or carry any guilt. You're a natural story teller and i hope you'll continue making videos!
Thank you. I need you to know that this specific promotion at Hollywood Video gave me one of my happiest memories with my mom. I spent all of 1999 savings up to buy a Dreamcast in September. July 15 was my mom's birthday, but she woke up early anyway and went to open an account to rent me a Dreamcast. I spent those two days playing through all of Sonic Adventure (no memory card 😭) and my mom thought it was the coolest thing she had ever seen.
My bday is 7/15 as well, that's awesome memory....
you and I pretty much have the same exact story. I feel ya
Lol me too! I literally stayed the weekend at my sisters to try and get this! It almost didnt happen when they had to do the credit card hold of $350......or maybe it didn't happen because of that. Memory is all messed up now!
@@iambounceback I hope it did happen. even though those memories are so special to me, I absolutely love that people like us can connect on that kind of level and have those same special memories. it's so cool!!
@@loadcartoons It is! I called my mom to ask because I felt like we did! This promo sealed the deal for a lot of people and was the first of its kind! I remember first seeing sonic and being blow away. Powerstone is still one of the best games ever! The Dreamcast to me is one of the best consoles EVER!
Its crazy how many normal people were involved in the gaming industry back then. Nowadays you need years of schooling and Ash Ketchum years of experience to get an internship.
Which is even Wilder cause the quality has significantly declined
@@noneofyourbusiness1114exactly
@@noneofyourbusiness1114lol yea seriously
@@noneofyourbusiness1114I'm just speculating here, so please don't crucify me. I believe it's because gaming, while definitely increasing in popularity, was still niche and driven mostly by hard-core fans. So it was hard-core fans, aka Uber-nerds, whom mostly went into the business. Now with gaming's undeniable lead in the entertainment industry, you're likely to get a lot of Joe schmos and plain Janes with a college degree getting the jobs who played Wii Bowling and "running jumping Mario guy game" once.
Now I know that sounds pretentious, but I think it's true. That and just pure greed. Greed forces it's way in the bigger something gets, no matter what kind of product it may be. We see it time and time again in any business. Greed allows for more anti-consumer practices to take root, and although the GRAPHICS quality has shot through the roof, everything else has taken a hit. That's what Greed does. "Look at the shiny new game, consumer! See how pretty it looks? Now pay us money for the micro transactions, bug ridden, censored, and lackluster non-imaginitive game we made!"
Not to say there aren't still quality games out here now, but they're definitely less in numbers and DEFINITELY less experimental.
No one cares about Pokemon
I'll never forgive you for maybe killing the dreamcast but this was a really good video!
I completely understand that I'll have to carry this shame till the end of my days. 😢
(also, thanks for your feedback on the video!)
sega was already a mess years before that... he's only a small, pretty small part of that mess. don't treat him like that :/
@@NealBauer There, there. This die-hard Dreamcast fan forgives you of your sins. While completely detestable, none of us are perfect =P All that aside, that was one awesome story and I loved the video! *New subscriber achievement unlocked!*
Lmao
@@NealBaueryou didn’t kill the Dreamcast. Sony and the FCC did. Remember the Dreamcast could play burned CD’s. When the FCC heard that, they immediately contacted sega demanding the discontinuation of the Dreamcast or they would have to pay a heavy fine plus final sales numbers weren’t that good. Their was more inventory in the warehouse than their was sold and that was because of the PlayStation 2.
Growing up means realizing the Dreamcast was the superior system of its time
Ain't that the truth.
A lot of us saw it at the time, it wasn't hard.
"Sega fans will never not be cringe." -Voltaire
@@SomeOrangeCat I've never even owned a Dreamcast lmao I didn't play any of its games until I was an adult
just which generation does the dreamcast fit in? the 5th? or the 6th? I've seen people compare it to the N64 and PS1 even though the saturn was Sega's rep for that era.
it's really fun getting to hear about the unsung moving gears of history. this felt like a story you'd hear from a family friend at thanksgiving, definitely subscribing. and i can't believe you worked on the madeline games, that was a surprising but welcome unlocked memory.
Ikr, the creator of fruit ninja also has a video on his channel about making it in youtube
And dont get me started on GameHut
The 90's were insane. I still think was the best era for gaming.
It's hard to explain that time period to younger generations. People were buying PS2 with The Matrix on DVD over the Dreamcast. Sony had such a loyal fanbase at that point, Sega never stood a chance. Great job on this video, you've added some interesting pieces to the story!
I'd argue PS still has a loyal fanbase, it's just not a one sided dominated market anymore, especially with a bolstered Nintendo, it's ironic that the two giants, once friends then rivals, both have loyal fanbases that make up for the majority of the gaming market (minus mobile).
@@mutalix yeah it wasn't an argument actually, I was saying that by that time period Playstation had a diehard userbase. Factor in Sega's bad track record and they were doomed.
@@poboxchristmas380
Agreed and agreed, b4 I got a PS, I was big time Sega fan, I really wanted to get a Saturn, but once I saw the PS games like Tekken 2, soul caliber (soul edge ), resident evil and especially ff7, it was over.
Still got the DC and PS2 a year or so later, I was hopeful when I saw DC had a great launch, but just before PS2 launched it seemed like everyone just stopped buying DC.
Not to mention during the PS2 time is when the Xbox Original came out along with the original Halo game. It's really hard to get across how massive that was back then. TVs were also beginning to transition to flat screens from the old tube tvs and if somebody had a flat screen with halo it was absolutely STUNNING.
At launch, the other key factor for the PS2 success was the backwards compatibility with PS1 games, wich was a strong incentive for upgrade to a PS2, not even Nintendo had done it with the SNES or N64.
having a video game console for rent before its available for sale is genius.
Pretty sure the Atari Jaguar was as well. Unfortunately Cybermorph didn't do it any favors...
@@slaapliedjewhere did you learn to fly ?
@@CodyLee94 Ha, there apparently is a revision to that game that made that less frequent. Battlemorph for the JagCD fixed it outright.
As a former employee of HollyWood Video , I can confirm that they did not know what they were doing . Half of the store's inventory was made up of copies of a movie called " Without a Paddle ".
😂
That's a pretty funny flick in their defense.
It was an oddball franchise, blockbuster had all the best spots in town so they were down the street from blockbuster doing the same thing just not as good, their other competitor movie gallery was at least located in spots far away from blockbuster, doing things slightly different.
I was always baffled how long Evolution occupied a full wall section.
It was still a good movie, a shitty-good movie...
The Dreamcast was a mythic console in my neighborhood, which only a few kids had, only one of my friends. I really loved it. He had Seaman, Powerstone, and I believe he played Phantasy Star online on it. He also had UT99, which was the best console version, with the most content. (ps2 version had a lot less characters and maps). Can't forget he also had Jet Grind/Set radio as well.
hehe seaman
i only had one friend who had a dreamcast and he kept talking about how superior it was to everything else, and he was right. but their advertising and marketing must have been bad, because everyone i knew loved video games, but i only had one friend with a dreamcast, and it just wasn't cool to like the dreamcast. now that i look back on it, maybe we all didn't expect it to be any good, after all their previous blunders leading up to it.
honestly the dreamcast's problem was sega's launch timing just sucked. i don't think it was bad marketing or anything else. the problem was sega released the thing too damn early. the N64 and playstation both still had a good 3 years left in their lifespan when sega launched the dreamcast - and the PS2, gamecube, and xbox were a LONG ways off still. so even if the dreamcast was objectively more powerful than anything else on the market when it launched, it's timing just made it feel like an "in-between" console and a lot of people (myself included) were content to just keep playing N64 or playstation and wait to see what the playstation 2, xbox, and "nintendo dolphin" were going to look like before dropping money on a dreamcast when many people had probably only bought their playstation or N64 a year or 2 prior and definitely weren't going to fork over money for a whole new console as early as sega wanted them to. honestly, the N64 in particular was really producing some impressive looking stuff in the 2nd half of its lifespan - stuff like conker's bad fur day, perfect dark, hell even the N64 version of san francisco rush 2049 really held its own even against the dreamcast version - and i remember at the time, and i'm sure i wasn't the only one, thinking "well the dreamcast looks cool and all but i'm not gonna run out and buy a whole ass new console yet when the one i'm currently gaming on isn't even that old, and nintendo / sony / microsoft are all coming out with actual next gen consoles in the future." - of course, the dreamcast in retrospect was arguably a more powerful console than the PS2 and is now one of my favorite consoles of all time, but the fact that sega released it so damn early just didn't make any sense, and made it feel like we could just wait for something *actually* more powerful and keep playing our current gen consoles in the meantime. sega should have just waited another year or 2 and released the dreamcast with a DVD player. they just released it during a time when most people weren't ready to buy a new console yet.
32X and Saturn flopping soured Sega fans. N64 & especially PS1 were riding high and the straw that broke the camel's back was PS2 and DVD playback.
9/9/99 was a huge success but the hype of the PS1 was too much. It was the best selling console of all time. It's the first console to sell over 100 million systems. For comparison the NES and SNES sold 60 and 50 million respectively.
Still in 2023 the Switch is coming close but PS2 remains the best-selling console of all time. Sega couldn't outrun that tsunami. You couldn't watch The Matrix on DVD on the Dreamcast.
As a kid in the 90s I don't remember a single Dreamcast ad, strangely enough. My friend and I were the only two people I knew with Dreamcasts, and we were terminally online back in the days of AOL, Prodigy, and Qwest DSL. Gaming forums like GameFAQs were probably responsible for most of the hype back then.
Also the Dreamcast was NOTORIOUSLY easy to play burned games on, making it highly attractive to homebrewers and poor kids just like us.
All I knew about the Dreamcast from the advertising was IT'S THINKING, and that sounded scary
Sega, stopped support for all systems a yr before dreamcast came out sega had done it to themselves outside of genesis they kept releasing systems give them 2 yrs then stop supporting them as a parent sega had released genesis 89, sega cd 93, sega 32x 94, Saturn 95 now 99 dreamcast each 1 costed 200 to 300 bucks and was never compatible with the old system.
Add to that sega was known for 3 things sonic/sports/fighting games EA wasn't going to be on system sega sports was good but no EA, that was a no go.
Also as ridiculous as it was the DVD thing Sony ps2 was bought as a DVD player for half it's audience the new advanced sega couldn't play dvd
Sega never had a chance. Somebody who places Calecovision and 3DO in his "Top 5 Home Game Consoles" list could kill Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft.
This honestly left me in stitches
Definitely interesting top 5 list
" Return fire " For the 3DO was so popular that it appeared in a obscure Paulie Shore movie that I failed to watch before also signing up for the ARMY . SEEING THAT MOVIE COULD HAVE PREVENTED ME FROM ENLISTING . I WAS SO STUPID (AND RELIGIOUS ) BACK THEN .
@@Mikewee777did you watch it later tho?
Was that actually a 3DO?! I thought it had to be some sort of PC Engine thing
This was a fantastic video. The editing and narration were spot on. I am surprised that this channel only has 400 subs. I predict many more in the future.
Man, that list of games you purchased while working at electronics boutique gave me an instant memory flashback to me walking through the gaming aisle of my local rental store at that time. Bust a Groove felt like a hidden gem. Also, that cutaway to you from 1999 cracked me up. Great vid. Loved the dreamcast too.
I worked between Electronics Botique and Software Etc. EB was definitely the better of the two back then but I wound up purchasing WAY too much during my time there. At one point, I even picked up a used copy of Plumbers Don't Wear Ties out of curiosity which was beyond embarassing.
I don't mean it was "beyond embarassing" in retrospect. No, I meant beyond embarassing that I got suckered in to believeing it was a game of any kind. Plumbers Dont Wear Ties was a freaking powerpoint slideshow that used 'BASIC' programming to move through the slides. Returning that to my place of employment (EB) was truly a walk of shame that I have never forgotten.
Stories like this are food for my soul. The presentation, the delivery and the relaxing voice is just gold. You've got a new subscriber 😎
If you sneeze at someone and he dies... well, he was going to die anyway. Chill.
Neal, it's okay dude. You were literally just a paper pusher. You weren't the one who gave the order for a $6M rental purchase...
*chambers round*
But you can tell me who did
I think Sega's inability to grasp western culture and markets is what did them in..what works in Japan doesn't work everywhere. They could have made bigger deals and listened to the divisions in western countries more, instead of doubling down on what works in Japan. Genesis was so so strong until SNES came out, that is when they needed to start pulling out the stops, instead of being forever behind. I mean, shit, as far as most american's were concerned...Saturn was never "Good", it was just not a 3DO or an Atari Jaguar, it was what is wasn't, not what it was to the US market.
I just wanna talk to them
Based coment
@@debeb5148😂😂 yeeesssss
Oh Neal. I had just joined Sega in San Francisco a few weeks before Dreamcast launched. I was art director on an game called 10six. Launch date for the Dreamcast was 9/9/99, and everyone in the company got a free one. Another reason Dreamcast died was because of lack of developer support, most game publishers were already busy with other already established systems. Dreamcast also had all the makings of a DVR before it had been though of. Oh well, it was a fun ride.
Holy moly! I had completelty forgotten about 10Six! @_@
I can only imagine what it must have been lke for you arriving at Sega HQ in the summer of 1999: ua-cam.com/video/POT3plx0vBs/v-deo.htmlsi=5BkfaNZStjwPG-5s&t=43
@@NealBauerI'd say it was more like: ua-cam.com/video/VeFMdVIFsgs/v-deo.htmlfeature=shared
I'm the white cat in the middle at the end.
Man you are a youtube channel that deserves more subs. Great to see the insiders view into an unfortunate past. Its like hearing a story about WW1 from your grandpa, their point of view is always more interesting than the books.
You suprisingly kept me hooked for the whole video. The Dreamcast is my favorite console and a little bit of my choldhood self died the day i found out that Sega was pulling out of the console business.
I very much enjoyed your story telling, editing, humor, video clips and information that you provided in this video. I will say you may even have one of the key components to be a successful UA-camr, the voice. You have a voice that goes with the content and is very easy to listen to. With the proper microphone setup, you can make videos where people will listen to you for hours and hours if the content is interesting enough.
I'd love to hear more of the gaming industry of the 90s and early 2000s from your viewpoint as that is when i was following the industry closely as well. Take care and good luck on your UA-cam adventure.
Oh, and an early congrats for the 1K subscribers you're about to hit.
Holy cow, you're right! I'm just about to 950! That is insane to me.
Also, I think I want this comment printed on a t-shirt as it's one of the nicest things I've heard in all my years do making three things.
You da best!
@@NealBauerYou're up to 970. You'll crack 1K by tomorrow morning ;) Congrats!
Also, if you need additional content to make, what about making a video on the gorilla that killed the Dreamcast. No, not Sony or Nintendo or you. It was Microsoft.
But how is that possible if the Xbox and Dreamcast never actually competed at the same time? Well because Sega knew that it's little ol' self couldn't go up against the giants Sony, Nintendo and now the gorilla entering the ring, Microsoft. So it bowed out of the oncoming onslaught.
The market isn't big enough for 4 players. But it is big enough for 3 major players as we have seen since the 5th generation of consoles. There's enough money to go around for 3, but not 4. That's why Sega had to bow out of the hardware business.
Nobody talks about Microsoft being the reason they left the hardware business. It's always about piracy, or PS2 sales, or the previous failings of the 32X or Saturn. Never about the incoming tsunami that all 3 major players in the industry had to brace for.
That's my view on the matter and I think it would make a great documentary video like the one you did here. Especially if you pull in sales numbers, etc. If Xbox didn't enter, Sega would have survived because they were offering what Microsoft was, internet playability. Just imagine all the Sega sports games being playable online in 2002-2005 with broadband support. Just imagine Crazy Taxi online where multiple people are playing the same Crazy Taxi map collecting passengers or Virtua Fighter online. How bought Soul Calibur online? Dayton online? How about HALO on the Dreamcast? It would have done wonders for Sega's reputation.
But since Microsoft was going to do everything better with its deep pockets and it's 6.5 generation console (Xbox was half a generation ahead of all the others) the Dreamcast fell too far in the running to be considered a viable platform in consumers eyes.
Just an idea and one I haven't heard anyone else talk about. Would love to see you narrate something like this. I'm a fan of the channel Jenovi and he does some good Sega content over there. Check him out and his what killed the Dreamcast videos as well.
I'm excited for what's to come for you. Always nice seeing a channel sprout from the ground, sometimes for years and finally break through and reach the light. You've got what it takes to be one of those channels with hundreds of thousands of followers. The work will be tiring and exhausting but if games are what you love, share your passion and experience of the industry with everyone and it'll be worth it. Good luck.
Watching this video from the beginning I did not expect you to actually be involved with the gaming community in that time. It’s actually incredibly interesting to see documentation of that period of gaming compared to now where we can catalogue every month moment and release of the last 20 years.
Didn't watch the video yet but I am informed enough about Sega to know that THEY killed the Dreamcast by their incompetence and their childish behavior (notably rivality between Sega JP/US). No matter what your mistake was, bud, it probably didn't kill the Dreamcast as much as Sega itself did.
Sega wanted to jump base jump from the Empire State Building. He may have provided a 10ft step ladder. At worse.
@@darkcoeficient Yep... what a jerk.
@@parjupiter134 lol
He goes over all that in the video
The desision to shelve the DC was taken when new management took over in 2001 at Sega. Nakayama wanted to be in the home market but the new guys didn’t
Looking back, I am thankful to have experienced that era at all. For those of us who were there, we lived in a world where SEGA existed, and still exists.
You know, I believe the take away from Neal Bauer's post is that we even had a
SEGA Dreamcast with which to create memories.
What if we found a portal to a parallel universe? Where it is the same year, and you are the same person, but everything else is different? And what if the SEGA Dreamcast never existed?
The Dreamcast wouldn't have been able to compete with the ps2. I think coming out right before DVDs took over was a major factor. It's release date had bad timing, and the company was already in a bad position. If they were already in a good financial position they could have survived, but it was mistake after mistake.
The Dreamcast came out in Japan in November 1998. I wonder if it had also released in North America in 1998 how much of a difference that would have made. That would have made it two years before the PS2 instead of just one.
I disagree. What is weird is that Sega didn’t just sell the remaining stock. The sales slowed down after 2001, but there was still an install base. Officially discontinuing it seems unnecessary.
It actually was comparable to the PS2 in technical terms. It had more video ram and a 480p signal as opposed to the PS2 480i video. So it’s got a better image.
DVD aren’t all that when it comes to games. The GameCube held about 2GB. The DC was 1GB. Obviously PS2 was 5GB. But a lot of games even still used CD’s. Shenmue of 4 GD-ROM’s is annoying. In fact the loading in that game is so bad.
But anyway. 1GB is really enough for most games. Did you know GTA3 quite far into development for the DC but was moved to the PS2. So the PS2 game is probably based on the DC code. That game would have been identical in terms of graphics for either console.
But remember, the DC has a better image and texture quality quality. The PS2 would take a few years to get better textures as it was hard to program. But it was still only an interlaced image.
I don’t understand why the official withdrawals from the market. The Saturn did the same thing in the US. It came out in 95 and they took it off the market in 97. So there was over a year without Sega consoles or games really, in shops in the US. The Saturn never even made itself known to me where I live.
Anyway. What are the costs of leaving a console n the market? Counting money? All the investments have been made. RnD, manufacture, shipping, making games, admin. Then did you know it only lasted 6 months in the UK.
So why go to all the trouble of making the thing and putting games on it then pulling it again? Just leave it on shelves. If it still sells games then publishers will want o publish for it and it will carve out a market.
But with no new games coming out, you have no choice but to buy a PS2 if you want new games. Or a GameCube or XBox.
It would have been crazy though, with PS2, GameCube, XBox and Dreamcast all competing. I think those consoles were all a bit different.
So the DVD thing is a bit overstated. Also the pirating thing. The reason i’s sales slowed down was because the PS2 ad campaign had stolen the limelight. But it was still untested. The release lineup was a bit average. It really needed to actually compete with the Dreamcast, even without a DVD drive in practise. But I think they were not on sale concurrently in any given territory.
But if they had both competed for at least two years. I don’t find it hard to imagine that the DC would have eroded and limited the PS2 market share significantly. Especially if the online was operating well. I’d rather have online than a DVD player, wouldn’t you.
It was a bit of a stitch up for Sega. That seems to be self inflicted. Why not remain in competition with Sony for at least two years and see if sales pick up again. There were actually selling steadily when they were discontinued.
So consider the proposition for a teen in 2002 in a hypothetical scenario. The DC is available. Most of the games are on there and the Sega exclusives aren’t ported elsewhere. The online is lighting up. Alien Front Online even has voice chat. The PS2 has maybe better graphics but you just can’t put your finger on why they’re a bit blurry and shitty. But you can play The Matrix on it. But your folks have a DVD player in the living room... How many times can you watch The Matrix? Maybe bollocks to DVD’s. Online play is more interesting.
The DC had no reason to fail other than the company literally refusing to sell it any more. Because to leave it on the market loses money. But I don’t understand how that works. Surely leaving it on the market cannot lose money even if they are only selling, say 1 million a year. Which they were.
@@iwanttocomplainThe fact that the console was cracked very early on was probably the deathblow for the console, as sega relied heavily on software to make money. When everyone was burning discs and not buying official software, there was no longer a reason to keep the console going.
@@HerecomestheCalavera There weren't enough chip manufacturing plants ready to deliver the latest precision standard used on the DC; that is why they delay regional releases (Japan is much smaller than the US)! The DC's lack of desirable games available on the PS1 is the main reason why it failed!
@@vidjenko8349 well I remember going into student flat with an XBox 360 and a pile of burned DVD’s. Like hundreds. They had the Rock Band setup and everything. Pirating doesn’t hurt sales rather much, even though that’s counter-intuitive. On the DC it was worse though, because there’s a lot of learning involved in how to get the discs to work. You need good quality blank cd’s, you need to research each about so much stuff surrounding burning discs and all the intricacies. Also, the games might have lower quality video, sound and textures to bring 1GB down to 700MB.
If anything it made it desirable to buy the console at least. But it’s a minority of people. It’s like pirating movies. It’s difficult and technical for most people so it doesn’t impact the industry.
I was one of those lucky kids that had a dad that rented the Dreamcast and got to play Sonic Adventure before anyone else. I loved it so much for my 10th birthday I got the Sonic bundle Dreamcast that came with the blue VMU, Sonic Adventure, Sonic Shuffle and the Japanese demo disk of Sonic Adventure 2. and TO THIS DAY not only my favorite console but some of my best memories before my mother passed away when I was at the age of 11. all because we were able to rent it for those 2 days. Thank you.
I think the biggest loss of the Dreamcast dying is that we don’t really see a lot of fast paced arcade-like games anymore.
There’s plenty of indie games that are like that but you gotta really dig for a lot of them. otherwise you mainly have fighting games and Mario Kart holding the fort on that.
At least old-school beat ‘em ups have been making a comeback over the last few years even if most of them are more on the niche side.
That's very true, I remember booting up Outtrigger a couple of years ago and I couldn't believe how much fun I was having with the fast and frenetic gameplay. Despite that it was just bots and no campaign.
There's plenty of indie games like that, but you have to dig for them? If there's plenty, you shouldn't have to dig. Lol
@@dapperfan44 it might have more longevity online. Alien Front is similar - you probably know about that one.
@@user-vi4xy1jw7e Indie games release at a very fast rate, even if there’s a lot of them that are like these kinds of games they’re still a minority that fly under the radar easily.
@iwanttocomplain Unfortunately I can't quite figure out how to get it online, or bother to take the time to figure it out. 😭
This video was definitely the highlight of my day -incidentally, it's my birthday.
I started it for shit and giggles and then I surprised myself glued to the screen. Thanks for all the hard work and the research, you got a new subscriber.
Cheers!
Happy belated birthday, my good Arnaldo! Apologies for being late on the reply but I just got back from my mother's birthday so I was celebrating with you in spirit! :D
Sega Gensis 32x and CD killed the Dreamcast and the Saturn.
Glad this video was on my recommend, enjoyed learning the back story and the editing!
You sir have wonderful production. And also a stellar cadence in this long form video style. Loved this video, man. Keep these kinds of videos comin'! 🤘
Dope and hilarious video. I got my Dreamcast on Christmas of 1999. I was 11. Great memories. To this day, Shenmue (& 2) are my favorite games of all time
You are too kind and you have some great taste in games, too! 😊
Thanks for watching and for the compliment. Looks like I'll be making more of these in the future.
The quality of your videos and editing is amazing. I'm surprised you only have 1k.
You'll blow up for sure 🎉
Thank you so much! I was out of town last week when this video blew up. On the plane back home, I started two entirely new scripts for videos that I've already started filming.
If there's anything you'd like to see (or anything I can improve), please let me know as I want to continue to share these kinds of stories and grow as a channel.
This is non-ironically, one of the most important pieces to this puzzle that is the gaming industry
Wow :0
Great video btw 👍🏻
Unless you told them to rush it withOUT a DVD player there was nothing you could do.
PS2 with that built in DVD player sealed the deal with the casuals and every dad and dude bro who wanted one.
Absolutely . It was a easy sell . Sony had total market control .
Great video, The Dreamcast was short lived but always remembered! In Peru the Dreamcast was sadly almost completely ignore.
I guess it was all about the Playstation 2 in Peru in the 2000’s.
But what do you play in the 90’s?
In the 90s in Peru we played famiclones, one of the most popular was one called " Max play" and of course we played the Super Nintendo; yes in the 2000s it was all about the playstation 2 and playstation 1, the psone model was extremely popular here.
@@edgardomerino3778 psone was cute.
There’s like no information on Latin America, China, India etc.
@@edgardomerino3778 FYI - you should have been playing Sega!
@@iwanttocomplain we didn't have a tectoy like Brazil had. So Sega was only seen on foreign tv channels, and magazines. I would have loved to play a Sega Master system , Megadrive / Genesis, Saturn in the 90s though.
This is one of the most interesting videos on the Dreamcast I've ever seen. We forget that people making the decisions aren't all in the corporate board rooms, but middle management who makes day to day decisions on things. Great, great video. Thank you so much for sharing.
Great video, and thanks helping to make GameCrazy a really cool place.
It was so cool going in there and grabbing a ton of SNES and Genesis games I missed out on.
Good memories there with staff giving me a couple of extra cents to cover purchases 😅
I stumbled onto this video by the graces of YT algorithms, this is a great docu-history on Dreamcast and Sega's follies, you're production quality is great!
I laughed at your comedy cuts and humor (visual representations) 🤣
Gladly subbed, please tell more industry stories from your pov, hope to see more from your channel!
When I got the Dreamcast at launch I was simply blown away by Sonic. That game was fast and was absolutely fantastic. I was also crazy to try the online capabilities of the system, but that was available in Austria much much later. When the Dreamkey Version 2.0 finally arrived I connected my Dreamcast to the 56k connection and tried out the chat function.
I asked someone: "Where are you from?", and the reply was "From the US."
It may sound silly nowadays, but I was running through the flat and told my parents that I am chatting with someone from the US! It was MINDBLOWING! Later we switched to a cable connection and we hadn't the 56k modem anymore. Unfortunately the LAN adapter wasn't available, because the Dreamcast was already at the end of its lifetime. Great memories, amaaaaazing machine.
Marvel superheroes vs street fighter was a Japan exclusive.
You are correct! Still, it was an awesome game...
... unlike Deep Fear.
Ya know, i dont care if ya did, you where there through it all. Thank you for trying your best in the industry!
And thank you for the history lesson. I love my dreamcast. Had to buy a Arcade of Soul Calibur lmao
This was a great video, and i really enjoyed learning. I also have SA1 and SA2 and so glad i got to play them on the OG system.
I dont think you killed the Dreamcast, but if you really think you did? I forgive ya.
I feel the death of the Sega Console market was more of a "Death by A Thousand Cuts"
Is this why you've waited all these years to say this?
Hard to imagine that one person is to blame for a 30-40 million dollar loss for a company when there were other contributing factors that had a snowballed effect which is what lead to the fall of Sega as a console manufacturer and as a major titan in the video game industry.
I honestly thought this video was going to be about how the Dreamcast was cracked. Wasn't expecting this!
Dream cast was the system I loved the most growing up. I was a mall rat in 7th grade. I would skate to the card store in my mall and trade and play magic the gathering and pokemon like everyday. And EB's had a dream cast like a year before it came out with the demos. So let's just say I was a master at power stone and ready to rumble before it even released. I saved up all summer long doing side jobs mowing lawns and detailing cars and preordered it. My dad took me to the mall on 9-9-99 late at night for a Sega Dreamcast launch party. I won the power stone tournament and the game. Had a great times with friends and this system. My favorite system ever. Man 1999 was the best year ever. It was the last golden days of my childhood before girls and life stuff. Ugggg nostalgia.
Please do more historical videogame related videos like this. You are a funny guy.
Damn, I cannot unsee that "ULTRA 64 DEVELOPMNET" legend on that proto SG pcb lol
Nah, I think you had the right idea. Console rentals was a great idea, I grew up on Mega Drive and PS1 rentals and in 1999 I'd have spent money on that to trial out a Dreamcast at home. The late 90s and early 00s were a really uncomfortable, unpredictable time for Hollywood, Blockbuster and anyone involved in movies or rentals, the Internet was about to arrive and start smashing all expectations. Great video btw
Don't feel bad, Dreamcast killed itself by not including a DVD player like the PS2
Honestly I was starting to wander off listening, then suddenly Hank Venture and Chuck Scarsdale showed up and I couldn't look away.
I loved the edits in this with the internet references, well done! Great video my man
interesting video! i love to hear stories about the 90s video game industry drama
The industry was so small back then there's always 1-2 degrees of Kevin Bacon to any story.
I have a story about Katamari Damacy's us launch and why I call myself The King of Cosmos to this day.
If this video does well enough, I just might have to share that story next. 😅
The thing with the Dreamcast is that even if it hadn't been discontinued so harshly, I can't imagine how it would have trucked on through the 2000s. The PS2, Xbox and GameCube were full of enormous, complex games that quickly made the DC's library look rudimentary and dated. I don't see a scenario where it would have remained competitive against Vice City, Halo and The Wind Waker. Sega diehards may argue for Shenmue, but I think those games are far too quirky and specific to ever become nearly as mainstream as GTA. The right analogue stick also became a much bigger factor in games design that generation, and I don't think the Dreamcast was ready for how significant multiplatform games like TimeSplitters 2 would become. The GameCube was already struggling to attract publishers, and I can only imagine that would have been much more true for the less powerful Dreamcast.
The Dreamcast was a great console, and there's a lot of good reasons to own one. I just don't think it could have been successful long past the nineties.
You are so wrong. PS2 came out with crap for a freaking year and dreamcast library was amazing. Heck for a year the ps1 liberary was better than the ps2 libary. Xbox mostly sucked, and gamecube had amazing first party stuff but little else.
@@calebfielding6352 I don't think there's much point in trying to convince you, but I'm enjoying the "what if the Dreamcast continued" thought experiment, so I'll elaborate, regardless.
This isn't about how good each console is. It's about how much market interest they gained, and how good a fit for the mainstream audience they were at the time. The PS2's library in its first year was relatively weak, but it didn't matter. The systems sold as soon as they hit store shelves off the back of hype for DVD playback, Metal Gear Solid 2, Final Fantasy X and Gran Turismo 3, leading into a fairly strong lineup for late 2001/early 2002. Excitement for the Dreamcast had dried up pretty dramatically by 2001, with big sequels like Sonic Adventure 2, Crazy Taxi 2 and Shenmue II failing to match the sales of their predecessors. It's hard to imagine the kind of game that would build excitement for the console after that. The bulk of hit Dreamcast games were arcade ports, which was a scene that was rapidly declining by the 2000s. I could see an alternate future where the console gained a cult audience in Japan through home versions of rhythm games like Taiko no Tatsujin, but there weren't many big fighting games or lightgun shooters past the first couple years of the decade. Sega's relationship with EA would have really hurt the system, given the significance of multiformat titles like FIFA and SSX Tricky on other platforms too.
I'm not much of an Xbox fan, personally, but there's little denying how that platform moved the industry forward with its built-in hard drive and Xbox Live infrastructure. The Dreamcast's online support would have looked very rudimentary if it was to try to compete with that, and that controller wasn't ready for how significant dual-analogue FPSes would become.
I'd argue that much of the GameCube's appeal came from their relationship with Capcom, and it's possible that might not have happened if Sega kept pushing the Dreamcast. Capcom really supported the console with games like Power Stone, Marvel vs Capcom and Resident Evil: Code Veronica, and there's a chance they would have continued to see the Dreamcast as their main platform if Sega continued to support it. That's debatable though, given how quick they were to shift towards the PS2 with Onimusha and Devil May Cry.
Really, I don't see how the Dreamcast could have lasted much longer than it did. The best case scenario I could picture is if Sega had launched a successor around 2003, and they'd already upset Saturn owners with how harshly they dropped support for that platform in 98. The market had lost faith in them as platform holders, and they were too eager to jump ship when something hadn't caught on. I think it was inevitable that Dreamcast only lasted a few years.
@@rotallyPumpered mate, XBox live was only for idiots to play Halo or some crap. The DC had loads of online games in lots of genres. Phantasy Star Online. If you liked that game you had to go out and buy it again because I assume the DC servers closed.
Excitement declined when the PS2 came out. But it was still selling. It’s entirely possible the sales would have risen after the PS2 came out. Because 30million GameCubes and XBoxes still sold alongside the 150million PS2’s.
I think if the DC carried on it might have come in second place that generation. It was quite capable of playing even the most complex PS2 or XBox games. The graphics would be a bit simpler than the XBox or even GameCube for sure. But remember the PS2 is only a couple of years newer than the DC. But it was handicapped with complicated hardware. The PS2 had 32MB of system ram and 4MB video ram. The DC ad 16MB of system ram and 8MB video ram (compressed up to 32MB). So the DC, with compression, actually had more ram than the PS2 which didn’t have a hardware texture compression pipeline and used it’s main ram for textures, when that was understood how that could be done. So the DC was clearly superior in terms of image quality (progressive scan) and fast video pipeline. Whereas the PS2 had a good amount of system memory so less loading from the disc and _potentially_ more complex games. The PS2 could also handle more polygons and other effects. But it lacked anti aliasing. Although the soft interlaced image compensated a bit.
But the DC had Windows CE if you wanted to port something quickly from PC with the direct x library. Most developers used the SH-2 cpu assembly language because it was developer friendly. Giving close contact with the hardware.
People have said that the DC peaked in terms of it’s potential early for these reasons. I don’t think so. There are always efficiencies to be found in programming and disc loading routines to speed things up and add complexity. I’ve no doubt that would have continued.
Although the PS2 was mostly developed using 3rd party software due to the complexities of the hardware. So it’s potential is more of a mystery. Because people just don’t have time to keep learning the PS2 indefinitely. They might have to do three ports of the same game. So the PS2 would suffer, probably more than the DC in more complex games, as developers are separated from the hardware and don’t understand it. Making it expensive to write for and more prone to ineficiencies. The XBox was even worse in this respect. Whilst it was the most powerful of the consoles, it was using an intel bus system to drive the motherboard, with a Power PC cpu. So memory management was abstracted and handled on the hardware level. So development became less able to find efficiencies easily without in depth knowledge of Microsoft kernels. XBox games have a typically higher resolutions, above 480p. But the consistency of the frame rates suffer. So the graphics are fancy. But the games aren’t running smoothly and the developers are not to blame.
The DC failed because Nakayama left the company and the company became run by people who felt, in 1999, for some reason, that the future of the company was not in the home console market.
I feel that is short sighted. By having a platform, the company was more productive and the potential for market gains are much higher.
I just don’t understand how, even with everything going wrong, how the DC failed.
It was better than the PS2. It had online. It could have released a two stick pad. IT’s just more interesting. From my perspective at least.
You’re mistaken if you think the console market is realising it’s potential at any given time. I dropped out of consoles with the DC because they weren’t offering up what I was looking for. I can’t be alone.
@@rotallyPumpered FYI. The Dreamcast lived on as Atomiswwave sit down arcade cabs for a few more years.
The Dreamcast would have held on for a bit.
The rumor is that GTA3 was originally in development for the DC, but time ran out for the console. Head Hunter on the DC seems like a pretty fair estimation of what GTA3 could have looked like on the Sega console.
The quirkiness of Shenmue does not take away from the size and complexity of the game.
Sony released its first Dualshock into the life of the PXS/PS1(bundled with Ape Escape).
Sega could have also released a dual analog controller for the DC.
Sega had several RPGs on the Dreamcast, Grandia 2, Skies of Arcadia and Phantasy Star Online in it's short time on the market. It no doubt would have more if the console have continued.
The DC was also a pioneer of sorts for online console gaming; yes, there were consoles that had modems an online services before, but the DC kind of proved that it could work, in games like Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 Arena, you had multiplayer on online, even with/against PCs at the time(and it tended to be an easier affair going online with the console than PCs of the time). Phantasy Star Online also laid the foundation for some online games as well. There were other games that took advantage of the online abilities.
It could have been an ideal platform for a Halo like game that would have been online from the get go (maybe even bundling a dual analog with such a title).
The Gamecube's issues with publishers may be due to their unique media; while the PS2 and Xbox used DVDs, the Gamecube employed a proprietary disc size (said to be DVD in data format). Games a dev made for either Xbox or PS2 could use the same bulk supply of DVDs to ship the game, you need an entirely separate supply for the Gamecube (if Nintendo was even allowing someone else to publish and distribute title on their console).
Nintendo was pretty hesitant on the online side too.
This is all a 'what if' exercise though.
00:36 I love how you showcase the Panasonic Q instead of a Game Cube. It is also one of my favorite consoles in my collection as well.
You'll definitely want to check out my top 5 video. That'll be right up your alley. ;)
When I read this title I didn't expect this not to be clickbait. I didn't expect it to be presented by Better Call Saul either. Great video.
I know a lot of this is tongue-in-cheek, but seriously, the problems Sega had were way bigger than one PO.
The Dreamcast was released way too early. It could never hope to compete with the coming hardware generation.
That being said, that era of games, the Dreamcast especially, had the best vibe about it. So optimistic, as if tech would free man as opposed to enslaving him like it does nowadays.
Cheers for keeping the Dream(cast) alive.
-Someone who misses that era dearly
Sega kept screwing themselves over and over. I seem to remember the dreamcast having little to no security aside from the GD disk system. They assumed since no one could read the disks that they wouldn’t get pirated. The same people who had that thought put a damn maintenance data port on the back of it. Combine that with the fact that broad band was now everywhere, you could rip a Dreamcast game from the GD disk and put it online for download. I also seem to remember the games being small enough to fit on a regular 700MB disk. It was a perfect storm of bad decisions.
The pirated games reduced video, sound and texture quality. The GD-ROM is 1GB but a lot of games are already under 700MB.
This is a fantastic video, it’s so well put together! At a time when it’s hard not to get distracted when watching long form videos on UA-cam, you kept my attention with great story telling, humour and fun edits. Keep it up 💪
Man, I loved Game Crazy in Hollywood Video. The times sure have changed, great video and thank you explaining this. You are forgiven
Hey, this is a really, really good video. This is an excellent example of storytelling and using b-roll footage to enhance the overall flow. I really loved all of the Jurassic Park and Golden boy references. I was wondering do you edit your own videos or do you hire an editor?
Thank you so much for your kind words (and great username).
In my old life, I was filmmaker and animator. Some of those skills stick around which is why I'm recording and editing videos on UA-cam and TT. these days.
Keeps me creative, useful, and (apparently) relevant. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This was a surprisingly educational video. Great stuff!
Never saw the clip of that infamous e3 95 moment! I wonder if SEGA made the Saturn sprite based to serve the arcades, since it was also repurposed for teh ST-V Titan
NO WAY!
So much of my childhood was spent in Game Crazy.
I miss it so much.
I love learning about past gaming systems that I never got to try out but still so interesting to learn about 😊
Do you plan on doing any more videos about the Dreamcast, or older games in general? Since the Dreamcast is in your top 5 consoles I'd be interested to know what games you were into for it. I was a HUGE Dreamcast fan back in the day. My top games would be Shenmue 1&2, Skies of Arcadia, Grandia II, and Headhunter. There are many other good ones but those are the top ones I can think of right now. Did you ever get into any of the emulators released for the Dreamcast? NesterDC was a NES emulator for DC and it was awesome back then. I had emulated on my PC for years at that point but on the Dreamcast was great because you could play it on the TV and it almost felt like playing on the original console. I'd also be interested in hearing about those consoles in particular are in your top 5. Specifically the 3DO! lol I had one several years ago and tried out many of the games. The best ones to me were Family Feud,Sewer Shark and Wolfenstein 3D. The 3DO was a neat console it just didn't have many good games for it imo.
Thanks for your comment and, yes, I do make retro/older gaming videos from time to time. I did a series called "Collectibles Roadshow" where we talked about the value and shared stories about games in our collection.
As for the 3DO, there were some good games on the system such as Star Control 2, Return Fire, Need for Speed, Road Rash, and an arcade-perfect version of Street Fighter II. I still have the console hooked up in my office which I play on Livestreams now and again.
Great video, very detailed. Also loved the Golden Boy clips as well as that Tenchi Muyo poster from your at the 20:59 mark.
Don't beat yourself too hard about it, Sega did it to themselves.
I never thought I'd be siting here 20+ years later, watching a video about the DreamCast, made by someone that worked on Disney Magic Artist Studio. My brothers and I "played" that game all the time, where even now I have those sound effects burned into my memory. That's awesome, thanks for sharing this story. May the DreamCast live on
It's good to find a fellow 2D animation/computer programming major of the 90s take a sideways journey through growing and destroying some fundamental ground in the evolution of videogaming! Heck, even your route of migration is like mine in reverse - LA to Portland to Seattle to the Great Lakes. I had a great journey of exploding the fighting game and music simulation scenes throughout the 90s and 2000s and having my own big three rejections in the Seattle/Redmond area; at that time, namely Nintendo, Microsoft, and Valve. Never really worked "pro-industry," but rather ended up developing for Street Fighter Remake (think MUGEN before MUGEN) and Dance With Intensity (the predecessor to Stepmania).
The Dreamcast is probably somewhere around my 6th top system but this is including portables, as well as the PS2 *and* PS3... it's about equal to the SNES in terms of quality, only being overshadowed by the number/variety of available titles produced and available for it (where 3DS almost eclipses everything). But yes, Dreamcast was bullshit expensive so I ended up trading my SNES and library to someone for a Dreamcast and *their* library for that, and it turned out to feel surprisingly fair and balanced. Dreamcast had the superior Street Fighter Alpha 3 experience too, and was the first to really feel good with it's controller.
I liken the XBox evolving from the Dreamcast (ie: 4 controller ports, similar controllers, built-in modem) the same way I do Sony PSX evolving from the Nintendo 64DD; and the XBox series on a number of levels does feel like a logical predecessor to the Dreamcast. The only difference is that Sega doubled down on software instead of trying to compete against it, like N did with Sony.
Still, it feels good to find a brother in arms out here and I hope you've found one as well.
Holy shit I love this guy's sense of humor
Just remember, "I was just following orders" didn't work in the Nuremberg trials.... The dreamcast was the console that introduced me to my favorite series, Tokyo Xtreme Racer, so the Dreamcast will always have a place on my shelf.
I was staying with my extended family in Utah, a farming family. They asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I chose to rent a Dreamcast. There was no vmu in the rental…
Painfully, everyday I would play Sonic Adventure, during these 3 days. And I’d try to leave it on at night but they’d always turn it off. I was almost at the end but they still turned it off…
Which is fine I ended up getting my own Dreamcast later on, what a great machine. It’s interesting to know what really happened and what could have lead to the Xbox of all things.
Maybe it was all these things, I always thought it was the seganet promotion where they gave away dreamcasts if you signed up for 2 years of the Sega-branded ISP. I assumed that could not have been profitable either.
I loved the Dreamcast, and for 2 years it had a crazy library. So many games I truly loved.
We need a DC Mini. I loved my Dreamcast when I was younger, no kids, working for game money and just played it so much. Yes the PS2 is better and killed the DC but I hold a special place for the DC. Great video.
Phenomenal video, shocked you don’t have more subs. I can just picture SEGA execs ripping fat lines and shouting “We need to make ANOTHER console!! But it ATTACHES to our current console!! *snifffffffff* So they gotta buy both!! Genius!!”
Heeeeeyyyyyy.
I recognize you.
I saved up every dollar I could get my hands on to buy the Dreamcast when I was a kid. A lot of bad decisions were made. It was so close to taking that generation.
Glad I found this. I am always fascinated by folks who worked on the stuff I played as a kid.
I like how he calls the dreamcast one of his top 5, then goes on to mention virtually all of the great games not available for dreamcast.
Well, the Dreamcast didn't hit until 1998 in Japan and 1999 in the US. The games I highlighted were from 1997, so...
Without further ado, here are some my top games for Dreamcast:
Street Fighter III: Third Strike
Jet Grind/Set Radio
Phantasy Star Online 1 & 2
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
NFL 2K series
Garou: Mark of the Wolves
Virtua Tennis
Quake III Arena
Samba de Amigo
Border Down
Soul Caliber
Rez
ChuChu Rocket
Bangai-O
Crazy Taxi
Metropolis Street Racer
Crazy Taxi
Ikaruga
Le Mans 24 Hours
PowerStone
Dead or Alive 2
GREAT... now you've got me wanting to dig my games and controllers back out again. Well, there goes my productivity for the week. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@@NealBauer yeah, I was reaching. Didn't expect a reaction but any fan of DoA is good by me.
@@NealBauersolid list 👍
Alright, I both love you and youre also my mortal enemy. My dude you have great ass taste and literally just reminded me of Ready 2 Rumble for the first time in a decade, I personally think the Dreamcast is the best system of my young childhood and I am to this day insanely impressed on the actual library of games available for it. Which is also why youre my mortal enemy. How dare you be involved with the downfall of the dreamcast it didnt need help to fail hahahaha
While my mission wasn't to become your mortal enemy, I'll do my best to not let you down again.
I WILL DESTROY YOU, APATHETIC MOTH! MARK MY WORDS! DESTROY!!!!!
I remember that there was a Gamecube on my nearest toyshop showcasing Mario Sunshine, I usually skipped catholic confirmation vows to play for 2 hours straight, one time an employee aporach to me (and I tought to myself: “oh man Im dead, dream its over, well it was good while it last) then the man tells me: “hey kid, why don’t you put the book here so you can play more compfortable?” 😂 great memorie from my youth
dude, your comedy sold me, i subscribed for all notification....great job!
Welcome aboard and thank you so much! Can't get over how well this video has been received and I'm working on cleaning up my channel so new guests don't have to see the clutter that has built up over the last ten years.
Let me know what you'd like to see (or how I can improve) as I've learned a metric ton of what I've been doing wrong thanks to the comments on this video. 😅
Man I love your editing
It’s so nice to see someone mention colony wars. Such an awesome game. If you like space shooters like freespace, check it out!
Brother you are reaching here. I thought the title was an obvious clickbait. Sega’s internal fighting, bad marketing decision, piracy and console rivals destroyed them!
But hey that was enjoyable and a great story to hear! Thanks for this!
Did you edit this?! The editing is FANTASTIC and polished!
this gotta turn into a movie or mini series
I have! It's called "We're #2" and it's written from the perspective of a game store being absorbed into a large (moderately incompetent) corporate entity.
@@NealBauer checking it out now
So I guess the real tragedy of this video is. You went to school for 2d not 3d
Well, the benefit of going to school for 2D was that I got to learn under Chuck Jones as he got his Honorary Doctorate. While that did absolutely NOTHING for my career, twenty-plus years later I was asked by Yale's Animation department to talk to their students about the importance of keeping their 2D skills sharp...
...which as ALSO done nothing for my career. :/
For any collectors out there, the Hollywood Video rentals systems are identifiable as they are Rev0 with security screws.
If it makes you feel any better, me and all my friends who worked at Hollywood Video in the mid 00s were stealing retail movies by just throwing them into the bin behind the counter and taking them out with us at closing.
So in a way, we may have accidentally helped kill Hollywood Video.
We were also really high at work.
Regardless of your involvement in the whole debacle, thanks for making a great video and working on old educational games that I definitely played in the computer lab!
Long live SEGA. It was fun while it lasted. Never forgotten. 😔
Very interesting video! I wouldn't feel too bad about it though (hindsight and all). I appreciated the Golden Boy clips, too! That show is funny as hell! Make sure to change those air filters out
thanks for showing up in my algorithm, this is really good
this is a fascinating video. you've got a new subscriber! personally i've always felt that the dreamcast's biggest problem was actually sort of similar to the saturn's - it's launch just wasn't timed well at all, even if sega had the fundamentals of the console down with the dreamcast a lot better than they did with the saturn. they just released the thing too damn early. when sega launched the dreamcast, the N64 and playstation still had a good 3 years left in their lifespan, and as such many of us who were playing on one of those two consoles - and had likely just bought an N64 or playstation a year or 2 prior - weren't suddenly going to give sega the money for a whole new console already, especially when sony, nintendo, and eventually microsoft were all going to end up releasing potentially more powerful consoles at the normal timeframe the next generation of consoles would be expected to launch in a few years later. at the time it gave the dreamcast the appearance of being some sort of awkward "in-between" console, just as the playstation and N64 were entering the 2nd half of their lifecycles and really showing off what they could do at the same time. i remember at the time thinking the dreamcast looked cool and all, but given the fact that i was playing or anticipating stuff stuff like perfect dark, conker's bad fur day, or hell even the N64 version of san francisco rush 2049, which holds up pretty well against the dreamcast version, sega's cool factor wasn't enough to make me invest in a whole new console 3 years too early when i wanted to see what the actual next gen console lineup was going to be first. and i'm sure millions of other people felt the same way. in retrospect, the dreamcast is absolutely one of my favorite consoles now as well, and is arguably an even more capable console than the ps2 ended up being. but sega shoving it out the door half-way between generation cycles was just a bad idea, and not a particularly good look at the time. you gotta give people more time to want or be ready for a new console. sega just didn't do that, and thusly for a lot of people the dreamcast was just that cool looking thing that none of us were going to go spend $200+ on when we hadn't even been playing our current-gen consoles that long yet. it just wasn't worth it.
Great video, While I was watching it I kept thinking that you looked like some celebrity but I couldn't think of who. Now I know Better Call Saul!
Ha! It's funny you say that as I recently made a video on social media using a "older you" filter. Turns out I'm probably going to continue to look like Saul (Bob Odenkirk) for the foreseeable future. 😂
@@NealBauer Lol, Halloween is coming up. If you go to a party you definitely need to go as Saul.
As an Arsenal fan, Dreamcast will never die. I never knew what was a Dreamcast but it always looks good on an Arsenal shirt.
Wow, I didn’t even know there was an early rental Dreamcast release. I’m not sure I had the money to rent it back then.
I just picked one up 3 weeks ago. I was able to borrow one and play "Code Name: Veronica," back in the early 2000's, but haven't had much experience with it otherwise. Still, I look forward to collecting a few titles, and seeing what I missed.
" ( Awkward laughter noises from a guy in a falsetto voice who says ) CLAIRE ".
Dreamcast is my favorite Sega console of all time. Could you please make more videos about it?
Also, how long did you stay with Hollywood? Would love to hear more of your experiences with the different companies you worked for.
You got with “in the year of our Jurassic park” 😂
Lol. The air filter comment rings true, great work man.
The Dreamcast will never die, its beyond Legendary and nothing ever came close at that time.