explain to me

>>4162832
Keep in mind that Saturn was Sega's most successful console ever in Japan, outselling even the PlayStation for most of its life. Japanese gamers and developers weren't too happy when Sega ended Saturn support to focus on Dreamcast.

Over here in Burgerland, Sega CD, 32X and Saturn were gigantic clusterfucks that destroyed consumer confidence in Sega. Dreamcast did have an incredible launch, but after that most people waited to see how the PS2 would do. It also didn't help that major third parties like EA refused to support Dreamcast after the disastrous Saturn era in the west.

>>4162832

Sega of Japan and Sega of America disagreed on just about everything; the ensuing infighting more or less doomed the Dreamcast before the PS2 even launched.

>>4162832
Because Segata Sanshiro was the key to Saturn's success in Japan. The closest thing we have to an American version of Segata Sanshiro is Chuck Norris, but I'm not sure how well the Saturn would have sold in America if Chuck Norris did a Segata Sanshiro-esque commercial.

>>4162882
So why did the Saturn do so well in Japan and garbage in the US?
>>4162913
What kind of infighting went on? Why did the US branch have so much power to negatively affect sales and what did they do? Or was it Japan's fault? Or both?

And does anyone have accurate graphs of Saturn and Dreamcast vs other consoles sales figures?

>>4164037

Sega Saturn was long dead before the Chuck Norris meme. Prior to the internet meme nobody gave a shit about him, even the Norris memes weren't originally about Norris (they were about Vin Diesel)

Meanwhile, the Dreamcast did amazingly well in EU, and could have easily been dominant if not for Sega failing to secure EA games. If Dreamcast had scored a FIFA then PS2 would have struggled in the EU.

>>4164124
Virtua Fighter helped a lot. It wasn't even a pack in and it sold basically 1:1 with Saturn hardware. The arcade scene was a lot more influential in Japan than in the West at this point in time, and the Saturn was THE console for arcade ports. Additionally, 3D wasn't as big of a meme in Japan as it was in the US, so there were a ton of RPGs, fighters, VNs, and such rest never saw the light of day overseas. Ultimately, Saturn's library was just a lot more appealing in Japan than in the West.

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>>4164124
Saturn did not do that well as they like you to believe. It was crushed by PlayStation

>>4164210

holy shit that Sony domination.

Surprised it took them so long to get into the industry, since they were supplying parts to both Sega and Nintendo

>>4164210
Saturn and PlayStation launched in 1994 in Japan. Also, what is this graph even showing? Market share? Market cap? Titles in development? Means fuck all without context.

>>4162832
The Dreamcast was fucked simply due to the management disasters leading to the Sega Saturn failure.

> Fucked up with the Saturn.
> PS1 becomes dominant.
> Sega has to overcome a massive Sony fan base.

It really is that simple. If the Saturn had performed even marginally well in the U.S., say selling 15 million units or so, the Dreamcast would have probably been a hit. But the U.S. market had completely drunk the Sony kool-aid and Sony was dishing out almost laughably deceitful info on the power of the upcoming PS2.

Relative to the time of it's launch and the roughly 18 months it was fully supported in the U.S. I will however argue that the Dreamcast, regardless of sales success, was the greatest console there has ever been. No other console has come close to the value it provided at launch:

1. Cheap as fuck for the technological leap it provided in 1999. It is probably the largest leap in console gaming we've experienced. Only the Gamecube is cheaper from an inflation adjusted perspective but the Gamecube didn't bring anything new to the table as it was years late to the party.
2. Real online with a fucking browser.
3. VGA out is underrated. Hardly anyone had a fucking component video capable TV back then and the PS2 and other consoles barely supported higher resolutions and not until nearly half a decade later. The Dreamcast let you utilize display tech that everyone had access to at the time.
4. Dense as fuck game library for the 18 months it was on the market. Launch was great and it pretty much didn't stop.

>>4164176
Yea, that makes sense. I guess the Saturn was seen as too niche for US audiences.
>>4164210
Like he >>4164226 said, what is the graph showing?
>>4164294
I agree, Dreamcast was great, possibly my favorite /vr/ console. My all-time favorite console would be the PS2, but thats not retro. And these Sega threads are so bittersweet for me. I wish the Dreamcast lasted as long as the PS2 and Gamecube, it had such potential to keep going. I wish the Saturn did better, too, because of what you said, but I'm not crazy about its library overall, though there are some amazing gems for it. Just wish more people bought it and supported Sega.

I'm getting a free CRT and want a gen 6 system. Either dreamcast or ps2. Which should I focus on?

>>4165678
>doesn't already have those
>doesn't already know the pros and cons of each console
>doesn't know any games he'd like to try, or which library he'd prefer the most
Seeing as you know fuck all about vidya, just get a Dreamcast and a stack of CD-Rs. You'll be able to try a bunch of games on the cheap, before next semester starts.

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I love the Dreamcast, but it did not have everything going for it. They made a lot of blunders. Firstly, despite intense marketing, they already had a handicap working against them due to consumer perception of Sega at the time. It was a "fool me once" scenario where Sega had dicked over consumers far too many times, and no amount of promises could make up for it. On top of that, you had a libary of arcade-oriented games during a time when people were becoming interested in stuff like first-person shooters, you had a quirky controller which lacked two analog sticks (despite the PS1 having this since 1997), and most importantly: you had the looming presence of the PS2 on the horizon, which looked like a black monolith of power, could play DVDs, had better graphics, and, unlike Sega, comsumers' experience with their previous console actually instilled consumer confidence. You also had die-hard Nintendo fans that were willing to wait for the GameCube, and people that were interested in the new kid, Xbox. With all of this in mind, Dreamcast was doomed before it began. However, it's still one of the best consoles ever made, and I would easily rank it as the best of its generation.

>>4164153
Chuck Norris did some movies that apparently the kids call Kusoge nowadays-- in the 70s.
By early 90s he was a ridiculously lame joke as evidenced by Walker Texas Ranger.
The worst part about the Norris meme is that a lot of younger people don't remember just how lame he was, and at the same time don't realize what a massive cunt the actual man is irl

Honestly, I'm sad David Carradine died the way he did. He shoulda got the meme cred instead

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>>4164554
>it had such potential to keep going
it's only an old meme
Soul Calibur 2 was IMPOSSIBLE for the DC
even all the EA multiplatform
stop dreaming Segafags

>>4165735
If Tekken 3 can be ported from System 12 to PlayStation, then Soulcalibur 2 could've been ported to Dreamcast, particularly since it started its life as a NAOMI title.

>>4165725
>The worst part about the Norris meme is that a lot of younger people don't remember just how lame he was
Pretty sure the whole Norris worship thing was supposed to be taken ironically

>>4166006

Like most ironic jokes online, they end up being taken at face value by your average 89IQ. Irony is just lame all round, and should be avoided.

>>4165735

VF4 was planned for DC. As was VO:Force. And we never got to see late gen DC games.

>>4162832
Shenmue

like this comment and subscribe to my youtube channel if you cry every time

In Japan, people hated dreamcast because Saturn was already doing well, and then Sega cut it off so they could focus on Dreamcast

In burgerland, the colossal failure of the genesis addons and then massive flop of the Saturn made Sega sink a great deal

PS1 was insanely popular, and the PS2 was already announced, so most people ignored the Dreamcast because they were waiting for PS2. As soon as PS2 launched, Dreamcast was practically dead in the water.

>>4164124
>So why did the Saturn do so well in Japan

Their marketing involved a karateka hermit beating people to death because they went to play baseball or clubbing, instead of playing Saturn games.

In Japan, Virtua Fighter was bigger than Street Fighter ever was, and the console came bundled with it. It also had Sakura Taisen (steampunk mecha srpg dating sim), and Grandia (was as popular as FF7), and the best ports of Capcom and SNK games at the time.

Sega also relaxed their release standards and the game ended up with tons of adult rated mah-jong games.

>>4164153
Segata Sanshiro was so popular in Japan that he could appear in a Sega conference and everyone would be screaming of excitement to the point that it can cause hearing damage.

The only *anything* in the western world that ever came close to that was the early live shows of the Beatles. Just to put it in perspective.

>>4166224
>Their marketing involved a karateka hermit beating people to death because they went to play baseball or clubbing
is there any actual evidence (e.g. market research) that segata sanshiro was crucial to saturn's japanese success or is it just a LOL EPIC xD meme

>>4166231
Jesus Christ you are exaggerating so much.

No, Segata Sanshiro was not as popular in Japan as the Beatles were in the West and you know that

>>4166231
>Segata Sanshiro was so popular in Japan that he could appear in a Sega conference and everyone would be screaming of excitement to the point that it can cause hearing damage.

Source: my ass, my mouth, my ass.

>>4162832
just in case,the production has stopped and i was shocked!

>>4162832
Everyone loved the Genesis/MegaDrive so tons of people bought the Saturn.

Everyone hated the Saturn and so few people bought the Dreamcast.

>>4166231
if some sega guy was as popular as the beatles sega would still be swimming in consoles. you dont seem to understand that paul mcartney is the #1 selling/richest musician of all time.

>>4162832
Saturn has a lot more games. Dreamcast has amazing arcade ports and some original gems, but the Saturn library is far better.

>>4166239
The whole Segata thing wasn't just a bunch of commercials and a theme song. They had him appearing in live events, game shows, meet the fans, very often. There was this whole Sega Club thing with Segata coaching people to do their best, they handed out half a dozen demo discs through that and god knows what else.

THEN they made a game for him, and he was spearheading the Dreamcast launch event too.

And don't forget that he wasn't some suddenly-famous actor, he was already huge from Kamen Rider.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7Et9NhHPpE

According to him, the shows had as much as 50000 people.

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>>4165678
depends what you're going for.
it's easier to find ps2 games and they're generally cheaper too but the majority are trash, the ps2 also plays ps1 games and dvds. on the other hand the dreamcast is just cooler. The library was smaller but the ratio of good game to bad games is much larger and many of these games can only be properly played on the dreamcast like powerstone or seaman.

Do japanese dreamcast peripherals for example the arcade stick, work on american Dreamcast systems?

This is very important so I don't waste over a hundred bucks. The reason I want a dreamcast is as an arcade fighter machine.

>>4166640
Yes. Why on earth would a controller be region locked? Is there even an example of such a thing?

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>>4165706
t. larper
please go back to /v/

>>4166640
Yes

>>4166648
Controllers aren't region locked but some region games won't work with some controllers. For example, HOTD won't work with jap gun.

>>4167054
HOTD was an exceptional case because Sega decided against bringing the official gun peripheral over to the US because of Columbine. That certainly didn't stop Interact from releasing one, though.

>>4162832
>what the fuck happened

The Japanese economic recession happened right around the time of the dreamcast release, then sega went full retard and poured all their money into Shenmue, the most expensive game ever made at the time, which was a massive commercial failure & fucked them to death financially.

>>4162832
the ps2 happened

>>4167112
Why was Shenmue so disliked?

>>4167241

the game itself wasnt disliked. However pouring an unprecedented amount of money into a niche title with limited appeal outside japan at a time when they were already financially struggling and Japans economy was starting a rapid decline was about the stupidest move sega could have possibly made.

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>>4162832
Saturn outsold Dreamcast mostly because it had a longer lifetime, with success in the Japanese market. Dreamcast was short lived and was practically dead on arrival. I remember everyone would say "I'll wait for Playstation 2" whenever anyone would mention the Dreamcast. Sony ensured that with their already strong market takeover in the USA and strategically releasing theoretical specs of the PS2 prior to the US launch (I recall conversations and magazine articles how the Dreamcast can do almost a practical 4 million polygons to PS2's over 100 million non-lit non-shaded polygons to emphasize the power differential). That and all the infighting dysfunction within Sega doomed their ability for success.


>>4166239
>>4166479
I think Sagata Sanshiro is the equivalent to Kevin Butler to the PS3. Just an actor in a marketing campaign. Segata Sanshiro is sort of like slurring the words Sega Saturn Shiro, with Shiro meaning "white" as that was the newer model of the Saturn. The Saturn already had a large Japanese installed base before the white model. So I do not think the character was crucial to the Japanese success, they were just memorable commercials. In fact, I had already left Japan at that time before they ever aired any Segata Sanshio ads, before those Sega leveraged their games on the system as I remembered Sakura Taisen ads airing on Evangelion. There were other forgettable shows, but I remember a Sega Rally commercial and Virtua Fighter ads too. Please note this is only from personal experience from that time so the perspective may be distorted like how I missed out and never saw any "blast processing" ads ever in the days of the Genesis and thought it was BS when I first heard of those well later (around the Dreamcast release funny enough).

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>>4166224
I would say the Saturn had games that catered to the Japanese. Again with my distorted perspective when I was in Japan in those days, the PC-Engine was bigger and the hotness and not the Famicom. The Saturn pretty much adopted all those PCE games/developers and not the PCFX. The red label games on Saturn (the ones that allowed tits and adult themes) continued from the PC-Engine's light restrictions on content. However, Sega tried to catch up to Sony by no longer allowing red label games (yellow label is suggestive of sexual nature, but no topless women nor anime tits). Notice how there are no late release red label games, but plenty more yellow label games.

Sony's policies for publishing in Japan didn't even allow for what would be "yellow label" content on Saturn (they also required multiplatform games to have an exclusive feature not found on their competitors' consoles, so that's where the extra story modes or galleries which made Sony the choice to pick in the end).

While I was excited to preorder Grandia (got the map, CD, and folder/pamphlet), I would say it was not as popular as FF7 at all, but still very hype of a game. I can validate Virtua Fighter was bigger than Street Fighter in that time in Japan, for some reason I don't know. I want to like Sakura Taisen again, but that phase has passed.


>>4167241
Aside from the music and atmosphere, it was not that good. It threw together a bunch of weird horrible ideas in a way most had not seen put together that way before. Similar to how a lot of strange, yet interesting games the Dreamcast had at that time like Jet Set Radio, Seaman, Samba De Amigo, Space Channel 5, Chu Chu Rocket, etc. Sega subscribed hard to the "innovate or die" strategy for the Dreamcast and still died.

>>4169474
>Segata Sanshiro is sort of like slurring the words Sega Saturn Shiro, with Shiro meaning "white"

I don't think it means white. They are using the imperative form of shimasu. = Do.
His name is a pun on sega saturn. The ads have him saying "Play the saturn! Play it until your fingers break"

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>>4166010
This, being a shithead ironically is still being a shithead. Never got why people didn't see that.

>>4167112

See the thing with Shenmue was that Sega went in knowing it would never recoup costs, they flat out admitted something along the lines of every Dreamcast owner would need to buy 2-3 copies for the game to break even. It really was just Sega giving Suzuki free reign. Sega had pretty much been on the verge of bankruptcy since the Sega CD, so this kind of skating oblivion was nothing new to them. I mean shit, they obviously weren't too unhappy with it's reception since they went ahead and greenlit a sequel.
On a side note, Shenmue 3 better not disappoint.

>>4169542

Answered it with your own post. Most people in this world have very fragile egos, it's a defense mechanism.

>>4169532
Shiro also means white. It's a pun, dingus.