Was doing a lots of research for a project and i came across startling numbers that seemed to reaffirm the idea in my head that the death of the Dreamcast is grossly over exaggerated. The quote below is from the Dreamcast-Talk Post's that started all of this and is lots of more info there, i also condensed it a quick video if people don't want to read all of this and see some of the "Documentary" that got this ball rolling Video: Post: http://dreamcast-talk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10445 "One question that i always thought was how many units did Sega ship/ manufacture from 98 to 2001? The reason i have thought about this is because so many sites list different figures, some say as high as 11 million and some like Wikipedia as low as 8.2 million. After doing some extensive research i found the main number people refer too is from the 2001 Sega Annual Report (https://segaretro.org/images/8/80/AnnualReport2001_English.pdf page 14) This number in my opinion is out of date, this number of units represent the number of Dreamcast's Sold until march 31st 2001. Those who know the Dreamcast from around this time know that shortly after the spring of 2001 Sega slashed the price to 50 Dollars in order to sell of excess inventory. We know that in west Dreamcast hardware was sold until sometime in 2002 until most inventory was finally depleted (this of course depends on where you live ect. Adam K says that His local Toy R Us was selling Dreamcast stuff until 2005 when the Xbox 360 came out). From doing more internet sleuthing i found out in 2002 Dreamcast sales still reached almost a million units (http://segaretro.org/images/f/f0/AnnualReport2002_SemiAnnual_English.pdf page 7) this report in brief states this: from 2001 to 2002 Sega had Sold 130,000 units in Japan and In America 530,000 units. They then go on to say they wish to in the Holiday season on 2002 to sell the remaining inventory for these regions which are 40,000 for Japan and 230 000 For the US. It should be noted that since this does not include Europe (In which the Dc was almost as popular as in North America and even lasted longer) we should assume the sales figures should be similar to the Us. This would total to (Not including Europe) to 9.13 million units. If we say Europe is a little lower to America than it Comes to 10 Million units. The 2003 report does not say anything about Dreamcast Sales so i have no Accurate info, if anyone has any please share! Anyway i think stuff like Wikipedia should be updated ect to match this more realistic number as it makes the Dc look pretty bad and may elude to that it failed (which i don't think so which is a entirely different topic)" "One other interesting note is that according to the 2000 report (http://segaretro.org/images/9/94/AnnualReport2000_English.pdf page 12) is that total sales in dc hardware are 4.65 million, this would mean that between 2000 and early 2001 Sega sold 3.55 million consoles even after it being retired, this is more evidence (to me anyways) that the dreamcast did not fail as hard in the holidays of 2000 as everyone is told." "Some one else also did some research and found some similar numbers of 9.13 million (http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?29320-Accurate-(probably)-Dreamcast-hardware-sales) however accurate Europe sales seems to be missing here too, also here is a new 2000 report here https://www.segasammy.co.jp/english/ir/release/pdf/past/sega/2001/20001027e.pdf" From the Video: "The fact that Sega was loosing so much money during this time would lead one to believe that it had to be the Dreamcast that was loosing the money, but the problem goes deeper than that. The problem really started back in the early 90's when SOJ forced SOA & Tom K to launch the 32x and then later to launch the Saturn early against Tom's wishes. Then of course there is the famous E3 97 comment that more or less killed the Saturn in the west (Despite my love for the Saturn) this caused Sega in the west to have no real source of income during most of 97, all of 98 and most of 99 and if one looks as Sega finances from around the time you find that Sega was in the red by the summer of 97 not to mention the Arcade industry dying (Remember even though we think of Sega as home console manufacture they where and still mostly a Arcade company) so everything was against Sega at the time." While opinion on these will widely vary i think its safe to say that the Dreamcast did not die at the very least as bad as people say, i would love to hear your opinion and would love if someone could find more concrete numbers of Europe's Sales as sill to this day i have found no official statement from Sega on the Matter Edit (from Black Squirl on Sega Retro on the matter) "The reason European Dreamcast figures are hard to come by is a lack of (English) sources on the interwebs (a.k.a. nobody has scanned later issues of the UK official Dreamcast magazine)"
Thanks for posting this. The Dreamcast absolutely did better than most people think, I'm very glad you shared those annual reports. Despite what's out in public view (including Okawa's capital infusion), to those within SEGA especially the American division, it was very clear that Okawa wanted SEGA to be a software-only company. This was evident in the build-up to the Dreamcast launch and afterwards. You might find this thread interesting: https://assemblergames.com/threads/...een-ported-to-dreamcast-but-never-were.66870/
Loved that article! It's a shame that most of these facts have slipped the general public's radar for all these years, decided to make this post so at the very least show people some actual facts and figures instead of 8th hand information and opinions. I think the people purposely exaggerated the failure of the Dreamcast as something of a scape goat for Sega as a Console manufacture. As with everything its a very complex subject but i think from late 98 and on-wards (outside of the Japanese launch) I think Sega performed at the top of their game. A whole topic that could be a thread on its on was some interesting facts i came across in all my research was that i think the Dreamcast was meant to last longer than it did. While interviews from Peter More state that SOJ made him kill the Dreamcast i think their is more too it than that.Charle Bellfield who was VP of Sales and Marketing from 99-2003 was in a interview in early January of 01 and he was asked what the future is, and he casually slipped said in a sad voice "We have no plans to start manufacturing again" and was the first time anyone at Sega said anything of the matter public. It was a week until Any more official word was giving on the matter. My opinion is is that he let that slip prematurely and Sega more or less had to come clean after that statement. Some may disagree but im under the impression that Sega original plan was to gradually wind down the Dreamcast and announce their shift to third party sometime later in 2001, due to how many Dreamcast games where slated for a fall release and where almost out of no where (according to interviews) canceled and moved to other platforms in a matter of weeks. There is other evidence to support this too but what do you guys think, am i just crazy?
Dreamcast was more sucessfull than the saturn, in two and half years it sold roughly the same as the predecessor that took four years to achieve. The hustle and bustle was that the Saturn was the bleeding point for Sega, 32X and CD were failures, but they were add ons which means that their importance in the market was minimal, screwing up the main console was the biggest reason by far. Stolar have a harsh approach in short term to make things go on track again, in the interview with jordan he had almost no faith in the console and it became clear that by 97 it had lost most of it's support, prompting him to kill it prematurely, the issue was that NA and EU became ophans for one and half year, but appearently it was because they couldn't afford to pay developers to keep supporting it. SoJ was the main problem, they had created conflits with SoA for no reason, starting that with the antecipated launch of Saturn by surprise in a few retail chains that lead others to boycott, which lead Kalinske, who made the Genesis a sucess, step off the company by 96, and then the issues with the Sonic Xtreme development with the Nights engine, as Stollar accept the request of the developers in order to make it in time for X-mas, but then threatned by Naka who ended killing the project.
Its a pretty long story but il do my best to summarize In the Start when Tom K got hired at SOA, SOJ showed it went to great lengths to allow Tom to do what he wanted to do (like bundling Sonic 1 and dropping the price of the Genesis) but once SOA got really successful something happened that still no one has been able to explain, SOJ started to purposely hinder SOA. It started with small things like going behind Toms back by Sponsoring the LPGA for no reason other than to waggle their finger, then it grew by undoing stuff SOA did and purposely not going through with the deal with Sony (due to it was brought on by Tom) and then Silicon Graphics again just because SOA suggested it and it was American, this as History shows resulted in Two new competitors for Next generation Consoles. However then it got really bad, as over time resentment started to dwell in the higher ups in SOJ. Tom early on in his time at Sega was shown a 32 bit cartridge based console, that both him and Al N both agreed on the spot must never be released in the west. then in the summer of 94 Tom was ordered by SOJ to release this 32 bit console to help "bridge the gap between the generation" Tom like us thought this was ludicrous and saw no need to do it, he had to sadly and his team remade it into the 32x we know and love/hate. Tom sensing that Sega was losing its grip decided the Future of the company would depend on how Saturn was launched in the states. Tom originally wanted it to be launched in 96 to help make a killer game library and to help cheapen the console but he was overruled to have it set for early September on 95 okay no biggie. Then Tom when out to dinner with the head of sega Nakyama and over a steak dinner was causally told that SOJ had decided to launch the Saturn that spring to help get an edge. Tom was furious as the whole marketing and game development was made around the Sept release date so to ease developers in not to mention they could not make enough consoles in time. But Tom was told to do so or he was fired, which meant he became a puppet more or less. He managed to pull it off but as History shows us that was not a great decision, with all his power gone Tom left Sega in late 95 much to the shock of the higher ups at SOJ. The final nail in the coffin was X-Treme being cancelled and the famous E3 comment and all the reasons i said in the original post. As you can see this was all a mess
Sega succeeded for the decade it did in spite of its Japanese minders. That said, Okawa became CEO and he wanted to move the company into being just a 3rd party software vendor (on the home market). I don't know that the decision was down to "losing money" as much as a different philosophy on how to increase profits. I will say that the lack of EA and Square support was critically challenging, coupled with the lack of a DVD player, just made the PS2 that much more enticing to buyers. The writing was on the wall, and SEGA was never going to spend the money to compete in advertising with the Big 3.
http://www.goodcowfilms.com/farm/games/www.eidolons-inn.net/segabase/index-segadchistory1.html Don't mind the url name.
Having been there at the time - around 2000 and 2001 the PR China was flooded with Dreamcast consoles - vendor stalls/shops stacked to the ceiling with machines... Regardless of how many units they sold (or didn't sell) - console manufacturers just about always take a loss on the sale of the console with the hope of recouping their losses through software (which is why the big N always preferred cartridges back in the day, because they offered them more control on the software side of things) My point is that it's hard to measure the success of a console based solely on the number of units sold. I think most people agree that Sega failed because of poor marketing decisions - and they had no hope (from the start) of ever taking the crown from Sony. They knew the PS2 was going to clean up, and it did - killing off the Dreamcast so early was simply damage limitation.
You say you where in China, could you tell me the direction to Yan Tin Apartments On a side note that must have been a sight with all those dreamcasts
Brand recognition alone did so much damage for Sega... Just as many felt scorched by the relative failure of the Mega CD, 32X and then Saturn after the Mega Drive, a large number of gamers held out for Sony's PS2 on just the name without ever being shown a single frame of what the machine could do. When the PS2 finally did launch, it served as a gateway into the world of DVD on top of being a formidable games console, becoming the multimedia powerhouse countless rivals had tried and failed to get onto shelves. I can still remember all the buzz about the M2 project that ultimately didn't come to much in the end, and I was surely not the only person deterred by the £170 asking price of the Saturn's Video CD Card. For all their weaknesses, the numbering system that Sony adopted for the PS2 and PS3 meant enough people were expecting more of the same, with both "sequel" platforms delivering after initially worrying starts.
I think the whole DVD thing is quite overhyped. When Sega released the DC, DVD wasn't that popular, it was a still young format, it wasn't until 2001 that it was something matured enough, plus sony was one of the creators of DVD, so they had the advantage in PS2, Nintendo avoided to pay royalties with the mini DVD and overall many games fitted into a single disc, or having a dual disc wasn't a too much "nuisance" as most games of that era were linear. Just as I tought, SoJ screwed SoA and Kalinske left, which is why Stolar came with a harsh approach, he would only accept the job if he had the final word to make a sucessor which Nakayama accepted. Nakayama wanted to push the DC US release to 2000, and that the console should be sold online only, Stolar had to keep pushing the original stuff such as the 9/9/99 date which he sucedded, but he got fired just a few weeks before, some people say that it began with a joke, the Japanese felt it was a stupid date and Stolar joked something about Hiroshima and that got him fired, but Jordan said it wasn't because of that. I think it was Sonic X Treme cancellation that was the decisive factor to Stolar kill the Saturn and order the Dreamcast development, SoJ was too stubborn and ended giving in with the Yuji Naka threats over the Nights engine, and since they weren't comprehensible, that meant the Saturn was fated to die like a failure, so killing it was the only rational choice that would also make SoJ back the crap off and let SoA do their job.
Not to mention remember the price that would have been added if a dvd player had been added. People forget that one great reason to get the Dreamcast was because of it low price point. A dvd drive would have added at least 100 buck
That's a point that no one get it, the Dreamcast had to start with a attractive price to fix the whole Saturn mess in the west, Sega wanted actually the console to cost 50 dollars more than it was planned to have a imediate profit, but that could be too risky.
I have a book stating 600,000 units were sold in Europe between 2000 and 2001 - I dont remember the name of the book but it featured not only Sega's sales but Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft "net.loss per sold-unit" too.
