Old Sega Veteran just joined... what did you want to know?

Oh right, I didn't realise it was just a rolling demo. I though it was somewhat playable. D'oh.

 

To my knowledge there's no playable build, though Ryo Suzuki of SegaSaturno.com has posted screenshots of what appears to be a working Dreamcast version on his site - maybe he's got a later working copy that is more than just the rolling demo I mentioned earlier?

 

No, sorry I don't. Basically I wasn't working there at the time and went to go see a good friend of mine that was. When I was in his cube he said "wanna see something really cool?" and that's when I saw it.

Sorry, I was only in the US.

 

1.) How was it working at Sega during the transition between the Saturn and the Dreamcast? I've always wondered what was happening as there was a gap of around a year and a half between the Saturn's death and the Dreamcast's launch in the US.

2.) Was there any effort in getting more overseas releases for the Saturn during this period? I know that there were several games rumored to be coming out for the Saturn in 1998 (like Resident Evil 2, Sonic the Fighters, and Street Fighter III) that never materialized, and there were also several games slated for release overseas that never made it outside of Japan.

Many thanks for taking the time to read these questions!

 

Mother of god.
Did it utilize an add on to run ?

 

Seriously? Are we all really wondering still any the dreamcast failed to compete with the ps2 in japan?

The numbers are absolutely staggering to look at. The dreamcast was outsold by the ps2 extremely quickly.

The shortages Sony had experienced sfter launch gave the DC more life but it was on life support at that point... The power vr processor caused shortages in the USA as well which meant the us launch didn't go as well as they would have wanted...

But the ps2 had a DVD drive and was such a huge hit that it for the most part started sales if DVD movies in japan. That's how much a cultural impact it had.

So I doubt piracy was that much to blame. Circa year 2000 most people weren't burning boot loaders and iso games for the Dreamcast...

 

That's your take. Personally I would also be interested to know about the internal dialogue at Sega - did they perceive piracy as anything like as much of a threat as the PS2?

 

Yeah, we need a turn system.

 

DonnyK, just 2 more questions from me:

Just how much did the dotcom bubble affect the decisions of those running Sega?

It seems to me that they were obsessed to jump into the internet just like any idiot trying to get an IPO at the time did, but they failed to realize that the Netlink released at the very beginning of the bubble did nothing to keep the Saturn from going down even further. And let's be honest there wasn't that much of a jump in internet tech between 96 and 99, bandwidth was 2 or 3 years from becoming commonplace.

I know sony had a similar strategy with the PS2 at first, but they weren't so obsessed with it as to pack in a modem with the thing. Although maybe the fact that the bubble bursted before the PS2's launch had something to do with it not having a modem, but still we're talking about months between the two events, it's obvious it was going to be sold separately to begin with.

And lastly, is it true that the PowerVR was originally going to push almost 10MM.poly/sec but it was underclocked/crippled to avoid overheating issues? Didn't anyone at Sega thought of using a bigger case or something to improve the airflow? After all crippling the GPU in a console seems like a big concession.

 

Can you describe what you saw? How did it compare with the arcade version?

 

Sorry guys, if I don't answer your questions it's not cause I'm ignoring them it's because there are so many questions that I'm trying to pick the ones I have the most information on. There was a tiny skeleton crew between the Saturn and Dreamcast and while I worked on and off for the company for a long time, I wasn't there during this process so it's hard for me to answer deep Saturn questions. I rose through the ranks during the Dreamcast's life.

As for piracy, to be quite honest... we didn't notice. The first time I had ever heard of it was when we were working on PSO ver.2 and I just dismissed it. Didn't really think anything about it cause it really didn't affect us and our work. I think by the time piracy really took off on the system, it was on it's last legs sales wise so it wasn't a big deal.

The PS2 was there and kicking our ass and the writing was on the wall. There was no way the market was going to support 4 systems at once and we knew we had the last place system.

As for the dot.com question... Sega was very smart and created sega.com and they were their own company but one floor down from us. So Sega treated the company of sega.com like a dotcom and use that to create seganet. So when the dot.com bubble burst, Sega.com took the hit and not Sega Enterprises. Sega.com was sold off to Nokia and the old sega.com testers went on to test Ngage stuff.

 

Another few ones from me even tought you'll probably have no clue about it... but who knows maybe you're overheard something around

What is the secret behing the Sega Saturn copy protection? It's the only protection not properly understood up to today! (a nice record i have to say! )

Is it true that DC didn't use the same protection because Sega didn't even consider the Saturn Copy-protected?

Is it true that retrocomaptibility to the saturn was considered for the DC but was scrapped during the project due to the low saturn sales?

Lastly, did Sega actually tried hard with the Saturn? It seemed to me that they dropped the ball to easily and left the market for a long time to Sony without retaliating...

 

Not true! The Jaguar's encryption was never cracked... the companies that bought them out found the dongles that allowed you to bypass it, is all!

Also modern PC copy protection... particularly online game CD codes

 

Hi donnyk

are there any unreleased saturn dreamcast or mega drive games that you saw in production you wished had been released ..maybe ones that the public where unaware of.

i know its a typical question and sorry if you have already answered it i just want to be a part of whats happening lol :thumbsup:

 

Epic thread btw!

 

The Dreamcast gave me so many awesome memories! It welcomed me into young adulthood, and it's my favourite modern system, by far. Sorry if I sound corny, but it's an integral part of who I grew up to be. The Dreamcast was awesome, and it always takes me to awesome times of my life.

I'm glad to finally find someone to thank for that.

 

Hi and thanks for that amazing thread, can't believe I've learnt so much in 10 minutes reading
Just got one question atm: why is there sooooo many limited edition dreamcast that got released in japan and so few elsewhere ? do you have any infos about planned limited-edition systems that finally got canned in the us ? Also, is there any promotional underground dreamcast stuff that was meant only for sega employees ?

 

re-read my post. We perfectly know how it _worked_ in the jaguar (even if we had no code)! We have no clue about saturn and its weird hellish protection

 

-Did you meet any of the famous and/or obscure Japanese devs?
-You say you joined in 1994. If you read interviews w/ the developers that started in the early 80's they ALL say that Sega was this special place where the developers got to do "whatever they wanted". Was SoA anything like this in the 90s?
-Did you work on any arcade hardware?