I just stumbled over Racketboy’s Dreamcast guide and found it to be error riddled and full of exaggerations, so I decided to correct it just for the fun of it.
Historical Impact
* The Dreamcast was Sega’s fifth and final video game console and the successor to the Sega Saturn. Sega cut off the Saturn’s lifespan early to try to get a head start in competing with the Playstation 2.
* Dreamcast was ahead of its time in many ways. It was the first console to include a built-in modem, Internet support for online gaming, and stunning VGA video output. It was also a large leap in graphical and storage capabilities over the existing PS1 and N64 consoles.
Correction:
- Online-gaming was already supported with the Sega Saturn and Sega’s NetLink service. In fact, that is what the Dreamcast’s online service was based on.
- Naming VGA-output as a feature that was ahead of its time is plain wrong. The N64 supported VGA just as much. Also, let’s not forget that in 1999 VGA-resolutions had been a standard for PC-gamers for half a decade at least. In fact, high-end gamers were already using resolutions up to 1280×1024, so this feature was neither stunning, nor ahead of its time, but merely necessary. Let’s also not forget that the Saturn had support for full SDTV resolution (704×480). And last but not least let’s not forget that direct competitors to the Dreamcast introduced support for HD-resolutions, showing that Sega’s console was rather outdated on that sector.
- It’s always funny to see comparisons of hardware from different generations, especially if this is supposed to show the superiority of the newer console. That doesn’t work, though. Almost every new console generation introduces higher storage capacities and better graphics over the older generation, so mentioning this, is really moot. In fact, the Dreamcast’s storage capacity was dwarfed by Microsoft’s and Sony’s support for DVDs. The fact that many gamers held out on Sega to buy a PS2 instead shows that comparing technical aspects this way to convince gamers of a supposed superiority of a console doesn’t work and actually back then, they compared the Dreamcast specs with the not yet released PS2 rather than with 5 year old hardware.
* The Dreamcast enjoyed one of the best console launches of all time with brisk sales and a solid initial game library. Unfortunately, between the growing media hype and the support for the hot DVD technology, the Playstation 2 quickly limited the sales potential for the Dreamcast.
Comment: The console launch the Dreamcast experienced could be described as mediocre or decent at best. Your misconception comes straight from the mouth of Sega’s Bernie Stolar, who claimed this to make the console look more attractive. However, he compared the launch numbers with those of the Playstation and N64, but those consoles faced a much smaller market at that time, that was only widened massively due to the Playstation’s stunning success. You have to compare the Dreamcast’s launch numbers with its direct competitors. Sony’s Playstation 2 sold twice as many consoles on its launch day a year later, which shows that Sega did not really make use of the market’s potential. Even the Xbox and Gamecube had higher sales numbers on their first day, which makes the Dreamcast launch look more like a fail than anything else. So much for the media hype…
* The Dreamcast only lasted a few short years on the retail scene outside of Japan, but still maintained a strong cult following due to its innovative games, homebrew capabilities and the trickle of interesting imports coming from Japan.
- Comment: This is a moot point too. Show me a console that doesn’t have a strong cult following. Cults around consoles develop easily and are nothing out of the extraordinary. In fact, a console having none would be worth mentioning, but this is just calling the cattle black.
Strengths
* The Dreamcast was a very powerful machine in its day and still holds up surprisingly well in the modern era. It also had some of Sega’s more creative and innovative games, some of which have not yet been ported to other consoles.
- Comment: Let’s put the statement of a powerful machine in perspective. The Dreamcast featured a 200MHz CPU, which was under-powered compared to the PS2’s 300MHz, or the Xbox’ 733Mhz CPU. In fact, the Xbox GPU (233MHz) was already higher clocked than the Dreamcast’s CPU. Implying that the console featured more creative and innovative games is debatable too, since every console had those, just the quantities varied. Still, those innovative games did nowhere near sell as well as those genre-defining games that the competing consoles released, which ultimately caused Sega’s demise, so I would be careful calling Sega’s game library a strength. In fact, it was its onesidedness that kept gamers away from the console.
* As mentioned above, in addition to many common video connections, the Dreamcast also supports native VGA output that makes it ideal for playing the Dreamcast on computer monitors or HDTVs.
* Due to the discoveries made by piracy groups at the end of the Dreamcast’s retail lifecycle, it is very easy to run both rips of commercial games and homebrew efforts like independent games and emulators of older systems without any modifications to the hardware. Because of this, the Dreamcast has one of the best homebrew and emulation scenes along with the original XBox.
* In addition to the quirky Sega-developed games, the Dreamcast is very popular because of its deep library of 2D Fighting and 2D Shooting games (shmups). Many of the original arcade games were originally developed on the NAOMI arcade platform (which is basically Dreamcast hardware with extra RAM), which made it very easy to have arcade-accurate console ports.
- Comment: Well, calling it “very” popular in conjunction with the rather limited fanbase of 2d fighting games and shmups couldn’t be more of an exaggeration. If at all, Sega proved that these genres are not profitable any more due to a lack of fanbase, so makes this statement look pretty ridiculous. Now, if you had said that the console was popular among fighting and shmup fans, this would be entirely different and much more accurate.
Weaknesses
* The Dreamcast was developed before DVD drives had reached an affordable level, so it does not support DVD playback or playing homebrew off of DVD media.
- Comment: I really doubt that the price of DVD-hardware was really what kept Sega from using the technology. After all, they used their very own standard, which was certainly not less pricy than just licensing DVD-technology. Sega’s choice for the GD-ROM was more likely only driven by two aspects: copy protection by using a non-standard format and expanded income due to licensing fees by 3rd party developers. Too bad Sega had almost none and also overlooked the video craze that started with the introduction of DVDs.
* Since it was released a year before the Playstation 2 and two years before the Gamecube and XBox, it does not quite have the graphical capabilities of the later consoles. While it does not really hinder the machine much, some graphic-obsessed gamers may be disappointed.
- Comment: Yet, earlier you called it a powerful system. Well, how powerful is a system, which graphics capabilities settle at the lowest end among all of the consoles of that generation.
* Those gamers looking for many of the popular games from Electronic Arts will be disappointed as EA did not support the Dreamcast after its disputes with Sega during the Saturn era. However, Sega did an excellent job of filling the software gaps itself.
* The RPG genre did not have a very big showing in the Dreamcast library. Skies of Arcadia and Grandia 2 were very strong games, but the rest of the library was limited to a small handful of gems.
Emulation
* If you would prefer to play your Dreamcast games on your PC instead of the actual console, you may need to wait a bit longer for good compatibility.
* While you may get to have a few games playable if you have a high-end PC, most games are quite glitchy if playable at all.
Comment: I wouldn’t call a 1.5Ghz CPu with any DirectX9c-compatible graphics card a high-end PC. I’m aware that the article was written in 2007, but even then this was still an exaggeration. With the release of NullDC at that time, Dreamcast emulation became available even on low-spec systems.
Affordability
* The Dreamcast is actually one of the most affordable consoles on eBay. It is very easy to find one on eBay or in pawn shops or flea markets for under $20.
Comment: So is the Xbox, Saturn, Snes, Nes, Game Gear, Nomad, Master System, Genesis, Playstation, N64… Can you say moot?
* Many of the most popular games for the Dreamcast are also available for just a few dollars each. Add that to the emulation capabilities and you have a very good classic gaming value.
Comment: The emulation capabilities are rather laughable. Sure you have a lot of emulators for the system, but most of them don’t even work full speed, or support the majority of games. In fact, you only have a handful of emulators, which could be called playable. Just take the Snes-emus as an example. Emulation is not bad, yet not quite there (and it’s doubtable that it will ever get there). Simple games without overlays run almost at full speed, but those are rather limited in numbers and also look pretty bad, even for that system. Comparing that emulation back to the Snes-experience I had on my PC in 1999 I have to say that the Dreamcast is massively inferior and that basically goes for any emulation that is still lacking. Snes, N64, PSX games….they were all much better playable on my old rig, than they ever were on the Dreamcast. If it comes to emulation, an honest suggestion would have been to get an Xbox. It’s not more expensive, yet its raw processing power emulates basically all older systems at playable speeds. Dreamcast is nice for NES, Master System, Genesis, Scumm and old computer emulation, but why limit yourself if you can get all of that and much more on the Xbox.
Final Statement: It might look like I’m down-talking the console, but don’t get me wrong. Being a fan doesn’t mean that you have to praise everything about it, or have to turn every aspect into a positive one. That’s for fanboys. I’d rather keep it real and for a beginners guide this did little to inform people, but rather spread misconceptions among them. I think all older fans will agree that there are already far too many that surround the Dreamcast, so it doesn’t really help to push even more inaccuracies out there. I can see that Rachetboy tried to fill a page to justify this as a guide and therefore tried to include as many aspects as possible. Not being bound to such an artificial restriction, I’d rather condense it down to the following:
Historical Impact:
- Sealed the death warrant for Sega Saturn, while pissing off 3rd party developers for that console due to sudden lack of support and market consistency, which ultimately thinned out support for the Dreamcast. How ironic.
Strengths:
- Vast arcade game library
- Support for pirated games and homebrew right out of the box
- Own freeware compiler with KallistiOS for homebrew apps with the commercial ones being available as warez
Weaknesses:
- Lack of support for basically all other game genres except for a few titles
- Lots of homebrew apps never made it out of beta, or even alpha state and run less than decent, including but not limited to DivX-players and most emulators with only few exceptions
- Many pirated games can’t be played without having serious portions of them either cut out or downsampled, while original games still can cost a pretty penny if you live in countries other than the United States.
>- Online-gaming was already supported with the Sega Saturn and Sega’s NetLink service. In fact, that is what the Dreamcast’s online service was based on.
He said it was the first to come with a modem. Plenty of previous consoles had online gaming, albeit limited in scope.
>The N64 supported VGA just as much.
No it didn’t, certainly not officially. There is a third-party VGA box, but it’s converting from AV. Some N64s do support RGB, but at 15KHz, so you’d need a scan doubler at least.
>Let’s also not forget that the Saturn had support for full SDTV resolution (704×480).
Internally it could draw such a resolution, but all official cables were limited to 480i, so there’s not much point.
>In fact, high-end gamers were already using resolutions up to 1280×1024
Only just – prior to the release of the Voodoo3, the max you’d see in hardware-accelerated games was 1024×768, and only then with SLI’d Voodoo2s. I’m not trying to say that this isn’t a significant increase on the Dreamcast’s 640×480, but the fact remains that most people in 1999 were still playing in that resolution or 800×600.
>I really doubt that the price of DVD-hardware was really what kept Sega from using the technology.
Then you’re forgetting how expensive DVD players were in 1999, and you’re forgetting the $25 per unit that the DVD consortium expects per DVD-capable unit sold. It was a purely financial decision; what console developer wouldn’t want higher capacity?
>The emulation capabilities are rather laughable.
The DC was the first home console to have a thriving homebrew scene, and while it was quickly eclipsed by the Xbox once cracked, it was easily the biggest homebrew scene that any console had seen in 2001. It’s disingenuous to say otherwise – by comparison, the PSX had a NES emulator, a few brew games, and that was about it, despite a massively larger install base.
Now, I’m no fan of Racketboy, his articles are junk and it’s good to see someone rip away at him for it. Make sure you’ve got your own facts straight first, though.
By: Alc on September 27, 2009
at 7:25 pm
first of all sorry for not approving your post earlier, but it went directly to the spam bin, most likely because you entered bogus identification data.
please read the quote correctly. yes he said it was the first console with a built-in modem and i never refuted that. what’s more important is the fact that he also claimed that it was the first console to offer internet access for online gaming and that is simply not true.
i wasn’t talking about the video output, but the rendering resolution and that was 640×480. the connection is a whole different matter
which is exactly the above stated resolution, so your point is? also, cables don’t limit resolutions (except for extremely high-res digital ones, but not analog ones).
yes and no. while it’s true that voodoo cards had that limitation, i never limited the games to those few voodoo-compatible ones. for example i played all games based on the built engine (shadow warrior, blood etc) at 1280×1024 when they came out in 1997. also, lots of direct 3d/opengl/software-based games had no resolution limits at all (thief for example, which came out 1998, or the even older quake, not to speak of quake 3 and unreal tournament (1999)). my old ati rage 3d which i bought in 1999 supported desktop resolutions of up to 2048×1536. of course it wasn’t powerful enough to render games at that resolution, but 1280×1024 was possible, granted that the game used specific engines and the card was powerful enough
certainly not. having been an early adopter myself, i’m well aware of the prices back then. still, the claim remains: the gd-rom technology by yamaha which was only utilized by sega was certainly hardly cheaper, especially thanks to the fact that sega had to not just cover the costs for development and production, but also license fees and profit margins. now compare that to the dvd which was licensed to a plethora of companies all over the world, experienced a massive introduction in millions of homes and therefore also a massive spread of developing costs among many sources. btw, dvd-video-technology was introduced by panasonic as early as 1995 and saw its market release in 1997 already. a full year before sega actually introduced gd-roms to the market. so it’s likely that the production cost was around dvd-level. furthermore, dvd-technology was already developed by the media consortium while yamaha had to cook up something on its own which certainly wasn’t the cheapest situation considering their lack of patents and experience on this sector.
anyway, this is just an assumption, just like yours. since neither of us has hard data to prove a point, i’ll leave it at that.
as for the financial decision as you claimed it was: i already stated that game publishers had to pay per medium and not per game, so yes, having a smaller storage space could have very well be a financial decision. but to answer your question:
1. nintendo didn’t want more storage space when they released the n64 as a cartridge based system, limiting it to 64MB max, instead of 650MB that the cd-based PSX could utilize.
2. once more nintendo with the gamecube, whose discs could only store a fifth of the content that ps2 and xbox games could store.
3. microsoft with the xbox 360, which was released with a standard dvd-drive and only offering the high-storage hd-dvd-drive as an option. either way, the storage capacity was dwarfed by the ps3’s bluray capacities. microsoft didn’t seem to mind though…
4. neogeo. sure it offered a cd-version early on, but the arcade version stayed cartridge-only well into the new millennium when home consoles could actually store 65 times of what the arcade cartridges could deliver. even the fact that sega used gd-roms for their arcade system didn’t make snk reconsider their design
so much for using opinions to bring a point across…
how is the amount of released homebrew software an argument for its quality? i never said that the dc saw only few homebrew releases. in fact, let me quote my own words:
“Sure you have a lot of emulators for the system, but most of them don’t even work full speed [...]”
so how again are you disagreeing with me? and yes you do have lots of emus for the dreamcast, but those won’t do you any good if they only work well with certain games, or lack support for basic features such as sound etc. that is the case for many emulated systems on the dreamcast. even if the discussion had been about the number of released homebrew software, valuing quantity over quality has always been a bad trade and an even worse argument. you don’t need half a dozen unfinished under-performing emus for a system, but only a single good one. you don’t need 4 different quake ports, but only a single reliable one that is also true to the original. i guess you get my drift. as big as the interest of the homebrew-scene in the dc was, it vanished as quickly as it was sparked and the result of what’s left is little convincing to mention the homebrew apps as one of the strengths for the console.
as much as i enjoyed reading your opinion and also the fact that you cared enough to leave it here, i have to give the same advice back plus that you need to learn to read correctly, or to comprehend…or both… you clearly missed the point of my corrections or lacked necessary experience (e.g. the resolutions issue). finding a factual error in my posts is like searching a needle in a haystack. i research before i write something up, so better luck next time
By: xiaopang333 on November 13, 2009
at 11:20 pm