03/03/00

If The Dreamcast is so Smart, Why Can’t it Get Sega to Think?

It’s time for my first Game Hits anti-Dreamcast rant. Readers of my long-running fanzines are already all too familiar with this particular rant, but I figure I’m tapping into a different reader base here on the web – and everyone need to know what I have to say about stuff, right? Right!

Anyway, let me qualify the upcoming rant with some statements about myself. First, the Saturn is the most-played system in my house (for leisure, that is – I don’t get the opportunity to play many Saturn games for work these days…). I own about a dozen imports and probably about the same number of domestic titles for the system, and when gamer friends come to visit, the Saturn is the box of choice for our fighting game needs. I also own a Genesis and consider it to be one of the best game consoles ever, period. I am not an anti-Sega guy. I’d love to see Sega succeed and it seems that despite their best efforts to the contrary, Dreamcast is a success, here in the U.S. anyway. Even I will readily admit that the selection of launch titles was the best ever, probably better than the PS2 launch titles in Japan.

First, let me say that I believe Sega has some sort of manifest destiny to fail working itself out here. It’s as if they want to fail. Look at the way the advertising for the system was handled. The early print ads were nothing but abstract pictures with the Dreamcast "swirl" and the words "it’s aware." No screenshots, nothing concrete. Then came the deluge of initial first party game ads, you know, the ones that mocked their intended audience. Lines like "Too bad you still have your lame-ass reflexes" were commonplace. You see, in my opinion, after the debacle that was the U.S. Saturn marketing campaign, those ads should have had a picture of Sonic on bended knees, begging the reader to give Sega just one more chance. Now is definitely not the time for Sega to get cocky, especially with sales in Japan lagging and PS2 just over the horizon. Sega needs to take a big ol’ bite of humble pie just about now.

You see, gamers have long memories. Sega seems not to be aware of this, but their track record leading up to the Dreamcast is not so good. They basically killed the Genesis by crushing it under the weight of various unsupported add-ons (Sega CD, 32-X). With Saturn, the surprise launch, netlink, lack of the one great add-on Japan got – the 8MB cart, and dumb marketing caused the console to drop out of the current system race before the end was even in sight (hey, I’m not the biggest fan of the N64, but at least it made it to the finish line). So I was not surprised to read that Sega is already talking about various add-ons for the Dreamcast (Zip Drive, DVD player, some sort of system upgrade, keyboard & mouse, cable modem, etc). That’s right, Sega, run with that idea – dividing your user base into multiple camps has worked wonders for you in the past… if the intent is to kill your drive your system to an early grave.

So, where do I see Dreamcast going in the months and years to come? Frankly, I think that PS2 will kill it. Sony is doing so many things right with PS2 (backward compatibility with games and hardware, DVD player built in, keeping the recognizable name brand, to name a few) that when the machine hits the states Sega can forget about leading the console race again any time soon. The all-important Japanese gamer doesn’t seem to like the Dreamcast too much, and that could lead to a chain of events that would effectively kill the system. No Japanese support means no Japanese games, and what system is going to survive on American and European games alone? Dreamcast will have its core audience, and I think that will keep the system alive for a long time. Heck, look at the thriving secondary market for NES, Genesis and SNES these days.

Hey, don’t get me wrong, I’m looking forward to a time when I’ll be able to buy a Dreamcast for under $100 and pick up some of the better titles for bargain bin prices. I’m just mad to see Sega basically wasting a lot of potential by underestimating their user base and committing the same marketing screw-ups from the past.

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