Dreamcast 2, thoughts...

[OintmentFly]

Moved this over from the news thread concerning Naka dreaming of a Dreamcast 2 because I thought it might relevant here. The original post:

Oh, the Dreamcast. The worthy successor to the MegaDrive (or Genesis for those of you from foreign parts )- the Saturn doesn't count; that thing was bound to fail - that didn't get the advertising, 3rd party support or sales to keep it alive. Seriously though, what idiot decided to release it with two other next-gen (at the time) consoles from massive companies just around the corner? Consumers (and the game developers that make money off them) are savvy enough to want to wait and see how it pans out before shelling out money. I know I did! The Dreamscast relied on the rabid enthusiasm of Sega fanboys and look what happened (Admitedly I am one of those fanboys, I consider the MegaDrive my favourite console ever).

Keeping this in mind, I find it hard to believe that a new Dreamcast, assuming Sega could ever get enough cash and structure to start building consoles again (which isn't going to happen any time soon), would work. It would be just a little bit of history repeating. Everyone here would buy one, but imagine trying to convince the current generation of gamers - who may never have heard of, seen or played a MegaDrive or original DC - to buy one...it won't happen. Sony and Microsoft are too big, too well supported by 3rd party and have too much market prescence. And don't get me started on the Wii's appeal to the casual gaming lot. Beside's the fanboys and older gamers I really don't see this having any marketable appeal and thus the same thing would happen. No 3rd party games, no market room. And now that you can get the old Sega games on download and Sega has moved it franchises to other systems there's not even any sort of exclusivity to it, which means no real incentive to buy other than the logo of a company that nearly went bankrupt over a decade ago. Hardly inspiring.

I find it interesting that someone mentioned a partnership with AMD. If you consider the business model at AMD (having consistant architecture throught model lines, meaning consumers don't have to buy an entirely new system every 2 years and production, thus retail cost, remains relatively cheap) and what happened with the MegaDrive (attempting to extend the lifespan of existing succesful hardware by integrating new technolgies into the base structure) it's quite an interesting dynamic. I don't know how this approach would work for consoles (which are pretty much self contained) but I'm a fan of AMD and always build my pc's around their products; I'd be interested to see what they could with a console. correct me if I'm wrong but didn't they do the graphics architecture for the Wii? They've been able to make some slick looking games on that system...

So in the event that Sega/AMD did make a console, what direction would it take? Next Gen, packed full of HD graphics, Blue-Ray players and Hard-drives (Which it just doesn't have the money/ability to do at this time) or a less powerful, gaming only, nostalgia driven fun machine (like it's rival Nintendo have done with the Wii). Or a mix of the two? The second option might be way cheaper to produce (and thus become availiable for significantly less than current sysems - I'm thinking circa $250 bucks) and have some feasablity in comparison to the first but again, outside Sega die-hards it might be hard to market to the masses. Especially in this age of online gaming. But a push to bring back a time where you got your mates together to sit around a console and game in each-others prescence - without the fiddly motion controls - would be most welcome I think. A machine with specs somewhere between Wii and X-Box could definately handle remakes/sequels to all the good ole games like Shenmue, Powerstone, Panzer Dragoon, Nights ...I'd even like to see some MegaDrive classics like the Strike and Road Rash serises remade. Shining Force. Platformers like Earthworm Jim, Rocket Knight Adventure and of course Sonic. Fighters like Golden Axe and Streets of Rage - hell, one of the games I've played a buttload of recently was Scott Pilgrim, and that's 16bit retro through and through! Then there's Sega's Arcade classics like Virtua Fighter and Virtua Cop, Daytona USA etc., all of which a system without cutting edge specs could handle.

But, like I said, history would probalby repeat itself. Then again, it might just be a good little money maker for Sega at the tail end of the current Gen of consoles and become a stepping stone to proper entry into the next generation with all the major players having to step aside and pay some serious respects to one of the old heavyweights.

What do y'all think?

 

[Chamale]

If Microsoft and Sony both follow through with their plans to release no new consoles until 2015, another developer could easily grab a ton of profit in the meantime with a powerful console released in, oh, 2011 or 2012. If it's a developer like Sega, that headstart would give an even bigger advantage.

 

[Tsaba]

why would sega make another dream cast? They have a hard time trying to release a good title.

 

[Savagezion]

It would merely be Sega coming back for another suicide attempt at this point. Nintendo supposedly plans to have a new system out soon.

 

[Jonny1188]

SEGA's quality has been slipping. I would definitely not trust them with a console. Besides, what market would they go after that the current consoles don't have a stranglehold on?

 

[CrystalShadow]

correct me if I'm wrong but didn't they do the graphics architecture for the Wii?

Okay, off-topic, and somewhat nerdy, but let's review a little history lesson on Nintendo's hardware shall we? (And throw in a few other consoles while we're at it.)

The graphics chip in the wii can be traced back to the N64.

The N64's graphics hardware was essentially a mass-produced, and lower specification of Silicon Graphics hardware of the time.
This can be seen in several aspects of the design, including the system bus.
The graphics chip it contained was thus essentially the work of Silicon Graphics Inc. As well.

However, Silicon graphics as a company collapsed before the Gamecube arrived, but the people that worked on the N64 hardware formed a company called ArtX, and developed a GPU for Nintendo that was used in the Gamecube.
The CPU Nintendo was using is an IBM derived design. The Gamecube used a low end variant of what is otherwise a fairly well known IBM cpu design. We'll get back to this in a moment.

At around that time, the Xbox showed up; The original X-box was quite simply a heavily modified PC. It was originally going to use an AMD processor, but a last-minute bid from intel resulted in it using an intel Celeron processor instead.
Meanwhile, Microsoft made an arrangement with Nvidia to develop a gpu for the Xbox, which was codenamed NV-25.
Now, if you look at PC hardware of the time, The Geforce 2 gpus used in PC's were codenamed NV-20, and the next thing to show up for PC's was the NV-30 range, so the Xbox used an intermediate step between these two PC hardware phases.

The Playstation 2 meanwhile, is something I don't know much about, so I can't really comment on who is responsible for it's hardware.

Skip forward a few years and we get to the current consoles.

The first thing to show up is the Xbox 360. This is a lot less like a PC than it's predecessor, and clearly whatever deals they were using before have all been shifted around.
The Cpu is now an unusual triple core design made by... IBM.
Meanwhile, instead of using an Nvidia graphics chip, they've switched to an ATI designed chip that formed the prototype for PC directX 10 hardware.
That shouldn't be a huge surprise, since the directX code libraries for the PC are also the ones used for the Xbox 360. So while it's not quite as similar as it once was, the Xbox still has a lot of overlap with PC's and windows.

The next console to arrive is Nintendo's Wii. While it contains a lot of extra features, the CPU and GPU are basically faster variants of the gamecube hardware (which explains why the wii can run gamecube games so easily).
This means that the CPU is still an IBM chip, and the gpu is still the same general design that ArtX came up with.
However, ArtX was bought by ATI. As a result, there's now an Ati logo on the Wii.

Finally, we have the PS3. It's main claim to fame, (aside from blu-ray) is the cell processor.
Now, the Cell processor is definitely a rather unusual design. But... Guess who is primarily responsible for it's design... Give up? It's IBM.
That leaves the mistery of what the GPU in the PS3 is.
Well, as it turns out, it's a close relation of the Geforce 7800, which means it was made by Nvidia.

The final wrinkle in this whole thing is AMD. Namely, a few years ago (but after the current consoles were made), AMD purchased Ati.

That tells us roughly the following:

The N64 was mostly the work of SGI (silicon graphics - but the devision responsible became a company called ArtX)

The Xbox was Intel and Nvidia
The gamecube was IBM and ArtX

The Wii was IBM and ATI (Ati having purchased ArtX)
The Xbox 360 was IBM and ATI (though in this case derived from Ati's PC devision)

The PS3 was IBM and Nvidia. (Nvidia probably got the short end of Microsoft's nasty habits)

Of course, since then, ATI and AMD have merged.

That means IBM is involved in ALL of the current consoles, and AMD is involved in 2/3 of them now that they own ATI.

...
That was a long story wasn't it?
Anyway...

 

[CrystalShadow]

Meanwhile, instead of using an Nvidia graphics chip, they've switched to an ATI designed chip that formed the prototype for PC directX 10 hardware.

At first Microsoft tried to use a Nvidia design to power the XBOX360 GPU (at the time, the idea was that the 360 was going to be 100% compatible with the original), but Nvidia didn't like the idea of Microsoft owning the design and what they were willing to pay per unit.

ATI on the other hand was more than willing to take as many projects as it could.

The PS3 is a different story, the original GPU was well.. another Cell with a few touches here and there, but since that didn't worked they ended up with whatever Nvidia was able to cook at the time.

Makes sense. Failed ideas and corporate politics covers a lot of ground doesn't it? XD

I still remember when microsoft was the 'evil empire'...
It was somewhat amusing to note that the Xbox often tried to avoid mentioning microsoft is behind it...

To some, being thought of as evil is a natural consequence of being a large company, but Microsoft was never very good at hiding some of it's less ethical dealings. (Unlike apple, which, by some accounts is even worse, yet gets away with it.)

But that's a wholly different and somewhat unnecessary discussion.

 

[Kortney]

I wouldn't touch any console Sega releases with a ten foot pole.

 

[Space Spoons]

It might have flown four or five years ago, but I think it's now a case of too little, too late. The Wii, 360 and PS3 are so deeply entrenched at this point that attempting to compete with them would be an enormous gamble, especially with the 360 and PS3 apparently settling in for the long haul.

Granted, Sega could surprise us all with an amazing leap forward in technology, as they did with the original Dreamcast, but I'm just not convinced there's much more to improve on. N64 to Dreamcast is a huge leap, but 360/PS3 to Dreamcast 2? How much better could it really get?

 

[Devi Darkside]

My thoughts?

Not gonna happen.

This. And for good reason.

Not to crush any dreams or anything but since Sega is currently a software developer, with knowledge of how the PS3, Xbox 360 and the Wii all work due to making games for those systems they'd simply be running themselves into lawsuits all over the place due to potentially destroying a few valid legal agreements with all the parties stated. Furthermore does anyone remember how well the Dreamcast sold? Thanks to Sega's other flops (Sega CD, 32x, Game Gear and Saturn.) it didn't sell well at all and since Sega barely puts out anything worthwhile now who says that history wouldn't repeat itself?
Not to say I wouldn't love another Dreamcast, I just don't see Sega making anything nearly as awesome as the Dreamcast was for its time ever again. That ship sailed, Sega's better off doing software and doing their thing with Gameworks for now.

 

[CrystalShadow]

I still remember when microsoft was the 'evil empire'...
It was somewhat amusing to note that the Xbox often tried to avoid mentioning microsoft is behind it...

Microsoft was never the "evil empire" they are a corporation, just like Apple, Nintendo, etc. in fact their corporate culture is better than what most think (at the very least, their food is better that what Nintendo is serving).

You obviously haven't been around the same people I have. It's not microsoft's internal culture that led to that reputation (Aside from perhaps the way Bill Gates used to yell at people), but their dealings with other (usually much smaller) corporations.

The motto
Embrace, extend, extinguish sums up the issue.

Microsoft had a reputation for finding small companies with good ideas, then trying to buy them. If that failed, they'd copy the idea and then abuse their own huge size to crush the smaller company in any way they could.

that is where their reputation for being 'evil' came from, not from anything to do with what it was like to work for them.

Observe the reputation:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/is-microsoft-still-worthy-of-the-evil-empire-crown/374

It wasn't that long ago that a decision by Microsoft to enter a market spelled death ? sometimes sooner, sometimes later) for other vendors in the same space. Microsoft has browbeat PC makers, competed with its "beloved" software reseller/integrator partners; and stuck it to its customers.

I know of several companies who claim to have showed their products and technologies to Microsoft only to find themselves squeezed out of a market by the Redmond software vendor sporting an almost identitcal solution.

And stuff like this:

Spoiler: Microsoft of borg

Really, the borg kind of sum up how people used to think Microsoft behaved...

To some, being thought of as evil is a natural consequence of being a large company, but Microsoft was never very good at hiding some of it's less ethical dealings. (Unlike apple, which, by some accounts is even worse, yet gets away with it.)

But that's a wholly different and somewhat unnecessary discussion.

It's the natural consequence of being successful.

There's more to it than that though, because a company's behaviour can have a huge impact on how people see it.

Google is a case in point. True, people are starting to question their motives as well, but the whole "Don't be evil" thing has gone a long way to diffusing some of the negative attitude people inherently have with large companies.

Microsoft though, when it came down to it, behaved badly and didn't seem to care who knew it.

That's the point I was trying to make.

 

[OintmentFly]

See this is why I asked the question about what type of machine it would be. There's no way they could compete with the PS2 or X-Box 360 at this stage, that's why I hypothesis a lower powered machine like the Wii (minus the motion control gimick) that can still make good looking sequels/updates on old Sega classics. I know, as posters have pointed out, that Sega would have legal issues to contend with and a very tight budget to produce a system without the partnership of another company like AMD, but I think a cheap($200 mark), slightly underpowered (by todays standard anyways) system that recaptures the feel of the 'glory days' of MegaDrive and Dreamcast could very well be something that might work. Hell, I'd buy one in an instant! And if that can build enough of a cash base and restore consumer faith in Sega enough to warrant them brining out a next-gen console along with the big boys in 2015....well that would just be awesome.

So to re-iterate the question posed in the original post: if this sort of machine came out, would you buy it? Feel free to say 'never gonna happen' etc, but do please answer the question too pls

 

[Stuntkid]

Well, it's about fucking time, SEGA!

Nah it's never goanna happen.

 

[Valiance]

All the games you mention are things I fantasize about sequels to every day.

Allow me to put an "Alien Front Online II" on the list...

 

[FalloutJack]

Honestly?

*Puts on his gambling hat*

I'm game. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and Sega was my fave until the Playstation.

 

[Palademon]

Sonic Adventure 3. Do want.
I'd probably buy a DreamCast 2

 

[OintmentFly]

*bump*

 

[child of lileth]

As much as I miss SEGA making consoles, I really doubt they'll go back to it any time soon. They make way too much of a comfy profit just developing for others right now to give that up.

 

[Gindil]

I wouldn't touch any console Sega releases with a ten foot pole.

They don't have a problem with consoles...

They have a problem with add ons.

 

[nintendoeats]

Read title, thought "no. Sega has barely been able to put out one good game a year since the Saturn was released. Nobody should trust them with hardware, even if the Dreamcast did have a few good ideas in it."

Saw text, read paragraph headings, posted reformatted version of thought.