Sega Looks At Licensing Dreamcast

coj writes: "In a move that seems like a response to Sony's recent announcements, ZDNet is reporting that Sega is in talks to license the Dreamcast technology to other companies. Maybe the U.S. consumer is finally ready for an all-in-one set-top box ... or maybe the console manufacturers are making the same mistakes 3D0 did. Should be interesting."

Comments

Same mistake as 3DO?

[oozer]

I don't think Sony and Sega are making the same mistake as 3DO. The difference is that 3DO started off with the intention of licencing hardware manufacture and sales to multiple companies - their whole business model relied on these other companies to make their hardware design and sell it in quantity.

Sony and Sega by contrast have already made a success of their respective consoles to the extent that the software developers are happy enough to support the platform. Any extra licencing they can pull in now is icing on the cake.
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Just a technical nit:

[seebs]

That's 3DO, not 3D0. You know, audio, video, threedeo.

Anyway, the killer mistake in 3DO's setup was that the companies they licensed to all tried to make money on hardware. You can't make money selling consoles, but you can, possibly, make money licensing games for them. So, Panasonic (for instance) had no incentive to price their 3DO units competitively. End result, the system didn't get the mass market acceptance it needed.

Both Sony and Sega are addressing that; they are, themselves, providing units at reasonable costs. This way, if someone else wants to get into the market, the price won't become too high for consumers to pick up a system.

I really miss the 3DO; to this day, I have never seen another system which had games with the kind of depth they tended to favor. 3DO games were often dissed for being "slow" when they were actually "deep". (e.g., Need For Speed on the 3DO was an actual car sim, rather than a racing game. I tried NFS for the PC once, and in "simulation" mode you could hit a wall at 40-50mph and expect to keep driving.)

(Curiously, the company is still around, and actually doing very well; they sold their hardware division for about $100M, bought New World Computing, and now have a bunch of fairly successful brands.)

Disclaimer: I own a couple of 3DO console systems, and several of their games, and some of their stock. I'm a big fan.