Former Sega Prez Discusses the Dreamcast's Failure

An anonymous reader writes "Former Sega of America president Bernie Stolar speaks out about the man who ousted him, EA's attempt to monopolize sports games on the Dreamcast, why the Dreamcast failed, and a legendary prank he pulled against Sony. 'I fought to have a modem on the platform. Maybe it was early — who knows. But I fought for a modem in the beginning because I wanted to have massively multiplayer online games on that system.' When asked about the console's online capabilities not catching on with consumers, he said, 'It doesn't surprise me, because there wasn't software tied into it. They were not building and going after software to start that. I mean, I was looking for developers and content providers to start doing that. Sega did not do that after I left. They just abandoned it.'"

Comments

sounds like some rationalization going on

[johncandale]

"The consumer judged that it was the right hardware and the right software. Look at the software that was on that system. Look at the sporting titles that". Compared with it's rivals, Nintendo 64, already out with a fair string of Great Mario games, Zelda games, and 3d party titles, ps2 was on it's way, as was xbox. " Look at the software that was on that system" You mean um, 'crazy taxi' (good for a little while, but wears thin) and um, Mavel v. Capcon 2? and um, well I"m sure if you owned the system you could think of more, but those are the only ones I ever saw that looked worth playing. That's the problem, even if it had great titles, no one was aware of them.

Re:sounds like some rationalization going on

[Stormwatch]

You mean um, 'crazy taxi' (good for a little while, but wears thin) and um, Mavel v. Capcon 2? and um, well I"m sure if you owned the system you could think of more, but those are the only ones I ever saw that looked worth playing.

You can't be serious. The Dreamcast had tons of great games. Among its US launch titles are Power Stone, Sonic Adventure, Soulcalibur, and Tokyo Xtreme Racer.

And soon came Rayman 2, Sonic Adventure 2, Phantasy Star Online, Toy Commander, StarLancer, Metropolis Street Racer, Shenmue, Skies of Arcadia, Grandia 2, Bangai-O, Crazy Taxi, Mars Matrix, Capcom vs. SNK, Mark of the Wolves, Sword of the Berserk... and if you played imports, Shenmue 2, Headhunter, Ikaruga, Zero Gunner 2, Rez, Guilty Gear X...

To sum it up -- the Dreamcast was a great machine with a kickass library.

Re:sounds like some rationalization going on

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

even if it had great titles, no one was aware of them.

Exactly the failure of the Dreamcast.

The dreamcast was a huge hit with the hardcore console gaming crowd, but the Spyro/Madden/Final Fantasy crowd that only picks up AAA or high visibility titles didn't care what was on the DC. When you look at games like Legacy of Kain, Shenmue, Capcom vs SNK, the casual gamer responds, "Who's Kain? How do i even pronounce Shenmue? And what's a Snick?"

He makes the arguement that it's about software

[joeflies]

I agree with him. However, the Dreamcast had some of the best software available, including the best sports games, arcade games and fighting games. I play a lot of RPGs and still think Skies of Arcadia is one of the best ever. It had games that were ported onto XBOX and went on to become some of the best XBOX games. It had cutting edge online gaming with Phantasy Star, innovative arcade adventures like Shemue, and better graphic versions of exisiting hits like Tony Hawk (a truly superior version compared to PS1). So with all that great software, then there's still something missing to his arguement - if it's all about the software, and the dreamcast had a ton of great software, then maybe you need to come up with a better reason why it failed.

Re:He makes the arguement that it's about software

[MemoryDragon]

The reason was neither piracy nor bad games. Piracy existed but I rather doubt it killed the Dreamcast, what killed the dreamcast was given the existing interviews which clearly stated the sales numbers, was the PS2 and its dvd capability.
If you watch the interviews then you would know one day before the PS2 was out the sales were excellent and then the day the PS2 came out the sales took a nosedive never to recover again, and the PS2 in the beginning also was used as a DVD player by a load of people.

Re:Who's to blame?

[drinkypoo]

(and yes, I know he answers it after he refuses to answer, but he gives a shitty answer. He obviously had another answer and changed his tune in mid-song. At least the interview is great for making that clear.)

BS: Let me just say this: It was a great team of people who were there at the time. When I got to Sega, there were 300 some odd people, and I took the staff down to 91 people, and we built it.

Translation: I fired the two-thirds of the people working at Sega and built a console that failed, and I'm proud of that.