It's not easy (nor wise) to be an early adopter of next gen...

[brakel]

No it's Tekken and kings multithrows in particular have a very lax input window. I'm really not going to debate this, two minutes of google research will prove I'm correct.

I wasn't debating anything. I was asking a question.

 

[superballs]

Of all the DC games mentioned, we can't forget the awesome racers that came out for it either.
Ferrari F355 Challenge (challenge being the understatement of the decade)
Metropolis Street Racer (Precursor to the very successful Project Gotham Series)
Test Drive LeMans (Best Racing Game ever...almost, i guess, well i love it still to this day)

As much as it pains me (agonizes me really) to even think of saying, I do think that Shenmue was their worst mistake. Now, it's the best game ever made...ever....made, i'm not debating that, but the budget was larger than the entire userbase could support. It's sad really, though, it's a game that should have sold millions of DC units on it's own. Unfortunately, Mr Peter Moore was at the helm of Sega of America at the time and he was already flirting with the "enemy" (EA).

 

[Jeff Strong]

Going by the pre-views of soon to be released PS4 or next gen games, I am not impressed with the graphics. They don't look any better than PS3.

You must have seen different videos than I did. Killzone, Infamous, and the Capcom dungeon crawler were all significantly better than PS3 graphics.

We'll see graphics upgrades right off the bat, but it usually takes a couple years before the developers fully take advantage of new hardware. Look at the early 360/PS3 games compared to the latest releases on both platforms. They've made a ton of progress in squeezing every drop of performance out of the current hardware. The same will happen with the next gen as well.

 

[shutyertrap]

I was perfectly happy with my PS2, playing Guitar Hero 1, 2, and 3 pretty much exclusively at that point. I'm not an early adopter anyways. Just as I was starting to think about a future with the PS3 in it, Guitar Hero World Tour came out and I got the whole band kit as a gift, but for the PS2. By that point, I was seeing what Rock Band was doing with DLC and could see the handwriting on the wall for the Guitar Hero series and where they were going to have to go.

So I exchanged the PS2 GH bundle for a PS3 version (all $20 more of it) and sat on it for probably 6 months. I even bought my first Blu-Ray / DVD combo movie before actually owning a player. I had a ton of Best Buy reward coupons, and wound up paying all of $20 for my PS3 slim 120 gig unit. If it hadn't been for Guitar Hero, I probably would have waited even longer. Well, at least until God of War 3 came out!

For me, it's about the titles and series I like to play. PS4 won't mean squat to me until there's another God of War, Uncharted, Team Ico game out. At the same time. TPA is my Guitar Hero this time around, but seeing as how there will be a PC option for moving forward, I might be waiting a while for the PS4.

Also, as I'm not a teenager or college student, I don't feel a whole lot of peer pressure to get the newest latest systems and games!

 

[Tabe]

Funny, with all this Dreamcast love, I'm a bit of a dissenting voice.

My wife bought me a DC for our anniversary the January after the DC's launch. I went over to the local Hasting's to rent some games and they had basically nothing I was interested in. A couple dozen games but nothing I found compelling. I ended up renting Hydro Thunder and Powerstone. Was underwhelmed by Powerstone. No big surprise since I was playing it single player and it's really a multiplayer title. Hydro Thunder, I never got to play. Remember the major issue that Midway had with their games early in the DC's release? Yeah, it wouldn't work on my DC. Had some fun with the NFL 2K game that came with my DC bundle but quickly realized it was a steaming pile of junk when I saw they had made the Minnesota Vikings better than the frigging all-star team. Gimme a break.

I ended up returning that Dreamcast (thank you, Costco!) and never bought another. Years later, I borrowed a DC from a friend and played it and loved it. Soul Calibur, various emulators, Bass Fishing, and so on. Lots of great titles.

Personally, I believe the DC was killed by the gaming media and game stores rather than any actual failure by Sega. The system was the biggest launch in console history in North America. It did HUGE numbers out of the gate. There were quality titles available for it. And yet what were the gaming media saying? "It's Sega, it'll fail". "Wait til the PS2 comes out in a year". And so on. I went into a Gamestop/EB and they were actually telling people to NOT buy the Dreamcast, to wait for the PS2. This was holiday season 1999! I asked about that and was told that was actually corporate policy. WTF. Who tells people to NOT buy the best game system on the market? I think there were a lot of people in the industry still mad about the Saturn and were determined to MAKE the Dreamcast fail.

 

[Worf]

There is one advantage of early adoption - the mods tend to be easiest on the early models.

And since they're using x86 architecture, there's enough bugs and undocumented features that it'll be modded soon enough, like the original Xbox.

 

[Rafie]

The Dreamcast had a very special place for me. It helped me get through one of the worst parts of my life ever lived...I mean severe depression, drug addiction, very strange living circumstances. It really was something special as sometimes i held on to it as my reason to get up the next day. The roller coaster ride that was being a Dreamcast owner was really a cherished moment for me.

At first when I read the OP's article, I had my mind set on a debate because I thought this was an attempt to blast Playstation and glorify Xbox...but then I calmed down and read his post again. I agree to an extent. I suppose we'll see one for the new Xbox, eh? ;-)

Anyway your post, Superballs, spoke to me. I'll be 31 in May, so I was one of those teens who had a job and got a Dreamcast EARLY. You wanna know something....I still have my Dreamcast to this very day in mint condition along with MVC1&2, Power Stone, Project Justice, Spawn and quite a few other games also in mint condition. The Dreamcast is probably my favorite console of all time. At that point in my life I haven't gone through anything as horrid as you have (not insulting you here), but I was completely happy even when I lost my grandmother at that time. Nothing seemed to bother me when I turned that Dreamcast on. My point of this is....it's funny if you were happy or going through some tough times, the Dreamcast was there to pick you up. LOL I'm sorry about the times you went through. I can only blindly speculate that your tribulations nurtured your character development to the man you are today. I see your post around the forums and I see you're quite inquisitive and an all around cool guy.

I guess I didn't speak anything about the PS4. LOL Well I wasn't an early adopter of any system ever except for the Dreamcast. Both Sony and Microsoft won't have any big titles coming til the next year or so. Just like how the Wii U is doing right now. I'll wait for the PS4 and the next Xbox when it's about a year old when bigger hard drives and better games surface just for the reasons stated in this thread.

 

[kimkom]

Of all the DC games mentioned, we can't forget the awesome racers that came out for it either.
Ferrari F355 Challenge (challenge being the understatement of the decade)
Metropolis Street Racer (Precursor to the very successful Project Gotham Series)
Test Drive LeMans (Best Racing Game ever...almost, i guess, well i love it still to this day)

As much as it pains me (agonizes me really) to even think of saying, I do think that Shenmue was their worst mistake. Now, it's the best game ever made...ever....made, i'm not debating that, but the budget was larger than the entire userbase could support. It's sad really, though, it's a game that should have sold millions of DC units on it's own. Unfortunately, Mr Peter Moore was at the helm of Sega of America at the time and he was already flirting with the "enemy" (EA).

Ah, MSR! Played the demo to death in anticipation of the full game. Classic stuff.

Shenmue was truly beautiful

 

[superballs]

At first when I read the OP's article, I had my mind set on a debate because I thought this was an attempt to blast Playstation and glorify Xbox...but then I calmed down and read his post again. I agree to an extent. I suppose we'll see one for the new Xbox, eh? ;-)

Anyway your post, Superballs, spoke to me. I'll be 31 in May, so I was one of those teens who had a job and got a Dreamcast EARLY. You wanna know something....I still have my Dreamcast to this very day in mint condition along with MVC1&2, Power Stone, Project Justice, Spawn and quite a few other games also in mint condition. The Dreamcast is probably my favorite console of all time. At that point in my life I haven't gone through anything as horrid as you have (not insulting you here), but I was completely happy even when I lost my grandmother at that time. Nothing seemed to bother me when I turned that Dreamcast on. My point of this is....it's funny if you were happy or going through some tough times, the Dreamcast was there to pick you up. LOL I'm sorry about the times you went through. I can only blindly speculate that your tribulations nurtured your character development to the man you are today. I see your post around the forums and I see you're quite inquisitive and an all around cool guy.

I guess I didn't speak anything about the PS4. LOL Well I wasn't an early adopter of any system ever except for the Dreamcast. Both Sony and Microsoft won't have any big titles coming til the next year or so. Just like how the Wii U is doing right now. I'll wait for the PS4 and the next Xbox when it's about a year old when bigger hard drives and better games surface just for the reasons stated in this thread.

Thank you for that. In all I'm happy to have seen as many facets of life as I have. I have a few games still in the shrinkwrap and my dreamcast is broken bit ill be replacing it soon. Cant wait to have it going straight into my tv's vga port. I also can't wait to get a sega master system so I can use the 3d glasses

Ah, MSR! Played the demo to death in anticipation of the full game. Classic stuff.

Shenmue was truly beautiful

shenmue makes me feel more emotions than any game ever

 

[pseudokings]

shenmue makes me feel more emotions than any game ever

I honestly believe that 1/2 the best games ever made came out of SEGA between 1998-2003. Shenmue, REZ, and Skies of Arcadia all occupy spots in my all-time top 5. Jet Set Radio, JSRF, Gunvalkyrie, Confidential Mission, Crazy Taxi, Sonic Adventure, Panzer Dragoon Orta, F355 Challenge, and a truckload of other games from that period are just outside of that top 5. I loved when all the internal studios were there own quasi-companies and had their own names and logos, like Hitmaker (a very appropriate name), SEGA-AM2 (one of only a couple that still gets to maintain their moniker, as it is so legendary), Smilebit, Sonic Team (the other that got to keep it's name for the same reason), Amusement Vision, and the other brilliant studios - it was a great time to be a gamer. To this day, I still hope that Yu Suzuki gets to remake Shenmue 1 & 2, to go with Shenmue III (on PS4??), and that the brilliant minds behind Skies (many of whom are actually still at SEGA and have been making the Valkyria Chronicles series) will finally announce Eternal Arcadia 2 for JP, and Skies Of Arcadia 2 for the west.
...A man can dream...

 

[smbhax]

Funny you should mention that... I never owned a Dreamcast, but have always wanted one. Now that they've released many Dreamcast games on the PSN store, I'm enjoying all of those games for the first time. Crazy Taxi, Virtua Fighter 2, Marvel vs. Capcom 2. All great stuff.

DC has Virtua Fighter 3tb, not 2.

 

[Jim]

DC has Virtua Fighter 3tb, not 2.

You're right. I always keep thinking Virtua Fighter 2 was a Dreamcast game.
Thanks for the correction.

--Jim

 

[Fuseball]

I always felt that to get the best out of the DC (in the UK at least) you needed to import a lot of games. I always loved the more innovative stuff coming out of Japan, like Cosmic Smash, Rez and Bangaio. Of course, once it was "dead" system all those great bullet hell shooters appeared on it too.

I've owned a ridiculous number of consoles over the years and the only ones that I genuinely feel a lot for are the DC, Gamecube and Vectrex. Could also be that all three were the gaming soundtrack to either good times in my life or triumph over adversity/depression in the case of the Gamecube.

 

[Gord Lacey]

Hey, you guys in UK got the ProPinball collection

 

[Mark W**a]

Whenever I play Virtua Fighter 5 or Virtua Tennis 4, or those better than perfect Daytona USA or Fighting Vipers ports, I feel like I'm playing Dreamcast 2.

Also when I get my last 360 I'm going for the white slim, simply because white is the color of Dreamcast.

My love for Sega is borderline fanatical.

 

[superballs]

I always felt that to get the best out of the DC (in the UK at least) you needed to import a lot of games. I always loved the more innovative stuff coming out of Japan, like Cosmic Smash, Rez and Bangaio. Of course, once it was "dead" system all those great bullet hell shooters appeared on it too.

I've owned a ridiculous number of consoles over the years and the only ones that I genuinely feel a lot for are the DC, Gamecube and Vectrex. Could also be that all three were the gaming soundtrack to either good times in my life or triumph over adversity/depression in the case of the Gamecube.

GameCube is my second favorite even though I was a late adopter (like 10 years late). The greatest thing about it is that since I owned a GameCube after owning a 360. There is no nostalgia or rose colored glasses effect. I get to see it for what it really is. In fact, I recently bought an old gen Wii, not because I want a bunch of Wii games but because it cost half as much as GameCube component cables. Progressive scan GC games look mint. Wind Waker has aged amazingly. Double dash is my favorite Mario kart game ever. Eternal darkness is freaky as hell. And its the last version of crazy taxi with the original soundtrack. Granted I never want to hear the offspring or bad religion ever. The game really isn't the same without "yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah".

I also want to give a nod to the live arcade release of perfect dark because I feel it is the way the game was meant to be played. Original gfx more or less and rock solid frame rate.

Oh yeah did you know that the n64 versions of both GoldenEye and perfect dark had dual analog control?

Whenever I play Virtua Fighter 5 or Virtua Tennis 4, or those better than perfect Daytona USA or Fighting Vipers ports, I feel like I'm playing Dreamcast 2.

Also when I get my last 360 I'm going for the white slim, simply because white is the color of Dreamcast.

My love for Sega is borderline fanatical.

I just picked up vf5 and I've yet to really get into it. It is great but I've been way into pro evolution 2013 and nhl2k10 lately (oh yes 2ksports)

 

[bavelb]

My love for Sega is borderline fanatical.

I never was that impressed with Sega's portfolio tbh. I always fell on the Nintendo side of the argument in the past, and none of the dreamcast titles spark interest or nostalgia from my end.

But I was surprised last week: I'm trying to complement my personal "current gen backlog"". Basically my collection of games I intend(ed) to play but never really got around to because of my time in WOW as a raider and a attentionspan of a 2 yr old when it comes to games (play an hour or 2 of a game before acquiring a new one). But I decided to buckle down and actually try to finish all those great games. I started playing my unfinished games and completing my collection of those games I didnt get, or got rid of. (almost there ...just a handful of titles are missing: http://www.howlongtobeat.com/userpage.php?username=bavelb&show=backlog) and last week acquired "Valkyria Chronicles" for a measly 10 bucks. I never realised that was a Sega game, so I think this is the first true Sega game I'm looking forward to (cause Bayonetta and Vanquish are 99% Platinum studio's)

 

[Firefox2000]

I bought a Launch 60gig PS3 here in the UK, £450 for a system that stopped reading br discs 16 month after it was bought, Sony were intrested in fixing it for another £150, so i had no option to pay it if i wanted to play my PS3 games, 2009 came and it simply stopped working, Sony wanted another £150 as the last warrenty only covered the BR drive, i laughed, put the phone down and packed away the broken ps3.

2010 and the slim appeared, so i sold the broken PS3 as broken on eBay, made £100 on it which surprised me, put the cash towards a new 120 gig slim model, never had a issue with it.

So the moral of the story, keep your cash until the hardwear has been at least proven, and you can get a revised improved model, for almost half the launch price, with lots more benefits, so i will be quite happy with my PS3 well in 2015.

But i did love R:Fall of man, that was a awesome sci-fi game.

 

[Mark W**a]

I never was that impressed with Sega's portfolio tbh. I always fell on the Nintendo side of the argument in the past, and none of the dreamcast titles spark interest or nostalgia from my end.

But I was surprised last week: I'm trying to complement my personal "current gen backlog"". Basically my collection of games I intend(ed) to play but never really got around to because of my time in WOW as a raider and a attentionspan of a 2 yr old when it comes to games (play an hour or 2 of a game before acquiring a new one). But I decided to buckle down and actually try to finish all those great games. I started playing my unfinished games and completing my collection of those games I didnt get, or got rid of. (almost there ...just a handful of titles are missing: http://www.howlongtobeat.com/userpage.php?username=bavelb&show=backlog) and last week acquired "Valkyria Chronicles" for a measly 10 bucks. I never realised that was a Sega game, so I think this is the first true Sega game I'm looking forward to (cause Bayonetta and Vanquish are 99% Platinum studio's)

Sega in the DC days was a focused company firing on all cylinders.

Shen Mue, Skies of Arcadia, Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, Jet Grind Radio, Space Chanel 5 1 and 2, Rez, Cosmic Smash, Virtua Tennis series, Crazy Taxi 1 and 2, Sega Rally, Virtua Fighter, Daytona, Sega GT, Samba De Amigo 1 and 2, House of the Dead 2, Zombies Revenge, Dynamite Cop, Virtual On Oratorio Tangram, Alien Front Online, Out Trigger, Phantasy Star Online 1 and 2, hell the Bass Fishing games which are awesome....even Sega USA was doing amazing things with the 2K sports line... This is just a taste of Sega 1st party, on a console that had a life span of roughly 2 years.

And that's only half the story. Many Naomi games were left in arcades, Panzer Dragoon Orta and Jet Set Radio Future, Virtua Fighter 4 and Beach Spikers were all supposed to be Dreamcast games before Sammy pulled the plug on the console.

I love Nintendo, I really really do but let's be honest, they are really conservative and are not big with taking risks, doing new IP. I can't think of a single new IP, outside of the Wii-blank line, that doesn't involve Mario somehow. My favorite Gamecube racer, F-Zero GX, is completely programmed by Sega.

Of course this was a decade ago though. The Sega we have today is but a shell of it's former self.

I feel like the Wii, was basically the console that Sega should have done. If you take all of Sega's crazy peripherals from the Dreamcast days... the Samba De Amigo maracas, the Sega Bass Fishing controller, a steering wheel, a light gun, the microphone from Sea Man and Alien Front Online... and you put them all together into a single controller design... that's the Wii mote, in a nutshell. True fact, you can actually use the Bass Fishing remote in Virtua Tennis to simulate a Wii-Tennis like gameplay experience. And during that time the team at Midway who made the Ready 2 Rumble games, was experimenting with motion controls. Sega also was the first to attempt a real online system, but they didnt' charge for it like Xbox live.

 

[bavelb]

Sega in the DC days was a focused company firing on all cylinders.

Shen Mue, Skies of Arcadia, Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, Jet Grind Radio, Space Chanel 5 1 and 2, Rez, Cosmic Smash, Virtua Tennis series, Crazy Taxi 1 and 2, Sega Rally, Virtua Fighter, Daytona, Sega GT, Samba De Amigo 1 and 2, House of the Dead 2, Zombies Revenge, Dynamite Cop, Virtual On Oratorio Tangram, Alien Front Online, Out Trigger, Phantasy Star Online 1 and 2, hell the Bass Fishing games which are awesome....even Sega USA was doing amazing things with the 2K sports line... This is just a taste of Sega 1st party, on a console that had a life span of roughly 2 years.

Myea you see, nothing of those really spark any sort of "I wish I had played that". Probably because mainland europe (unlike Brittain) was much more in touch with Ninty-stuff. Everyone here had a NES or gameboy. I played Virtua tennis, fighter, crazy taxi and most mainstream stuff (although I never liked anything sonicrelated), but generally was quite underwhelmed. This is no reflection on those games'quality but rather my personal taste.My heart starts pounding faster when someone mentions Super Mario Bros 2 or 3, Super Mario World, Castlevania, Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Super Metroid or Metroid Prime

I love Nintendo, I really really do but let's be honest, they are really conservative and are not big with taking risks, doing new IP. I can't think of a single new IP, outside of the Wii-blank line, that doesn't involve Mario somehow. My favorite Gamecube racer, F-Zero GX, is completely programmed by Sega.

Hardware wise they take plenty of risks (in fact I think they overplayed their hand with Wii-U this time, the 3DS had a close call but got saved before it really flatlined, I own neither mind you), but the whole motion control shenanigans are completely not for me (I still need to get over that hump so I get to play Skyward Sword with it) but yea...software wise they are too conservative. I love all sorts of games, but certain games like Zelda and Metroid gave you this feeling of novelty mechanics, combined with exploration and cleverness that no Nintendo games have approached lately. The games that come closest to that sense of wonder I feel are games like Bioshock (1 and 3, still need to play 2), Portal (1,2)and Demon's/Dark Souls (basically my top 5 of this generation right there). And to a lesser degree the Zelda-molded Okami and Darksiders.