Game Sack

[Mathius]

Here is an excellent (and extremely long) read of the history of the Dreamcast. This is just one part of an entire series of write-ups detailing the history of SEGA.

http://www.eidolons-inn.net/tiki-index.php?page=SegaBase+Dreamcast&bl=y

[spenoza]

You know, a lot of folks like to speculate that piracy damaged the DC's market presence, but the DC was market viable for such a short time, and on the decline so quickly, that I don't think the poor-quality and over-complicated pirate copies available at the time could really have damaged the system's market presence in any real way. By the time DC ISOs were widespread and didn't require a separate bootloader disc, the DC's future was no longer a question but a certainty. I haven't seen any data on piracy and the Dreamcast, only off-the-cuff speculation, and I don't put any stock in the speculation.

I would go so far as to suggest that the Dreamcast's failure had everything to do with Japan and very little to do with the US, much more a mirror of the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive days than the Saturn. Despite the failure of the Saturn in the US, the Saturn made Sega a lot of money in the home country. Unfortunately, Sega of Japan spent money propping up Sega USA. They also hung on too long on arcade titles alone before releasing the Dreamcast. By the time the Dreamcast was released Sega had been in debt for some time.

In truth, I don't fully understand why the Dreamcast did so badly on release in Japan. There were only a couple titles, true. And yes, the Playstation won Sony a great deal of loyalty, but the Saturn was well-loved by the Japanese as well despite Sega's trouble selling them on the Mega Drive. The fact that the Playstation continued to be supported as the Saturn disappeared from view hurt Sega, I suppose. But considering how affordable and well-designed the Dreamcast was, I still have trouble understanding why the public took so little interest, especially given how well many Naomi-based games were doing in arcades. Some have speculated that DVD player penetration was so low in Japan that everyone was waiting for the PS2 instead of buying either a DVD player or a new video game system. That argument is the best I've heard.

In the US the Dreamcast was kicking ass, despite no EA, and by the time the PS2 came out there were affordable DVD players that didn't suffer from many of the playback errors the PS2 did. Somehow, Sega USA was unable to save Sega Japan, despite finally getting everything right. Many of the best games were translated and brought over and US and European devs were well-represented. As far as I'm concerned, Sega USA did the Dreamcast release as well as the Mega Drive release, and it frustrates me that there was no way to capitalize on that momentum due to Sega of Japan's troubles.

Mathius, I find the Eidolon's Inn articles to be interesting, but lacking in references and fact-checking. The Saturn article is distinctly opinionated in places and hard to take seriously, despite containing some rather valuable insights. I'll need to read the Dreamcast one more fully, but I would be wary accepting it as a reliable source.

And now that I'm on page 3, they've already bungled a huge amount of important technical data. I can only assume the corporate politics stuff is within the realm of being correct, but the technical information they throw around in that piece is way off base in a number of important places.

[roflmao]

I still have Seaman but never got that far.  The little bugger pissed me off and I let him die. 

For some reason I must have some aversion to Sega systems regularly connected to my TVs.  For the past year or so, the only Sega system connected to one of my TVs for any real length of time has been the Genesis.  The Saturn, Dreamcast and Master System have all had brief periods, but they always end up boxed up in my office again.  This discussion has really tempted me to get the Dreamcast back out. Now I really want to start up Seaman again. I bet my 4-yr old would get a kick out of him.  And I'd love to play Skies of Arcadia again. And Crazy Taxi.  And Soul Calibur.  And Shenmue.  Aw dang....

[Colossus1574]

This discussion has really tempted me to get the Dreamcast back out. Now I really want to start up Seaman again. I bet my 4-yr old would get a kick out of him.  And I'd love to play Skies of Arcadia again. And Crazy Taxi.  And Soul Calibur.  And Shenmue.  Aw dang....

That's what these great threads are for aren't they? Bringing back fun memories and good times!
Dust it off buddy, dust it off 

But on a serious note, Dreamcast deserved a much much longer life, from a company responsible for so many historical games they deserved better 

[SamIAm]

I think the Dreamcast and the PCE have a lot in common when you focus on the systems themselves.

Both are very sensibly designed for their times, even if they were left underpowered when competition came around in later years. Both took processing that their predecessors seemed to be struggling to just barely pulling off - action-heavy scrolling 2D and textured/shaded 3D - and made them happen with ease. Both had totally decent software libraries, but didn't quite get that killer app that everyone had to play.

The biggest difference would have to be the marketing - Sega did about as well as could be expected by that time, but NEC America's approach was so bad, it arguably kept the PCE from really even getting a foothold in the States.

[Mathius]

Mathius, I find the Eidolon's Inn articles to be interesting, but lacking in references and fact-checking. The Saturn article is distinctly opinionated in places and hard to take seriously, despite containing some rather valuable insights. I'll need to read the Dreamcast one more fully, but I would be wary accepting it as a reliable source.

And now that I'm on page 3, they've already bungled a huge amount of important technical data. I can only assume the corporate politics stuff is within the realm of being correct, but the technical information they throw around in that piece is way off base in a number of important places.

What technical info did they screw up? I'm just wondering.

[DragonmasterDan]

You know, a lot of folks like to speculate that piracy damaged the DC's market presence, but the DC was market viable for such a short time, and on the decline so quickly, that I don't think the poor-quality and over-complicated pirate copies available at the time could really have damaged the system's market presence in any real way. By the time DC ISOs were widespread and didn't require a separate bootloader disc, the DC's future was no longer a question but a certainty. I haven't seen any data on piracy and the Dreamcast, only off-the-cuff speculation, and I don't put any stock in the speculation.

I started working for a video game mag in May of 2000, I can tell you within a few weeks of that Utopia boot disc hitting the internet, just in my talking to third party publishers (discussing ads, promotional copies of their games and other matters) almost every third party company I spoke to who was or had interest in publishing for Dreamcast mentioned that their interest in continuing to do so had waned substantially after discovering how easily pirate copies could be obtained of Dreamcast games.

While it didn't have an immediate effect, it made product managers think twice about investing into Dreamcast development, or licensing Japanese Dreamcast titles for the future. Within 6 months of that disc coming out the hardware was discontinued, the two aren't directly related but even if the Dreamcast had sold what Sega wanted to keep it going (I think their goal was 7 million units by January 2001) the piracy without modifying your system issue would have wreaked havoc on the system in the future causing it to only last another year on the mass market if that.

Added in edit:

In the US the Dreamcast was kicking ass, despite no EA, and by the time the PS2 came out there were affordable DVD players that didn't suffer from many of the playback errors the PS2 did. Somehow, Sega USA was unable to save Sega Japan, despite finally getting everything right. Many of the best games were translated and brought over and US and European devs were well-represented. As far as I'm concerned, Sega USA did the Dreamcast release as well as the Mega Drive release, and it frustrates me that there was no way to capitalize on that momentum due to Sega of Japan's troubles.

It wasn't selling that well in the US. This is a bit of an exaggeration. They had only sold just over 5 million Dreamcasts globally by January of 2001 when they began plans to discontinue manufacturing hardware, this was despite having manufactured twice as many systems as they had actually sold to the public. The Dreamcast wasn't a total failure in the US, but it wasn't like it was a monster hit that was only being held back in Japan. Sega had to push through numerous price drops while selling the system at a loss to even get to the five million sold mark. Even the 199.99 launch price was set at a loss, simply put it wasn't just Sega of Japan that was having issues with it. Sega of America was losing money as well, even if they were moving more units than in Japan.

[jeffhlewis]

I would go so far as to suggest that the Dreamcast's failure had everything to do with Japan and very little to do with the US, much more a mirror of the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive days than the Saturn. Despite the failure of the Saturn in the US, the Saturn made Sega a lot of money in the home country. Unfortunately, Sega of Japan spent money propping up Sega USA. They also hung on too long on arcade titles alone before releasing the Dreamcast. By the time the Dreamcast was released Sega had been in debt for some time.

I had a day-one Dreamcast reserved and purchased on 9/9/99; I still have never been as happy with a day one console as I was with the DC - Sonic Adventure and Soul Calibur in the launch lineup was just incredible. Soul Calibur graphically still holds up today amazingly. The game is just gorgeous.

I took Japanese in High School, and senior year (back in late '99 early 2000) my teacher took our wishlists back home to Japan for Christmas and brought us back goodies - for me it was a copy of Vampire Savior for the Saturn and a couple issues of Famitsu, one of which contained reviews of the DC launch titles over there. The titles were pretty universally given mediocre reviews (Sonic adventure got a decent review, but VF3 and others got panned fairly badly). Admittedly the JP launch lineup was really weak compared to the US launch, but I lost faith in Famitsu after watching them give perfect reviews to the usual batch of overrated Square / Enix / Sony dreck that came out over there.

I never really remember the exact point at which the DC started to die out in the US - the last couple "new" games I bought were sophomore year in college (fast forward now to about 2002). By the time 2002 was coming to a close I started seeing stock getting cleared out - almost everything was available for $10-20 sealed (a lot of which I wish I would have picked up at the time!). I remember getting a sealed Shenmue and SF3: Third Strike for $5 each at EB Games. Basically once the PS2 hit the streets the gig was up.

As a lifelong Sega apologist and fan, I have to say that all things considered the DC was my favorite console of all time. It just did so many things right, was designed well, and to me was the last true enthusiast console. I don't think we'll see anything like it ever again.

[spenoza]

Mathius, I find the Eidolon's Inn articles to be interesting, but lacking in references and fact-checking. The Saturn article is distinctly opinionated in places and hard to take seriously, despite containing some rather valuable insights. I'll need to read the Dreamcast one more fully, but I would be wary accepting it as a reliable source.

And now that I'm on page 3, they've already bungled a huge amount of important technical data. I can only assume the corporate politics stuff is within the realm of being correct, but the technical information they throw around in that piece is way off base in a number of important places.

What technical info did they screw up? I'm just wondering.

Well, at one point they claim that both the Dural and Katana prototypes were based on 128-bit CPUs, which is not correct. The PowerVR GPU could be called 128-bit, but there was no 128-bit anything in the Dural proto. Both systems had 32-bit CPUs. They also claim on page 1 that Yamaha provided 64-bit 3D sound. As far as I know, the Dreamcast used 16-bit audio, just like almost everybody else STILL does.

Further, the hyperbole is annoying. Allow me to quote... "literally eye-popping graphics"  I know what literally means. It is synonymous with actually. And yet, I don't know anyone who's eyes were popped by the Dreamcast's graphics.

There's some good info in there, but you have to tease it out from the bad writing, hyperbole, and blatant speculation.

[SamIAm]

He certainly spends a lot of time talking about "crap programmers" doesn't he?

The stuff on Sonic Xtreme is 90% old rumors that interviews have since been dispelled.

I believe the Saturn can do texturing and lightshading in hardware.

Basically the only programmers who swore that the Saturn was a beautiful box of wonder that nobody was properly tapping were people working at or closely with Sega. Others, including the programmer of Saturn Quake (perhaps the single most polygon-heavy Saturn game) said that its architecture is stupid for 3D games, and that the Playstation is way faster at 3D drawing anyway.

He's also got to be taking liberties and making assumptions when he writes about the goings-on between the Sega executives. The only way he could know some of that stuff is if he was there himself.

Sega-16's interview with Tom Kalinski is a much better choice to understand Sega history.

[spenoza]

I started working for a video game mag in May of 2000, I can tell you within a few weeks of that Utopia boot disc hitting the internet, just in my talking to third party publishers (discussing ads, promotional copies of their games and other matters) almost every third party company I spoke to who was or had interest in publishing for Dreamcast mentioned that their interest in continuing to do so had waned substantially after discovering how easily pirate copies could be obtained of Dreamcast games.

While it didn't have an immediate effect, it made product managers think twice about investing into Dreamcast development, or licensing Japanese Dreamcast titles for the future. Within 6 months of that disc coming out the hardware was discontinued, the two aren't directly related but even if the Dreamcast had sold what Sega wanted to keep it going (I think their goal was 7 million units by January 2001) the piracy without modifying your system issue would have wreaked havoc on the system in the future causing it to only last another year on the mass market if that.

Well, a later hardware revision killed the ability to play burns, so that problem got solved. Any new systems entering the market would share this. And I can't help but wonder if what publishers said was something of an excuse. The PS2 was looming and devs were throwing their efforts behind that. It didn't help that the PS2 was a real pain to develop for if you wanted to actually tap the power of the PS2.

It wasn't selling that well in the US. This is a bit of an exaggeration. They had only sold just over 5 million Dreamcasts globally by January of 2001 when they began plans to discontinue manufacturing hardware, this was despite having manufactured twice as many systems as they had actually sold to the public. The Dreamcast wasn't a total failure in the US, but it wasn't like it was a monster hit that was only being held back in Japan. Sega had to push through numerous price drops while selling the system at a loss to even get to the five million sold mark. Even the 199.99 launch price was set at a loss, simply put it wasn't just Sega of Japan that was having issues with it. Sega of America was losing money as well, even if they were moving more units than in Japan.

Yes, Sega of Japan was indeed losing money. They built little profit into the hardware. I think over the lifespan of the system, 5 million consoles were sold in the US. That's not chump change. Sega didn't lower the price on the Dreamcast until right before the PS2 was due, so they hung onto the $199 price point as long as they could. The only reason the Dreamcast wasn't a stronger success at launch was persistent manufacturing problems. In the US, software titles were moving pretty briskly as well.

I stand by that statement. Dreamcast sales were excellent in the US until the PS2 came out, and Dreamcast sales held up surprisingly well even after the PS2 was out until all the software devs jumped ship and Sega discontinued the hardware. If Sega US was in debt, it was at least partially inherited from Japan, and not for a lack of hardware and software sales.

[DragonmasterDan]

Yes, Sega of Japan was indeed losing money. They built little profit into the hardware. I think over the lifespan of the system, 5 million consoles were sold in the US.

By the time they discontinued the system only a little over 5 million were sold globally. It wasn't 5 million sold in the US by that point.

[DragonmasterDan]

Well, a later hardware revision killed the ability to play burns, so that problem got solved. Any new systems entering the market would share this. And I can't help but wonder if what publishers said was something of an excuse. The PS2 was looming and devs were throwing their efforts behind that. It didn't help that the PS2 was a real pain to develop for if you wanted to actually tap the power of the PS2.

Oh also I wanted to point this out.

It didn't get solved because 90% of the units produced and in circulation could play burned games. It definitely wasn't an excuse, there were lots of product managers who feared for their jobs because of the possibility that a game they were in charge of would sell significantly less than projections due to people being easily able to spend 2.00 on CDRs and bootleg their game thus having little incentive to purchase it. When decisions were made regarding whether or not to port products to Dreamcast, this was a serious worry from publishers I talked to. The fact that Dreamcast piracy required no mod chip, no swap trick requiring a spring or a string or tape and simply required putting one disc in, waiting then putting in the copy, and could be done with an inexpensive PC and a CD burner made it a serious risk for investing in further publishing and development in.

[emu002]

Another great episode guys - i really enjoy your show

I can't decide if the Dreamcast or Neo Geo is my favourite system

[spenoza]

Yes, Sega of Japan was indeed losing money. They built little profit into the hardware. I think over the lifespan of the system, 5 million consoles were sold in the US.

By the time they discontinued the system only a little over 5 million were sold globally. It wasn't 5 million sold in the US by that point.

If you know where I can see this more detailed sales data, please share. I've been unable to find more detailed breakdowns.

[DragonmasterDan]

If you know where I can see this more detailed sales data, please share. I've been unable to find more detailed breakdowns.

http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/

This is mostly just reposting of NPD final data. Systems were sold after January 2001, but it gives you a pretty decent idea. Unfortunately the NPD data during that time period wasn't available to the public. So finding detailed sales data specifically relating to US hardware sales (like month to month numbers) isn't going to be possible considering the age of it.

Added in edit: Dreamcast is down there at #19. Keep in mind this is covering tracked sales to the public. Not sales to wholesalers etc. They produced 10 million systems, but not that many were sold new through retail while it was widely available on the market.

[spenoza]

Unfortunately, those numbers don't help me much. What is clear is that the Dreamcast sold well enough in its first 1.5 years, better than any new-to-market console before it.


I'm going to speculate (because even hindsight isn't 20/20 in cases like this) that Sega's biggest problem with the Dreamcast wasn't Sega at all, but NEC. If Eidolon's Inn is to be believed, the Dreamcast's initial offering in Japan could have been over 500,000 units, despite a lack of titles, had NEC been able to supply the PowerVR Chips. The same could be said of the US launch as well. And if the console had been that much more present in the market upon release, it would have provided that much more incentive to software developers to stick with the platform, despite fears about piracy (which existed on PC and Playstation for years and yet didn't kill either of those markets).

Despite DVD playback, I still can't figure out why the PS2 sold as well as it did. Developers were pulling their hair out over that system. It was like the Saturn all over again. I wonder what Sony's early libraries and dev environment were like for folks who didn't really care about tapping the PS2's real power reserves. It's possible Sony managed to gloss over enough of the crap that if you were OK making a mediocre game you would be just fine.

[DragonmasterDan]

Unfortunately, those numbers don't help me much. What is clear is that the Dreamcast sold well enough in its first 1.5 years, better than any new-to-market console before it.

I don't think that's accurate either and certainly not clear.

 I think the N64 sold better in its first 1.5 years on the market (were you strictly reffering to the US on this, because for the Dreamcast the first 1.5 years on the market globally would put it in April 2000) for example. The problem is that worldwide data for those time periods isn't widely available. For the US a company called NPD was doing Toy and Retail Sales Tracking (or TRST), but it strictly tracked sales in the 50 US states, Famitsu magazine does most of the tracking for Japan. Europe and elsewhere in the world wasn't widely tracked for sales.

Added in edit: By March 31st 1998 (just slightly over 1.5 years on the market) the N64 sold 15.22 million units. Roughly a time and a half as many units as the Dreamcast had manufactured. http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Nintendo_64 This basically re-enforces that the N64 sold better in the same time frame.

Also, here's NPD info for the Dreamcast in the US. http://www.goodcowfilms.com/farm/basement/ga-archive/sega-dc-sales-03-04-2003.htm archived from the old Gaming Age Forums.

So that covers US direct sales for the Dreamcast.

[spenoza]

Well, clearly that's a misconception I bought into, then. The system still had a fantastic launch, though, and, since what-ifs are pretty par for the course around here (this is a PCE/TG forum, after all), I'll say I think the DC could have beaten the N64 in the US (time-frame for time-frame) had the console supply been available at launch. Or maybe I just like to blame NEC. They are the perennial whipping boy around here.

[DragonmasterDan]

Well, clearly that's a misconception I bought into, then. The system still had a fantastic launch, though, and, since what-ifs are pretty par for the course around here (this is a PCE/TG forum, after all), I'll say I think the DC could have beaten the N64 in the US (time-frame for time-frame) had the console supply been available at launch. Or maybe I just like to blame NEC. They are the perennial whipping boy around here.

The N64 had supply issues as well

Also, from what I can extrapolate just from those numbers, the ratio of systems sold in the same time frame were at least 2 to 1 in favor of the N64. I'm not sure any minor changes to the Dreamcast would have changed things significantly enough to turn that tide.

[spenoza]

I'm not saying anything would have ultimately changed the course of the Dreamcast's life, but it's possible the system could have sold significantly better than it did. Pre-orders were enormous and cancelled in droves, especially in Japan. Any better is still better, and is still a good thing, IMO.

[GohanX]

Despite DVD playback, I still can't figure out why the PS2 sold as well as it did.

I would say it was mostly hype. The PS2 was supposed to be the everything system, and if hype were believed, 200x more powerful than anything the world had seen. As a Dreamcast/PC gamer, I was pretty disappointed when a local shop got an import system and the games didn't look any better than stuff I already had.

[Mathius]

Mathius, I find the Eidolon's Inn articles to be interesting, but lacking in references and fact-checking. The Saturn article is distinctly opinionated in places and hard to take seriously, despite containing some rather valuable insights. I'll need to read the Dreamcast one more fully, but I would be wary accepting it as a reliable source.

And now that I'm on page 3, they've already bungled a huge amount of important technical data. I can only assume the corporate politics stuff is within the realm of being correct, but the technical information they throw around in that piece is way off base in a number of important places.

What technical info did they screw up? I'm just wondering.

Further, the hyperbole is annoying. Allow me to quote... "literally eye-popping graphics"  I know what literally means. It is synonymous with actually. And yet, I don't know anyone who's eyes were popped by the Dreamcast's graphics.

My eyes may not have popped but they certainly were astounded by the graphical power of the DC back on launch day.

[spenoza]

I believe the Saturn can do texturing and lightshading in hardware.

Basically the only programmers who swore that the Saturn was a beautiful box of wonder that nobody was properly tapping were people working at or closely with Sega. Others, including the programmer of Saturn Quake (perhaps the single most polygon-heavy Saturn game) said that its architecture is stupid for 3D games, and that the Playstation is way faster at 3D drawing anyway.

The Saturn can do Garoud lighting using an additive model, but I'm not sure that works well with textured polys in most cases, thus many Saturn lighting examples are at least partially software in nature. I wish I understood what I just typed better than I actually do.

Saturn texturing is a weird beast. I get the feeling it does texturing in an odd way. I tried reading up on this, including the dev manual, so this is conjecture. The sprite and texturing engines are one and the same, and lots of different sources say that poly generation is somehow an extension of this engine, yet the Saturn seems to do 2D and 2D integration with 3D more smoothly and effectively than the Playstation. The Saturn architecture is a bit odd, and not nearly as straight-forward as the PS1 (which follows a much more traditional model, and also uses math shortcuts for speed, sacrificing accuracy), but I don't know that that means it is "stupid" for 3D games, despite what that programmer from Lobotomy claimed. He claimed the Saturn couldn't use one large poly for a wall, but instead had to use several small polys. This doesn't make a lot of sense without qualification. It is possible the Saturn can't do repeating textures on a surface, thus requiring multiple polys for a wall in order to get a repeating texture pattern, but even that doesn't completely make sense to me. It might have something to do with this information I found on the Rockin'-B web site: "The SEGA Saturn cannot change texture coordinates in game by hardware. This means that textures are pre-mapped and cannot change (except very few and very limited programming tricks, not worth mentioning) which is required for some of todays lightning effects." But I don't see how this would interfere with, say, making a big wall.

I want to know more about the Saturn, but it's really hard to find good info distilled into understandable terms.

I would say it was mostly hype.

JKM, yeah, in truth there's not much on the PS2 that the Dreamcast truly couldn't do. The PS2 can do some nicer visual effects and a few more polys in a scene, but PS2 texturing kinda sucks balls, and memory management on that console is a bitch. A quick and dirty port is, for the same effort, going to look less good than a Dreamcast game, and even the great games don't look too much better. Grand Theft Auto III had a large world but the textures were bland and the frame rate less than quick and smooth. The Dreamcast might have had trouble with the poly counts involved in far enough draw distance, but what you could see would likely look a lot better.

[CrackTiger]

Basically the only programmers who swore that the Saturn was a beautiful box of wonder that nobody was properly tapping were people working at or closely with Sega. Others, including the programmer of Saturn Quake (perhaps the single most polygon-heavy Saturn game) said that its architecture is stupid for 3D games, and that the Playstation is way faster at 3D drawing anyway.

The same programmer was the most vocal in saying how easy it is to develop for Saturn and how you can get more out of it than the Playstation, to the point that he called those who didn't get good results 'simply lazy'. When they made a version of Powerslave/Exhumed for Playstation, they had to chop it up to get it to run well enough and the effects still took a hit.

It was only some time after Lobotomy's support for Saturn had led them down the road to financial ruin, that he started lashing out against the Saturn in clearly emotionally biased comments. You could say that he was only lying on one side of his opposite comments, but his work for the Saturn supports his positive comments and his negative ones are tainted by what happened to their company.

[SamIAm]

I love me some Saturn games, but I think the best 3D games on the Playstation pretty much speak for themselves.

Also, I believe I remember reading a discussion in a homebrew forum about how the Saturn tends to warp its polygons once they get too big. That's what that programmer was talking about when they were discussing big walls, I think. The Playstation does this too, though.

Keep in mind that the programmer who made the PS version of Powerslave was a different guy. Ezra Dreisbach was the original Powerslave programmer and the Quake programmer, and his test-port of Quake to the PS was his first PS game. When he says this:

The most striking thing about the PlayStation port was how much faster the graphics hardware was than the Saturn. The initial scene after you just start the game is pretty complex. I think it ran 20 fps on the Saturn version. On the PlayStation it ran 30,but the actual rendering part could have been going 60 if the CPU calculations weren't holding it up. I don't know if it would have ever been possible to get it to really run 60, but at least there was the potential.

I have to think he's not lying.

As for the AM2 projects that supposedly used the sound CPU to help get extra-high polygon counts, it's quite a stretch to expect anyone else to do this. Even so, the Saturn Shenmue video doesn't appear to pull off much that the best Playstation games didn't.

Of all the reasons to love the Saturn, being good at 3D must be toward the bottom of the list.

[spenoza]

So, to get back to Game Sack, I think you guys do some great editing (Gee, Joe's a video editor by trade. I wonder if that is connected somehow...)

You also do pretty good clip selection and seem determined not to whore yourselves completely to only the highest-profile titles.

[DragonmasterDan]

JKM, yeah, in truth there's not much on the PS2 that the Dreamcast truly couldn't do. The PS2 can do some nicer visual effects and a few more polys in a scene, but PS2 texturing kinda sucks balls, and memory management on that console is a bitch. A quick and dirty port is, for the same effort, going to look less good than a Dreamcast game, and even the great games don't look too much better. Grand Theft Auto III had a large world but the textures were bland and the frame rate less than quick and smooth. The Dreamcast might have had trouble with the poly counts involved in far enough draw distance, but what you could see would likely look a lot better.

The PS2 could do considerably higher poly counts than the Dreamcast could, the PS2 initially was bumpy out of the gate as Sony downgraded the GPU performance, as a result there was a lot of early games with "jaggies", jagged polygons due to the lack of hardware anti-aliasing, but those problems got solved fairly quickly through clever programming. Yes, first generation PS2 games didn't look any better than what was on the Dreamcast, but something like Dragon Quest VIII is inconceivable on the Dreamcast.

[spenoza]

JKM, yeah, in truth there's not much on the PS2 that the Dreamcast truly couldn't do. The PS2 can do some nicer visual effects and a few more polys in a scene, but PS2 texturing kinda sucks balls, and memory management on that console is a bitch. A quick and dirty port is, for the same effort, going to look less good than a Dreamcast game, and even the great games don't look too much better. Grand Theft Auto III had a large world but the textures were bland and the frame rate less than quick and smooth. The Dreamcast might have had trouble with the poly counts involved in far enough draw distance, but what you could see would likely look a lot better.

The PS2 could do considerably higher poly counts than the Dreamcast could, the PS2 initially was bumpy out of the gate as Sony downgraded the GPU performance, as a result there was a lot of early games with "jaggies", jagged polygons due to the lack of hardware anti-aliasing, but those problems got solved fairly quickly through clever programming. Yes, first generation PS2 games didn't look any better than what was on the Dreamcast, but something like Dragon Quest VIII is inconceivable on the Dreamcast.

I'm not sure that we know that for certain. The PS2 had a long market life, so libraries and development tools improved. The Dreamcast had such a short development life that I'm not sure the system was really ever tapped out. I am certain that the PS2 could push around more polygons. I don't know that I could say with confidence that that difference is enough to truly make a difference. I am not certain that the Dreamcast couldn't at least manage a passable version of anything featured on the PS2. The Dreamcast's limits are still somewhat unknown.

Further, the PS2 can push a HUGE number of unadultered polys. As soon as you start doing stuff to them, the poly rate drops dramatically. The PS2 was a very flexible piece of hardware in that instead of having lots of built-in hardware effects, it was highly programmable, but using those programmable effects really cut poly rates. Combine that with the miniscule texture memory and many PS2 games had to reduce the frame rate or effects to get higher poly rates. The DC had an excellent Z-buffer implementation, even better than the Xbox and PS2, so while it can't put as many polys on screen, it is extremely efficient and rendering only the polys it needs to render, and it is very efficient at ruling out polys that don't need to be rendered. So, under game conditions with texturing effects and all, yes, the PS2 could render more complex scenes with higher poly counts, but not as dramatically more as Sony has traditionally claimed. I do think with some close-to-the-metal programming and some good design decisions that the DC could manage results that are admirably close to the PS2, at least for the most popular and mainstream games. The games that the PS2 produced that the DC couldn't touch are the ones that use minimal effects and lighting and focus more on extracting more polys at the expense of visual acuity.

[Samurai Ghost]

How I see it from a strictly hardware perspective:

Saturn 2D > Playstation 2D
Saturn 3D < Playstation 3D

But with the DC/PS2 it's not so clean cut. The PS2 is capable if rendering more polygons and the heavy development that went into some of the later PS2 titles really pushed what the system could do. The Dreamcast was more limited with its polygons, but what it DID render looked amazing. No jaggies, bright colors, everything was so smooth. And the fact that is fizzled out so soon makes me wonder what kind of games would be developed for it if it stuck around longer...

[Joe Redifer]

Latest episode:

Frustrating Games!

[Mathius]

You guys are getting much more comfortable in front of the camera. It really shows!

Batman Returns was definitely a major contributer to my adolescent anger issues bitd. I always remembered thinking how I wished they had developed new platforming sections from the ground up.

I really enjoyed your commentary on the SEGA CD's abilities even though they were brief. A GameSack episode expanding on one of your earlier videos from your other channel would be neat to see.

Off the top of my head two games that frustrated me to no end were the NES version of Ninja Gaiden, and Phantasy Star 2. I actually ended up beating Ninja Gaiden way back when thanks to a VHS tape that my parents bought me that gave strategies for various NES games. I still have that tape somewhere.

PS2, on the other hand, can totally kiss my ass. I can't make it past the first dungeon or so and I have been trying for years. I really wish that I could get further into the game because I really enjoy the art work in the cinemas.

[spenoza]

You know, this episode makes me think of a great candidate episode to follow up on this later: Best Challenging Games that aren't Cheap. Meaning, the best games that were hard, even ass hard, but were a real challenge without relying on cheap kills or inflated challenge metrics. They challenged you with great design and kept you pushing to do better!

[roflmao]

Another great episode! 

As much as I love playing shooters, I find most if them pretty frustrating, at least at the beginning.  Whenever I get a new shmup and have played it for awhile, my wife invariably comes into the room and asks "Why do you keep playing these games that make you so angry?"  (She usually hears a few choice words and possibly the sound of a controller being dropped in esasperation or the console being hastily reset.  At least I don't throw controllers or punch holes in walls anymore. )  My response; "If it's evoking that kind of response from me, it's usually a pretty good game". 

I usually don't get pissed off at games that suck.  They just suck and I move on.  It's the games where I *know* I can do better, I saw a way around the thing that killed me at the last second, and I'm more frustrated at myself for either not remembering a pattern or by zagging when I should have zigged, or did some other dingbat mistake.  But the frustrations coming out of a good game root from me, so I'm constantly going back to them and getting slightly better. 

When I first got Kyukyoku Tiger for the PCE it took a lot of patience to make it past the first level.  But now I can usually breeze through it and the next few levels without hardly any effort.  The game is amazing.  The Genesis version of Twin Cobra, on the other hand, is a mess, imo.

[TR0N]

Latest episode:

Frustrating Games!

Not bad but i thought (Landstalker) would have made the list.Great game,but man it's isometric view can throw ya off for platforming.

[spenoza]

Latest episode:

Frustrating Games!

Not bad but i thought (Landstalker) would have made the list.Great game,but man it's isometric view can throw ya off for platforming.

Light Crusader is largely in the same boat, though it does seem a little less troublesome. I think the most frustrating isometric game I've ever played, however, is Dark Savior on the Saturn. There are some floating platform jumping segments that make me want to tear the developers limb from limb (poor Climax).

[TR0N]

Latest episode:

Frustrating Games!

Not bad but i thought (Landstalker) would have made the list.Great game,but man it's isometric view can throw ya off for platforming.

Light Crusader is largely in the same boat, though it does seem a little less troublesome. I think the most frustrating isometric game I've ever played, however, is Dark Savior on the Saturn. There are some floating platform jumping segments that make me want to tear the developers limb from limb (poor Climax).

I never had a problem with dark savior expect the mine cart ride.That part should have never been in the game it's camera angles,are realy screwed up.

[DragonmasterDan]

Off the top of my head two games that frustrated me to no end were the NES version of Ninja Gaiden, and Phantasy Star 2. I actually ended up beating Ninja Gaiden way back when thanks to a VHS tape that my parents bought me that gave strategies for various NES games. I still have that tape somewhere.

Ninja Gaiden is fairly easy until the last stage, that's a nightmare. About a year ago, I beat Ninja Gaiden 1, then the next day Ninja Gaiden 2, but couldn't beat Ninja Gaiden 3 which has limited continues making it unimaginably difficult.

A few weeks ago I beat Ghosts N Goblins for NES for the first time, yes, both runs through.

The two toughest NES games I can think of are NG 3 and Silver Surfer, but Silver Surfer I consider to be broken.

[spenoza]

The two toughest NES games I can think of are NG 3 and Silver Surfer, but Silver Surfer I consider to be broken.

I never beat GnG or NG3, but I found NG3 a lot more accessible, and I tended to make steadier progress in it. Didn't hurt that it was an attractive and good-sounding game.

[Samurai Ghost]

PS2, on the other hand, can totally kiss my ass. I can't make it past the first dungeon or so and I have been trying for years. I really wish that I could get further into the game because I really enjoy the art work in the cinemas.

It's definitely more challenging than typical JRPGs but doable if you have the patience to grind for money and experience. Equipment is expensive but you'll need it to progress through the game, much like the original Phantasy Star. PS2 is an awesome game all around and worth your patience! Beating it is quite an accomplishment though, and it probably why the game originally came with a walk through guidebook with maps.

[PikachuWarrior]

always wanted to get into the Phantasy Star games. I have the genesis collection on my ps3, but unfortunately, there is no Phantasy Star 1.

[TR0N]

always wanted to get into the Phantasy Star games. I have the genesis collection on my ps3, but unfortunately, there is no Phantasy Star 1.

always wanted to get into the Phantasy Star games. I have the genesis collection on my ps3, but unfortunately, there is no Phantasy Star 1.

Realy !? The sonic ultimate genesis collection does have,phantasy star it just takes finshing the frist level of sonic 2 with tails to unlock it.

[PikachuWarrior]

really? haha, didn't know that! I admit I never spent much time with the genesis collection (didn't care much for it), but if that's the case--unlocking bit--i may just do that!

[guyjin]

Latest episode:

Frustrating Games!

Another good episode. But I don't like the new intro music. Why the change?

[Mathius]

Latest episode:

Frustrating Games!

Another good episode. But I don't like the new intro music. Why the change?

Agreed! I miss the old one.

[spenoza]

I wonder if the music was meant to reflect the frustration they feel with the games.

[rag-time4]

Latest episode:

Frustrating Games!

Another good episode. But I don't like the new intro music. Why the change?

Agreed! I miss the old one.

Interesting change! This one sounds muffled compared to the last one. Kind of like Genesis vs JP Sega Saturn....

[PunkCryborg]

That was cool seeing all the isometric games and it would've been cool to even have a whole episode on them.
Oh yeah and the music change was a little funky but the production quality is top notch
Thanks!

PS still waiting for the CDi episode

[Mathius]

PS still waiting for the CDi episode

...and the ThunderBlade episode. 

[Joe Redifer]

New episode is up!



The NEC SuperGrafx & the Atari Jaguar