X360=Dreamcast 2.0

[ghost master]

Ever since the first details of the Xbox 360 hit the web, gamers have drawn comparisons to Sega's ill-fated (yet still highly regarded) Dreamcast console. There are the obvious examples - the timing of the launches or the color of the hardware - but then there are a lot of not so obvious ones, too. As part of our Xbox 360 countdown, we've put together a list of our favorites. Noticed any others? Email us.

Launched a year before the competition.

Faced a "far superior" next-generation PlayStation console that wowed gamers with fancy tech demos.

Sleek white console following in footsteps of bulky, black console.

Made its American debut on MTV.

Games ran on a Windows-derived OS.

Dreamcast's marketing mantra.

"Dreamcast will evolve much more into a network environment rather than a standalone system. It's not about you and the machine any more. It's about you competing against your friends, your enemies."
- Charles Belfield, Sega's VP of Marketing

Big selling point: Online for all with packed-in modem and SegaNet.

Unable to play the latest in cutting edge movie media (DVD).

Big selling point: Hi-def monitor output.

Big proponent of customization.

Peter Moore spearheaded the marketing.

Played previous generation games under emulation.

Tetsuya Mizuguchi worked on highly anticipated First Party title (Space Channel 5).

Exclusive promotional partner leading up to launch: Pepsi.

Highly anticipated First Party racing game from Bizarre Creations (Metropolis Street Racer).

Unique selling point: Microphone peripheral.

Software medium (GD-ROM) criticized as having not enough capacity by some developers.

Promised to be an evolutionary system - to someday play DVDs.

Crazy rich bald guy spotted at several promotional events leading up to launch.

Planned to eventually offer larger storage capacity with a Zip drive.

Metal Gear Solid 2 trailer stole much of its next-generation thunder.

This is the dreamcast one compare to the 360 one below

Launching a year before the competition (likely).

Facing a "far superior" next-generation PlayStation console that wowed gamers with fancy tech demos.

Sleek white console following in footsteps of bulky, black console.

Made its American debut on MTV.

Runs on a Windows-derived OS.

Xbox 360's marketing mantra.

"Xbox 360 is driven by the passion of a worldwide community. It's a product that will bridge vast distances through shared stories and experiences...It's about the ability to connect with your communities."
- J Allard, Corporate VP and Chief XNA Architect

Big selling point: Online for all with built-in Ethernet port and Xbox Live Silver.

Huh. (this one shows a swirly green design which is the 360 design/trademark. There is a red and orange swirly thing that is dream casts
design/trademark

Unable to play the latest in cutting edge movie media (HD-DVD/Blu-Ray).

Big selling point: Hi-def monitor output.

Big proponent of customization.

Peter Moore spearheading the marketing.

Plays previous generation games under emulation.

Tetsuya Mizuguchi working on highly anticipated First Party title (Ninety-Nine Nights).

Exclusive promotional partner leading up to launch: Mountain Dew...which is owned by Pepsi.

Highly anticipated First Party racing game from Bizarre Creations (Project Gotham Racing 3).

Unique selling point: Microphone peripheral.

Software medium (DVD-9) criticized as having not enough capacity by some developers.

Promises to be an evolutionary system - to someday play HD-DVDs.

Crazy rich bald guy spotted at several promotional events leading up to launch.

Plans to eventually offer larger storage capacity with new Hard Drives.

Metal Gear Solid 4 trailer stole much of its next-generation thunder.

this is the 360 one a lot of similarities. this is from 1up.com This isn't saying that the 360 will be a failure just stating similarities. here are the differences.

Its predecessor was a complete failure.

Square, the most important publisher in Japan, never supported the console.

EA, the most important publisher in the U.S., never supported the console.

Dreamcast was too early for broadband gaming; 56K didn't really cut it.

Wasn't backwards compatible.

Sorry Dreamcast fans, but the system's controller really wasn't that great.

Had tons of amazing games...but no Halo 3.

FFVIII released the same day as the Dreamcast.

Former president Bernie Stolar quit right before the system launched, sending a bad sign.

Had a limited budget of only $100 million to market the console.

well this was this is the dreamcast one here is the 360 flip side.

Following on the heels of the very popular Xbox.

Has the support of Square Enix starting with Final Fantasy XI.

Has the full support of EA, with a whole lineup of titles at launch.

Broadband penetration is getting higher and Xbox Live is unparalleled.

Backwards compatible (mostly).

Has a wireless pad that many claim may be the best controller ever made.

Will have Halo 3. And it will be huge.

Next to no competition at launch.

Solid executive team in J Allard, Robbie Bach, and Peter Moore.

Although the very popular thing was more of a matter of opinion since the japanese thought it definetly wasn't popular.
link http://1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=1&cId=3145154

 

[Fox]

You know what's the greatest sign that a console will fail? A crazy rich bald guy being spotted at promotional events!!! Seriously

Okay, but really serious now, interesting comparisons. This will be an interesting Round 3 to the 3D console wars. Its gonna be big

 

[Steve]

In the immortal words of Neo, BS.

The reason Sega fell out of the console race was because they didn't have enough funds. Microsoft, on the other hand, has a HU-AGE source of funds. They could take the lead in the console race, losing money on every X360, and do the same thing for another generation without breaking a sweat. Microsoft knows how the electronics industry works.

I know this is mostly a joke, I didn't want anyone's hopes to perk up. >.>

 

[Glowstick_cult]

But the 360, unlike the Dreamcast, won't be a flop <- BIGGEST DIFFERENCE

Yanno what? I might just go and buy a Dreamcast...

 

[Hao Kaiser]

Thats kinda funny that you mention it, I was kidding with my cousin on YIM the other day, and said "The Xbox360 will be the leader of this generation, because it's coming first, like the PS2...but if another console was to come out, that would make it the Dreamcast of this generation...that sure would suck for them."

Now that I look over it, the math is kinda wrong...but the point still stands.

 

[PhQnix]

I've thought about this but there are so many people "pledging" to buy an Xbox 360 that it just doesn't seem likely to fail, though it would be hilarious if it did.

 

[Chris]

>_> I thought the first Xbox was already very similar to the Dreamcast in a few ways.

-User interface at startup of console with no game inside.
-Built in connection to internet (Dreamcast was dial-up, Xbox was broadband).
-Controller designs were all too similar.
-Started off with little fan support.
-Faced against a strong competitor; Sony.
-Started the ideas of playing games online with consoles.
-Online gaming services (Dreamcast had SegaNet, Xbox has Xbox Live).

I could probably go on. Xbox 360, however, is more like Dreamcast 3.0.

 

[Steve]

Was that supposed to be...an insult?

Once again, Xbox didn't FAIL, so it's kind of pointless to say anything like X360 = DC 2.0.

EDIT: I meant what Edward Elric said. ^^^

 

[ghost master]

Was that supposed to be...an insult?

Once again, Xbox didn't FAIL, so it's kind of pointless to say anything like X360 = DC 2.0.

No one is insulting it. They are just pointing out similarities between. Also a system can fail even if it was successful before. Sega proves it.

 

[The Battousai]

Yeah, the dreamcast actually had a pretty succesful launch and was pretty popular before ps2 came out. This is one of the things holding me back from picking a 360 up at launch. I'll probably have to see what sony has in store before buying a 360 because the 360 is eerily similar to the dreamcast and we all know how that turned out. If it becomes a next-gen dreamcast what will we have to play in 07-08 maybe even sooner. History tends to repeat it self and the freaky thing is that xbox 360 seems to be a next gen replica of the dreamcast even the same playstation series (MGS) blew them away in graphics and performance using overpowered tech-demos. If DVD's become easy to pirate (one of the things that happend to dreamcast CD's) microsoft should just call it's system dreamcast 360. They are even giving away sega/xbox360 shirts for pre-ordering one in japan. I like my xbox alot but without halo and online play just face it 360 wouldn't exist and microsoft would withdraw from the gaming department.

 

[Steve]

Yeah, the dreamcast actually had a pretty succesful launch and was pretty popular before ps2 came out. This is one of the things holding me back from picking a 360 up at launch. I'll probably have to see what sony has in store before buying a 360 because the 360 is eerily similar to the dreamcast and we all know how that turned out. If it becomes a next-gen dreamcast what will we have to play in 07-08 maybe even sooner. History tends to repeat it self and the freaky thing is that xbox 360 seems to be a next gen replica of the dreamcast even the same playstation series (MGS) blew them away in graphics and performance using overpowered tech-demos. If DVD's become easy to pirate (one of the things that happend to dreamcast CD's) microsoft should just call it's system dreamcast 360. They are even giving away sega/xbox360 shirts for pre-ordering one in japan. I like my xbox alot but without halo and online play just face it 360 wouldn't exist and microsoft would withdraw from the gaming department.

Microsoft plans on getting 3 million Xbox 360's sold by the end of February. Thats 20% of Xbox's current base....in three months. 360 will, more than likely, sell out. And just because Sony bluffed a trailer in MS's faces doesn't mean ****. Microsoft can throw around BILLIONS and it wouldn't matter. They're going to stay, and it doesn't look like Sony will be able to stamp them out anytime soon.

And if you're looking for parallels, Sony's time has come. Atari had 2 generations or so ( I think). Nintendo had two generations (NES and SNES). Sony's had two generations as well.

 

[The Battousai]

Microsoft plans on getting 3 million Xbox 360's sold by the end of February. Thats 20% of Xbox's current base....in three months. 360 will, more than likely, sell out. And just because Sony bluffed a trailer in MS's faces doesn't mean ****. Microsoft can throw around BILLIONS and it wouldn't matter. They're going to stay, and it doesn't look like Sony will be able to stamp them out anytime soon.

And if you're looking for parallels, Sony's time has come. Atari had 2 generations or so ( I think). Nintendo had two generations (NES and SNES). Sony's had two generations as well.

As I said dreamcast had a very good launch and a successful 2000 but shortly after ps2's release system sales slowed down and it lost lots of support. If the same thing happens to microsoft it wouldn't make sense to continue making games. Why would they stay in the gaming industry if they are losing money when they could make a large profit on something else. Microsoft will probably never go bankrupt, at least not in my lifetime, but if they don't make some good profit in this industry they probably will withdraw, microsoft is a very smart company they won't just throw away money to keep their game console alive if it fails they will probably just withdraw. Everything does not have to follow that 2 generation of reign thing this is not a presidential campaign a console can easily stay in power for 3+ and eventually dominate the industry, 2 generations is just a repeating pattern.

 

[WinterSnowblind]

This argument is completely pointless. You can argue about it all you want, but in the end, the Dreamcast failed due to very bad marketing (almost no advertising, even when they got really good games - Shenmue, JSR, Sonic, etc) and they didn't have the kind of money to continue funding the system, especially against Sony. Money is not going to be a problem for Microsoft.

True, they're going to have to start making some profit, otherwise when it comes to next gen there won't be a new Microsoft console. And then everybody will treat them exactly the same as Sega. A lot of people absoloutly hate them for no reason now, but when they're gone, everybody will love them and want them back. Yes, I remember all the Sega bashing.

And by the way. Sony aren't making a profit on their consoles either.

 

[Chris]

Almost no advertising? There was TONS of advertising on television when the Dreamcast was released. It then had a few TV commercials but mainly had ads in magazines. No commercials for Sonic? Obviously you missed the many "It's Thinking" commercials involving Sonic Adventure and then the Sonic Adventure 2 commercial that played before the game's release. Then there was that NBA game controversial commercial that had a problem with Nike (I think it was).

Treat Microsoft like Sega? What year are you in? The bashing of Xbox and Microsoft went DOWN long ago as soon as people began to realize they're not bad for an American company, especially to continue this long. Xbox Live is one of the main reasons it's selling so well.

You gotta learn abit of history here.

Dreamcast was wanted back after its failure because it did have something worth working. Problem was that most people avoided it after what was seen with the Sega CD, 32x and Saturn. Casual gamers weren't trusting Sega's new machine. Especially when it had that $200 price tag when coming to the US.

Xbox's backlash was because it was an American company trying to get in on the action of a market made up of only Japanese-based companies. Dreamcast's backlash came from Sega's past failures. Big difference.

Lack of quality third party and first games (Dreamcast only had a small amount of games from Sega and Sonic Team themselves that were actually good), piracy, promises not being kept (DVD add-on, Zip Drive, and web cam were never released) and the PS2 all ended up killing the Dreamcast.

 

[WinterSnowblind]

There were certainly no ads in Europe anyway. I saw ONE very late at night for MSR. And that was it.

 

[Chris]

Can't blame Sega for that, seeing as how Europe gets pretty much the shaft from everyone in the game department. >_>

 

[Chris]

It's funny, actually.

When the NES was dominating in the US, Sega brings over the Mega Drive to the US under the name the Genesis. For some reason, the Genesis and Mega Drive did suprisingly well in the US and Europe but Japan's Mega Drive was rather..ignored if anything.

Then when we fast forward to Saturn, Japan had the better response towards it. Dreamcast then had incredible response from both Japan and the US..yet was left to dry in Europe (even though Europe did get the benefit of being able to play Phantasy Star Online Ver. 2 for free and not having all of their servers shut down like the US).