If you’re going to go back in time to help Sega, you should go farther back and stop them from releasing the 32x against the Saturn.
Dreamcast’s strength was the hardware. Adding a DVD player would have just increased the price out of realistic range. The problem was the software and 3rd party support. The library just could not compete with PS1 and N64 and then the greatest console of all time came out and put it out of its misery, the PS2.
Dreamcast had more games in its short lifespan than N64. The problem wasn’t software support.
I believe the problem was poor marketing. Especially after the failure of Saturn. Everybody was looking forward to PS2.
And part of the PS2’s success was the built-in DVD player which was cheaper than non-console DVD players at the time. So if you were going to buy a DVD player anyway, you were better off buying a PS2, saving some money and getting a console at the same time.
There’s not really any one reason the Dreamcast failed, but the library being larger doesn’t necessarily map to the library being better. The Dreamcast didn’t have any heavy hitters on the level of a Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, GoldenEye or Ocarina of Time. In terms of games that are still in the mainstream consciousness, it’s probably Sonic Adventure and Shenmue.
The library also had another thing that I think held it back from greater success: ports. Releasing so early, basically in the middle of the lifespan of the PS1 and N64, meant that a lot of the games were cross-platform with one or more previous-generation consoles. It’s hard to demonstrate the power of a next-gen console when so many of the exact same games also worked fine on the consoles people already owned.
The other big source of ports in the Dreamcast library were arcade games. Sega was offering the ultimate in home ports of arcade games at exactly the time in the games industry when arcades were collapsing. The Dreamcast was the best way to play basically any cross-platform game that came out in that period, whether it was ported from arcade or lesser consoles, but ultimately they were games you could already play or that you specifically didn’t want to.
I don’t want to give the impression that the Dreamcast didn’t have good or original games, it had both, just not “I must upgrade my console mid-gen”-quality games. It’s a library that’s aged very well but at the time, not enough people wanted what they were selling.
N64 and PS1 have not aged well. I’d absolutely take a dreamcast over the N64 and the PS1 really only beats it on RPGs. If you don’t have nostalgia for the 5th gen consoles, most of the games just aren’t very fun anymore.
A dvd player wasn’t going to fix the internal dysfunction at Sega.
Or the weirdly anachronistic mess that is the Dreamcast in general. I mean, it’s not easy to visualize today because a lot of the “just a tiny underpowered PC thing” approach ended up winning the day, but the Dreamcast made no sense whatsoever at the time and produced entirely absurd looking games.
Maybe you could try to rationalize the 480p thing as an advantage today, but at the time screenshot comparisons looked a generation apart next to the PS2.
Unlike the Gamecube and Xbox, which used DVD-like discs but just weren’t licensed as DVD players (though Xbox later sold a “DVD Playback Kit” meant to cover licensing fees), Dreamcast’s GD-ROMs were closely based on standard Compact Disc technology, just with dual-layer discs.
Upgrading the hardware would’ve increased costs considerably, GD-ROMs were meant to be a lot cheaper than the still very new DVD technology. Tech that did get cheaper by the time the PS2 hit the market nearly two years later, but Sega wanted to be early.
They always say the early bird gets the worm, but the early worm gets eatened. And sometimes you the worm.
Why?
Some people believe the Sega Dreamcast was a superior console but that it failed to appeal to the mass market because the Playstation and the xBox also had the ability to play DVDs.
At the time DVD players were very popular and a standalone unit could cost in the ballpark of £100, so the ability to get a 2in1 unit that played games and DVDs was very attractive.
If Dreamcast should have had a niche it should have been using the VMU as a portable MP3 player and giving the Dreamcast the ability to rip music.
You’re grossly overestimating what mobile tech was capable of in 1998. The dreamcast had enough power to play an mp3 but the VMU definitely did not. On top of that, the VMU only has enough storage space for a little over 6 seconds of music at 128kbps. Even if the Dreamcast could (very very slowly) rip CDs to MP3 , you still had no where to save the data.
If there is anything I’ve learned from the grand history of the console wars, it’s that they play by highlander rules ** there can only be one!** or more precisely there can only be two plus Nintendo who is a separate entity and irrelevant to console discussions. Xbox and Steam Deck is about to fight to the death just like Sony killed Sega.
