Talk:Dreamcast

Sourcing comment

Just wanted to say that, if anyone ever plans on taking this thing to FAC, there's a big job ahead of them. Back in 2014, I scanned around 200 pages of Dreamcast magazine coverage for Red Phoenix, and it's all still available here. Most of it has not been cited in the article, and I don't think any Dreamcast FA could be considered comprehensive without a careful trawling of this material. Even if most of it is redundant (a distinct possibility), it still has to be double-checked before FAC, in case there are holes in the present article. Plus, I see a lot of weak sources in the article currently (GameSpot and IGN coverage from the 90s, for example) that could be replaced by stronger magazine citations. There's a disproportionate number of online sources in general, given the era in which the Dreamcast was released. All of this is fine for a GA, but, for the future, I wanted to let people know (since Red Phoenix has retired) that this scan cache exists. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 21:11, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree about the scope of the undertaking. Dreamcast had a very thorough GA review that lasted a couple of months, during which time it was improved considerably—from looking like this to looking much closer to the current version. In that time, the number of sources in the article more than doubled. Red Phoenix's contributions steadily declined in the middle of the review, leaving Indrian and I to finish up, and before the article was promoted I made a point of checking every single one of your scans. I recall very little that wasn't redundant, although I was quick to add what new material I could, such as this great anecdote from EGM November 1998. It's possible RP and I missed something, but I doubt we missed very much. I am unaware that easily-checked online sources are less reliable than print sources, but I would also point out that I added quite a few Game Informers from the period.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 22:13, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

If the scanned stuff has been explored, then that changes things. (I'm not sure that RP read most of it himself, so you're likely the only one who's gone through it all.) However, no matter how easy they are to check, GameSpot and IGN weren't very strong sources in the 90s. I've seen that fact sink FACs in the past, actually. And an over-reliance on Internet sources for a subject that was largely pre-Internet can be a problem. Something to keep in mind, at the very least. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 23:33, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 October 2015

Total Sales is suspect. All references to 10.6 million sold should be changed to 9.13 million sold

The multiple references to 10.6 million console sales are unsubstantiated and are not sourced from a verifiable resource. Actual verifiable resources from Sega shows that only 9.13 million units were produced and shipped. in their 2001 Anual Report it's stated "for respective totals of 8.20 million units" with the remaining 930,000 units accounted for in their Revision later that year "with domestic sales of 130,000 units and U.S. sales of 530,000 units for the first half.- Consequently, at the end of the half, Dreamcast inventories totaled 40,000 units domestically and 230,000 units for the United States, and we anticipate being able to sell all remaining units by the holiday season as initially planned." Jcgarmatz (talk) 01:52, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

References

Jcgarmatz (talk) 01:52, 30 October 2015 (UTC)  Not done Many reliable sources verify the 10.6 figure. Sergecross73 msg me 02:25, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 October 2015

58.70.199.213 (talk) 09:59, 30 October 2015 (UTC) Japanese wikipedia has accurate source that only 9.13 million Dreamcasts were ever produced. This makes the English sites 10.6million totally inaccurate.

The current source, http://web.archive.org/web/20080905175406/http://www.gamepro.com/article/features/111822/the-10-worst-selling-consoles-of-all-time/ - is considered a reliable source per WP:VG/S, and is widely correlated by other sources. Sergecross73 msg me 11:08, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

I know this is not a forum

However, if the editors are refusing to check actual facts what is the point of Wikipedia? How isa blog an accurate source over the manufacturer as a source? Seems both childish and pathetic. Add to the fact we have it clearly stated on the Japanese Wiki the Japanese company made 9.13 million units this whole 10.6 million figure is now nothing more that a bad joke.

The editors are abusing power here instead of looking at facts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.70.199.213 (talk) 11:55, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

As I noted in your second section below, none of the edit warring IPs were changing the article to 9.13 million or quoting a source. The reverts were for disruptive edits changing to an unsourced 6.4 million, many of the edits resulting in citation/template errors. -- ferret (talk) 14:17, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Ok I did some more research

I really do not want to be rude, however, there appears to be only one source for the 10.6 million sold and it is Blake Snow. No other Journalist or Journal before his one article ever reported 10.6 million sales. We now have accurate numbers on the Japanese wiki from CESA, http://www.cesa.or.jp/index.php/en CESA publishes a printed business document yearly and is the sponsor of the Tokyo game show. So the question is are the editors of the English Wiki going to continue using one Journalists estimate over accurate figures provided in 2014 by a renowned Japanese business? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.70.199.213 (talk) 12:14, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

I am not going to change this (yet), but I want to make clear, the protection was requested because of multiple IPs constantly edit warring to change the value to an unsourced count of 6.4 million. During this edit warring, they were also breaking citations and templates and disrupting the article. This is why protection was ultimately put in place.

Maybe 10.6 million is wrong, but it IS from a reliable source, regardless of IP's opinions that it's "just a blog" (Which it wasn't). I don't like to link this essay, but Wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth. We show what the sources show. I will continue to research the topic however, as I suspect more recent articles quoting 10.6 are caused by citogenesis. -- ferret (talk) 14:15, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

You do realize that your link provides no estimate and that other Wikis are unreliable, right? Ryūkotsusei did a good job piecing together Dreamcast sales information prior to the GAR, and what he found ("Getting rid of inventory at slashed prices, Dreamcast sales only recently reached 10 million" as of October 2001) tends to corroborate Snow's figure.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 14:45, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Research into where 10.6 million came from

Prior to July 2007 (When GamePro wrote their article), Wikipedia already listed 10.6 million, which was sourced to a Game Tunnel article. This article was published September 2005. Prior to September 2005, the Wikipedia article stated 9 million hardware sales, but was unsourced.

Game Tunnel was never fully evaluated by WP:VG/RS. Game Tunnel attributes their numbers to the PC vs Console forums, which are archived here. Digging into the archives of the PC vs Console forums, we can find this post by sm284614, which has the 10.6 million count, and another user sources similar numbers to yet another forum. The important thing in my eyes is that THIS post is not by the apparent expert of the forum, chairmansteve, and sm284614 admits that chairmansteve may have more accurate informations.

Which leads us to this post, by Chairmansteve, which was posted only two days below sm284614's post. , and shows an estimate of 9.5million, in line with JAWIKI sources.

Based on this information, I believe the Game Tunnel article to have been inaccurate, and suspect that GamePro and the recent spate of sources from this week quoting 10.6 million to be citogenesis.

As such, I believe we should change to 9.13 million, sourced to CESA, as used by JAWIKI. While researching this, TheTimesAreACharing posted the source this source, but my (personal) belief is this source may have rounded up or been based on an estimate. -- ferret (talk) 14:58, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Further note: While I agree that JAWIKI is itself unreliable, they are not unsourced. The currently listed source (As translated by Google) is an offline source: Chapter 11, "CESA Game Archives", "2014 CESA Game White Paper", CESA , 159 pages. -- ferret (talk) 15:12, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Regardless of where the exact figure of 10.6 million came from, it is beyond serious dispute that the Dreamcast sold more than 10 million units. Sega's 2001 and 2002 financial reports support a figure of about 10.2 million, 8.2 million of which were sold by March 31, 2001. For the fiscal year ending March 31, 2002, Sega reported that the company had "exited the hardware business, ceasing production of the Dreamcast and selling through the remaining inventory," which was estimated at over 2 million in February 2001. These were sources I dug up for the GAR and added to the article a long time ago, so I do find the wildly indignant IPs' confident proclamations that sales couldn't have been more than 6-8 million laughably misinformed.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 21:01, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

I agree about the IP claims of 6-8 million being laughable, but.... I don't think you can take the figures of 8.2 million from the 2001FY end report, which covered through March 31 2001, and add in an inventory estimate of over 2 million from February 1, 2001. This is counting two months of sales twice. This 2002FY first half update claimed sales of 660,000 units, with 270,000 remaining to be sold, for a total of 930,000. The report is specific that these are Japan and North America region numbers, Europe is missing from the report. This, with the 8.2 million total for 2001 fiscal year report, gives us a total of 9,130,000 units. The lack of information for Europe in the 2002FY update bothers me though. This 9.13 million count is what JAWIKI shows, sourced to CESA. CESA should be a suitable source for us to specify 9.13 million units sold, as an industry white paper. It's also a recent report, having been sourced to 2014, with a 2015 revision available (But requires purchase). -- ferret (talk) 21:29, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

You guys both make some good points. We can always contact WP:VG and see if they have any input too... Sergecross73 msg me 02:59, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

10.6 million is almost certainly too high, but 9.13 million is probably too low, as it omits several hundred thousand Dreamcasts from Europe and Asia. Going back to Ryūkotsusei's sources, the late October 2001 news article stating that Dreamcast sales had "recently surpassed 10 million" is very similar to Sega Chief Operating Officer Tetsu Kayama's statement earlier that month that "the company expects Dreamcast's accumulated shipments to surpass the 10 million threshold", so it's certainly not impossible that there is some inaccuracy there, although Kayama's statement still tends to undermine the 9.13 million figure. Kayama predicted that the final shipments would be made in November 2001, but Sega actually shipped the last Dreamcasts in early 2002. GamePro had an article about this in issue 162, March 2002, and it would be interesting to see if it gave any sales figures. However, I have no recollection of that, and I no longer have the issue in my possession.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 19:23, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Did Sega's Europe branch ever post corporate releases separately from the main company? The missing piece here is clearly the lack of Europe and Asia numbers in that final tally for 2002FY First Half. If we blend the known count of 9.13 million with the inventory estimates by IGN for Europe, we get 9.59 million. I'm not happy with that, but it is also inline with the forum thread I dug up by chairmansteve earlier.-- ferret (talk) 19:25, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Ferret, the 8.2 million figure in Sega's 2001 annual report cannot possibly be correct. Per Sega's earlier financial reports, the company sold 900,000 Dreamcast units in Japan during fiscal 1999, and 4.65 million Dreamcast units in the US/Europe/Japan/Asia during fiscal 2000, for a total of 5.55 million units. Adding that to the 3.39 million units sold in fiscal 2001 produces a figure of 8.94 million, not 8.2 million. Thus, the minimum number of Dreamcast units sold worldwide is at least several hundred thousand in excess of 9.87 million. The maximum number would probably be about 10.6 million, as there is clearly a large enough discrepancy in the reported size of Sega's unsold inventory that it cannot be explained entirely by sales in February and March 2001 alone (adding IGN's 2.03 million reported in February 2001 to produce an over-estimate yields a figure of 10.97 million). The Japanese Wiki is way off.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 00:17, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Actually, it turns out that the error may lie in Sega's 2000 annual report rather than the 2001 report, and that 9.13 million is likely close to the truth, although I still find it hard to believe Sega officials and journalists were going around saying they had sold over 10 million units when they hadn't even produced that many. I will keep looking into the matter.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 02:02, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

It seems Sega deliberately inflated Dreamcast sales during fiscal 2000 by inexplicably switching from consolidated to non-consolidated sales numbers. As to the apparent exclusion of European and Asian unsold inventory in the 930,000 figure, the consensus on NeoGAF is that Sega diverted all of their inventory to Japan and the US. I don't know if I completely buy that, because it suggests that the widespread media reporting that there were over 2 million unsold Dreamcasts sitting in warehouses in early 2001 was wildly off the mark, and we do have the reports from October 2001 stating that Dreamcast sales surpassed 10 million to contend with as part of the historical record. However, the CESA estimate of 9.13 million does seem to be the most reliable, up-to-date statistic we have. On a related note, CESA's 9.26 million estimate for the Saturn does not contradict any of the detailed figures given on Wikipedia, although in researching the Saturn numbers all over again I did encounter a potential discrepancy...which I will have to delve into on that article's talk page when I get the chance. (Perhaps also I should consult the real experts, namely NeoGAF in its collective wisdom.) CESA's 30.75 million estimate for the Genesis is likely to be a bit less reliable and certainly wouldn't include the much broader definition used by Wikipedia; moreover, we make no claim that 40 million is actually accurate as opposed to a reasonably close approximation.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:51, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Issues with Saturn sales can be found here.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 09:04, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

TheTimesAreAChanging, I appreciate the further research on this. I see you've updated the article to source the Financial reports directly, which is fine by me. Do you see any value in sourcing to CESA as well? Since they match the financial reports, I'm ok with it either way. -- ferret (talk) 13:17, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia rules prohibit users from citing sources they haven't read. Some people may break the rules for what they feel are good reasons, but it's not necessary or desirable to do so here.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:20, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

There's even more egg on our face. It turns out that the official sales figures for the Saturn and Dreamcast have actually been known for years, albeit only in the academic literature. The Video Game Industry: Formation, Present State, and Future (Routledge, 2012) has both figures on page 158 (we can use this in place of CESA). You just would never know anything of the sort from the populist gaming press!TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 02:56, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Personal opinion, but I'm of an opinion that populist gaming press is more and more reliant on Wikipedia for basic background facts. Citogenesis is going to become more and more of a problem for us as time goes by, especially for topics like older consoles, etc. -- ferret (talk) 03:02, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

I guess the source provided here by 58.70.199.213 might correct. But why is that CESA link no longer displaying the numbers? 98.119.155.81 (talk) 03:59, 22 November 2015 (UTC)