Jump to content

Talk:Dreamcast/Archive 2

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 1Archive 2

Dreamcast and Windows CE

There's nothing in the article anywhere regarding the deal with Microsoft to use Windows CE as a development environment for some games. Given that this is frequently a topic of curiosity among people who see the logo on the front of the Dreamcast (often then erroneously assuming that the DC runs on a Windows OS), it seems a curious omission.160.5.247.240 (talk) 10:37, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Please check Windows CE article. There is a info regarding to this.Junkcops (talk) 03:12, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Fixed the link to Sega Japan's Dreamcast Database and removed the link to IGN. IGN is mentioned (and linked!) within the article at least once. In addition, IGN 1. isn't up-to-date in terms of recent developments regarding the hardware nor the community and 2. also a commercial service.

Thus I replaced the link to IGN with one to www.dreamcast-scene.com, a free WIKI project with its focus set on everything DC.

- DCEvoCE 12:53, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


KallistiOS and Free Software

I rewrote a good bit of "The return of the Dreamcast" to add more info about KallistiOS. Linux, Net-BSD and QNX are great projects, but the main software used for hobbyist development is KallistiOS which (other than the mentioned Windows CE SDK) enables programmers to release perfectly legal open source software and even commercial products without a license by Sega. I tried to reflect that with my additions.

- DCEvoCE 12:53, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


Removal of Trivia section

I have removed the trivia section. It has become 'In Popular Culture', in which I have left the information about the Dreamcast appearing on various TV shows, etc.

The information on the reset method has been moved to 'Hardware' and the rumoured Metal Gear Solid port info has been moved to 'Games' and clarified.

Blue Swirl 21:49, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Reading of Japanese name

I noticed the difference between the romaji reading and the katakana for the name of the Dreamcast. I'm interested in this because every Japanese person that I know pronounces it as doriimukasuto but the official name is doriimukyasuto. I changed the romaji to reflect the katakana given. Darryl L James 00:18, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

We are way off!

I found a site called http://www.vgcharts.org they look at companys monthly reports and tally up their sales figures. For games like Shenmue and Sonic Adventure we are off by 300 000 to even 1 million if I read it right! Check it out, its a pretty relyable soruce and get back to us if you think we should put some info in. --Elven6 16:39, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

It's particularly unreliable, thank you. - A Link to the Past (talk) 22:36, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Recent Games Outside Japan?

There is a lot of information here about these recent games, Last Hope and the like, but no mention of any of them (DC versions) being available somewhere other than Japan. This is also true for the game's own articles. Could anyone tell me if they are available in the UK, US or EU, and if so, either update this page or the games own pages to say so?? Most of our users aren't from Japan, so this would be useful info to have. Tom walker 10:58, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Last Hope is officially available to everyone and runs on any Dreamcast. The other games are Japanese-only and run only on Japanese machines. There's not much practical difference, since you can't go into a store and buy Last Hope--pretty much only importers will carry it anyway--and it's easy enough to play a Japanese game with a boot disk. Ken Arromdee 08:52, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Nintendo 63

under the selected home game consoles section that lists all the generations and whatnot the nintendo 64 is listed as nintendo 63. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Yarbles75 (talk • contribs) 03:06, 11 January 2007 (UTC).

Treamcast might infringe Sega's rights

Article says: "In reality, this system is no different from a Dreamcast pre-modified with a third party shell, as the system's internals still use first party hardware, and the only modifications are the outside casing and internal sound and video adjustments."

This is not quite correct. It has a region check removed, so that U.S. games can run on it, which implies that they probably have modified the BIOS. --IlyaMinkov 03:26, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Re: Actually, this sort of multiregion modification can be done without modifying the bios through hardware. I am not sure that this is what was done on the Treamcast, but given the rest of the systems functionality, it would seem likely. 128.237.236.117 18:56, 29 August 2007 (UTC)Quzar

The DreamCast Symbol

Why is the Symbol on the Article blue? I've never seen a dreamcast with this blue icon... Isn't it supposed to be Orange? Or is my Dreamcast Wrong? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Biggman15 (talk • contribs) 05:44, 5 April 2007 (UTC).

North America and Japan had Orange while Europe had Blue, I dunno why they changed the pictures though. --Elven6 16:39, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok, So it was at least an official color... Then I'm not complaining anymore...--Biggman15 03:46, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
I restored the previous logo picture since both North America and Japan used the orange one. The older picture of the system itself had both logos, so that picture was a nice compromise. --Jtalledo (talk) 21:34, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I heard that they changed it to blue for europe because of copyright reasons. everything's copyrighted these days...--67.84.12.248 01:30, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

The orange logo was similar to a German telecom company's logo. Blue Swirl 00:23, 10 May 2007 (UTC) should it also be noted the simalaits of the dreamcast remotes and the x-box remotes —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.100.164.44 (talk) 18:23, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

only partially true. it wasn't a telecom company, but the book company "tivola". they have a swirl as logo, even though it's more red-ish, it looks pretty similar to the one sega used. check it out at www.tivola.de --Xiaopang 12:15, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Semi Protect

Looking through the history, it seems to me this article needs to be semi protected. Any thoughts? Tom walker 22:36, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so ... seems to be pretty stable to me. SpanKY 07:17, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Well... I'm just thinking 9 IP adress edits reverted in just over a week... I'll keep an eye on it for now, it may have stopped, I'll say here if it continues to be a problem. Tom walker 15:26, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

128.2.101.22 (talk) 13:08, 18 February 2008 (UTC)== "The doomed console" ==

At the end of the first paragraph of "History" section, it says:

The Saturn is not our future" and referred to the doomed console as "the stillbirth".

I think it is ambiguous. Which one was the doomed console? Saturn or Dreamcast? Could someone please clarify? --CrazyTerabyte 20:58, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

It seems obvious to me that 'doomed console' refers to the saturn. I would comment though, that these quotes have no sourcing, and a reference should be found for these statements. 128.2.101.22 (talk) 13:08, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Need for a new section: system architecture

There doesn't seem to be much information on the system's architecture. There is one vague reference to Windows CE. Given that a huge part of the failure of the Saturn was arguably due to its rushed and messy architecture, it would be good to have more info on this side of things for the Dreamcast article.

Need atlas.

Hmmm. Apart from appearing a little biased, the following statement is geographically flawed.

"Marketing in European countries was done somewhat poorly (for example, Sega Australia's OIC, preferred to pay himself and his lacky's 3/4 of the budget to sit around and drink coffee, therefore, leaving a tiny amount to advertise with) ..."

James (from Australia)

11:38, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Removal of production and end of production numbers

These lines were removed due to not be verifiable, and highly questionable.

"By the time Sega decided to cease development of Dreamcast, about 10 million consoles had been manufactured. While this number may seem impressive, more Dreamcast systems were sitting unsold in warehouses, retail and distribution channels at the time than had actually been sold to the public."

This is quite false.

http://dreamcast.ign.com/articles/090/090862p1.html

In addition to stating the reasons for discontinuance (which makes it quite a good source for those wishing to edit the article further), the link above, which quotes Sega of Japan officials, states that Sega had a surplus of 2 million units.

http://dreamcast.ign.com/articles/090/090934p1.html

This link, from a few days later, gives the exact number of surplus units for each region as follows:

280,000 in Japan 1.2 million in US/North America 460,000 in Europe 90,000 in Asia Total: 2,030,000 units.

It also gives the number of sales from that period, which correspond to about double what the left over surplus was (in effect, Sega sold a little over half of what they had expected).

http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/technology/2000/0331/tech.games.html

That link above states that Sega had sold less than 5 million units. While I don't know if that's world-wide or US only, regardless it only would represent sales up to March 31, 2000 (when the article was published). So that's not representing however many million or couple of million Sega sold in the interim from March 31,2000 to the end of Dec. of that year (as Sega at the end of Jan. 2001 officially announced they were going to discontinue the unit).

Anyway, all of that is why I deleted the statement in the wiki article. In addition to the statement in the wiki not being verified, the evidence points to it actually being false. There was no way that there were 3 or 4 million or so units sitting on store shelves in addition to the 2 or so million Sega had in warehouse surplus (again, 5 million units had already been sold up to that point, and even then 5 million may be a low projection). Why do I state that? Simple: those units that Sega had gotten rid of were shipped to retailers, and retailers wouldn't order that many if millions more were sitting on their shelves.

--Therealspiffyone 22:02, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Final price point changed

The final official price point for Dreamcast was $49.99, not $39.99.

--Therealspiffyone 22:05, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

""explosion"

Was their any truth to the rumor that several Dreamcasts with manufacturing defects can explode? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.19.105.251 (talk • contribs).

Nope. 75.173.142.12 (talk) 20:08, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I made a mistake in my editing summary

My summary states that I "reverted vandalisms by 86.11.134.16". That was a mistake I made. I actually resumed the last correct version by 86.11.134.16, and reverted the vandalism by 24.147.197.98. Devil Master 16:19, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Running burned games

How do you run a game such as Half Life? My dreamcast, unmodded, will not accept the CD-R with the Dreamcast version of Half Life on it.  :/ 72.192.54.23 21:19, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

What exactly does this have to do with the article? Devil Master 11:39, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

It's likely a bad disc or a bad burn. No Dreamcast released in America had its mil-cd ability removed. 75.173.142.12 (talk) 20:09, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Would recommend non-burned games. Burned games are twice as slower when read by the dreamcast. They can also be transfered wrong with glitches or cut scenes. So if theres an AAA game you like just buy.--64.9.236.220 (talk) 22:43, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Dreamcast 2

' Hello, do you people know if there were pkans for a DC2? I remember a long time ago a sign in the sega website saying "what about a dreamcast 2?" but i do not remember any details, or if it really referred to a next console or just some kind of advertisement. Thanx, ~Daniel32708 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Daniel32708 (talk • contribs) 08:30, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

Pure rumor-mongering. The latest rumor says it will be released 9/9/09 (that's today!). Wishful thinking, unfortunately... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.53.59.87 (talk) 06:29, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Famed WORKING Zip Drive in Public Hands!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250163670619

This user claims to have a working Zip drive that he is selling, with pictures and all, it seems fasinating, if the modder community gets their hands on it, then they could probably replicate it! So how do we immortalize this in the article? Since it is a ebay page and it will disaper! --Elven6 20:58, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Too many codenames?

The codenames at the beginning of the article are beginning to get excessive and distracting. I think they should be moved to somewhere else in the article or deleted. Theswillman 04:06, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

"Repair" needs sorting (or removing)

Do Sega repair consoles? Until recently it said

Even though Sega has discontinued the repairing of Dreamcast and Saturn consoles, and stopped production…

and then an anon changed it to

People still can get their Dreamcast fixed by SEGA. It costs $55 and as of Oct 5th 2007 Sega still repairs Dreamcasts. They stopped production…

One of these is wrong, and in any case the fact needs a reference. I removed it to here until it's sorted.

By the way, the anon's is perhaps correct: I am nearly convinced by the sheer intellectual force of his/her argument (from my talk page):

SEGA STILL REPAIRS DREAMCASTS I JUST HAD MINE REPAIRED THIS FRICKEN MONTH.SO STOP CHANGING THE DREAMCAST THING RETARD

but I don't think this counts as a verifiable reference! --RobertG ♬ talk 07:09, 6 October 2007 (UTC)


Copying Section

first of all i think that this section is quite useless as it explains nothing and is full of inaccurate statements. the writing style is also not worthy of keeping this section. anyway, i deleted the second half that was "explaining" stuff about d2. first of all it doesn't make sense to single out one specific game, because there were lots of games out there, that used the gd-rom to its full extent and second of all, d2 is not one of those. only one of the four discs really maxes out the gd-rom, while all others still leave plenty of space on the disc. also a gd-rom doesn't hold 1.1GB as mentioned in that section, but 984MB max. whoever wrote that part about d2 most likely just downloaded a rip of it and drew his own conclusions. something like that should stay out of wikipedia --Xiaopang 16:36, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

in retrospect, i also deleted the middle part. someone started with "Prior to the discovery of the swap file..", which doesn't make sense at all, because the ominous "swap file" wasn't mentioned and explained beforehand, so i deleted it. also, there is no swap file. apparently the writer means dummy-files, but those have nothing to do with making multi-disc-games swappable. again, imo this has nothing to do with this dreamcast article and should stay out. so far the copying section was nothing more than a place to spread wrong facts and urban myths about rips. the short first part that remains needs further explanation, because it doesn't make much sense if you don't really know anything about booting dreamcast games. again, explaining something like this can't be the goal of an encyclopedia... --Xiaopang 16:47, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Backwards Compatibility?

Did the Dreamcast have any backwards compatibility features with Sega CD or Saturn games? This may be a good addition to the article, whether it did or didn't. Number3son (talk) 20:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

The graphics hardware (i.e., CLX2) was not designed to have backwards compatibility for Sega CD or Saturn games. Simon Fenney (talk) 13:34, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Dreamcast in Europe

I believe that this section is quite subjective and should be removed

"Some important games also lacked European releases. Many important titles were never released outside of Japan, and many were hard to find without importing them to the United Kingdom. Sega put most of its efforts into fighting the console war in the U.S., disregarding European markets."

every console under the sun had games that never got European releases, and this was not a big issue for the Dreamcast, i can personally think of only two major games that reached America, but missed Europe, whereas, i can think of 5 major games which reached Europe but missed America (Shenmue 2, Headhunter, Fighting Vipers 2, Rez, Evil Twin) also, some major games, such as Metropolis street racer, were actually released earlier in Europe. the fact that Sega took the time to fix the European PAL display problem, makes me wonder where the "disregarding European markets" statement comes from. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.136.243.181 (talk) 03:37, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

unless someone gives me a valid reason otherwise i am going to delete this section on disregarding European markets, which, at best has no supporting evidence, and at worst could well be the opposite of the truth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.149.251.97 (talk) 00:52, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

If anything there should be a note of the odd treatment across markets. As discussed, there were many games of Japanese origin that were released in only one of the two (North American and European) markets, with seemingly no rationale behind it. The evidence doesn't suggest a strong bias (relative to other games companies/systems) either way, but it also doesn't indicate a treatment that is in concert with standard practices. More research may be merited. 128.2.101.22 (talk) 13:18, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Case Design

Just curious. The release of Dreamcast in Europe was grey with blue logo (later white) in Japan it was always white and in North America it was grey and later white. Also the NTSC version had a weaker fan and was a more quiet system. Does anyone know any specific details about the models? --68.55.212.187 (talk) 16:21, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Dreamcast was never grey in America.76.226.232.243 (talk) 00:24, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Is the katakana correct?

The article states that the katakana for Dreamcast is ドリームキャスト (dorimukyasuto), but I saw this commercial on Youtube, and the Japanese pronunciation sounds a lot more like ジンカ (jinka). Is that just the way a Japanese would pronounce "dorimukyasuto" or is the katakana name wrong? Devil Master (talk) 15:40, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Do you still own a Dreamcast?

I have edited the section as I and many people have reason to beleive that the site is infact not real. Sadly "news sources" such as Kotaku have posted this news, and it's all over Digg.com too. I think someone will need to clean up what I have written as I'm not a Wikipedia editor as such, I just want to clear things up.

On a few forums there's been evidence and talk to suggest that this is all one big scam or hoax.

http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17738 http://www.rllmukforum.com/index.php?showtopic=180398 http://ntsc-uk.domino.org/showthread.php?t=85056 http://www.radiosega.net/forum/showthread.php?t=844

The first two have the most details, whilst the second two have less details, I've posted them just incase any future infromation has been posted regarding dreamcast.com

Hopefully things will all become clear and we'll have answers as to who's behind this all.

SegaMark (talk) 03:06, 9 March 2008 (UTC)


I did a whois search for dreamcast.com:

Registrant: SEGA CORPORATION Shoji Takamitsu (Shoji_Takamitsu@sega.co.jp) Haneda 1-2-12, Ohta-ku, Tokyo Tokyo null,1448531 JP Tel. +81.0357367080

Creation Date: 12-Jun-2005 Expiration Date: 12-Jun-2008

Add to that the following page: http://www.dreamcast.com/index_hard.html and it looks pretty official to me. Keep in mind that Unless someone hacked the official DC site, it's legit. I'm not going to edit your unsourced claims out because I might be accused of vandalism (it has happened before), but I hope you or someone else does because while sites like Kotaku are hardly reliable indeed, this seems pretty damn legit.

EDIT: Doing more research I do admit it's somewhat sketchy and might be a phishing hoax. Who knows.

- 75.4.21.103 (talk) 11:52, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

WHOIS information can easily be faked, the domain has not been owned by Sega by almost three years if you look at it on Archive.org, if you check out the last page of discussion on the Assembler games link in my initial post you'll see some examples. I've been in contact with this host and I'm contacting Sega too, the host is looking into this and I'm waiting for a response from Sega. Pretty much everyone except Kotaku has realised this is a fake site and has edited their stories and removed links now.

(Oops, forgot to login first...)

SegaMark (talk) 23:13, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Hahaha, Kotaku.

Yeah, my apologies for not being as skeptical as I usually am. For those curious about the link I provided, it's simply HTML copied-and-pasted from the official SEGA site. It's no different than hideoblog.com aside the fact that the latter somewhat hints that it's fake by linking to a fansite rather than to official sites.

- 75.4.21.103 (talk) 00:23, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I removed this section a couple days back with the edit summary " rm do you still own a dreamcast section - pure speculation, unreferenced, of questionable encyclopedic merit and WP:NOTNEWS". I do see that the gaming blog circuit has picked up on the story. (See, http://www.joystiq.com/2008/03/10/dreamcast-com-converted-into-phishing-scam-sega-warns/) Which sources http://mainichi.jp/enta/mantan/news/20080310mog00m200043000c.html (It's in Japanese) as saying Sega is pursuing ""appropriate measures." Still, the information is just coming out, and I believe the article should refrain from mentioning it until this information is further verified, and an English language response from Sega regarding the matter. AtaruMoroboshi (talk) 14:47, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Online Capabilities

Did the NES and SNES really have online gaming capabilities? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.30.73.69 (talk) 12:35, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Not exactly the place to ask, but the SNES had online services in a couple of forms. There was Satellaview and XBAND and for the Famicom in Japan there was the Famicom MODEM. Not exactly online gaming - but internet connected no less. AtaruMoroboshi (talk) 14:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I asked because the article mentioned it and I found nothing else mentioned about it in my online search. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.30.73.111 (talk) 12:33, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Like many Japanese consoles, ingenious ideas like this never took off or ever launched in either the US or European market. HappyWanderer (talk) 13:13, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Hardware section - trivial information

It struck me as strange that the first paragraph of the "Hardware section" discusses the colour of the "on" lamp and later goes on to talk about the spiral logo!

Surely shouldn't this concentrate on the actual real hardware such as electronics, GDrom unit etc? Simon Fenney (talk) 14:56, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Media

In the info-bar at the top right of the page, it has a "media" section there twice... should it begone? 71.234.119.34 (talk) 23:29, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I noticed this too, it's also with Units Sold, I tried removing one instance but there is only one in wikicode so removing it removes both. Looks like a template error. Cabe6403 (Talk•Sign!) 00:00, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The subject page shouldn't really exist. So I propose merging it into this article somewhere.

Cabe6403 (Talk•Sign!) 21:50, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, there's not really enough reason to have a separate article for it. It's like having a separate article for the controller, though even less necessary.76.226.232.243 (talk) 00:15, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Well, there are articles for the Dualshock and Wavebird, etc., but I do agree that this specific one should be merged. It's not notable enough to warrant its own article. Brianreading (talk) 21:22, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Kei Car

"Due to technical problems caused both by the lack of graphics chip manufactured by NEC and the new kei car tax regulations, the Dreamcast's launch in Japan flopped and caused little to no promotion."

Does anyone know what the connection is between the Launch of the Dreamcast and the introduction of Tax regulations on Kei cars? it just seems like an odd statement and requires some explanation. Unless the connection is incredibly obvious and I'm the only one not getting it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.232.53.33 (talk) 05:21, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Just noticing, Dreamcast is a video game console and not an car. Junk Police (talk) 00:23, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
Seems to be vandalism. First added by an anonymous user in [1], then reverted. The bit about the NEC graphics chip was added later [2] and is genuine; then the kei car thing was re-inserted by a serial vandal and suspected sockpuppet [3]. I will remove it. - Narge (talk|contribs) 11:33, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Dreamcast Image

The current image showing the system is nice on the page but I think someone should upload a better image. I would if I knew how but I found a couple of images and I think it would look nice on the page.

http://www.gameconsoles.com/images/Dreamcast%20CONSOLE.jpg http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb194/ultimaedicao/Dreamcast.jpg http://darkdiamond.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/dreamcast02.jpg http://www.planetdreamcast.com/features/dreamcastafterlife/dreamcast_logo.jpg —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.34.245.196 (talk) 02:44, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Hownever.... don't forget fair use.Junk Police (talk) 00:06, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Electronic Arts

Anyone seen this recent interview with Bernie Stolar? He mentions why EA decided to not support the system, should this be mentioned somewhere in the article?

http://bitmob.com/index.php/mobfeed/qaa-former-sega-president-on-dreamcasts-failure-pranks-against-sony-his-ouster.html

One of the problems also -- I had just bought Visual Concepts for $10 million. When we were signing up third-party publishers, Larry Probst came to me, and at the time, he was CEO of EA -- and also a good friend of mine.

Larry said, “Look, we’ll come on your platform, but this is the royalty rate we want to pay.” I asked what is it. He said, “We want to be the only sports franchise on Dreamcast.”

I said, “I’ll agree to that, but you’ll be the only third-party publisher that will have sports. But you’re going to have to compete with us because I just bought Visual Concepts.” And he said, “No, no, no, no...then you should not do the deal with Visual Concepts.”

I said, “No it’s too late.” [Laughs] “We’ve already signed the documentation. We’ve already taken the steps.” So because of that, he did not go onto the platform

--Elven6 (talk) 00:05, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

It's probably worth noting in the NFL 2K series article. --Jtalledo (talk) 00:25, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

DVD

The info box contains "DVD (unreleased)"as medium. Yet to my knowledge Sega never officially announced nor even hinted a possible Dramcast with DVD drive. The closest thing they did was bundling the system with a standard DVD player around the time the PlayStation 2 launched. Does anybody have any source for a DVD drive ever being planned?--84.59.196.71 (talk) 18:36, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

See - http://web.archive.org/web/20000620024617/http://dreamcast.ign.com/news/19348.html. However, DVD should not be in the infobox as a storage medium, since the add-on was never released. After all, the SNES article doesn't list "CD (unreleased)" in the infobox. --Jtalledo (talk) 23:57, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
Upon closer inspection, it looks like the unit on display at E3 was just a standalone DVD player with Dreamcast branding. I'd still like to have one of those though. ;) I removed the DVD mention in the infobox. --Jtalledo (talk) 00:01, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Dreamcast games offered via PSN?

Issue #199 of Game Informer magazine which just came out in the last few weeks in reporting that Sony has been in meetings with Sega to see which Dreamcast titles can be offered via Sony's playstation store for digital download, including any exclusives. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Averett (talk) 05:53, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Paragraph deleted from intro

I have deleted the following paragraph from the introduction as it is poorly written, cites no sources and provides nothing to the article:

It also was released in America very soon before the Playstation2 so every one was paying much closer attention to that. Saving thier money because when PS2 was to come out it would have something Dreamcast didn't and that is a DVD player.

Ghyslyn (talk) 08:08, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Intriguing. Maybe the page should be semi-protected as it's no secret that Dreamcast fanboys love to grasp at anything to deflate the aura of the PS2.

Now excuse me, I'm gonna go buy a PS1 instead of a Saturn for uh.. stereo CD quality worth $6000. LOL 90.192.164.206 (talk) 00:36, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Dreamcast's 10th anniversary article

Any opinion on this article? It's sort of like a nice summarization of nostalgia that could be included as a Dreamcast's 10th anniversary article. http://www.gamesradar.com/f/why-the-dreamcast-was-different/a-200909099520434010 (Why the Dreamcast was different | GamesRadar) Komitsuki (talk) 10:01, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

PAL region?

What's with the "PAL" region under "Retail availability"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Valgrind (talk • contribs) 00:29, 20 June 2010 (UTC)


PACE Dreamcast

How come there is no info on the third party dreamcast made by PACE? It was a set top box with a dreamcast which would, in theory, download games via a sega-channel type system. Not sure if it died or not but its interesting history. Mavrick (talk) 21:10, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Dreamcast 2

Can it be assumed, being that the Dreamcast 2 failed to get 9/9/09 releace that it is unlikely to get a releace in the foreseeable future? mcjakeqcool Mcjakeqcool (talk) 09:30, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

It's not in development, therefore it won't be released. Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. --Jtalledo (talk) 12:27, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
User Jtalledo may I thank you for you're statement which was made above this concurrent text. I am aware however, Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, however I recived a tip off that the Dreamcast 2 was accuatly in devolpment by Sega, which was wrong. mcjakeqcool Mcjakeqcool (talk) 09:45, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
Lots of people have been "tipped off" in the same manner. It's best to take any such talk with a grain of salt. --Jtalledo (talk) 22:10, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
I will bare that in mind. mcjakeqcool Mcjakeqcool (talk) 14:25, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Dreamcast is ageless, fans dont need a dreamcast two. It will only be a victim to pirating. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.255.42.105 (talk) 08:13, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

trashcast is good for only 2 years though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.255.42.105 (talk) 17:27, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Good news! Yuji Naka wants a Dreamcast 2!! HOPE and BELIEVE. Concole market is getting more cheap with the release of Zeebo and GP2X. Sega now can afford it! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.79.145.62 (talk) 21:14, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Dreamcast 2 was named "Xbox". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.216.128.61 (talk) 20:06, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Why No Legacy

The Dreamcast invented many things that we take for granted on the modern home console, dedicated online play and DLC being the most impotent. Plus the consoles has a huge following even today and is one of the most loved consoles ever, so why no Legacy section? 90.210.120.236 (talk) 20:26, 15 September 2010 (UTC)DreamsDreams

Because nobody has written one. Feel free to do so as long as you can source what you say and what you say is "notable". Alphathon™ (talk) 20:34, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
I have added a Legacy section and added a reliable source, I did have problems referencing the source and would be grateful to anyone who can fix it. Also please feel free to reword what I have written or add anything else you feel that I have missed or add any more sources if you think more are needed. DreamsDreams (talk) 17:43, 16 September 2010 (UTC)DreamsDreams
It could do with some cleanup and needs better (non-biassed) sources. It can easily be claimed that, for example, the Dreamcast innovated cel-shading, but even the page they linked says otherwise. In order to not be considered origianl research something needs to be mentioned in "bigger" places than a Sega fansite. It should be noted that some things can be sourced from places like that, but the fact that something is a legacy of the Dreamcast is subjective, not objective (from most sources), so needs a better source. Nobody cares that a fansite writer has an opinion, it either has to be commonly held or from someone in a high position (for example if a Sony executive said that something the Dreamcast did inspired their later work, then it may be notable).
As for the ref, I have fixed that - go ahead and hit the edit button and you should see how it works.
Alphathon™ (talk)

Maid Fight could be a scam

The console has also been confirmed to be receiving releases in 2011, such as . . . Press Games' Maid Fight.

Manoel Kasimier, developer of the Makaqu engine, was intrigued by such news. So he analyzed it, and found some problems. [4]

  • Pretty much every link on the developer's site is broken.
  • The promised features and content are far beyond any other independent Dreamcast game.
  • The graphics seem to be more complex than any professionally developed cel-shaded Dreamcast game.
  • He could find no information about the arcade board for the arcade version.
  • He could find no information about the company that supposedly would manufacture said arcade version.
  • The developer refused to say what SDK they're using to develop the game.
  • The developer claimed it'd be compatible with the dial-up modem. There is no free, complete driver for that modem yet.
  • The developer claimed they are using the C4 engine. That is a commercial engine with no Dreamcast version.
  • The developer claimed the game ran at 800x600 with the VGA adapter. The Dreamcast does not support that resolution.

The whole thing has a strong smell of vaporware. -- Stormwatch (talk) 11:55, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

If so, it would probably be better to post this under the Vaporware main page. Afrocatz 14:53, 30 April 2011 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Afrocatz (talk • contribs)

why was discontinued in 2001??

the console was releaed in October 1998 and after 3 years was automactly discontinued,WHY ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vaterunser (talk • contribs) 00:29, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

AFAIK because it had really poor sales. Also, this is not a forum to discuss the Dreamcast, it is for discussion of the article (problems or potential changes). Alphathon /'æl.f'æ.ðɒn/ (talk) 00:35, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I think that the reasoning behind the discontinuation should be included in the article 76.16.10.175 (talk) 11:05, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

The article already does. I quote: According to Bernie Stolar, former President and COO of Sega of America, the Dreamcast was discontinued because the new chair of Sega wanted the company to focus on software. Sergecross73 msg me 13:27, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Dreamcast Sales

The article lists Dreamcast sales as 10.6 million using the linked reference yet this site

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/10/game_consoles/source/13.htm

Lists Dreamcast sales as 8.2 million and this article is also used as the source for the Atari 2600 so which would be considered a more reliable reference Businessweek or Gamepro? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ushio01 (talk • contribs) 21:58, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Because it's not in favor. it's why businessweek is used for the 2600 instead of the 40 million in the toy hall of fame. bias all over the site. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jakandsig (talk • contribs) 01:02, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

The 8.2 million shipment comes from page 3 of Sega's consolidated Shipment report [1]for Years 1998, 1999 and 2000 where sales are listed in 10,000s. In 1998 Dreamcast Shipped 900,000 units in Japan and Asia. In 1999 they shipped 3,910,000 units worldwide: 1,110,000 in Japan, 2,100,000 in the USA/Americas, and 700,000 in Europe. In 2000 the shipped 3,390,000 WorldWide: 680,000 in Japan/Asia, 1,780,000 in the USA/Americas, and 930,000 in Europe. In addition to those 8,200,000 units Sega released a results revision [2] which explicitly describes all remaining inventory units on page 4. Specifically 130,000 Japan units, 530,000 U.S. units sold in the first half with additional inventories of 40,000 Japan units and 230,000 U.S. units remaining. These two reports of 8.2 million shipped and another 930,000 units revised account of all 9.13 Million Dreamcast unit inventories produced by Sega so any source claiming 10.6 million units suffers from a factual improbability.

References

  1. ^ http://www.segasammy.co.jp/japanese/pdf/release/200106281.pdf
  2. ^ https://www.segasammy.co.jp/english/ir/release/pdf/past/sega/2002/20011030.pdf

Jcgarmatz (talk) 01:04, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Discontinued date

I've seen users try to change the date to 2007 in Japan. Are there any reliable sources that can confirm that? I know they sold games and repaired units much longer than the US, but I still feel like they system itself was discontinued in 2001. Thoughts? Sergecross73 msg me 18:16, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree with you. From what I've seen, most users who do this are equating "discontinuation of hardware production" (i.e. when they stopped making them) and "discontinuation of hardware support" (i.e. when they will no longer repair faulty units or provide tech support). For those that have done this, what is meant here by discontinuation is "discontinuation of hardware production". The fact that it was supported beyond this date is certainly notable for the the article, but it is not what is meant by "discontinued". Alphathon /'æɫfə.θɒn/ (talk) 18:24, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

We need a useful English link of a proper site that represents the Dreamcast and provides more information. I recommend Dreamcast-Scene or Dreamcast-Talk.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Cube b3 (talk • contribs) 03:33, 11 April 2013

There is no site that "represents" the Dreamcast - that could only be achieved by an official Sega website. The two suggestions you gave would also be disallowed per WP:FANSITE. I suggest you read through WP:EXT. Alphathon /'æɫ.fə.θɒn/ (talk) 10:27, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

CD-I mentions.

Currently, or until an idiot tries editing again, the CD-I was the first console with online and is very similar to the Dreamcast although the CD-I had a few more options for themodern internet on consoles. The fact that there are also numerous other consoles on this very site before the DC along with the CD-I doing similar things, saying Sega Pionneered online gaming is a lie that is continuously edited. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jakandsig (talk • contribs) 20:18, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Then again you idiots screw up most of gaming history already. There's no point, go on andhave your "Dreamcast pioneered" BS. It's all a freaking illusion. it's sad media uses wikipedia instead of reliable sources most of the time. It's as if all of you are retarted and there is no quality control. User Indrian has already tried to change facts because of bias, and the administration seems to have a liking to his BS. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:7A0:10:149:154:159:248:1 (talk) 21:03, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
Alright, just a couple things here in case you decide to come back and contribute in a civilized manner after your forced wikibreak. First of all, you are absolutely right that the Dreamcast did not pioneer online gaming. That should be changed in the article. You are also correct that the CD-i allowed for gaming over the Internet before Dreamcast, even if it was only one single game, so that should also be changed. Your section on "comparison to the CD-i," however, is full of original research and claims not backed up by sources. There is no evidence that Dreamcast was "continuing ideas started by CD-i" as you claim, which basically appears to be an attempt to give the CD-i credit for coming up with the entire idea of online console gaming. Sega had already introduced this concept in 1990 with the Sega Net Work System for the Mega Drive, while the XBand from Catapult also allowed for online multiplayer in 1994-5 on both the Genesis and SNES. Therefore, attempting to give the CD-i all the credit for online gaming gives undue weight to the CD-i in violation of WP:NPOV, especially given the lack of reliable sources giving CD-i any credit in this area.
Also, your change to the article to reflect that the CD-i featured the first built-in modem is flat-out wrong, as the Tele-CD-i Assistant and the CD-i Internet Kit were both separately sold accessories that featured external modems that plugged into the system via a peripheral connector. Of course, as we already established Sega released a modem for the Genesis in 1990 and Catapult introduced one for the SNES in 1995, so even if we change "built-in" to something else, the Dreamcast is not the second system to feature a modem, nor is the CD-i the first. Heck, the Famicom Modem was launched in Japan in 1988, though it was not used for multiplayer gaming. CD-i also did not pioneer downloadable content, as the Satelliteview system gave the Super Famicom that capability in 1995, though that was, of course, via satellite rather than a network. You also had the Sega Channel at around the same time for downloading games. Near as I can tell, all the CD-i online stuff was launched in 1996, so that is later. If you have a source that says otherwise, however, I would be happy to look at it.
So there you have it. If you do come back, please read over WP:Civility and WP:Assume Good Faith for a little advice on how to behave. No one here is advocating against your material from a position of bias, and I would hope my comments above show I have no inclination to give Dreamcast credit for something done by other systems first, including the CD-i. Please also look at WP:V, however, to see why we require material to be sourced and disallow original conclusions drawn by the editor himself, which seems to be what you have presented here and elsewhere. Indrian (talk) 22:25, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Possible bias or false information: PC Magazine's claim that the Dreamcast is the greatest console of all time

PC Magazine does not regularly discuss video game consoles (it's a computer magazine), and the fact that they selected Dreamcast as the best console of all time may be construed by many as highly questionable. Though the Dreamcast was an innovative system in terms of its features, overall sales and support (including the console's short lifespan in most countries) cannot substantiate PC Magazine's claim in any way whatsoever. The Dreamcast Wikipedia article should mention the fact that it was not the overall best console in the minds of respectable video game websites, but was a top ten choice at best. For example, "Edge" magazine ranks the Dreamcast at #10 (http://www.edge-online.com/features/the-ten-best-consoles-the-greatest-gameboxes-from-the-past-20-years) and IGN ranks it at #6 (http://www.ign.com/videos/2009/09/03/top-25-videogame-consoles-10-6). To my knowledge, there are no video game websites and/or publications that have ranked Dreamcast as the best console of all time (an overwhelming majority of them lists the NES as the best). This information should be included in the article to provide balance and comparison. Otherwise, the PC Magazine claim should be removed or rephrased as it is clearly biased/misleading. Kevin L. Montgomery (talk) 22:38, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

IGN is also cited in the article, but I agree that PC Magazine should be in "Legacy" rather than the lead.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 00:13, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Edit war

Jakandsig is engaging in transparent vandalism and edit warring across multiple articles (behavior for which he has been blocked in the past). His recent mass deletions here cannot stand, for numerous reasons. Despite citing a plainly nonexistent "consensus" for deleting 3,000 bytes of sourced material from this article, he has previously been reverted by both Asher196 and Indrian (as well as myself). Indrian, having debunked Jakandsig's argument about modem peripherals, invited him to discuss the matter; Jakandsig did not respond. By blindly undoing all of my changes to make a WP:POINT, he has directly challenged the comments made by myself and Kevin L. Montgomery above, without offering any justification. Jackandsig has racked up four reverts on this page in an hour or so, compared to my two and Asher196's/Indrian's one each. Moreover, he has used personal attacks and foul language in his edit summaries. Since he is clearly aware of what he is doing, his ownership, original research, and incivility cannot be excused. I invite other editors to discuss his mass deletions here, and I urge every editor who is watching this article to strike his contributions for as long as he persists in this bad behavior.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 02:23, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't agree with him, nor has he really provided evidence here...--SexyKick 02:56, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Legacy section needs fixing

I know a lot of hardcore gamers like the dreamcast but there seems to be a bit unrealistic credit being given to it. Just a few areas,
"The Dreamcast introduced numerous features that would be standard to future consoles. All models were shipped with modems allowing users to browse the net and play games online via dedicated server through SegaNet"
This quote is just not true. As there has been consoles allowing to connect to internet service before. Including but not limited to computer related consoles such as the Amiga CD32, the Commodore CDTV, the Apple Pippin, and heck, i think even the Saturn has a service to connect to. Than there are others like Compact Disc interactive (Ask for a demonstration), and the PC-FX, which I am currently in the process of expanding that article.
Moving on to the 2ND quote,
"was the first online console game to feature live in-game voice chat."
This is also not true. You could use telephone connection for in-game choice chat before head set on numerous consoles. Including the Atari Jaguar. Then i believe some of the computer focused consoles had heat-sets or some alternative anyway.
On to the next quote,
"was the first football game to feature online play."
This is also not true. in fact, some of the low-end online like add-ons for even the Genesis and SNES and such had this. Not to mention a football game was able to be played from online via cable network on the intellivision and that's just gaming focused systems I am referring to, not even mentioning the computer based consoles and others.
Next quote,
"the first console MMORPG, has been cited as one of the most groundbreaking and influential games of the generation."
It was the first MMorpg on consoles? I know not all systems sell 9+ million consoles, but we seem to be just going with a mainstream perception here.

Next quote,

"Shenmue is regarded as a major step forward for 3D open-world"
This was actually recently added and it seems to smell of favorism. The short version of the longer word i made up because auto-correct makes the word something else. Anyway back on topic, for a system that did not do very well editors seem to be trying to squeeze as much undeserved credit as possible. i can find articles and apply some statements of this to the Jaguar and I bet the result would be way different with all the edits being deleted.

Next quote,

""SEGA supported Dreamcast better than any single company has ever supported any console""
Now this quote is sourced, but seems irrelevant and suffers from the issues I just stated above. If I added any similar thing such as this on the Jaguar page it will be destroyed in 5 seconds, I tried this long long time ago. In fact even slightly popular niche consoles don't get this kind of slip this page seems to get looking at the last few dozens of pages of edits.

Next quote,

""When the Dreamcast died, so too did the concept of videogames as the exclusive province of the hardcore."
This is more of the same thing as above.
That's pretty much the extend of what I see that is wrong. Too much credit trying to make this system seem more than it was. Including twisting facts. I am actually debataing the cel shaded thing but I think for games it may have actually done so.
Most things that it is credited for were done by numerous add-ons for systems like the PCengine,Genesis,SNES, Computer consoles like amigacd32, Pippin, Entertainment consoles like CD-I(ask for a demonstration) and Tandy/Radioshacks Video information System. Some by more successful consoles, european only consoles, japan only consoles, a whole ton. Most of this is actually easy to find somewhere else.

I would also like to add that the formatting in my preview page seems off but maybe it will be better once I submit.Leeroyhim (talk) 00:17, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Dreamcast was the first system that came with a modem, not the first system to have any online functionality, as the article states. The existence of antecedents does nothing to change what a milestone NFL 2K1 was. Shenmue has been described as a step forward for 3D open-world gameplay; you may disagree, but the sources say what they say. Wikipedia reports what reliable sources say, and that includes notable opinions. 1UP.com says "PSO was, in short, the console space's first brush with the MMO--massively multiplayer online games". Do you have any evidence whatsoever that 1UP is wrong? The only valid point you make is about Alien Front Online, because that isn't sourced, and as such can be removed.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 00:33, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
i did not add sources because I wanted to see how the first person would react and you have reacted exactly as i predicted. so i feel this is going to be a hard conversation.
Computer based game consoles with the exception of the later CD-I models (ask for a demonstration) all had modems built in. For example, all the ones from Commodore. The existence of antecedents does matter because it says the game was the "First" online football game. Please remove preference when working with wikipedia.
It seems you are right about MMO's as the console i am thinking of was released 1 month after the game came out. but that's ALL you really have that can't be proven wrong. You are also doing a fanboy dance with your "Wikipedia reports what reliable sources say, and that includes notable opinions" quote when there are hundreds of wrong quotes all over, and that is why the wikipedia community in many places is looked down upon orand considered unreliable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leeroyhim (talk • contribs) 01:07, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
It can be difficult to tell when some of the more obscure consoles, so I may be mistaken, but I still believe that none of them had a built-in modem. The Pippin definitely came with a modem, and I think you could argue that it was the first console that was truly meant to be online-ready right out of the box. That said, it was still a separate device rather than an integration with the base hardware, even though they did come together in a package. That is splitting hairs to a degree I admit, but that does not seem to qualify as built-in. As for the CD32, I can find no evidence that it came with a modem. There was a strange peripheral called the TVI that was released by a Canadian company in 1994 for online banking that included a 2400 baud modem. I assume that if the CD32 already had a modem, then the TVI would not have needed to include one. You will get no argument from me that most of the online features of the Dreamcast were accomplished first on other systems, but I have yet to see solid evidence that any of these earlier systems had the modem built-in. Indrian (talk) 01:48, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
I don't know where you are looking. The CDTV by commodore also had a built in modem and connector under the logo on the right part of the system and I have the system so i see it. you can also probably see it from close shots of the device on google. Everything else It seems you agree with. I think giving gold to a failed turkey will not make the turkey seem better. Yes I know that was a bad analogy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leeroyhim (talk • contribs) 02:24, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
No, the CDTV supported plugging a modem into the serial port; once again, it was not built in. Indrian (talk) 03:00, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
Hmm my mistake, I meant the Commodore CDTV CR, otherwise known as the CDTV-II. It is relatively obscure however. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leeroyhim (talk • contribs) 18:42, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
I see no evidence that the CR had a built-in modem either. Even if it did though, it is irrelevant because that is an unreleased prototype. Indrian (talk) 20:38, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
It was released in limited qualities. I have already asked an owner to see if the Modem is in the inside and he will get back to me. However, everything else I mentioned in this talk section, including Internet service (Seganet was not the first), First with voice-chat, First football game with online play, Irrelevant PR quotes, I think are clearly subject for removal.

Edit:Random logouts common on wikipedia? Leeroyhim (talk) 22:16, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

That is incorrect. Every single source that discusses the system states it was unreleased. Estimates are they made about a dozen boards and even fewer complete systems. These were all prototypes. Indrian (talk) 01:51, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
A limited amount of complete versions were sold. including one by someone who was working on the project. It's one of the top results on google. But i also noticed you did not address the other part of my post. Leeroyhim (talk) 01:55, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
No, in 2000 two of the prototypes were sold on eBay and a third was sold to a collector in a private transaction. That is not a commercial release for reasons I would think I would not have to explain. As for the rest of your post, I have not responded because I agree that Dreamcast was not the first system to accomplish most online gameplay elements. I am fine with changes in that area, but do keep in mind that all claims should be backed by reliable sources and that sometimes being first is not really all that important. Bandai may have included a modem in every box when it sold Apple's Pippin, but the impact of that decision was virtually nonexistent since the system basically sank without a trace. Indrian (talk) 02:21, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
I am sensing a theme. Were were the words "Commercial release" mentioned? the conversation was about complete systems, which one or two of those that were sold ARE according to a buy description. But that topic is not the point anymore. As for the rest, the Dreamcast is getting the slip in areas despite that it failed. Yes, your example with Bandai is correct, but it failed and the DC failes and a failed system is a failed system. A lot of its popularity and praise was after is discontinuation, so when you mention we should consider impact I don't really think it counts in this case since during it's relevance, a lot of sources in the article did not exist.Leeroyhim (talk) 02:37, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
Your argument that "failed systems" shouldn't be credited for bringing MMORPGs to consoles or popularizing cel-shaded graphics--but that unreleased prototypes were actually the first consoles to feature a built-in modem--is strikingly inconsistent (as is your championing of bigger failed systems like the 3DO with wildly hyperbolic unsourced praise). But none of that really matters, because this endless unsourced ranting across multiple pages has reached the point of WP:IDONTHEARTHAT, WP:IDONTLIKEIT, and even WP:SOAPBOX. Sorry, but WP is based on reliable sources, not your personal opinions or far-out theories.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 03:09, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Suggestion: Article should be locked

Having read all of the comments on the talk page, especially the "Edit War" comment by TheTimesAreAChanging, it seems to me that Jakandsig is either getting his information from totally unreliable sources or he's just a troll. Once the article has all of the right information and is fixed up, it should be locked to prevent any more incidents like this from happening. Kevin L. Montgomery (talk) 21:19, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

What is this?

I tried to say that while the Dreamcast was the last Sega Console, they still made hardware in general (not talking about arcades) I think that's relevant to put into the article. Some guy reverted the edit though and I am not sure why. Can someone go and take a look? CarrotsInYourDiabeties (talk) 02:49, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps you should read the edit summaries of the reverting editor. That should explain why.--Asher196 (talk) 17:51, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Merger

Financial troubles is one single paragraph. I see no reason why it should be separated from end of production, as finances are one of the lead reasons why the company dropped out. The article does have a lot of info quality aside, so I wanted to check in with the community before changing anything. BustaBunny (talk) 17:15, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

The Dreamcast was Sega's last home console to date.

Was is past tense. Since the Dreamcast is still the last console by Sega, we should change "was" to "Is". Wonderworldamusementpark (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 17:59, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Starting a full rewrite

Just a heads-up, I'll be starting a full rewrite of this article in my sandbox. If anyone would like to pitch in some ideas, hit me up on my talk page; I'd be glad to take some suggestions. Thank you, Red Phoenix let's talk... 15:23, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

GA Review

GA toolbox
Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:Dreamcast/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Indrian (talk · contribs) 19:32, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, I am certainly not going to miss this dance after our Master System and Saturn exploits! May not have the review done until later in the week, but I look forward to working together on yet another Sega hardware article. Indrian (talk) 19:32, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

  • Just as a heads up for both of you: I might chime in with a few pre-FAC second opinions during this review. After all the reading I did when I scanned those magazines, I feel I'm qualified to assess the article. But I'll try to stay out of the way for the most part. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:01, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
    • Hey, JimmyBlackwing, fire away. I tend to think the purpose of a GA review is to make the article better, and I've worked with Indrian a lot and know he won't mind as long as we hit all the bases. I don't feel it's FAC-ready yet, but that's part of why I want the GA review - to make every improvement possible. I do want to say thanks for the sources; they proved quite useful in this total rewrite. Red Phoenix let's talk... 20:13, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, here we go. I'll get this up in sections over the next day two.

Lead

Background

  •  Done I've done enough of these with you to know your MO here, but I think you went too far back. This is the longest section of the history, when it should really be one of the shortest. There is no need to rehash the Genesis history or the Saturn launch and all of that. There is too much detail here for a "background." Keep it simple, discuss Sega's support for too many incompatible formats and some of the difficulties the Saturn faced in terms of price and difficulty to program. Discuss the executive changes since they have direct bearing on Dreamcast development and briefly describe how Sega was losing money and marketshare. I think the five paragraphs could be reduced to three without losing any important historical context. I can get into more specifics on this if you want, but right now I am going to avoid commenting in detail until this has been reworked a bit.
    • I've done some bulk reworking and stripped it down to three paragraphs so far. I was having a lot of trouble trying to decide how much detail to go into just because some of the sources have opined how much Sega's reputation had affected the Dreamcast and wanted to set the proper tone. That being said, it was quite large but should be ready for finer processing and reviewing now. Red Phoenix let's talk... 15:30, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
      • I'm completely reworking the first paragraph, which I feel assumed far too much regarding the reader's knowledge of the subject matter.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 01:39, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
        • This is part of the back-and-forth I had: how much is too much, and how much is too little? Assistance definitely appreciated, thank you. I think I've just spent way too much time with the material in general over the past year and a half to be sure and don't really have fresh eyes to see it. Red Phoenix let's talk... 01:43, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Development

  •  Done I don't know why reputable video game journalism websites seem incapable of understanding Sega's corporate structure. Shoichirio Irimajiri was president of SOA in 1997, not president of Sega as a whole. He did not replace Nakayama as president of Sega until early 1998. That's why he commissioned a US-based team to start Dreamcast development. He did not tell Sega Japan to do anything.
    • I wanted to ask you about that. Sources seem to be very unclear on both Irimajiri's and Stolar's roles all throughout. Many have noted Stolar as president of SOA, but we know he wasn't hired into that role. Do you, by chance, know when said transitions happened with both Irimajiri and Stolar? I've canvassed all of my sources and can't find anything to help me out here; the corporate roles of Sega executives have not been easy to figure out by my sources alone. Red Phoenix let's talk... 18:05, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
      • Sure, here is the chronology based on newspaper articles from the time. The dates reflect when the articles were published, so they may be off by a few days in terms of the actual appointments: 7-16-1996 - Shoichirio Irimajiri named chairman and CEO of SOA upon resignations of Kalinske, Nakayama, and Rosen. He also retains his position as executive vice president and representative director of Sega Enterprises. Bernie Stolar named executive vice president for product development and third-party relations. 3-17-1997 - Bernie Stolar named COO of SOA, a position vacant since the previous July (when Paul Rioux stepped down), 1-13-1998 - Sega announces Hayao Nakayama will step down as president of Sega Enterprises and be replaced by Shoichiro Irimajiri (I am not positive, but I think the actual transfer of power may have occurred at the end of Sega's fiscal year that March), 3-30-1998 Bernie Stolar promoted to president SOA and retains COO title. Indrian (talk) 01:52, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
        • On a related note, the exact date of Stolar's firing (not mentioned in the article) was August 11, 1999. See this timeline: [5], [6], [7], [8]. The console's sales figures by certain dates are available in there, too. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 21:05, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
          • @JimmyBlackwing: Do you have a source on Stolar's firing? What's in the article is all that was said in the source. @Indrian: I'd like to work in those dates if you have the original sources (and they'd be great if/when I can ever get around to redo Sega), though I'm having a bit of difficulty understanding where we have accuracy-offending text here based on the comment. The Gamasutra account of the assignment of Dural and Blackbelt seems to be the closest thing I can find; even so, it doesn't specifically say Irimajiri assigned Sato; it says Sega of Japan did and also assigned the Blackbelt team (possibly implying through Irimajiri? I do question the accuracy of this particular source in this case.) Would you be willing to quote the specific section I'm missing here? Pardon me if I seem lazy; I did look, but I can't find it specifically though I am awfully tired tonight. Red Phoenix let's talk... 02:00, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
            • The only source I've got is that timeline scan I posted, really. As it says: "August 11: Bernard Stolar relieved of duties as president of Sega with a reported $5-million severance package." A source from Nov 1999 mentions that Sega employees credited Stolar with the successful NA launch and were sad about his being let go, and that Stolar himself made no comment on the affair. The timeline is from Next Gen September 2000 (Lifecycle 2 vol. 2 issue 9); the other scan is in Next Gen November 1999 (Lifecycle 2, vol. 1 issue 3). JimmyBlackwing (talk) 02:20, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
  •  Done "but was later asked to also use the SH4 and PowerVR chips" This is not what the source says. Yamamoto's team was asked to use the SH4, but stuck with the 3dfx graphics chip and did not switch to PowerVR.
  •  Done "According to former Sega of America vice president of communications Charles Bellfield presentations of games using the latter architecture showcased the performance and low cost delivered by the SH2 and PowerVR architecture, and stated that "Sega's relationship with NEC, a Japanese company, probably made a difference too." The source does not make this clear, but Bellfield was at NEC before joining Sega. These comments relate to Bellfield's experiences while still at NEC.
  •  Done "Sega of Japan executives were furious with this; despite reports that Yamamoto's new chipset was more powerful than the PowerVR architecture, Sega decided to cut their ties with 3dfx" Again, this is not quite what the source says. Many have speculated that Sega cancelled the contract in anger over the reveal, but the source specifically says no one knows for sure. As Sega management had a history of rejecting external, American-led solutions to next-gen console hardware, its just as likely that the company just preferred its home-grown designs. Remember, Irimajiri was not actually in charge of Sega when he commissioned the IBM project, nor when the final decision was made, so he did not actually have the power to force Sega Japan to accept this design. Heck, even if he had been in charge he may not have been able to force his design due to the consensus management practices of Japanese companies.
  •  Done "Selection for the final name of the new console came from the knowledge that Sega had tarnished its reputation with the Saturn, and thus would have to represent a new beginning and distance itself from its past. As a result, Sega chose to rebrand the system entirely and remove its name from the console, similar to Sony's approach with the PlayStation" Again, this is overly convoluted and includes some passive voice. Try something like "The Satrun had tarnished the Sega name, so the company decided to remove its name from the console, similar to Sony's approach with the PlayStation"
  •  Done "Despite the new name, the word "Katana" was still written on the motherboard of the system" This seems a trivial fact to me.
    • Fair enough, removed. Red Phoenix let's talk... 18:05, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
      • I emailed Indrian about this a couple hours ago because he interviewed Stolar, have not heard back yet, but in light of this article I'm bringing up the matter here. IGN's "History of the Dreamcast" says the modem was Stolar's idea; BusinessWeek says Okawa was convinced to add it by future Sega.com CEO Brad Huang. Any thoughts on how we might reconcile these sources?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 03:24, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
      • Kent pg. 577 says Okawa "insisted that Dreamcast include a modem".TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 07:45, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
        • Honestly, I think these sources mostly align. My own interview with Stolar does not shed any further light on the specifics, but he did reiterate his strong support for online gaming. I believe he was probably pushing for a modem as the other sources say. In addition to being COO and later president of SOA, Stolar was also president and COO of SegaSoft, the PC game company that was a joint venture of SOA and CSK. In 1997, SegaSoft launched Heat.net on Stolar's watch, an online multiplayer service. Stolar did tell me that he saw SegaSoft as a way of encouraging PC developers to make games for Sega that could then be ported to consoles and that Heat.net was meant to play a similar role in creating online content that could eventually end up on Sega hardware. Based on the existence of Heat.net, I find the contention that Stolar lobbied for a modem to be credible.
That being said, we know Stolar and Okawa did not get along and did not have much of a relationship. According to my interview, both Nakayama and Irimajiri backed him strongly, but Okawa never did. Other newspaper sources indicate that this was a period when Okawa and the bankers were fighting the hardware enthusiasts like Nakayama and Irimajiri over costs due to Sega's losses, so adding a modem would be a big commitment. I have no doubt that even if Stolar was advocating a modem, it would have taken someone with a closer relationship to Okawa like Huang to actually make this a reality. Therefore, I find the Business Week article credible. Also, I believe all sources agree that Stolar was a proponent of online gaming, but I don't believe he has ever taken credit for the Sega.com idea, which is a little broader and more ambitious. As the IGN article does not directly quote Stolar saying that he convinced Sega to go with a modem, I suspect that IGN may have extrapolated this information based on Stolar's strong support for online gaming, as I find IGN writers love making leaps of logic in their history articles. I can't be sure though. Alternatively, it could be a limited knowledge thing: Stolar knows he pushed for a modem and knows Sega included a modem and logically assumes his role was decisive when in truth other people outside the company were pushing for the same thing and had more influence. As for Kent, while I rarely trust his account, this actually dovetails with the Business Week article: while Huang convinced Okawa, Okawa had to force his Japanese executives to go along with the plan.
So in summary, I think it's okay for the article to say that Stolar pushed strongly for online gaming, that Huang conceived of Sega.net and convinced Okawa to include the modem with every system, and that Okawa had to fight his own executives in Japan to make it happen. That accounts for all the reliable sources without heading too deep into OR territory. Indrian (talk) 15:05, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Launch

  • Starting this in place of Indrian. "Before the launch in the United States, Sega had already taken extra steps in displaying Dreamcast's capabilities in stores nationwide" is apparently unsourced. There were 18 launch games rather than 17, 11 of them available on day one (as one of the sans helpfully provided by JimmyBlackwing says). Instead of jumping around with the chronology, we should state that Stolar was fired before the launch. There should probably be a sentence on the importance of Soul Calibur, and more emphasis on the contrast between the Japanese launch and the American launch, which "started the trend of carefully orchestrated hype and anticipation culminating in an epic launch the likes of which the industry had never seen before." I fully intend to make changes to that effect, unless I am beaten to the punch.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:10, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
  • BTW, is there really no mention of 9/9/99 for $199?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:22, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Have a revised version in my sandbox, will add momentarily.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 07:45, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
  •  Done And I'm back. Sorry for the delay, but I want to make sure I give each section the attention it deserves, so I am tackling chunks as I have time. I would start by reiterating some of what Times says above. I don't think there is enough emphasis on the marketing plan in North America. Stolar envisioned a $100 million media blitz with a heavy focus on TV advertising and building hype around the 9/9/99 release date. Moore was then brought in to execute the plan based on his proven track record as a brand manager. Moore's contributions are well covered, but the marketing spend commit, which was unprecedented for Sega, was a pretty big deal. Of course, according to Bellfield, Sega never actually lived up to that commitment.
  •  Done Also, as Times states, the Stolar firing should be in this section. I don't think the full details on this are out in reliable sources, but it was basically disagreements in direction between Stolar and Okawa, who was asserting more and more control over Sega even before he officially became president in 2000. The article covers this pretty well already, its just in the wrong place.
  •  Done I am not sure the Travis Fahs quote adds much to this section. In addition to being more appropriate for a retrospective section, I just don't think its true. Software had already seen Sonic 2uesday and Mortal Monday (and going even further back, Atari had National Pacman Day), and the PlayStation "You are not ready" viral campaign did a similar thing with consoles. Heck Sega itself had already tried this approach with Sega Satrunday before SOJ mucked things up. 9/9/99 was a major event and highly successful, and I think its fair to say the Dreamcast launch was the first to put extensive focus on pre-orders and day 1 sales, but to say carefully orchestrated hype had never played a role in a launch before, that's a bit much.
  •  Done "Sega had announced that they had reached one million consoles sold six weeks ahead of their prediction. Chris Gilbert, the senior vice president of sales at Sega of America, said on November 24, 1999: "By hitting the one million units sold landmark, it is clear that the Dreamcast consumer has moved beyond the hard-core gamer and into the mass market." This sentence is smack dab in the middle of the section on the European launch, but despite being a BBC article, its referring to sales in the US market only. This should be moved to the end of the preceding paragraph, and could perhaps replace the Fahs quote. Also, instead of saying Gilbert "said" the Dreamcast had entered the mass market, this should be "claimed." I don't think this statement is really true -- even back then there were well more than a million "hardcore" gamers out there -- and is an example of corporate hype.

Game Development

  •  Done"Stolar considered NFL 2K superior to Madden NFL" Of course he did, the company that he purchased to build sports games for the console he was responsible for selling created it. That said, I believe there is a general consensus that the NFL 2K series was superior to Madden, which is one reason the reaction to EA's NFL exclusivity a few years later was so strong. I believe this sentiment should be in the article, but not sourced to Stolar, who is clearly biased.
  •  Done "Later titles developed by Sega would start to experiment with game design and genres, such as Samba de Amigo, a maracas-based music title" This is a little nitpicky, but I don't think Samba de Amigo makes sense as a poster child for experimentation on the Dreamcast since it was an arcade game first. Console exclusives like Seaman, Jet Set Radio, and Shenmue would make more sense.
  •  Done I would agree that Sega's decision to decentralize game development and give individual auteurs so much control over development led to a remarkable burst of creativity and some wonderful, quirky, and influential games. Most of these games, however, were commercial failures. For balance sake, the bad (poor sales) needs to be reported along with the good (innovative concepts).
  •  Done In general, there is a lot of reworking I think needs to be done between this and the game library section. I think this section is probably a bit redundant, and the material can be split between the "launch" and "competition" sections here and the "game library" section below. Material relevant to history would include the porting of games from NAOMI hardware and the corresponding praise for "arcade perfect" conversions, the determination to have a new Sonic game ready at launch (which ended up being shortly after launch) in contrast to the Saturn, the courting of Midway for NA third-party support, the purchase of Visual Concepts for sports games, and the failure to sign Electronic Arts. Subjects more suitable to the game library section would be the spinning out of the development studios, the release of all the innovative titles like Space Channel 5, Rez, Jet Set Radio, and Shenmue, the revival of certain Genesis franchises like Ecco, and the push into online gaming with games like ChuChu Rocket! (which is not currently mentioned in the article, but probably should be) and Phantasy Star Online.
    • I still need to examine the reorganized game library material more closely for grammar and flow and the like, but I think the organization is solid now.

Competition

  •  Done I think this section under reports the import of the Sony announcement a little bit. Factually speaking, the PS2 was going to be somewhat more powerful than Dreamcast and offer the ability to play DVDs. This alone would have certainly crimped Dreamcast sales a bit, but the Sony announcement went far beyond these claims. Ken Kutaragi greatly exaggerated the power of the system, making it out to practically be a super computer, and positioned the console as the new center of the living room, with connectivity and online features that would far exceed the Dreamcast or any other system. Most of that, as it turns out, was not true at all. It was the promise of SO much power and SO many features that not only killed Dreamcast momentum, but scared Microsoft so much that the company backed the Xbox project.
  •  Done"the initial release of games were not as important as the PS2's potential as Sony succeeding in delivering its much hyped graphics" I took the liberty of rewording the first part of this sentence myself, but did not want to touch the quoted text. I think this reads a little awkwardly. I understand the point is that Sega had a software and ease of development advantage, but Sony delivered on technology, so both developers and consumers flocked to it anyway, but I think the point can be more artfully made.
  •  Done I don't think the second paragraph of the new "competition and decline" section is necessary. That's too much detail on the PS2 for a Dreamcast article. The only aspects of the PS2 that are relevant are the overhyped capabilities and the consumer decision to wait out PS2 shortages rather than buying a Dreamcast, both of which are points adequately covered elsewhere.
    • I sort of sneaked this one in, as it was the only comment I added up here when I restarted the review down below. I therefore went ahead and removed the paragraph myself since nobody else did. If anyone strongly objects, just let me know. Indrian (talk) 17:54, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Decline

  •  Done Again, I think some major reworking needs to be done between the "game development", "Competition", and "Decline" sections. Game development and competition should probably be consolidated under a new name, so that we basically have one section on the launch, one section on the critical period before the PS2 launch when Sega tried to counter Sony's hype and build an install base, and one section on the death of the system. If it feels like the resulting sections would be too stubby, we could even reduce it to two, but I think there is probably enough material for three. The first two paragraphs currently in the competition section can be combined with the material relating to EA and the football games, which I think would give it enough meat. The final paragraph of competition on aggressive pricing relating to the Internet should go into the decline section, because it was part of the last desperate grab for marketshare.
    • I didn't add the Fahs quote because Sega invented hype, or even primarily because of the emphasis on pre-orders and whatnot. I added it, rightly or wrongly, because there needs to be more of an emphasis on how the Dreamcast went from the most successful console launch in history to being discontinued a little over a year later. How did that happen? Part of the explanation is that the record-breaking launch was not the masses embracing Dreamcast and forgiving Sega's past mistakes, but simply the new normal.
    • I've been thinking along the same lines that a lot of this content needs reorganization. I was imagining the merger of "Competition" with "Decline". The Dreamcast found itself adrift in the market almost immediately after its initial success faded, and it never really recovered. Even more than the PS2 vaporware, the broader point may be the complete lack of faith in the Sega brand among consumers: When there were PS2 shortages, disappointed consumers did not take a chance on Dreamcast, but simply purchased a PS1 instead.
    • In addition to improving the discussion of the Dreamcast's decline and Sony's PS2 hype, we could probably add a whole paragraph retrospectively analyzing why Dreamcast failed. We could reiterate (say) that it received no support from EA/Square, the biggest third-parties in the U.S./Japan in the same section we include the retrospective comments from Gamasutra. We could cite the comments from EA executives in Gamasutra, and even Victor Ireland from 1UP's "Dreamcast memorial". The context-free line from 1UP in "Reception and legacy" to the effect that the death of the Dreamcast was a tragedy for hardcore gamers could be used to expound on 1UP's point, which is the decline of the arcade gaming scene Sega focused on. There are sources explaining why Sega got out at the right time in the face of more powerful competition with greater financial resources. In fact, we could even explain, hyperbole aside, that the Dreamcast really was sorely underpowered compared to its eventual competition. Of course, as mentioned, placing the Stolar firing right before Moore's decision to discontinue the Dreamcast doesn't help the reader.
    • Remember, I am still planning major changes on the "Game library" front, though any input you might have would be very appreciated. I certainly intend to discuss the commercial failures of Jet Set Radio, Shenmue, and Rez. I put the reorganization under "Game development" because I did something similar for the Saturn, when some of Sega's arcade teams who were more familiar with 3D graphics were asked to start making Saturn games in 1993. That's not to say your suggestion is unwise, of course, but that was my rationale.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 20:59, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Okay, after an unplanned hiatus, I am back. I really love the rewrites done to the history section, which I feel address most of my concerns. I still feel the game development section is unnecessary, however. I think most of that material, including the developer restructuring, should be moved to the actual game library section down below, while the info about EA refusing to support the system should be included in the section on the NA launch. Then the "Competition and Decline" section can be split back in two since it is much longer than any of the others (though not necessarily with those names), with the split coming where Okawa takes control of the company.

I know that you like the info about the developer organization where it is because it mirrors the Saturn page, but the circumstances here are different. The reorganization of Sega's teams for the Saturn launch was an important part of the history of the console because Sega was blending its staff with 2D and 3D experience to address a radically different console design. The spin-off of Sega's development teams into subsidiaries, on the other hand, occurred after the launch of Dreamcast and is not as directly tied to the Dreamcast's history. Its still worth mentioning, of course, just maybe not here. I am going to hold off on reviewing the "Game Library" section until we reach some agreement on these issues, but I will continue my review of the rest of the article below. Indrian (talk) 20:01, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Hardware

  •  Done "with a 128-bit vector graphics engine, 360 MIPS and 1.4 GFLOPS using the vector graphics engine" I think there may be a word or two missing in that phrase. I assume it should read "capable of 360 MIPS and 1.4 GFLOPS" or something similar. Also, there is probably a way to say all this that does not involve stating "vector graphics engine" twice in rapid succession.
  •  Done "The graphics hardware is a NEC PowerVR2" This is really minor and something I would normally take care of myself, but I don't know what the Wikipedia MOS has to say. Generally speaking, the indefinite article "an" is always used not just before a vowel, but also before a vowel sound. I believe NEC is pronounced "en ee see" (as opposed to, say, "neck"), so "an" is appropriate. Like I said though, not 100% sure.
  •  Done "capable of drawing more than 3 million polygons per second peak performance and trilinear filtering" again, seems like some words missing, also should be "and of trilinear filtering" for parallel structure.
  •  Done "per-pixel translucency sorting (also known as order independent translucency)" Just curious why the first term is used when the term in parentheses is the one linked. Is "order independent translucency" the common term? And if so, why include both? If there is a reason for it, then I don't have a problem with it.
  •  Done "16.77 million colors color output" One of those "colors" needs to go.
  •  Done Should "interlaced" and "progressive scan" be linked since all the other technical terms are?
  •  Done "capable of running at its maximum speed when in constant angular velocity mode" I have no idea what this actually means.
  •  Done "in Japan and the US after September 9, 1999 featured a 56 kbit/s modem" I realize that 9/9/99 was the US launch date, but this would probably read better if it said "in the US and in Japan after September 9, 1999"

Models

  •  Done "The Dreamcast was constructed in several variations by Sega. Most variations were exclusive to Japan." The first sentence contains passive voice, and I think they could be combined for flow. Something like: "Sega constructed the Dreamcast in several variations, most of which were exclusive to Japan."
  •  Done "The R7 model, consisting of a special refurbished Dreamcast unit that was originally used as a network console in Japanese pachinko parlors in a black case, has been noted for its exterior being similar to the Mega Drive" This reads awkwardly due to the long dependent clause. Should probably be reworded.
  •  Done "Several color variations were also sold through the Dreamcast Direct service in Japan" The Dreamcast Direct service is not defined anywhere in the article.
  •  Done "An unofficial Chinese variant called Treamcast was a portable version of the system." If this was a bootleg, it probably should not be listed here.

Accessories

  •  Done "include extra features such as additional buttons for performance on different genres of games" Such as?
  •  Done "Steering wheel controllers were also created by companies such as Mad Catz and Agetec for racing games" Passive voice again.
  •  Not done "Sega refused to release an official light gun" Did Sega give a reason for this? I cannot recall.
    • This is not done, but I never intended it to be a bar to GA status, so that's fine. If I recall, the reason for not releasing the gun in the US was the Senate Hearings that year regarding video game violence and school shootings, but if we don't have a source for that its not an essential fact for the article.
  •  Done "despite having done so with the Menacer for the Sega Genesis before" Not sure this phrase really adds anything to the article.
  •  Done "Various third-party cards also provide storage; some provide only storage while others also contain the LCD screen addition" Should be reworded so that "provide storage" is not used twice in rapid succession.
  •  Done "Video for the console can be supplied by several accessories" I assume this refers to different methods of connecting the console to a television? If so, then the accessories are not supplying video to the console, they are transferring a video signal from the console to the television.

Reception and Legacy

  •  Done So, I am not happy about this rumors of a Dreamcast 2 stuff. Overzealous Sega fans have for years latched on to every vague statement and licensing agreement and patent application to convince themselves another Sega console was one the way. In truth, all of these sources were referring to arcade hardware or to licensed console remakes (like the AtGames consoles) or figments of these people's imaginations. There has never been a credible basis to believe Sega would build another console, so even though these rumors were reported in reliable sources, the fact that they were rumors mean that they are not encyclopedic considering Sega has never reentered the console business. That said, if we have a source stating that rumors continued to surface over the years because the Dreamcast was so well loved, I think that would be okay as one part of analyzing the impact the console had on its devoted fan base. Just to say there have been rumors though? I am not sure that belongs in a GA.
  •  Done "IGN named the Dreamcast the 8th greatest video game console of all time" When?
  •  Done "PC Magazine named the Dreamcast the greatest video game console ever" Again, when?
  •  Done "Edge named the console the 10th best console of the last 20 years" You know what I am going to say. As a note, I realize that the date will be included in the citation, but the reader of the article needs to see this up front in the text to put these statements in the context of what consoles existed at the time these rankings were decided on.

Game Library

  •  Done "The most notable studios were..." Judgement calls as to relative notability need to be backed by sources or can be considered original research. Something like "these studios included" would bypass this issue.
  •  Done "Sega became 'the most prolific publisher in the business.'" Yes this is sourced, but prolific is a poorly defined concept in this context. Did the company release more games than any other company? Did the company just have more internal development teams working than any other company? Can Kent (notorious for overstatement and inaccuracy) even back up this claim at all? The general concept being articulated here is fine, but lets try to articulate it without using absolutes.
  •  Done "and Shenmue (the first part in a planned 16-part interactive novel and a striking attempt at creating a detailed in-game city." As Shenmue is discussed in detail down below, this may be redundant.
    • I remain convinced this is redundant. The other games discussed in this sentence are all never mentioned again, but this exact same info is repeated later in the article in a whole paragraph devoted to the game. If you feel there is a good reason for this, that's fine, but I would like to hear your thinking. Indrian (talk) 19:10, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

And that's it. Once we have discussed the "game development" section a bit more I will still need to critique the "game library" section, but otherwise I believe I have articulated all my concerns. This article is a massive undertaking on an unusually beloved piece of console hardware, so it comes as no surprise that there are still a fair number of areas that need work. That said, kudos to User:Red Phoenix for crafting an informative and nuanced look at the Dreamcast and to User:TheTimesAreAChanging for rewriting and polishing many sections for additional brevity and clarity. We may be looking at another couple of weeks of hard work to finish this off, especially with the holidays in full swing, but I am confident that we can bring this to GA status in the near future. Therefore, I will now officially place this nomination  On hold (yeah, I realize it has really been on hold for weeks now, but meh) while the final issues are worked out. Thanks again for all the hard work! Indrian (talk) 00:11, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

I will try to reorganize the article, including the "Game library" and "Game development" sections, to meet your concerns as soon as possible.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 04:26, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
Another couple of weeks sounds about right... since I work in retail management, this particular week is the nightmare of my year, if you catch my drift. That has been a major factor in my absence from Wikipedia recently, but I will try to dive in as much as possible. Thank you Indrian for the very detailed review. Red Phoenix let's talk... 05:14, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
I've completed the major reorganization. I will leave the "Tech specs" to RP, as I've scarcely touched the section, and this is not my nomination.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 02:23, 27 November 2014 (UTC)
User:Red Phoenix, is everything in "Technical specs" properly sourced? For example, there is no citation next to "Physically, the Dreamcast measures 190 × 195.8 × 75.5 mm (7.48 × 7.71 × 2.97 in) and weighs 1.5 kg (3.3 lb). The Dreamcast's main CPU is a Hitachi SH-4 32-bit RISC at 200 MHz with a 128-bit vector graphics engine, 360 MIPS and 1.4 GFLOPS using the vector graphics engine. The graphics hardware is a NEC PowerVR2 CLX2 chipset, capable of drawing more than 3 million polygons per second peak performance and trilinear filtering" and ect. I don't believe this would be hard to source--in fact, I have a source in front of me right now that could singlehandedly source most of that material, although some of the details are a bit different (my source says 19.0 cm × 19.6 cm × 7.6 cm, for example)--but I wanted to check with you first.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 18:52, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
Yes, all of the that information comes from the EGM source in the paragraph - when I did this section, I started over from the beginning and pretty much wiped out the whole text that was there. As it's all to the same citation without another source being cited in between, I found it redundant to add a bunch of little blue links, but it can be clarified by copying the citation as needed. Red Phoenix let's talk... 20:02, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
Okay, good, less work for me. Thank you for clearing that up.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 20:17, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
I think I have just about all of the text cleaned up in the specs. Sorry, I realize I'm not around nearly as much anymore. Red Phoenix let's talk... 20:20, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
"Hardware" still needs a little work. "The original Japanese model and all PAL models had a transfer rate of 33.6 kbit/s, while consoles sold in the US and in Japan after September 9, 1999 featured a 56 kbit/s modem" is of course true, but not in the reference. Where does EGM 115 say "the system features a Yamaha AICA sound processor with a 32-bit ARM7 RISC CPU operating at 45 MHz"? All I can find in the article is "Super Intelligent Sound Processor with 32-bit RISC CPU built in", while my source says 67 MHz. Also, per JimmyBlackwing, much of the EGM material is on page 27 rather than page 26.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 01:20, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
I've revised the technical specs section a bit over the past couple days to clarify that Windows CE was not the only operating system, Sega had an official light gun but refused to release it in the U.S., there were two slots in the controller for the VMU and other peripherals, the VMU could connect to NAOMI, ect., and also changed the sound processor's clock rate since I believe the previous figure was inaccurate. One detail not covered is the Dreamcast's ability to link up with the Neo Geo Pocket Color, which I have had trouble finding sources on.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 01:14, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
Very good. I think we are close now. I will try to give the article a (hopefully) final pass tomorrow. Indrian (talk) 01:20, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
Okay, I read through the whole article, made a few tweaks, and asked for a few final changes above to the newly revamped "game library" section. Once those issues are addressed, I think we may just be done here. Indrian (talk) 19:27, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
Is there any reason you haven't sourced the bit about Eno yet? I was aware that (in Irimajiri's words), "We contacted lots of companies in the brand business, and collected hundreds of ideas from people, and we also asked our alliance companies such as Yamaha to show us their libraries of names. I think there were more than 5,000 names at one stage.", but had never heard that Eno submitted the name before, even in any of the obituaries following his death.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 01:59, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
Actually, Indrian, one more thing. On Sega's financial losses, the article currently has some problems:
  • "Poor Japanese sales left Sega with a US$412 million net loss in the quarter ending March 2000—double the loss Sega first expected." However, the source doesn't say that Sega actually posted this loss, only that the company "expected" to do so. More importantly, the time period is not "the quarter ending March 2000", but "the year to March".
  • "Sega suffered a JP¥17.98 billion loss for the 6 months ending September 30, 2000, and a yearly loss of JP¥42.88 billion, making it Sega's third consecutive annual loss." The "third consecutive annual loss" is not in the source. Notably, the source says Sega "now expects its full-year loss to widen, to ¥23.6 billion", but Sega later increased this estimate to ¥58.3 billion.
This material seems a little confused, not least of all since part of the first statement is actually taken from the second source. We may need to look into this a little more carefully to determine what losses Sega actually ended up posting, or at least revise the language to better reflect the sources.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 06:33, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
Addendum: Per this report, Sega posted a net loss of ¥42.881 billion in fiscal 1999, ¥42.88 billion in fiscal 2000, and ¥51.73 billion in fiscal 2001.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 06:38, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
Good catch on the numbers; I'll look through my files as well. As for Eno, I've got it, I just keep forgetting to add it when I have the source handy. Its in The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers by John Szczepaniak. Indrian (talk) 15:06, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
Looking it over, the Saturn figures are equally flawed, I just wasn't going over the material as carefully back then. We are effectively counting the same set of figures twice, because both Kent and Allgame are referring to the same fiscal year ending March 31, 1998. Kent's account is taken straight from the March 14 New York Times, which predicts a 21% drop in sales (it ended up being 24.6%, although the more damning figure is the 54.8% decline in consumer product sales, including a 75.4% decline overseas) and mentions that Sega expected to "write off $450 million to cover losses at its United States subsidiary". According to the NYT, Sega was expected to post a $254 million consolidated net loss for the year, which is very close to the loss they ended up posting. I can't quite determine where Allgame got $309 million from, but it appears to be a slightly different estimate of Sega's expected 1998 parent loss than the $302 million reported by Nikkei Weekly on March 16. So, a lot of work is needed here.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 02:41, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
The financial data has been taken care of.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 02:35, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
Great! I want to go over the whole article carefully one more time now (hopefully tomorrow), but this will probably do it. Indrian (talk) 02:46, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Okay, there is one outstanding issue left above from the "game library" section. Right now, I am beginning my final read through of the article and will be adding final comments and changes below. Hopefully, there will not be too many. Indrian (talk) 19:10, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Final Pass

  •  Done There are two citations in the infobox. Per the MOS, we generally only cite in the infobox if the material appears nowhere in the body of the article. I believe this info does.
  •  Done We have trimmed down the lead a lot, which is fine, but it has left some holes. Right now, we skip straight from the design of the system to the US launch. There should be a brief mention of how it fared on launch on Japan.
  •  Done "The PlayStation was immediately successful on launch" I think this refers to the US launch, but the article does not make it clear. The Japanese launch probably does not count as immediately successful, since it did not sell out on preorders and lagged behind the Saturn. Certainly, the console became successful in both markets after a short time.
  •  Done The verb "launch" is used four times in the first paragraph of "Background." I know this is the standard term for the release of new hardware, but maybe we can provide a little more variety.
  •  Done "which saw the company's revenue decline from a 1992 peak through 1995 as part of an industry-wide slowdown" I assume this sentence is about how revenues peaked in 1992 and then fell each year through 1995, but the phrase "1992 peak through 1995" does not actually convey this and makes no sense grammatically.
  •  Done "With the Sega Saturn losing against the PlayStation" I can't quite put my finger on it, but this phrase just feels wrong. Conjures up images of two professional sports teams playing a match rather than one video game system trailing another.
  •  Done "The Dreamcast shared the same technology as Sega's latest arcade board" This sentence is tacked on to the end of a paragraph in development and comes out of the blue. Which technology is shared? Certainly not the GD-ROM, Microsoft development tools, and modem, which are the main pieces of technology described in this paragraph.
  •  Done "when EA—the largest third-party video game publisher" Is EA's position as largest third-party publisher sourced? There are no citations in that sentence, but it may be covered in one of the other sources in the paragraph. Its a true statement, but it should be backed up. More of a big deal for FA than GA though, so I will happily pass without this being fixed.
  •  Done "Though the Dreamcast launch had been successful, Sony still held 60 percent of the overall video game market share with the PlayStation at the end of 1999" Is this worldwide marketshare, or a specific market? Article needs to specify.

I think that does it. Once these final minor issues are addressed, I believe a promotion will be in order. Indrian (talk) 21:11, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

  • It wasn't, but it is now.
  • The Japanese launch was never part of the lead and was not trimmed, but it's there now.
  • Fixed.
  • Fixed.
  • Rephrased slightly; does this address your concern?
    • I tweaked it a little more. I think it's fine now.
  • Changed wording.
  • Removed as redundant given the material in "Game library".
  • That's in the Gamasutra article.
  • The BBC doesn't elaborate.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 02:49, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
    • The entire first section of the article appears to be discussing North America, so I think its safe to say that this is NA market share. I'm going to go ahead and make this change.

Very well, with this last round of tweaks, I am now confidant that Dreamcast meets the criteria. @TheTimesAreAChanging: and @Red Phoenix:, thank you so much for all your hard work. Once again you have produced a Sega console article that wikipedia can be proud of. Indrian (talk) 18:33, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

And thank you for your thorough review.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 22:10, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

How I think "Game library" should look

Red Phoenix, Indrian: This is largely unrelated to the GA review (although of course too much change can make a page hard to review) but I did want to give you both a heads up on how, ideally, I would like this article to look in the future. As with the Saturn, my focus for now will be the game library, because that's what I care most about (and know most about; I learned plenty researching the Saturn, and probably have much to learn here, too). To be clear, the current "Game library" section compares favorably with many console articles, particularly Red Phoenix's work (i.e., paragraphs 1 & 3). But I would like to gut the second paragraph of "Game library" and integrate its content into a slightly broader discussion of notable Dreamcast games and developers, and have an example of how that might look here. Now, you may feel that is too much text just about AM2, and I may have to trim it eventually, but you get the idea: Several paragraphs on different developers/games like that. I added the fourth paragraph in "Game development", along with additional material on Virtua Fighter 3 and F355 elsewhere in the article, to complement this planned approach. I hope this isn't me going off the deep end.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 04:27, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

I'd say do as you will here. My main focus when doing a game library is to get the general idea; how it's been received, facts about it, a picture to illustrate what a typical game looks like, etc. I'm not too picky on the amount of detail as long as we observe WP:DUE and don't give too much undue weight to any particular aspect of it (i.e. I wouldn't take the Master System library and spend half of it talking about Alex Kidd). In the case of Dreamcast, surely there's been enough said about the unique game library it had that I could see it warranting some expansion. Red Phoenix let's talk... 04:35, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Recent edit

Regarding this edit, obviously the Dreamcast does have the Sega logo on its exterior, and everyone who has ever seen a Dreamcast knows this, even from the picture in this article. So I am not surprised this came up. I don't have the Retro Gamer source, and the comparison to the PlayStation may not be completely accurate in that regard, but at the same time I believe there is some truth to this claim--or else this article would be called the "Sega Dreamcast". I will not revert this edit because I did not add the material, but the lead should reflect the body and vice-versa.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 03:20, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure I see what there is to contest. Either the logo's there or it isn't, unless there's some design that can be variously interpreted as congruent or not congruent with the logo. Lots of other consoles don't carry their companies' names, like the Wii, Game Boy Advance, and Xbox 360. Tezero (talk) 03:33, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
Then it should be removed from the body. However, I was really posting this here so Red Phoenix or Indrian could explain what exactly Retro Gamer says.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 03:41, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
Here's the quote:

With Sega's stock, pitifully low, the company was well aware that any new machine would have to represent a new beginning and distance itself from the tainted public perception created by the poorly performing Saturn. To the Sega management, this meant one thing—completely remove the Sega name from the console and establish a new gaming 'brand' in the same way Sony had done with the successful PlayStation.

— Damien McFerran, Retro Gamer Issue 50
That being said, the article also later says this:

Thankfully for fanboys, Irjmajiri's management team would later wisely relent and permit the Sega logo to be reinstated to the console's outer casing.

— Damien McFerran, Retro Gamer Issue 50
That would appear to be our answer. Red Phoenix let's talk... 03:42, 14 November 2014 (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)
What's GAR? 107.185.56.94 (talk) 22:06, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
Good Article Assessment. -- ferret (talk) 22:29, 26 November 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)
The CESA link never displayed the numbers directly. It is an industry white paper that you have to purchase to read. -- ferret (talk) 15:43, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
Does this discussion imply that the 10.6 million count is a lie? 107.185.56.94 (talk) 02:50, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
A lie is a very strong way of putting it. An unverified forum figure from over a decade ago that kept getting erroneously reported. No one was trying to deceive anyone. -- ferret (talk) 03:00, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
It's hard to believe how authors and researchers would believe a forum topic written by an anonymous user. What's written by an anonymous user is something similar to a rumor. 172.58.17.101 (talk) 20:58, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Dreamcast/Archive_2&oldid=1153937627"