Saturn Was Why Sega Abandoned Consoles, Not Dreamcast, Says Former President Peter Moore

The Dreamcast had to sell 5 million units by the end of 2000 to be sustainable. It had only sold 3.5 million by then. Most units of the Dreamcast were sold after it had been discontinued.

During its short lifetime, most gamers were not yet ready to move on from their PlayStations. If Sega had the money to last another year and release the DVD player with the built in Dreamcast, the Dreamcast may have been profitable, if not a high seller. The GameCube was profitable despite coming in third that generation.

It was not one thing, but a series of bad calls and a toxic corporate culture behind it all. Saturn was a flop everywhere but Japan, though it was a good system to play. Certainly, the Dreamcast was not as successful as Sega needed it to be because of the financial state they were in from the Saturn. And since this has come up again, it's worth pointing out that bernie stolar, who was in charge of Sega of America for the Dreamcast launch, despite doing the marketing right(the one thing he was good at), announced the price of the Dreamcast at $50 below what he was supposed to at a time when Sega needed to minimize losses. It's hypothetical now, but I think the DC launch would still have been successful with the system at $250.

@sdelfin
At launch buyers had to pay $200 for the console and $50 for a game. If the buyer buys a non-Sega game, Sega would receive $200 for the console and $8/9 royalties for that game.

It would have been better to have sold the system at cost price ($250) and included Sonic Adventure as a pack-in game resulting in Sega taking the full $250 for every console sold.

And I think the likes of the Sega CD, 32X, Nomad, Neptune, Wondermega, etc, helped them along the way.

every generation has an overpriced console that has nothing to offer compared to the competition and as a result is p unpopular critically.

80's it was the atari 5200 and onwards

90's it was the saturn and pc-fx

2000's it was the mattel hyperscan

And now we have the PS5!

It was a combination of things. That Tower of Power was a colossal misstep. Consider how much money had to go into that with very little to show in return. I believe it's what started the downfall. Saturn only added fuel from that point on. Timing was a huge issue with the X32 to Saturn to time to market for Dreamcast.

I keep wondering if there is any truth to the rumors that MS keeps courting Sega for a sell.

@electrolite77
SOA did know about inventory management. But they chose to give in to the demands of the big outlets. The big outlets each wanted....
1. A large number of particular items supplied.
2. A large number of the same items in Sega's own warehouses in case there's still a large demand after the initial stock has sold.
3. Sega to buy back any stock that doesn't sell.

Tom Kalinske should never have given in to them.

Understandable. Even if missteps/but also kind of a way to gauge with Sega CD/32X as prep for new directions as well. Saturn they did some particular things for sure well and some not.

Dreamcast while good and right with VMUs yay GameCube + 4 GBAs/Wii U, or PS2/PSP crossave with Outrun 2006 before PS3 cross save was a thing I think.

Dreamcast was great for so many things at the time, console itself and games it's sad people do ignore it from sixth gen sometimes even if it was the weakest, it was a 4 horse race not a 3 but still the most amazing for ideas in games and features as the others that gen.

I don't care for all it offered (some of the first party but the ones most don't talk about of course but that can be said for many Sega games most of the niche ones are niche and most fans care about particular ones even though I do the ones with more interesting ideas/not the same appeal). Even then while many of the hit 90s arcade and others were there I'm not interested in them, I appreciate them and yes best versions then the PS1/Saturn/N64 likely but eh. Even if best ports for past consoles first and third party, the games on the system that were made for it (the ones I don't think were ported, can't or maybe were later) are also good as well and the ones I think about the most. So not Sonic Adventure or Skies of Arcadia. It's things like Cosmic Smash, Rez, Sega Rally/GT and others. The more out there games.

Besides online getting talked about with Xbox more even if Dreamcast did it well first, even besides the satelliview/sega channel and others in the past of streaming games to carts or whatever the case.

If we didn't get Sega GT I'd have been sad. Maybe Apex/Supercar Street Challenge would have existed with their features but man those custom cars/events is a reason I love that game after discovering it. Best feature no one wants to touch in racing games WHY!

Or well Alfa Romeo Racing Italiano and well eh RPG mechanics of today look at this for a points system for car RPGs then what other games are doing generically and already hit ends because even if possible to go further they don't balance them well and also sick and tired of them for 'new' RPG methods instead. Oh the past has those great at least some people tried.

@electrolite77
The Sonic and Knuckles carts and the activators were the result of Sega's deals with the retailers. It is possible the vast majority of that inventory was due to those deals. The 22 different bundles were likely due to retailer pressure. I can't imagine Sega creating that many themselves.

I agree that Sega allowed too many games to be released on the Genesis at one time. Consumers can only spend so much on video games. And unsold cartridges are a financial loss. The unsold CD games were obviously less of a risk.

But Sega should have stopped those deals with retailers after the first two or three failures. There is no excuse for that many different products to be in warehouses.