The Dreamcast didn't even get 2 years worth of sales under its belt though. It's idiotic to compare it to Playstation or N64 (3X and 10X the sales) when it only got about 1/3 of the market time those consoles got before Sega could no longer support it do to their previous screwups. If the Dreamcast received support all the way through its lifecycle then it would be a fair comparison.
Perhaps it was just in my area but there were a ton of people at the midnight sale for Dreamcast and I knew more people with a Dreamcast than any of the other "next-gen" consoles at the time. Sega was in $700 million worth of debt due to poor business handling not solely (mostly due to all the screwups between the Genesis and the Dreamcast) because of the Dreamcast. They got up to near 10 million consoles and in the time they had I think that's great, a subjective matter I suppose.
This is from Wikipedia and basically what I remember about the Dreamcast:
The Dreamcast was released on November 27, 1998 in Japan, on September 9, 1999 in North America (the date 9/9/99 featured heavily in US promotion) and on October 14, 1999 in Europe. The tagline used to promote the console in the US was, "It's thinking", and in Europe, "Up to 6 Billion Players".
The Dreamcast was the first console to include a built-in modem and Internet support for online gaming. Previous consoles such as the Genesis/Mega Drive had online capabilities, but these were comparably limited and required extra hardware (XBAND).
The Dreamcast enjoyed brisk sales in its first season, and was one of Sega's most successful hardware units. In the United States alone, a record 300,000 units [3] had been pre-ordered before launch and Sega sold 500,000 consoles in just two weeks (including 225,000 sold on the first 24 hours which became a video game record). In fact, due to brisk sales and hardware shortages, Sega was unable to fulfill all of the advance orders.
Sega confirmed that it made $98.4 million on combined hardware and software sales with the Dreamcast with its September 9, 1999 launch. Sega even compared the record figure to the opening day gross of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, which made $28.5 million during the first 24 hours in theaters.
Chris Gilbert, senior vice president of sales, Sega of America, said on the 24 November 1999: "By hitting the one million units sold landmark, it is clear that the Sega Dreamcast consumer has moved beyond the hard-core gamer and into the mass market."
He likened it to a music album going platinum or a film netting $100m in box office receipts.
Before the launch in the United States, Sega had already taken the extra step in displaying Dreamcast's capabilities in stores nationwide. Much like the PlayStation's launch in North America, the displays of titles such as Soul Calibur, Sonic Adventure, Power Stone, and Hydro Thunder helped the Dreamcast succeed in the first year.
Due to its losses from making games for the past generation Sega Saturn, Electronic Arts announced it would not support the Dreamcast unless it sold 1 million units. When this happened within a record 90 days, EA went back on their word and declined to support the Dreamcast in favor of Sony's upcoming PlayStation 2.
Although the Dreamcast had none of EA's popular sports games, due in part to EA's losses from the Sega Saturn, Sega Sports titles helped to fill that void. The biggest competition between Sega Sports and EA Sports in the US was their football games (i.e. NFL 2K1 vs. Madden NFL 2001). Both games were highly regarded, NFL 2K1 having the advantage of online play (coinciding with release of SegaNet) and Madden NFL 2001 arguably having a graphics edge. NFL 2K1 outsold Madden NFL 2001 with about 410,000 copies, which was about the number of PlayStation 2's that had been sold in America at the time.
Clearly the Dreamcast was a success, it just wasn't enough of a success to pull Sega out of the blackhole it created with everything it made between Dreamcast and Genesis.
Perhaps it was just in my area but there were a ton of people at the midnight sale for Dreamcast and I knew more people with a Dreamcast than any of the other "next-gen" consoles at the time. Sega was in $700 million worth of debt due to poor business handling not solely (mostly due to all the screwups between the Genesis and the Dreamcast) because of the Dreamcast. They got up to near 10 million consoles and in the time they had I think that's great, a subjective matter I suppose.
This is from Wikipedia and basically what I remember about the Dreamcast:
The Dreamcast was released on November 27, 1998 in Japan, on September 9, 1999 in North America (the date 9/9/99 featured heavily in US promotion) and on October 14, 1999 in Europe. The tagline used to promote the console in the US was, "It's thinking", and in Europe, "Up to 6 Billion Players".
The Dreamcast was the first console to include a built-in modem and Internet support for online gaming. Previous consoles such as the Genesis/Mega Drive had online capabilities, but these were comparably limited and required extra hardware (XBAND).
The Dreamcast enjoyed brisk sales in its first season, and was one of Sega's most successful hardware units. In the United States alone, a record 300,000 units [3] had been pre-ordered before launch and Sega sold 500,000 consoles in just two weeks (including 225,000 sold on the first 24 hours which became a video game record). In fact, due to brisk sales and hardware shortages, Sega was unable to fulfill all of the advance orders.
Sega confirmed that it made $98.4 million on combined hardware and software sales with the Dreamcast with its September 9, 1999 launch. Sega even compared the record figure to the opening day gross of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, which made $28.5 million during the first 24 hours in theaters.
Chris Gilbert, senior vice president of sales, Sega of America, said on the 24 November 1999: "By hitting the one million units sold landmark, it is clear that the Sega Dreamcast consumer has moved beyond the hard-core gamer and into the mass market."
He likened it to a music album going platinum or a film netting $100m in box office receipts.
Before the launch in the United States, Sega had already taken the extra step in displaying Dreamcast's capabilities in stores nationwide. Much like the PlayStation's launch in North America, the displays of titles such as Soul Calibur, Sonic Adventure, Power Stone, and Hydro Thunder helped the Dreamcast succeed in the first year.
Due to its losses from making games for the past generation Sega Saturn, Electronic Arts announced it would not support the Dreamcast unless it sold 1 million units. When this happened within a record 90 days, EA went back on their word and declined to support the Dreamcast in favor of Sony's upcoming PlayStation 2.
Although the Dreamcast had none of EA's popular sports games, due in part to EA's losses from the Sega Saturn, Sega Sports titles helped to fill that void. The biggest competition between Sega Sports and EA Sports in the US was their football games (i.e. NFL 2K1 vs. Madden NFL 2001). Both games were highly regarded, NFL 2K1 having the advantage of online play (coinciding with release of SegaNet) and Madden NFL 2001 arguably having a graphics edge. NFL 2K1 outsold Madden NFL 2001 with about 410,000 copies, which was about the number of PlayStation 2's that had been sold in America at the time.
Clearly the Dreamcast was a success, it just wasn't enough of a success to pull Sega out of the blackhole it created with everything it made between Dreamcast and Genesis.