Sega Dreamcast Sought XBOX Aid

It's been revealed that Sega's Chairman of the time, Isao Okawa-san, visited Microsoft's Bill Gates several times as part of a last bid effort to save the now much loved console.



Kotaku is reporting the following:

have been rumors for years that Microsoft planned to buy Japanese game maker SEGA. But did you know SEGA hoped to make the original Xbox compatible with Dreamcast games?

The SEGA Dreamcast was launched in late 1998 to great fanfare. The console — featuring dial-up online — was years ahead of its time. Then the Sony's PlayStation 2 launched, and the SEGA console never recovered.

SEGA Chairman Isao Okawa was not willing to go down without a fight. "Before Mr. Okawa passed away," tweets former Microsoft exec Sam Furukawa, "he visited Gates several times, to see if it would be possible to add Dreamcast compatibility into the Xbox." According to Furukawa, Okawa was offering the SEGA assets to Xbox, it seems, which would create a path for Dreamcast customers to migrate to the Xbox.

Even if the Dreamcast was dying, this move would keep the platform alive and maybe even give it a second wind.

Okawa insisted that internet was indispensable for the Dreamcast games, it seems, but Microsoft didn't want an internet connection for the Dreamcast titles and negotiations fell apart.

(Of course, Microsoft pushed online gaming for its own Xbox titles; however, one has to wonder what expenses it would incur by not only making its Xbox play DC games, but play them online.)

Furukawa says that Okawa negotiated with Gates himself, but he was unable to work out a deal to pass on the Dreamcast customers. Before Okawa, Furukawa adds, he gave over roughly US$ 900 million from his personal fortune to SEGA in order to keep the company afloat.

Okawa passed away in Tokyo on March 16, 2001 due to heart failure. He was 74. The Dreamcast went out of production later that year. The chairman who followed Okawa decided that SEGA should focus on software production.

SEGA of America exec Peter Moore, the man who has admitted to making the decision to stop producing the Dreamcast, joined Microsoft in 2003.

CSK Holdings, the company Okawa created, owned the major stock share in SEGA until 2004 when CSK's shares were bought by Sammy, a pachinko company. And Microsoft continues to struggle in the Japanese market.

Furukawa is currently a professor at Japan's Keio University.

幻に終わったXboxのドリームキャスト互換・今明かされるその理由 [Kotaku Japan]

Thanks to Kotaku

I believe this in part explains a lot of those early Sega IP's that appeared on XBOX.

Surprising that SEGA would so eagerly approach a western developer, and would definitely explain SEGA's strong support for the XBOX systems.

Some people are reading this as "XBOX killed the Dreamcast". Because you know those SEGA fans; always looking for someone to blame for the DC's downfall, when it was really SEGA's own fault.

Sega and Microsoft worked pretty closely throughout development of the then named Katana, at one point the prototype resembled something very akin to a conventional Windows based PC.

Some fun facts, there. Starred.

Toon SuperLink said:
Surprising that SEGA would so eagerly approach a western developer, and would definitely explain SEGA's strong support for the XBOX systems.

Some people are reading this as "XBOX killed the Dreamcast". Because you know those SEGA fans; always looking for someone to blame for the DC's downfall, when it was really SEGA's own fault.

I agree. SEGA did not make a lot of effort with their new console. It did not have the feel good factor like the MegaDrive had.

SEGA put a lot of effort into the marketing of the Dreamcast and the console itself, from what I\'ve heard (especially in America). I believe it was mostly to do with the PS2, that caused the downfall of the Dreamcast.

( Edited 17.01.2010 18:15 by Marzy )

I disagree. The Dreamcast's downfall was the fault of SEGA, but it was not due to any "lack of effort" put into the console itself. The Dreamcast was way ahead of it's time.

· First home console that jumped the "one million polygons per second" barrier. PS2 et al were only comparatively marginal improvements over this. The Dreamcast absolute cained PSone and N64 in this regard.

· First home console to have a practical online system implemented on it on a worldwide scale (not just in Japan). The Dreamcast was the first console I ever had an online game on. Phantasy Star Online, baby!

· The DC had a revolutionary memory card that also acted as a separate screen for your controller, and a stand-alone handheld console. People were mentioning using DS as separate screens for Wii games the other day like it was a ne idea. Dreamcast was doing that in 1998 - 11 years ago (it was late '98 in Japan, I think).

The Dreamcast died because SEGA made several huge errors with their advertising.

· Those "Up to 6 billion players" adverts set in greasy hair salons in Mexico or wherever with men racing to cut hair. People thought it was stupid. This became a further embarrassment when on launch, no online games were available yet (and wouldn't be for ages). Facepalm.

· Sponsoring Arsenal football club. Football fans demand at least two series of games from a console, FIFA and Pro Evo. EA never made any Dreamcast games (and said they never would), and Pro Evo never came out on Dreamcast. The added facepalm here is that fans of rival teams think that Dreamcast is gay. People who aren't fans of football obviously don't watch it, and don't necessarily even see the advertising. Facepalm.

So anyway, by the time the PS2 came out, most people either think that the Dreamcast is gay, or they don't quite know what to make of it. No adverts showed any of the games (if they had, a lot of people would have been blown away). Just strange and supposedly "artsy" stuff.

Everyone knew exactly what the PS2 was, due to Sony's excellent marketing. Sony made sure everyone knew it also played DVDs, which was hot in the West at the time (the East had had DVDs for years, by this point). Everybody also knew that it played all your old PSone games.

Anyway, the console itself was a grand piece of kit at the time, my mates were all completely amazed with Sould Calibur et al, and would constantly be at my house begging for goes on it. I think SEGA just started to massively drop the ball in regards to what people wanted towards the end of the Mega Drive era. The 32X marked the start of the long downfall of SEGA.

I think it's a shame we don't get SEGA consoles, any more. They made great machines and had a style that was totally arcade. SEGA were at heart and arcade company, and those of us who's earliesy gaming experiences were in the arcades (not a home console like an Atari 2600 or a NES), SEGA was the choice of home console.

Towards the end of the Mega Drive era, the worldwide arcade industry really started dying (whereas the home console industry was growing), and people weren't so interested in arcade-oriented stuff, any more. SEGA really had no idea how to appeal to this new 'home console' crowd, and with the Saturn they produced a console that could play all the latest Street Fighter games in the arcades in arcade-perfect quality, but could not run 3D games as easily as the competition.

So SEGA lagged behind badly with the Saturn. The Dreamcast was their last stab at really trying to 'get' the modern gamer. By then it was too late, and their embarrassing attempts at marketing the console to the modern gamer didn't help matters. I think the machine itself would have more than satisfied anyone, at the time. It remember everyone just thinking that it was astonishing.

Agree with Martin; mostly.
The DC's failure was SEGA's fault, and I'm not saying they suck for it since personally I wasn't that big a SEGA fan anymore at that time anyway. Yeah it was sad; but I like this third party SEGA too.

The 32X and Saturn probably pushed SEGA along to this fate. The DC was arguably SEGA's first "proper" console since the MD, but by then everyone had lost interest.

And then there was EA.. responsible for a huge amount of a console's sales, as usual.

See I feel that SEGA pushed the boat out a lot more with their software back when they were a console manufacturer. I managed to not mention it in my previous post, but Shenmue would never have happened if SEGA didn't have a console to back. A console manufacturer has to make sure that there is unique software available for their machine.

They can let third-parties mostly take care of the mainstream stuff, and so things like Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Shenmue, Seaman, yadda yadda are born. Those highly-acclaimed or otherwise highly-thought of titles that don't necessarily do very well at retail, but boost the prestige of the machine that they are available for. Every Sony fanboy loves Team Ico, every Xbox fanboy loves Bungie, every Nintendo fanboy loves.. Nintendo.

Nintendo are really the only old school console manufacturer left in the game, today. They make sure that their console has the unique titles, and let the third-parties squabble over the mainstream aspect of it.

I still hope that one day SEGA will enter the hardware business, again. They never will, but I'd ejaculate in my pants if they did. Shenmue III as a launch title.

JOYGAZM.

I heard Arsenal couldn't wear SEGA in a certain country because it meant something rude or along the lines of that, so they had to have kits with Dreamcast in the middle. Which country I don't know but I think it might be Italy.

PlaySEGA has been putting Genesis games on their site. The site is still in its beta phase, but it's featuring some classic Genesis games. I remember their survey also asking if people would want to see any Sega Saturn or Dreamcast games on the site. I know this is only a small possibility, but its nice to dream.

It would be nice if they could come out with a console, though.

What happened to the Dreamcast thread, why is there only one page in this section now?

New Dreamcast Game

Fast Striker 1.5 Sega Dreamcast

http://www.siliconera.com/2010/12/12/the-dreamcast-has-a-new-bullet-hell-shooter-coming/

All these 'new' Dreamcast games seem to be scrolling space shooters. It'd be nice if one of these independents did something else for the console.

In before thread lock and bannings!

Sounds like a desperate move from a desperate system. They're better off now. Less pressure and they can focus on making good Sonic games like Sonic Colors (THE COLORS FEEL SO RIGHT :roller

The Dreamcast seemed bogged down with a lot of PS1 ports. The games made with Dreamcast tech in mind were great.

I don't know why but my brother, who last year got a newish PAL Dreamcast, seems to be having trouble with a few games. Virtua Fighter 3TB and Sonic Adventure 1 simply refuse to play. It just goes straight to the Dreamcast dashboard. They've only both worked once each.