Dreamcast: A Forensic Retrospective Comments by Dan Whitehead

lambtron
02-Feb-09 09:09:25 "could it have done gran turismo or god of war?

Yes."

dont be daft mate, im not slating the dc but many of its owners view it through rose tinted specticles, ps2 did nt kill it off, it barely competed with ps1 (im not talking technically) yes it had some good games with good graphics for the time but i doubt very much it had the spec to pull off gow or gt no matter how long people developed for it.

The Dreamcast changed my life. Before it I was a Nintendo fanboy, but I came to experience the Dreamcast after receiving one as a present. Really opened me up to all sorts of games I didn't know I liked. I used to hate RPGs, but after firing up a demo of Skies of Arcadia one bored afternoon they now form a substantial part of my collection. Every time I see a Dreamcast in Cash Converter or somewhere like that I want to rescue it and give it a good home.

I calling the PS2 technologically inferior to the Dreamcast is a bit of a stretch EG. DC's polygon count was pretty low and as the generation developed the importance of particle effects couldn't be underestimated. It's debatable whether DC could have managed Sega's own Outrun in the 60fps refresh rate that the PS2 and Xbox did. People really have to let that technologically inferior rubbish go. I love the DC and have a comprehensive collection for it, but when DMC came out with the shadow beast boss in the court yard there was no doubt in my mind PS2 could muster more technically than DC.

Article made me jump on ebay. Just picked up a pristine boxed DC for £30 w/ keyboard etc.

"it barely competed with ps1" That's a bit of slating right there!

Dreamcast never had a chance because it wasn't a Playstation. Brand loyalty is very powerful and distorts people's perception.

@Greybeard, the reason I chose not to reply is because most of your comments were to do with Sega's financial struggles which I don't think are relevant.

If the Dreamcast had been a success Sega wouldn't have dropped it after two years, irrespective of there financial status at launch.

Conversely if Sega had plenty of Money it wouldn't have changed things. People were still waiting for the PS2 for the reasons we've mentioned earlier. My anecdotal evidence is something that I stick to very much, because I witnessed it first hand from lots of people and the reasons were always the same.

Are you telling me that amongst your circle of friends/colleagues/family that liked gaming (but aren't enthusiasts like you and I) that they would say to you they wouldn't buy a DC because "Sega are suffering financial difficulties" or "Oooh I don't like them, they released that 32x which was shit"? Come on now. No.

Time and time again it was:

"I want a DVD player"*
"I'm waiting for the PS2, it's a supercomputer."*
"Does it have Fifa?"

Much the same as when Wii owners ignore the fact that lots of old codgers and wives that bought them don't play them anymore. I hear that almost daily, yet I MUST ignore it as it's anecdotal and too small a sample. :rollseyes:


* Funny, but I heard similar things more recently too. ;)

R.I.P. Dreamcast.

To tell you the truth though, I miss the Saturn a whole lot more.

Article is wrong the Dreamcast isn't dead. IT CAN NEVER DIE!

02-Feb-09 10:06:55 "it barely competed with ps1" That's a bit of slating right there!

Dreamcast never had a chance because it wasn't a Playstation. Brand loyalty is very powerful and distorts people's perception.

how did brand loyalty distort peoples perception, they simply waited for ps2 which offered more power, dvd, and the promise of sequals to some of the great games they'd been playing on ps1. Dont forget that many people who were sega fans had been burnt by the mega cd, 32x and saturn fiasco before so were onto a safe bet with playstation, thats not a distorted perception. dreamcast was good, but ps2 has proved to be better, gt3 and 4, san andreas, mgs2 and 3, ico, shadow of colossus, god of war all could not have been done to the same standard on dreamcast.
i loved seaga back in they day of megadrive etc but even i can now admit that the snes was better, ps2 was and for that matter still is better than dreamcast

@SpaceMidget75

My impression of that time was that the DC was streets ahead of the competition, but nobody knew it. I always felt that Sega's marketing (or lack of it) really failed to get the message out there and as a result it never got the attention it should.

I've been stressing the state of Sega's finances and public image because they were, no doubt in my mind, a problem at that time. By 1999 most people had forgotten about the Saturn, and the last time Sega was big was back at the start of the decade with the Megadrive - and even that was tarnished by the failures of its spin-off products.

Sega desperately needed an image overhaul in order for people to take the DC as a platform worthy of serious consideration, and the only way you can do that is by spending a lot on marketing. The sad truth is they couldn't afford it, as they had their backs to the wall after suffering years of losses. Same deal with corporate America, EA didn't say no because Sony money-hatted their support, they simply didn't think they'd make money out of it - a truly horrible message to be sent from the biggest third party publisher in the world. They'd also made a bad enemy in Walmart after stiffing them back at the time of the Saturn's launch.

I do remember a lot of kids playing the "wait for PS2" game, but similarly I also remember a lot psyched at the prospect of Dolphin, there are always fanboys!

All I can say is this: the difference between the Dreamcast and the 360, is MS have done a brilliant job of marketing their machine. They got the message out early, and have aggressively gone after Sony. Sega didn't do that! They just dropped the DC onto the market and expected it to sell on the strength of its merits. And that, sadly, doesn't work.

the PS2 was superior to the DC (technologically). the DC was essentially a progression of existing arcade boards, so the boring hardware familiarisation process was well on the way, and arcade 'ports' were a done deal. the PS2 however was some pretty crazy architecture that was very powerful but no-one knew how to use it.

so it follows that a few years down the line PS2 games would look a lot better, but the DC would never see that sort of progression because it was a known quantity. that's not to say it's bad, though. soul calibur et al look fantastic. stop worrying about this stuff.

anyways, i never bought one because the PS1 was still doing strong well into the 00s, and the PC was going through something of a golden age. it wasn't a matter of "waiting" for the PS2.

(also, my flatmate had a DC :P)

Can't really talk about the rest of the world, but here in europe it wasn't a lack of resources rather mismanagement of those resources. Spending finances on t-shirt sponsorship deals on football teams was money not well spent. And lets not forget the 6 billion players fiasco. Sega America's marketing was much better. No surprise really when you consider who ran their business up there.

"Sony successfully appealing to a wider audience..."

That means 'casual'

(to all the misguided "Wii started casual gaming" fools).

But we can go further back if you like.

"It was at this point that the legacy of SEGA's worthless Megadrive expansions and the fumbled Saturn came back to haunt the company. In what would become a grim self-fulfilling prophecy, many punters were understandably quicker to put their cash towards the established and widely loved PlayStation brand "

Don't forget the retailers. They didn't want another Sega product. Didn't want to promote it and didn't want to give shelf space to it.

"the first to feature a karaoke game with microphone peripherals"

The Wonder-Mega?

Gecks
02-Feb-09 11:47:37 the PS3 was superior to the 360 (technologically). the 360 was essentially a progression of existing pc boards, so the boring hardware familiarisation process was well on the way, and pc 'ports' were a done deal. the PS3 however was some pretty crazy architecture that was very powerful but no-one knew how to use it.

so it follows that a few years down the line PS3 games would look a lot better, but the 360 would never see that sort of progression because it was a known quantity. that's not to say it's bad, though. gears of war et al look fantastic. stop worrying about this stuff.
edited
just for fun ;)

on DC piracy: Every game CD had the boot info on the disk so the DC disks was VERY easy to pirate (no hardware mod needed). Word spread fast about that. Software devs knew this too and thought twice about making software for the DC. This article could have mentioned that.

Look, the fact remains the console hardware was great but the games were almost entirely grade D filler. I played Metropolis Street Racer to death. Great game for its time.

@Greybeard.

The marketing wouldn't have made any (hardly any) difference as I keep saying. We can agree to disagree on that if you like, but marketing doesn't magically put a DVD drive in your machine, and fighting against super hyped specs when all you can show is real 'here now' specs can't be easily fought against via marketing either. No matter how good a DC game looked on an advert (yes I know they didn't even bother), it wouldn't look as good as what the masses thought the PS2 was going to achieve.

The 360 hasn't done what it's done by marketing either (at least until this Christmas). It's done it by MS having the cash to continue to invest no matter what and continue to price drop. The fact is, the PS3 isn't too far behind the 360 so that 'wait and see the super PS3' attitude still affected a lot of 360 sales. MS Xbox marketing is bloody awful imho; it's only worked because they can slap the £129.99 price tag on the end. They also had EA on side too. ;)

What utter bollocks some of the Sony fanboys speak...

The Dreamcast certainly was way more efficient than the PS2(PS2 did have the raw power advantage but for every texture layer the "impressive" fillrate dwindled) and it did have its advantages over PS2 like as someone said twice as much video memory(although this had a much lower bandwidth so in some ways the PS2 had the advantage but for the PS2 4mb was never enough, they had to find work arounds later in the consoles life). The Dreamcast was more balanced and efficient, lack of efficiency results in less real world performance, a machine is only as fast/powerful as what you get after you factor in any bottlenecks, wastage ect... this much is true no matter what untapped potential there could have been if they made some better choices on any platform you'd like to mention.

Theres a reason Sony make their hardware hard to program for or "different"... its so they can make ridiculous claims and never get called out for what the machine is really capable of, its an excuse to fall back on, an unknown quantity to hype up. Also even after they themselves know its pretty much tapped out you think they'd tell you that? Ask yourself that question honestly and you'll see why any dev or hardware designer worth their salt doesnt talk too much about untapped potential much it was marketing invention by Sony's PR team(nobody before Sony used that excuse and they certainly werent the first to try something different).

While you talk bullshit about known quantities to make yourself feel better about PS3 still getting edged out by 360 after all this time, remember that:

a) This is a stupid notion just because you use a traditional architecture doesnt mean the hardware itself is easy to tap 100%, there can be innovation within a traditional architecture too. I dont think you can argue that the PS3 is still not understood anymore, some devs are already using pretty much all SPE's in recent titles, all thats left after that is a process that happens on most consoles, streamlining and more efficient code/instructions suited to the hardware.

b) Different isnt better by default, many Sony fanboys only understand its different beyond that they dont have a clue what any of it means or how it compares to others.

c) The GPUs are always conveniently ignored... even on the subject of graphics, but heres the kicker its the PS3 who has basically an off the shelf PC GPU thats been stripped down for cost and bunged in the PS3, in the first year we were shown that without the help of CELL RSX struggled to match what Xenos was pumping out without breaking a sweat.

d) Neither the GPU or CPU of the 360 have any equivelents on the PC, its a cop out excuse for those hoping the 360s progress will suddenly stand still even though it still has plenty of its own "untapped potential"... so far what we've seen and hear suggests 360 was built for gaming, PS3 was built for multimedia playback, both will continue to improve.


What makes me laugh is the lengths people will go to, to convince themselves the "untapped potential" hype is all true and every little advancement is "a sure sign PS3 is gonna pull head into the distance mang!", we have some people convincing themselves that its already happened which is absurd.(with titles like MGS4 or Uncharted... its loonacy I tell you!)

Most recently we have had KZ2 held up high by Sony worshipers, Killzone2 took 4 years to make very few console devs get that amount of time, even PS3 ones will be lucky after KZ2 and GT5, with the advantage GG had over other devs regardless of how hard the hardware is to program for you'd expect it to be significantly more of a technical acheivement than older titles on a competing console which took far less time and money to acheive... yet arguably its on par with the top titles on 360 for the most part(I say it looks worse in some areas but not by huge amount) with lighting, physics and animation being the areas it excells most(areas where the devs have focussed on, funnily enough the only areas where I said CELL could have a slight advantage in yet both of the consoles I beleive are capable of more than that shown in KZ2 or any console game out there you'd like to mention, also the XCPU still has untapped potential here too in the form of 360s VMX which is just as hard if not harder for devopers to code for).

After the next big 360 game we will likely be hearing the same thing as last year, it will be constant back and forth with Sony fanboys desperately(thats the key word) trying to claim some sort of victory after such a dissapointing start. Trouble is the 360 will keep showing these fools that it's more than a match for the PS3 and better in alot of way as a games machine, neither is a bad machine(closest match for what they can/will dish out of any console generation) though so it's not worth arguing over too much which ever console you prefer.

For me, the Dreamcast was an awesome machine, setting up many of the gaming franchises we know and love today. My own favourite example of this being Metropolis Street Racer, a game that later went on to become Project Gotham Racing. Using your triggers to accelerate and brake is something we now take for granted.

My only gripe with the machine itself was mine had a dodgy AV Port which resulted in me having to fiddle with the AV Cable to get it to work or else it just kept rebooting. I remember on one occasion this took around a hour. All was forgotten once it finally booted though :)

"Shadow of the Colossus (1080i)"

I don't give a crap how many "i"s it's got, SotC looks like a piece of shit next to Shenmue. (No gameplay judgements there, purely aesthetic.)

Rash': People really have to let that technologically inferior rubbish go.

Is that so? Then how come almost nobody dumped the PS2 when GameCube and Xbox came out? The technological gap between any of those two and PS2 is probably greater than the one between PS2 and Dreamcast.

Hardware specs are irrelevant, if it was the other way around (the PS2 had Dreamcast's hardware and vice-versa) the end result would still have been the same.

@calgon
"Theres a reason Sony make their hardware hard to program for... its so they can make ridiculous claims an never get called out for what the machine is really capable of, its an excuse to fall back on, an unknown quantity to hype up."

come now, you really think that would be a valid tactic? how's it been working out for them with the PS3, exactly?

i really don't buy claims that the DC was more powerful ("more efficient" is something else entirely). i spent the best part of a year programming for the PS2 and it really was quite a clever bit of kit. the only way they could have got the kind of performance you see in the games today from circa 2000(?) hardware was to go crazy like they did. from what i've read and seen of the dreamcast it was some great known technology and the results were instant, but there was non of the (eg) VU1 trickery available to the more persistent dev.

this wasn't smoke and mirrors. it was a lot of R&D work, a lot of money spent on custom fabs, and results that speak for themselves. the hardware was good and they actually could make money from their business model. sony did it right with the PS2.

(and i love my 360 and don't care for the PS3. leave me out of that stuff)

For once Rev, you funny haired man, I totally agree with you.

SpaceMidget75 I dunno I think the "untapped potential" hype has been less effective with better informed gamers in this internet era but it did help them among a minority I suppose(but were they already Sony fanboys to begin with? Id think so, if not let them beleive what they will at the very least this time theres more information for all sides and mags are less keen to repeat what Sony say as gospel after being made to look like gullable jackasses :) ).

I think some of the brand loyalty will remain but it has dimished atleast so MS will take heart from that, theyve proved they can beat them in a way(at one time they might have been thinking it didnt matter what they tried). Although I think MS missed a huge opportunity to take a clear lead in second place while Sony were looking dazed in the first year with their reliability problems, theres no one to blame but themselves for that one, although some of the attitudes towards it("they bloody meant it all those evil M$ bastards") have been hypocritical to say the least, its one of the worst cases but:

a) They did just about pull through and get a handle on it eventually(and it was no small task, didnt come cheap either).

b) They arent the first platform holder to experience it, both their competitors have.

I just hope MS have some new unnanounced first party stuff(still yet to see a big budget game based on proprietary 360 engine too) on the way personally, it would be the best way to compete with the CELL hype by staying ahead.

I totally agree Calgon, I never said it's at the same level as it was. Indeed, most of the Sony backlash is precisely due to the fact that some of us more informed (or unblinkered) people saw through it this time. At the time, even I wasn't in a position to dispute what the PS2 was going to achieve from the hype. It hadn't been done at that level by a company before.

However this time many people knew that those pre-renders of the car smash and the promise of 120fps 1080p were complete bollocks.

...some didn't though. LOL.

I'm going to regurgitate what I said on the comments about PS3 a few days ago about it being all about the games.

PS2 didn't get ditched because it was the place with the games which had mass market appeal.

Much as I loved my Dreamcast, in 1999 Sonic, Shenmue, Jet Set Radio etc did not have mass market appeal.

Microsoft have succeeded where Sega didn't because they've been able to get some big names on board, ie Grand Theft Auto, FIFA, Pro Evo. Microsoft have been succeeding because they've left Sony with next no system sellers.

PS2 was going up against the dreamcast with proven sellers such as Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy.

Couple that with Sega's terrible hardware record in the previous three generations, it's no wonder dreamcast failed.

Gecks first off I never said PS2 was a bad machine(infact overall I say it was more powerfull yes... but not to the extent people were led to beleive, are you telling me that wasnt a fair summary?) but think I know enough about the PS2 to say it wasnt nearly as powerfull as Sony made it out to be, I said the Dreamcast really was better in some ways and it was easily more efficient.

the only way they could have got the kind of performance you see in the games today from circa 2000(?) hardware was to go crazy like they did.

You make yourself out to be someone talking from experience and come out with a statement like that? It proves to me that alot of people who work or have worked in the industry dont necessarly need in depth knowlege at all, infact I wonder why I ever thought that with some of the the PR talk. For the first 2 years the PS2 performance wasnt anything special, by the time it was anything to be pleased about you could have used PC chips at the time which would easily beat the PS2 on raw power while matching it on price(what it costs to manufacture atleast, factoring in process shrinks maybe it could have worked out cheaper in the end)... and what do you know Xbox showed you just that. Yet still you reckon their decision was wise? You still think CELL is seeming like money well spent? How long did the interest last in CELL tech? Good ideas catch on fast in that industry especially when the notion is to more power at a lower cost.

What I said was bang on the money about the PS2 btw, you can check any specifics mentioned(I deliberately didnt mention many or go into to too much detail because it was something I did to death last gen). Untapped potential is a marketing ploy... they are NOT the first to try something different with their hardware. The PS2 did have its bottlenecks, there was a heck of hype and alot of smoke and mirrors from their PR team, even some of the games were hyped up to be more than they really were(on a technical basis)... which although looked good were done though cutting corners and cleaver art direction.

come now, you really think that would be a valid tactic? how's it been working out for them with the PS3, exactly?

There are people who do still fall for that tactic, the good thing is people are catching on(Ive already been through this are you being deliberately ignorrant?), there have been some retractions and embaressed excusses this time around, it can only be for the better if they learn from it. Its not suprising though what Sony do best is marketing(or have done in the past... thats what sold the PS1 to the none geeks)... marketing in many sectors is often used in ways that arent the most honest or modest way, so why do so many companies do it? There must be plenty of people who do fall for it is the only logical conclusion(honestly if you cant think of many advertisements that set off your "do you take me for an idiot" alarm then you either never watch them or need to open your eyes).

Playstation - simpsons Dreamcast = Futurama

Anybody with half a brain knows Futurama was funnier, slicker and better than the Simpsons. But everybody already liked the simpsons so viewing figures stayed sky high. Futurama did well but not well enough so got canned.

Conclusion; most people in the world don't have half a brain.

Ive never played on a Dreamcast before, but suddenly after reading this article, i want to play on one...

Odd..

/looks on ebay

@MattDamon

GTA2 was on DC and GTA3 wasn't released until Oct 2001. The DC was discontinued in Mar 2001.

To say Sony had GTA and Sega didn't is wrong.

Also I would have called Sonic a mass market franchise. Shame it's a steaming pile of shit now. ;)

True about things like MGS and Fifa though that carried over from the PS1. Most of the new big games the PS2 had (like GTA3), I have no doubt would have appeared on the DC if it was the 'winning' console.

Yeah we've all heard the story about MS having first refusal on GTA3, Ed Fries will never live that down... maybe they originally envisioned a DC version when they were in the early stages.

@Calgon
"You make yourself out to be someone talking from experience and come out with a statement like that? It proves to me that alot of people who work or have worked in the industry dont necessarly need in depth knowlege at all, infact I wonder why I ever thought that with some of the the PR talk."

i'm not in "the industry" i did my final year uni project on PS2 hardware. i could bore you with technical things about it but there are far better places and people to go to if you're interested. plus i only got a 2:2 :P

"or the first 2 years the PS2 performance wasnt anything special, by the time it was anything to be pleased about you could have used PC chips at the time which would easily beat the PS2 on raw performance... and what do you know Xbox showed you just that. Yet still you reckon their decision was wise?"

what? sony needed to release hardware back then because of boring hardware cycles. of course they could have waited and come back with something even better, but it would have cost them the market. the xbox was great but came too late, and wasn't a profitable machine. slapping off the shelf PC components into a box will of course be a killer piece of kit, but it won't ever turn a profit. sony and sega couldn't afford a loss leader in the MS sense of the phrase (that is, not expecting to make any money at all in their first gen). so yes, their decision was wise,

i don't know anything about the CELL, and i don't care. at all.

Getting way off topic you two. :)

Games on both systems were visually very similar during the DC's life. Much like the 360 and PS3 now or the GC and XBox.

No one knows what DC games would have looked like now because it never happened but we can use examples of other competing machines to see that I suspect they would have remained pretty close.

@Gecks ah it wasnt you who turned this into 360 vs PS3 I realise fair do's then.

I make informed opinions just like a dev would is what I was trying to say... not every dev agrees with each other(although I seem to remember Carmack making me say to myself "thats what I said" on a few occasions this time around which was almost worth a chufty badge for me), just as not every hardware designer agrees with each other, its the way it has been and always will be. If you know your stuff you'll know these discussions can be never ending with no conclusion, so I have grown a bit bored of these debates but still find it hard to resist on occasion(I'll be set for a while now untill the next face off... haha ).

Sony are far from a position of being some sort of voice of authority within the CPU industry... they are beginners, a small fish in a big pond, yet Sony fanboys hold every word they speak up as gospel. Its amusing when for the most part it's absurdities but sometimes it's very annoying with how repetitive it is(almost like theres some mass brainwashing going on is what I thought last gen).

@spacemidet

Fair point. But there was a world of difference between GTA2 and GTA3. Perhaps wrong to add GTA as one the deciding factors in the dreamcast war, but I was also inferring that GTA helped PS2 keep selling when faced with the Cube and Xbox too.

"I don't give a crap how many "i"s it's got, SotC looks like a piece of shit next to Shenmue. (No gameplay judgements there, purely aesthetic.) "

I've put in bold the part you missed zero as you're obviously a mental.

OK, I'm sorry to ask what's all this 1080i rubbish? Since when was the PS2 hd Zero?

Or are you REALLY being pathetic and comparing a upscaled PS2 game on PS3 to a format that's been dead for 10 years?

Oh BTW, just because you post it doesn't make it true. Personally I thought SOTC (and ICO) was overrated poo, am I right and you wrong? No we just like DIFFERENT games, get over it a enjoy your PS.

@Zero
I love the Team Ico games. They'll eventually force me to buy a PS3. But neither game was a good GRAPHICALLY as Shenmue. I don't care how high SOTC's res is. Fool.

If you're talking artistically then we could have a debate...

...but you're not.


I can actually load both up now and check. Can you?

{
bad09
02-Feb-09 17:16:43

OK, I'm sorry to ask what's all this 1080i rubbish? Since when was the PS2 hd Zero?
}

Do some research before posting utter pish.

http://hdgames.net/

Erm...says 480p. What site are you looking at? That's some serious self-pwnage. =]

@ Zero_Cool

I have no idea what RLLMUK is but I guess it's a bad thing.....

Wow it seems the Zero was right. It seems like 3 or 4 games actually did this with the correct cable and display, but how many ACTUALLY used this (or cared back then).

Again I ask was the PS2 HD? 99.9 % of the world would say no. Plank...

"it's hard to begrudge Dreamcast fans their lingering resentment that a technologically inferior console with a fairly dire line-up of early titles was able to so easily steamroller their beloved box just on the basis of brand loyalty"

Well said Eurogamer, well said.

The best console ever!, damn I miss 4 player matches on DC quake 3. I actually won a DC keyboard on dreamarena, those were the days.

No

Just tried it. There is no native support for 1080i through my component cable. Only 480p as that site lists in its STANDARD columns. After doing some research it looks like another idiot has added 1080i to the comments because you can use the Xploder software to scale the image.

That's no different than me running it through my Denon 1909's upscaler which I could do to Shenmue too.

IF you do manage to prove me wrong (I'd be interested to see how you do do it natively) it's still a mute point as bad09 said.

I always got the impression that a big reason Sega tended to fail because they made games that just didn't appeal to a mainstream audience. The sad thing for me personally is that's exactly why I loved them. I miss Sega, the real Sega.

Its sad to see them these days probably being much more profitable shoving out one shit Sonic game after another instead.

@djronz:

lol your having a laugh right? how was ps2 tencnologically inferior? did dreamcast have dvd? could it have done gran turismo or god of war? dreamcast died because while millions were happily playing resident evils, medal of honours, gran tourismos and wipeouts sega offered us crazi tax! dont get me wrong i was a huge sega fan at one time but i really get sick of this notion that the whole world was somehow duped into buying ps2. ok sony spouted and still spout some outrageous claims but, hey, its called marketing. dreamcast fans...get over it.

The DC had the superior RE game; none of the series was made for PS2; it's nice that you omitted the large number of superior SEGA produced games in the comparison. GT was a PS1 game and easily possible on the DC. I assume you meant GT2.

@gelf: I disagree that they didn't have mass market appeal; that's what their arcade games were about at least if mass market you meant gamer community. I don't think games went mass market until the Wii.

bad09

Interesting he calls us retards and then leaves. ;)

Neither wiki or hdgames list it as 1080p:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HD_...

I hate it when people find one line of text on the whole internet and then use it as a basis for an argument. It's obvious he's never compared 1080i SOTC to Shemnue! Just wasting comment space. Annoying.

Lucky you left eh Zero?

@ SpaceMidget75

Heh, PS2 1080i, now that's the best fanboy argument I ever heard, headbog would be proud :)

/ throws out HD gen and goes back to PS2

Funny thing is most PS3 owners I know don't even play THAT in HD ;)

Zero_cool is an utter tool!

@ N.A.T.O

Such hate and bollocks.

As you mentioned, the DC had Quake 3 - which could play against the PC game, Half-life, Unreal Tournament, Soldier of Fortune, and it ran Windows CE. It also allowed gameplay using K&M, which the 360 never has.

The 360 has inherited many of the DC's games, and has variety and quality in its games on the same or better scale than Dreamcast.

The only thing done wrong on the 360 was the build quality. You obviously just hate Microsoft. Admit it. I've hated on M$ at time for some (loads) of their actions.

The 360 since late 2007, however, has been fantastic.