25 years ago: Sega Dreamcast is released in Germany

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Dreamcast is the first console that can go online with on-board resources. And the first console that people could find out about and discuss on the web: a few years earlier, anyone wanting to chat about the Playstation or Nintendo 64, for example, would at best do so via now-forgotten online services such as AOL and CompuServe. Or via a FidoNet mailbox.

And what you can be happy about: Exciting graphics in VGA resolution, lots of exclusive games – and successors to well-known titles. About Sonic in 3D. About original gimmicks such as a memory card with a display for small games and a fishing rod controller. That you can chat with others via the console. Not to mention surfing the worldwide web.

The Super Nintendo and the Sega Mega Drive dominated the 16-bit landscape in the early nineties. But with the successor Saturn, Sega was suddenly under pressure from all sides, and not just from Nintendo. A multitude of CD consoles flooded onto the market. Such as 3DO, Amiga CD 32, Atari Jaguar (with CD attachment), Philips CD-i and Commodore CDTV. Multimedia is the magic word.

The race, however, is won by a device that is entirely dedicated to games. A new player. The Playstation. Sega was looking too closely at Nintendo and didn't take Sony seriously enough at first. A fatal mistake. Saturn and Playstation appear almost simultaneously, but Sony is superior in every respect: price, advertising budget, 3D graphics and developer software. And in terms of games. Last but not least, the Nintendo 64 with the enchanting "Super Mario 64" is released in 1996.

In the end, 11 million Sega Saturn units were sold compared to 102 million Sony Playstations. 1 in 10 - not a good starting position for Sega, but they didn't know that at first. In 1997, Sega joined forces with Microsoft for the operating system: Windows CE became the basis for Dreamcast. Sega hopes that this will make it easier to develop games and port games between console and PC: Sega is already offering the silverware, "Sonic" and "Virtua Fighter", for Windows.

Heavy losses

The Dreamcast is launched in Japan on November 27, 1998. On September 9, 1999 in the USA: "9/9/99 for 199$". Europe finally follows on October 14, 1999. Dreamcast is a good console with fresh ideas and exclusive games. It sells well, thanks to games that are clearly a generation ahead of the Playstation.

But after a year, disillusionment sets in. Sega has to concede high losses for the third time in a row in the 1999/2000 financial year: 400 million dollars. It doesn't pay to sell a lot of consoles if you charge a price that doesn't earn you anything. There is hardly any advertising budget for magazine ads and TV commercials for the upcoming titles. And: The Playstation 2 is here. It quickly catches up with Sega.

The Playstation 2 has four unbeatable advantages over the Dreamcast. Firstly, it is backwards compatible with the Playstation 1 with its many thousands of titles. Even the initial range of new games is attractive, especially as Electronic Arts has turned its back on Sega. Secondly, it has a DVD drive and is not just a games console, but also a (cheap) DVD player for movies – for many households. Thirdly, it fits several times more data on one disk than the Dreamcast, at a time when video sequences are becoming increasingly important. To save on the DVD license, Sega opted for a special CD-ROM with a capacity of one gigabyte, which was consequently called GD-ROM. As the console also plays games from CD-R and the protection can be easily outwitted (without having to manipulate the console), copies spread quickly. This is not bad for the sales of a console, but above all Sega earns money from the games.

And fourthly, the 64-bit processor from Hitachi with 200 MHz with the PowerVR graphics chip from Videologic and 16 MB RAM in Dreamcast are anything but bad, but they don't come close to the Playstation 2. It doesn't just have a simple CPU and GPU, but an "Emotion Engine", 300 MHz, and a "Graphics Synthesizer". And twice as much RAM. And with the Microsoft Xbox, which will be released in November 2001, there is another threat in the air.

Sega throws in the towel. Production of the console was discontinued in March 2001, one and a half years after its launch in Europe – and six months before the launch of the Nintendo GameCube and Microsoft Xbox. Also due to its short lifespan, the Dreamcast sells even worse than the Saturn: only 9 million units. The Playstation 2: more than 150 million units. Sega withdraws from the hardware market and from then on develops games for all three platforms of the former competition. Numerous conversions and sequels of well-known Dreamcast games are released for Playstation 2 and GameCube. The Xbox in particular becomes a kind of spiritual successor.