Quote Originally Posted by MottZilla View Post
Your details are wrong there Atma. PS2 came out while N64 was out from the previous gen and DreamCast was out for the new gen. Xbox came out later, as did GameCube. But you're right, when PS2 launched it's competition was weak. And it remained that way so long that they were then doing so well they couldn't be stopped.
Well I didn't express my idea clear enough but your claim my details are wrong are kind of hindsight-biased.

In the eyes of the consumer the Dreamcast was not a player on the market at this time. Looking over the wikipedia articles I used for launch dates, the PS2 launched in October 2000 (March if you go by the Japan dates) and the announcement that production of the Dreamcast was to come to an end was made on January 31, 2001. Now, it could be that the Dreamcast had a great run during those months and SEGA only discontinued it to keep their word, but I think the writing was already on the wall at that point. I also wasn't very clear about my point but indeed the XBox was to be released later (came out a full year later) but I seem to remember hearing details about it even before the PS2 was released. Basically I was commenting on the market from the eyes of the consumer at the time, and really for the Sony fan the PS2 had no competition whatsoever at this point in time because everyone thought the XBox would fail miserably and most people didn't care about the Dreamcast.

I'm not trying to stomp on the Dreamcast's dick or anything, but you have to acknowledge the facts. Despite its superior hardware and excellent games library, SEGA could not/did not market it well enough to make it a financial success. Sure, they're still producing games for die-hard fans, but they are also making Sonic games on Sony and Nintendo's consoles so it's quite a stretch to say the Dreamcast didn't hurt them.

And on the N-Gage I was actually kind of curious at first because I mean seriously, if I could have a good phone and a good games system in one unit I'd be glad to carry it around with me. However, Nokia's offering was designed as if they asked a focus group for advice then proceeded to use the "things I hate" columns from all of the results as the design document. Honestly I think my tastes are too specific to produce a convenient cell phone that also provides the gaming experience I want, but if someone could make a GBA SP or DS Phone I'd give it a whirl even if the phone was of mediocre quality.