Don' t get me wrong, the Dreamcast had some a-freakin' -mazing looking games. One would have to look no further than Jet Set Radio, F355, Shenmue, or the lovely Test Drive Lemans (which I' m probably buying again next week).

However, do you still feel like the Dreamcast' s graphics just weren' t done yet? That they could have been pushed a little bit further? That there was still a lot of untapped juice in the system?

Again, look at what the developers did with Test Drive Lemans. On a technically level it was well beyond most of the Dreamcast games ever released. Played good too.

In fact, whenever I play Sonic Heroes for the Gamecube I can' t help but to think this is how the Dreamcast' s graphics would have ended up. Obviously not on par with the Gamecube overall, but I can' t escape that feeling that if Sonic Heroes was on the Dreamcast it would look identical to the Cube version. Probably better since Sonic Team wouldn' t of had to worry about cutting costs on their own system.

Overall, I still love my Dreamcast. There is no way I could replace all the 2D fighters I have for the system (most of which are imports anyway. ). And I still like the feeling of owning a Dreamcast. It' s a shame how the past turned out, but heres to hope for the future Despite how dim Sammy is making that future out to be.

i think the dreamcast was stretched to it' s graphical limit, but man! what a graphical limit it was!

Shenmue - no angle of no town in shenmue 1 or 2 failed to impress me with it' s graphics. The lighting was superb, especially the way the buildings textures accurately matched where the sun was during the different times of the day.

Soul Calibur - i think there is hardly any concrete difference noticeable between the graphics of Soul Calibur 1 and 2. You could release Soul Calibur 1 again for the first time and people would still consider it a Nex-Gen game.

F355 - Sure it' s no GT3 but it' s not any less photorealistc, especially during a ' car only' screenshot.

DOA2 - Same level of graphics as soul calibur, which means practically the same level of graphics as Soul Calibur 2. Not very upsetting.

i think the dreamcast was stretched to it' s graphical limit, but man! what a graphical limit it was!

This was the kind of thinking that killed the system - a Sega " fan" supporting this fallacy? - Gee thanks!

I will go on record and say the PS2 is graphically " inferior" to the DC: sure it has a higher polygon count, but the worth of graphics should be in its overall representation. The DC has a higher resolution - which means more vibrant colors, crisper graphics - and its texture mapping is second to none. The PS2 is not as detailed graphically as a DC: polygons add more substance on screen, but it looks bland without the proper texture mapping.

I firmly believe the DC could compete with the systems of today; it is a huge miscalculation on our part - partly due to the PS2' s hype - that lead to its inevitable death. A system' s " limitations" have never been its mishap: the genesis colors are way beyond its limits with treasure games like " Gunstar Heroes" and the Sonic series - in fact, some can argue it is better than the superior SNES, and the SNES' s gems like Donkey Kong Country go beyond the system' s limitations.

We dispelled the Dreamcast on launch day: everyone - even the most adamant Sega supporter - truly believed Soul Caliber was the system' s " limitations." How anyone could support this contemptible insight was beyond me; each conceding year introduced a new revolution: from Soul Caliber we jumped to Jet Set Radio; from there we got Shenmue; after Shenmue, it was Lemans, Shenmue 2, and Sonic 2. The system was in a perpetual transgression; it was incredibly irresponsible of us to disregard this huge progression after only a measly 3 years.

If the system lived beyond five years, it is safe to assume the graphical improvements would be five times that of Soul Caliber due to the rate of progression of each succeeding year.

Soul Caliber times five is the equivalent - if not better - of most games today.



USA OK !

True, the PS2 can never match the vibrancy and hi-resnes of the DC' s textures.
I can also attest to the fact that given more years to make sequels for 1st generation hits... we could have had more " sonic adventure 2' s" to their respective " sonic adventure 1' s" i.e Many games would have been incresed to 60fps from their 30fps predecessors... or games could have stayed at 30fps but with double the polygons, etc.

everyone - even the most adamant Sega supporter - truly believed Soul Caliber was the system' s " limitations."

I disagree with that one part because I' m a pretty hardcore Sega supporter and Never did I think Soul Calibur was the system' s limitation. Partly because I felt the Dreamcast could have done so much better with Soul Calibur' s backgrounds. Now had the backgrounds had more activity then I would have been impressed!:)

What about SHENMUE that game looked NICE.
I think that dreamcast graphics were good.What im disapointed is PS2 graphics.Before PS2 came out they showed demos that looked good but when PS2 came out the graphics just SUCK.

werent games ported from the dc to ps2 actually worse on the ps2?
crazy taxi2?
ecco?
and some others i cant remember...

the dc had great graphics, sometimes my brother will see me playing something on it and say ' how does it look that good? is that a video? what?! you' re playing! i had no idea the dc was so amazing'

then he says ' i cant believe it died'
and you hear sadness in his voice! haha. it is crazy that they had to kill it so soon. you guys are right, it should have had just a bit longer.
look at Ikaruga. beautiful. ive never seen a game look so slick.

This is an irrelevant argument. Sega had no shot as a hardware developer in this industry once Sony stepped in, and Microsoft only sealed the deal. They simply weren' t big enough to compete, and it showed when Sony began taking every last possible " hot-spot" ad in magazines, commercials, and any other media outlet. They also recruited the best talent, found the biggest backing, and bombarded the public with everything they had. MS did the same a year later. Nintendo had already nailed down the third spot with their " niche" targeted demographic, and oh yeah, a history of FAR more successful consoles. Sega was faced with this- assimilate or die.

They did the smart thing and decided to give third-party developing a whirl. If you can' t beat ' em, join ' em, and maybe even survive and make some money in the process. It' s the way of big business in this world.

As far as graphics go, there were small leaps of visual enhancement during the DC' s reign, but absolutely nothing compared to what we saw in the first year of the PS2' s existence. From games like Smugglers Run, Fantavision, Wild Wild Racing, and Evergrace in the first month, to Devil May Cry, Gran Turismo 3, MGS 2, and FF X in less than a year' s time. The DC' s launch titles looked very similar to anything it released later on, despite a few exceptions.

Whether or not the DC had better looking games than the PS2 at the time of the PS2' s launch is debatable, but to say that they look better than all PS2 games NOW...well, that' s just asinine. And they are continually getting better; Gran Turismo 4 and Final Fantasy XII will undoubtedly show further advancement. And we know this is because developers were left in the dark in the early days of the PS2, and are now beginning to learn more about the intricate hardware. Every developer says the same thing, " NOW we' re getting it!" Expect to see better visual productions straight through to the emergence of the PS3.

Would the DC have continued to provide better looking games? Maybe. But not at the same rate, as the hardware was much more limited than the PS2' s, regardless of what the developer' s can and can' t get out of it.

The Sega company' s pretty smart to kill the Dreamcast and just focus on publishing games. Nintendo is at the bottom of the console wars and I won' t be surprised if Nintendo stopped making hardware and focused on making games also.

This is an irrelevant argument. Sega had no shot as a hardware developer in this industry once Sony stepped in, and Microsoft only sealed the deal. They simply weren' t big enough to compete, and it showed when Sony began taking every last possible " hot-spot" ad in magazines, commercials, and any other media outlet. They also recruited the best talent, found the biggest backing, and bombarded the public with everything they had. MS did the same a year later. Nintendo had already nailed down the third spot with their " niche" targeted demographic, and oh yeah, a history of FAR more successful consoles. Sega was faced with this- assimilate or die.

Some great points made but I have to respectfully disagree with comrade fathoms on the above. I don' t think Sony had anything to do with Sega' s fate being sealed. I think Sega' s greatest enemy was Sega themselves... Nintendo was once an enormous juggernaut that held an iron grip on the industry, and while the Master System suffered due to it, Sega was shrewd with the Genesis and they overcame Nintendo and for a while dished out a beating to them.

I' ve always felt that Sega' s problems began with the 32x. While others have mentioned the Sega CD, I thought the 32x was a VERY stupid idea in light of the Sega Saturn hovering over the horizon. I believe a number of gamers were alienated by flops such as the 32x and Sega CD. Now had Sega introduced the Saturn directly after the incredibly popular Sega Genesis with none of the stop gaps (32x & Sega CD) ever existing, I believe they' d be a different turn out today.

Sega' s problems were both internal (the constant battles between Sega of Japan and Sega of America) as well as external. They executed a great plan with the Genesis and they reaped the rewards. Unfortunately they became careless later on and paid for it. The Saturn cost $100 more than it' s closest competitor, which hurt it during the early goings. No Sonic game available early on added even more hurt since Sonic was pretty damm hot back then and they should have struck while the iron was still hot, but thanks to the idiotic bickering between the two Sega offices, Sonic' s early appearance was sabotaged.

Amazingly enough, unlike the other Sega consoles, the Sega Saturn was the most successful Sega console in JAPAN and was actually kicking the Playstation' s a$$ in sales for a good while until that dark day when Squaresoft jumped ship and announced they were developing for the Sony console. That' s when the tide started to turn in Japan and Final Fantasy 7 only sealed the deal, I remember that dark day like it was yesterday, I was really watching the console sales closely back then. But at least for a while the Saturn had a great run in the #1 spot over there.

As for Sega of America and Sega Europe, both had something Sony did NOT have when they launched the original Playstation and that was an already established huge fanbase. Sega didn' t take advantage of that and paid for it dearly. Price was too high, launch was rushed and a disaster, marketing was almost non-existent. All of those things were a complete contrast to the Genesis era. And instead of perfecting what they learned during the Genesis era, they just took hundreds of steps back.

Sega' s worst enemy wasn' t Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft, but Sega themselves.

Terry: Well, I agree, but only partly.

Sega' s biggest enemy was indeed themselves during the " dark years" between the Genesis and the PSone. Their timing was awful, their PR campaigns weren' t up-to-snuff, and their commitment to the arcades blinded them to the advancement of the rest of the industry (an accusation Nintendo faces now).

However, Sony played a major role in Sega' s fall. Sega helped to put themselves in a poor position to do " battle," but the way of the world remains the same. It didn' t matter that Sega had an " iron grip" on the market at any point in time, all that mattered was that Sony, a mega-global corporation and undisputed king of electronics for four decades, was simply too big. So long as the commitment was there, there was no feasible way for the PSone to fail. Sega simply wasn' t big enough to contend, good position or no good position.

One could argue that if Sega had made better business decisions for those " dark" five years or so, that fans would' ve rallied around them and kept them afloat. But the long arm of the " corporate law" reaches beyond that. It' s easy to lure away the best developers, the best artists, the best designers, the best writers, etc., when you can offer them a whole hell of a lot more money. It' s a lot easier to target gamers when you have the capability of bombarding them from all angles with advertisements 24 hours a day.

And unfortunately, Nintendo was the household name, even during the glory days of the Genesis. Sega just never broached that " mass audience" plateau. This does not include gamers, because all gamers knew of Sega. But while it may not seem like anything on the surface, it' s interesting to note that those not familiar with the industry associated ALL video games and systems with Nintendo, even several years after Sony had showed up. Parents would call the PSone " Nintendo" .

Sega, quite frankly, was never in a position to defend the onslaught. If they had become bigger, and more importantly, more RECOGNIZABLE, than Nintendo early on, Sega may be the ones with a system out, and Nintendo would be the third-party developers. But either way, Sega would not have had a chance in hell against Sony, and even less chance with Microsoft in the market. Unfortunately, all that matters is financial capability, and who' s willing to toss the most money around.

IMO:

Sega shot themselves in the foot first. They really did, and we both agree here. But Sony finished the fall from grace. In other words, Sega may have begun construction on their own coffin, but Sony shot the carpenters, finished the job, and nailed it shut.