For the console, which broke retail sales records, entered the Guinness Book of Records and laid the foundations of modern network consoles, the Dreamcast's life was surprisingly short - less than almost any other console in the history of video games.

After 09.09.99, the memorable release date for the Dreamcast in North America, Sega's car has created a long-lived legacy in online gaming, retail history and the sports genre. But the Dreamcast's short and vibrant life was burdened with conflicts, controversial management decisions and an unexpectedly abrupt end.

Change of relationship

The world of video games, in which Sega released Dreamcast, was very different from the modern, penetrated by wireless networks. The arcade market still had success, 80% of consumers connected to the Internet via modems, and the PC market was at its peak and, more importantly, was the only place where online games were present.

After the successful Japanese release in late 1998, Sega turned its attention to the North American market to overtake its largest competitor, Sony Computer Entertainment America, at the start, creating a large fan base and regaining a love for the company's products.

In 1995, the Sonic hedgehog was more popular than Mickey Mouse, but the story of Sega Saturn, from its disappointing release to the inevitable cancellation of sales, turned many players away from Sega products.

In 1997, Sega hired Bernie Stolar, who recently retired from Sony Computer Entertainment America, as the new president of Sega of America. Stolar was an astute, successful businessman; he gained experience in the video game business at Sony, in the arcade market, and Atari.


In a telephone conversation with Gamasutra, Stolar, at the time of this writing, was in charge of Getfugu, Inc., told how it all began. “Saturn, as we know, was a failure. I was invited to help restructure and rebuild Sega of America. When I started work, the company had more than 300 people; I reduced the staff to 90 employees. ”

Among others, Stolar brought Peter Moore, 17 years old manager of Reebok, former Sony contractor manager Gretchen Eichinger, sales manager Chris Gilbert and Charles Bellfield, as well as several other important figures to the company.

Stolar's challenge was to defeat gamers, many of whom bought the quickly deceased 32X, Sega CDs and Saturn, as well as the retailers who still recalled the sales of Saturn with disgust.

“We needed to change the attitude of retailers towards us so that they believe that we are still serious players,” Stolar says. “And because of the disaster with Saturn, retailers simply hated Sega. I had to make a lot of effort to change their attitude. I contacted each retail chain and told them that it would be a great system, it would have a modem, online games, told them about the content and how it would look. They are convinced. They all believed me. Plus, they really liked the team that I put together, they thought that it fits perfectly. ”

However, before Stolar changed his attitude towards the company, it was necessary to change the attitude within Sega itself.

Duel designs

In 1997, Sega of Japan gave the task to two competing development teams to create a Dreamcast design. Inside Sega itself, its president Shoichiro Irimaziri gave the task to Hideki Sato, who created the Saturn design, to create the chipset design. Outside the company, Irimaziri created a “pilot production workshop” of 11 people to create a competing design managed by former IBM employee Tatsuo Yamamoto; This project was codenamed Blackbelt (“Black Belt”).

Sato chose a Hitachi SH4 CPU architecture with a VideoLogic PowerVR2 graphics device manufactured by NEC, a Japanese company. “The first version of the Dreamcast was water cooled; she had a water cooling system with no moving parts. It was called Dural, ”says former vice-president of communications (1998-2000) and vice-president of strategy and corporate affairs (2000-2003), Sega Charles Bellfield.

Yamamoto, whose work was initially kept secret from the Sato team, was in the USA. He chose IBM / Motorola PowerPC 603e, but was later asked to use the Japanese Hitachi SH4. He also entered into an agreement with the American graphics card manufacturer for using a special version of the Voodoo 3 card as a graphics processor.

“I was at a meeting on July 4, 1997 in Haneda, at the Sega office, where we presented the PowerVR technology,” says Bellfield, who was NEC Electronics brand manager before working at Sega.

“We showed a series of games that worked on PowerVR technology on a PC, including Tomb Raider , a game called Ultimate Race by Kalisto and Flight Unlimited Looking Glass. In essence, the point of the presentation was that PowerVR technology provides high performance at a low price. ”

According to Bellfield, one of the advantages of PowerVR was tile-based rendering technology. Invisible polygons on the screen were not rendered, which reduced the extra load on the CPU. Technology PowerVR, unusual for developers of that time, in theory could provide high performance at a low price. Bellfield adds: “Probably, the fact that Sega had a relationship with NEC also played a role.”

At the time of release, Dreamcast supported modem. However, Sega management inside the company argued about whether it should be included in the package. Sega's decisions about the system architecture and modem were influenced by many factors, from connections with chip manufacturers to the ratio of volumes / costs of a particular manufacturer.

“It turned out that they were developing two projects, but they didn’t tell us that,” says Bing Gordon, who from 1998 to 2008 was the creative director of EA. “They told us that they were deciding whether a console needed a modem. We said: “You have serious competitors [meaning Sony and Nintendo], so modem is a very good idea. If you add a modem, we will create for it a whole product line "".

In 1996, 3Dfx began to gain great popularity due to its powerful graphics chips, one of which was used in arcade machines such as San Francisco Rush and Wayne Gretzky's 3D HockeyAtari company. In 1997, 3Dfx became a public company and announced an IPO. In this process, at the request of US law, details of the company's contract with Sega were disclosed. However, this ad had an undesirable effect. It opened to Sega plans for a new, yet undeclared console, and angered Sega Japan management.

Many reports show that the Blackbelt Yamamoto chipset, which used 3Dfx chips, was more powerful than its competitor. However, the leadership of Sega, still angry at 3Dfx, broke the contract with the chip manufacturer. (Shortly thereafter, 3Dfx filed a lawsuit against Sega and companies settled the dispute without a trial .)

In the end, Sega of Japan chose the design of Sato under the name “Katana” and publicly announced it on September 7, 1997. To this day, it is not clear if Sega would have chosen a Blackbelt design with a 3Dfx chip, if 3Dfx hadn’t disclosed Sega's plans.

“They said they were considering 3Dfx, but then decided to give it up,” says Gordon. “They chose some other 3D chip, about which we had never heard, and some strange processor. We asked ourselves: “What is this incomprehensible choice? Probably some kind of political decision, because it was stupid. ”

“I thought that it was necessary to use the American version, the version on 3Dfx. Japan wanted the Japanese version, and it won, ”says Stolar. "I lost the argument."

Why Electronic Arts rejected the Dreamcast

In the era of 16-bit consoles, Electronic Arts collaborated with Sega, and thanks to games like Madden NFL, Road Rash, NHL , as well as many other popular projects, it successfully competed with Nintendo. The Redwood City publisher supported all non-durable Sega systems after Genesis - from 32X, Sega CD and Game Gear to Saturn.

“EA was deeply in love with Sega Genesis / Mega Drive, because this platform led EA to popularity,” says Gordon. "EA's leadership shared Sega's dedication and did more to make the Sega CD and 32X winners."

But Electronic Arts did not support the Sega Dreamcast. EA had three groups that had a vote in voting for console support: developers, salespeople, and businessmen. They got together, got information about each particular console, and discussed its strengths and weaknesses.

“We organized a meeting and said:“ So, we will do 10 games and have time to release the console, will the management support us? ”“

At the time, EA invested in 3Dfx. Did EA's investment in 3Dfx affect the company's decision? Gordon claims no. “If Sega chose a direct competitor to 3Dfx, then everything would be fine. But they chose a manufacturer that we had never heard of. It was someone else's friend in a local Japanese party. It confused us. What are they doing? That was the reason. ”

According to Gordon, Sega hesitated about whether to use a modem, and also chose the wrong chipset. “I remember how our technical director spoke about the processor:“ My God, I don’t know anyone who would hear about this chip. It is non-standard and there are no libraries for it. ” It was like a slap in the face. But even then, EA initially thought: “This is Sega. We have to support her. " We did a lot with her on Genesis and did amazing things. Therefore, a single chipset was not enough for EA to stop working with Sega. ”


In the end, the succession of Sega-selected decisions regarding “hardware” and doing business was lined up in a row of red flags for EA. According to Gordon, the uncertainty in the choice of chipset was the first, doubts about the need for a modem - the second, but the last straw was Sega's tough tactics when discussing licensing.

“On the part of Sega, which had financial problems, there was pressure, she could not afford to give EA the same license that the company had over the past five years. Therefore, EA said: "Without us you will not succeed." And Sega replied: “We will make it, we are Sega”. ”

“And at this point in the negotiations, when someone says that you are bluffing, the question arises whether to obey him or not. And given the fact that they fluctuated with the configuration of the console, and the Dreamcast became the most undesirable system for developers in the entire history of EA, the conversation was over. In the end, it seemed to us that Sega does not behave like an experienced hardware company. I was the man whose words were quoted by the press: "The Dreamcast will not succeed without EA." And people from the Dreamcast project hated me for it. ”

But as opposed to Gordon, Stolar told us that there was a much simpler reason for the failure of EA from the Dreamcast. And the negotiations on licenses, chipsets, modems did not play a special role in this.

"Sega did not take a tough position," objected Stolar. “It was I who negotiated between EA and Sega. The license fee deal was between me and Larry Probst [president of EA at the time], and no one else. And there is a very important reason why this did not happen. This reason has never been talked about publicly. Have you heard of Visual Concepts? ”

The situation with sports

In order to release the console in North America in 1999, console manufacturers had to have their own sports games. EA competed with many other sports games created by Nintendo, Konami, Namco, Acclaim, and then Sony.

For the release of the Dreamcast in North America, Stolar conducted a legal assessment of a company called Visual Concepts. After approval by Sega of Japan, Stolar bought Visual Concepts for $ 10 million.

“Visual Concepts was a key factor in this decision, because it created all the sports games,” says Stolar. “And if you look at all the sports projects for the Dreamcast, then they have far surpassed EA sports projects. Our american football simulator NFL 2K is far superior to Madden. After the game was released, everyone recognized it. ”

Having met in 1999 in a no-man’s territory, Stolar and Probst discussed the terms of a potential EA and Sega deal.

“That's what happened there,” explains Stolar. “Larry came to me and said:“ Bernie, we will support the Dreamcast, but this is what I want. ” And I thought: “Great. I know Larry, and I know the company well, we will agree. " I thought he would ask for reduced deductions. I would agree, without any questions. ”

In the late 1990s, EA was actively following the release of new consoles. The company knew that entering into transactions with hardware companies at the time of creating the systems, when, according to Gordon, they were worried about the costs and risks of the company, was in the hands of EA. “That's when you make a five-year licensing deal,” says Gordon. Probst saw the competitors of EA's growing sports franchises and wanted something more.

“We want to be the only sports brand on the Dreamcast,” Stolar recalls the words Probst. "We want exclusive rights to be the only sports brand on the Dreamcast."

This surprised Stolar, in whose strategic plans an integral element of the success of the Dreamcast was Visual Concepts.

Stolar responded: “I said:“ Larry, I will tell you this. As a third-party manufacturer, I would agree to this, but we will participate in it ourselves. I bought Visual Concepts for 10 million, so you can compete with Visual Concepts. We will have sports games Visual Concepts and EA, on this and decide "."

Probst did not agree.


“No, I don’t want to compete even with Visual Concepts,” said Probst Stolar. Then Stolar answered: "Then forget about it, the conversation is over." That's all over.

A few weeks later, the Japanese, according to Stolar, tried to convince EA, but they failed. "Sega tried to reduce licensing fees, EA did not agree."

If we consider that EA had its own customer base, did Stolar make the right decision?

“See what Visual Concepts created, what it released for Sega. If you look at these games today, everyone agrees that they looked better than EA games. Therefore, I would not change my decision. ”

Perhaps Stolar was also right about the talent of Visual Concepts as a developer of sports games, but even before the release of the Dreamcast in the US, Sega faced a problem. The largest independent third-party publisher will not support Sega? As Gordon stated unequivocally, “The Dreamcast will not succeed without EA,” and the press jumped at the story.

The message was nowhere else: Sega will experience problems without its long-term partner, and the competition of its new system with Sony and Nintendo was a big question.

Bellfield explains this loss in more detail: “The fact that EA did not support us, worked against us. But I’m not sure that from September 1999 to January 2001, EA would create some kind of breakthrough game in the genre that we didn’t have yet. Yes, it would be a sport, the power of the Madden brand . But the NFL 2Kthere was a breakthrough gameplay. ”

“I am very proud of what we created in the 2K series,” says Moore. “I think that in fact it made the sports genre larger and made it healthier. Due to fierce competition, the genre attracted more interest. This was the other side of what EA refused to support the Dreamcast. ”

North America Release Marketing

In March 1999, Stolar hired Peter Moore, vice president of the successful shoe company Reebok. Besides the fact that his 11-year-old son had Genesis and Saturn, Moore knew little about video games; but his enthusiasm, confidence, and vision when working with Reebok were exactly what Stolar was looking for.

“Before joining the company, I was a huge fan of the Sega brand,” says Moore. “I liked the mood of Sega. Remember the "scream Sega"? [approx. Trans.: Sega sound logo from Sonic 3D Blast. Take care of your ears .] Sega was an integral part of the world of video games. At one time, we discussed Sega and Nintendo, and Sega has always been the preferred brand. Remembering the film Swingers, I always see Vince Vaughn playing in NHL '94 and the social impact these games had. ”

While Stolar was engaged in providing support for retailers, Peter Moore, hired just six months before the release of the Dreamcast, plunged into preparation for the release of his first console.

“There was a lot of negativity around the Saturn situation,” says Moore. “But there was still a great love for the Sega brand, its daring style and all that we defended.”

In his first week at Sega, Moore sat down at his new desk and began to explore how the console's advertising campaign was being developed. By the end of the week, he met with a team of advertisers: Foote, Cohn and Belding, as well as with Access Communications, a PR company.

“We had to create something that would really intrigue consumers, something that would make them forget about past failures, but at the same time bring to mind everything we loved Sega for, mainly in the era,” says Moore . He organized an advertising campaign “It's Thinking”, which began with a series of 15-second television spots.

“We tried to make players think that this would be a new level of artificial intelligence, a new level of hardware power, which will have games that are very different from what can be seen on a PlayStation or N64,” says Moore. “It was mysterious. At first it seemed that we did not want to tell anything to the viewer. But if he found out something, he wanted to be inside a small group of people who knew about what was coming soon. ”

After the “It's Thinking” commercial, Sega released the innovative In the Box series, in which professional athletes (including professional NFL and NBA players Gary Peyton, Penny Hardaway, Brian Grant, Allen Iverson and Randy Moss) were combined with models and resources from real dreamcast games. Moore and his team received awards for this series of advertisements.

09.09.99: Dreamcast Appears in North America

Before the release in North America, Sega worked every little detail. She has agreements with retail chains so that buyers can order the Dreamcast in advance. The pre-order of the console, as well as the pre-order of the game, provided the console on the day of its release, and this idea was preserved forever.

North American retail chains set a record, pre-selling 300,000 consoles. Some, such as Babbages, published press releases before the release, announcing their own pre-order records to increase the hype.

“We have exceeded the 100,000 pre-order bar of the Dreamcast,” says Babbage President Dan DeMatteo in a press release.a week before the release. "We expect September 9th to be the most important day in the history of our network, and we want to open early to serve as many gamers as possible who cannot sleep until they buy the Dreamcast."


On September 9, 1999, Sega released a powerful console, the graphics of which far exceeded the capabilities of the PlayStation, which included a modem for online gaming and a line of 18 games. With a low price of $ 199.99 ($ ​​100 less than the original PlayStation price), players could buy Soul Calibur , NFL 2K, Sonic Adventure, Power Stone, Hydro Thunder and Trickstyle .

The system itself, the games and the total amount of sales marked an important moment in the history of video games. For 24 hours, Sega sold more than 225,132 consoles (industry record), receiving 98.4 million dollars.

Within four days after the release, 372,000 devices were sold, which gave a profit of 132 million. Excellent sales figures for the day hit the Guinness World Records in the category of maximum income received in the entertainment industry in 24 hours, and shocked the company's partners.

Electronics Boutique said in a September 14 press release that the Dreamcast "led to a maximum sales level of one day over the entire 22-year history of the company." EB President Joseph Firestone added: “Traditionally, the biggest sales day coincides with the Christmas holidays. Such a sales volume in September is a serious event. ”

Two weeks after being released at the San Francisco Intelliquest Brand Tech Forum, Sega announced that it had sold over half a million devices (514,000), well ahead of the first Sony PlayStation, which took four months to reach this mark.

Soon after the release, Sega decided to compare its performance with the first day of release in the film and music industry. Comparing its first sales in 24 hours with the best indicators of Hollywood, Sega put the release of the console on a par with the movie “Star Wars. The Phantom Menace of George Lucas.

“The biggest movie sales day was at Star Wars.” And we beat this record, ”says Moore. “Up to this point, video games could not be compared with these indicators. It was a huge step, not only for the industry, but also in a wider sense. Our success was highlighted by the New York Times, the Washington Post and all national dailies, they reported that this was the most serious 24 hours in the history of entertainment sales. ”

“We have turned it into a huge entertainment and cultural phenomenon that has spread not only to gamers. People knew about the Dreamcast, and even if they did not plan to buy it, they knew that it would be released on 09.09.99. Of course, the next day we told everyone about our performance. And I think that this was a signal for the awakening of wider circles of the popcultural press, for the realization that video games are serious, they are already here, and they are going to stay with us. ”

The release of the Dreamcast in North America from any point of view has proven to be a huge success.

Beginning of the End

In the wake of a successful release in North America, Sega, together with its partners, for the period from September 1999 to March 2001 published dozens of games in a wide range of genres and styles.

The games were very diverse: popular sports projects Visual Concepts, experiments like fancy Seaman and refined Rez , breakthrough arcade hits like Crazy Taxi . Sega shook up her console catalog and revived such Genesis franchises like Ecco The Dolphin .

The company created innovations in such games as the brilliant Jet Set Radio , the iconic musical Samba de Amigo with maracas and the incredibly extensive and ambitious adventure ShenmueYu Suzuki. During the first year, companies like Acclaim, SNK, Ubisoft, Midway, Activision, Infogrames and Capcom were actively developing on the Sega platform, making original designs and ports from PlayStation, PC and arcade machines.

“I would say that according to my feelings, companies like Ubisoft were created thanks to the Dreamcast,” says Bellfield. “Companies like Acclaim have lived a little longer thanks to the Dreamcast; The same applies to Activision. Capcom was a huge success on the platform. In the first year, we had broad and successful support. ”

Fulfilling its promises about online gaming, in September 2000, Sega launched the online network SegaNet. Among the first online games for the Dreamcast were ChuChu Rocket! Sonic Team and NBA 2Kfollowed by such Ethernet-enabled games as Bomberman Online , Phantasy Star Online , Quake III Arena , the entire 2K2 Visual Concepts line and Unreal Tournament .

“In September 2000, we had a fully working NFL 2K , which users from San Francisco and New York could simultaneously play,” recalls Bellfield. “And all this on the console connected to the telephone line, which for those times was unheard of.”

However, before the end of 2000, Sega Dreamcast had problems. The first Sony PlayStation captured the bulk of the console market, while the PS2 built up serious pressure in preparation for its release in North America on October 26, 2000. Even though the PS2 was released in Japan in the spring with just six dull games, Sony exploited Sega's seeming weakness again and again.

Having played loudly about the benefits of the Emotion Engine processor of the PS2 console, having entered into a partnership agreement with Steven Spielberg and enlisting the support of EA for the release of 29 games in one day with the console, Sony won the main thing - it surpassed Sega in marketing investments.

In September 2000, one year after being released in North America, the American leadership of Sega came to realize the bitter truth. Despite the initial high sales in North America, Sega lacked marketing dollars to compete with Sony Nintendo. She felt the appearance of Sony even before her arrival, in sales that had decreased in the autumn season. In addition, Sega learned rumors that Microsoft, with which it had entered into a partnership agreement to launch the Windows CE platform on the Dreamcast, is planning to enter the console market itself.

Despite the fact that the Sega arcade business continued to flourish, the company as a whole lacked cash. "I was not told about the numbers of that time, but Sega stated that from the day of release they would spend $ 100 million on marketing, and I don’t think it reached at least half of this amount," says Bellfield.

As a result of financial problems, Sega bought less advertising in magazines and on TV, allowed innovative games to come out with little marketing support, and could not spend money to convince publishers to create exclusive levels of games or to issue exclusives only for Dreamcast.

Moore’s Manifesto on the Future

In September 2000, long before the biggest sales season of the year, Peter Moore and Charles Bellfield compiled a report called the Manifesto of the Future, which they presented to all Japanese Sega executives, as well as to the studio heads in Japan, including such creative heavyweights as Yu Suzuki (AM2), Yuji Naka (Sonic Team), Rikiya Nakagawa (AM1 / Wow Entertainment) and Toshihiro Nagosi (AM4 / Ausement Vision).

“As you can see, we were very close to business,” says Moore. “The signals about the possibility of preserving the console business were unambiguous: at that time, Sega faced financial difficulties, and the PS2 release was also approaching. Therefore, we acted as responsible businessmen and presented a true picture of what is happening in North America. ”

“I remember everything as if it were yesterday,” says Bellfield. “In September 2000, we presented a strategy that said that after Christmas 2000, the company could not exist in the United States as a manufacturer of equipment, and we need to leave this business. At this meeting, the Japanese leadership for the first time learned that we will not stand against the power of Microsoft, which has not yet announced its intention to enter this market. But we knew it would happen. ”

“The management knew that the release of the Dreamcast was successful only in one region - in the USA, and that the future of the console is not dotted with roses. North America was the only hope left — perhaps success in the United States would allow the company to start developing another hardware platform, or extend the life of the current, or revive it in Japan and Europe. ”

“When we told them that we did not recommend the company to remain in the equipment manufacturing business, the heads of all the studios stood up and left without saying a word. In Japanese culture, this is a rather rude gesture. We were shocked. ”

Moore's paper said that Sega is one of the best software companies, and it should focus on its core strength: software. The industry experienced a transitional period, which created serious difficulties: Japanese content became less and less popular in the West, and Western developers increased their volumes.

One of the main key aspects was adult games. Video game players were growing up, and with it their tastes changed. Now game development was more inclined not to Sonic the Hedgehog , but to new games likeGrand Theft Auto III .

Moore said the new generation of players will play more realistic games. "Video game companies should follow the tastes of gamers, and frankly, for this you need to create more mature content, more in line with what they see in movies and TV shows."

At a meeting on January 31, 2001, which shocked even those who assumed that Sega had problems, the company announced that it would complete the Dreamcast production by March 2001 and become a publisher of third-party software. Approximately 50 more games will be published, and it will end with the March release of NHL 2K2 by Visual Concepts.

Lessons from the Dreamcast

In a short period of 19 months, Sega has evolved from an industry leader with a record console of a new generation into a company that will stop production of its latest console and become a publisher of third-party games. Sega will even release Sonic the Hedgehog for its former rival console. Sonic the Hedgehog on the Nintendo system? How did such an advanced, creative and prosperous company come to such disappointing results?

Recalling the Sega Dreamcast, Stolar, Moore, Bellfield and Gordon talked about the lessons they were taught by the latest Sega console.

Peter Moore:“The presentation prepared by me and Charles was not just our opinion, it was based on data. Immediately after the release of the console, we faced stiff competition. Sega of America did everything possible to move the business forward and keep its dynamics, but it turned out that it was too late. Perhaps the whole thing was in the wrong timing. You need to have the right combination of technologies, prepare the necessary software, choose the right price, and stay ahead of the technology, and not keep up with them. ”

Bernie Stolar: "For the equipment to be sold, you need high-quality content."

Bing Gordon:“I think you can learn a lesson about too much self-confidence of creative people. There is a difference between those who have succeeded once, and those who have achieved it twice. Sega believed that having achieved success once, she deserved it, and it was not an accident. For me, this is a lesson about too much arrogance, and at EA we have come across this many times. We had games that received sequels, which in our opinion also deserved to succeed, and the company deserved to grow on the wave of their success, but people never learn this lesson well enough: success does not give you the right to greater success. ”

"The second lesson: being in partnership, for successful negotiations you need to be sure that if you leave, it will harm the other side."

“And the third lesson: when co-dependency exists between two partners, such relationships are very difficult to control.”


Charles Bellfield: “Money. Money is the main thing. Be sure to need a budget. I think today's world is different in that it allows you to make innovations in marketing and communications without the need for huge budgets. In 1999, we were very dependent on traditional media - television, magazines, outdoor advertising. ”

“It is obvious that in 1999 we had the Internet, but it was narrow band and filled with little content. In fact, at that time, it was just a way to communicate via e-mail and simple news and information services. The world we live in today allows for much more aggressive marketing programs without huge budgets and with the same reach. ”

“We had good content. We organized the marketing correctly. The product was quality. We correctly picked up the network capabilities philosophy. The team and partners did everything right. But we did not have the budget to build a reliable brand in the eyes of our competitors, confidence that we will remain for a long time. That, in my opinion, was the Achilles heel of the Dreamcast. The first Xbox console was a much bigger failure than the Dreamcast. But Microsoft had a lot more money than Sega, even though the Xbox was terrible. ”

“In the end, it was a great experience for everyone involved in the project, and we are proud of our relationship with the Dreamcast. Everyone who worked on it keeps a piece of Sega in the heart. ”