How Dreamcast Killed Sega's Hardware Reign

31.07.2023 - 14:01 / ign.com

It was September 10, 1999 – the day after the Sega Dreamcast’s US launch.

West Coast rapper Del the Funky Homosapien had just finished a gaming-tinged set at a San Francisco club ("Marvel Vs Capcom, beyond fathom // Tell the truth, Playstation ain't ready to have ‘em") and now Peter Moore, Sega of America’s senior vice president of marketing, stood on stage, ready to reveal the console’s day-one sales figures to the world.

He lifted paper flaps covering each digit, one by one. The crowd got louder as the millions stacked up. It roared as he flicked the last flap aside to show a total of nearly $98 million in sales. He declared it the “biggest launch in entertainment history” – and, crucially, bigger than the US launches of the PlayStation and the Nintendo 64.

It was, he tells IGN, a moment of “euphoria”.

Less than 18 months later, Moore, by that point Sega of America’s president, told an industry conference call that Sega was leaving the console business altogether. "It was tragic," he says.

An 18-year era of Sega hardware, which included four of the best gaming consoles of all time, was over.

It’s tempting to blame the swift demise of the much-loved Dreamcast on something easy and obvious, perhaps that EA refused to put its games on the console, or that the impending PlayStation 2 spooked prospective buyers. But from speaking to Moore and Simon Cox, the former editor-in-chief of Official Dreamcast Magazine, it’s clear the Dreamcast’s death was complicated, messy, and – arguably – inevitable, even as Moore stepped onto that San Francisco stage.

Moore joined Sega from Reebok, having never worked in games. His prevailing attitude to the industry was, he says, “slightly pissed off”, because he’d bought his son a Sega Saturn only for the console to be effectively abandoned by the company (he was one of many feeling burned).

But when he heard the Dreamcast’s promise of online gaming – it was the first console with a built-in modem – he was sold. Connecting people around the world to compete or collaborate in shooters, RPGs, sports games and brawlers would be a “rocket boost” for console gaming, he thought, and Sega had the chance to get there first.

It led Moore to coin the phrase: “We’re taking gamers where gaming is going."

The console had stalled in Japan since its 1998 launch, but Moore and others generated excitement for the Dreamcast in the massive US market with flashy ads, celeb appearances and, more fundamentally, a rock-solid launch lineup that included Soulcalibur, the first 3D Sonic, and NFL 2K (Sega launched the 2K games after EA's snub).

Within two weeks of launch Sega had sold 500,000 machines in the US – that’s the same number Sony would make available for the PS2’s monumental US release a year