Did the breaking of the copy protection on the Dreamcast really play a big part in Sega's downfall?
If so, it would be one of the only cases I know of where IP piracy led to financial ruin of the content creator.
If so, it would be one of the only cases I know of where IP piracy led to financial ruin of the content creator.
I guess you were happy with your Wii and DS.
The story how the Gamecube was cracked is also quite interesting, ironically also related to SEGA. The way they cracked it was with the GCN port of Phantasy Star Online by them. The first thing that game did when it connected to the SEGA server was to download a binary patch and execute it. People figured out they could just DNS spoof the server and run pretty much anything they wanted.
You needed a pretty specific set of stuff for that to work, though. You needed an early version of PSO as well as a Gamecube broadband adapter. By pure chance I had that back in the day and I remember getting this to work, attaching the gamecube to my pc with a long crossover cable between two rooms, trying to figure out the network settings and running the spoofing software. Good fun.
Sony and Nintendo have faced huge piracy and it never killed them.
The Dreamcast sold well at release and some time after (in North America at least), however Sega's financial situation was bad they didn't have loads of cash like Sony or probably even Nintendo at the time. The system was selling well but not well enough for Sega to recoup it's financials. Also EA boycotted the system completely and was not publishing games for it. Add to that the hype of the PS2.
Just a perfect storm for Sega, even though they really made good console correcting a lot of their earlier mistakes.
From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast
Moore stated that the Dreamcast would need to sell 5 million units in the U.S. by the end of 2000 in order to remain a viable platform, but Sega ultimately fell short of this goal with some 3 million units sold.
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The Gamecube sold about 3.8 million first year and the PS2 9Million something first year
In contrast the other consoles in that era Xbox, PlayStation, etc. all needed hardware modifications in order to run copied content.
Also, and again only from vague memory, wasn't the dreamcast itself underselling drastically. If it was game sales that broke the manufacturer then maybe - but I recall the console itself being a bit of a flop?
Does it matter? You only need a few people to download and burn the CDs, and sell them in stalls or out of a backpack. From what I remember from that era, physical distribution of warez through burned CDs was very common.
As I remember from my high school days, there were lots of people who were downloading ISOs (i.e. in their work or university, where they had access to fat 1Mb/s pipes), burning them and selling at a significant profit. Of course it was illegal, but still they managed to sell them through their friends or from improvised stalls on the weekend computer market, etc.
One active netizen with a CD writer was enough for an entire school :-).
I don't know what impact this had over sales. Back then (~2001, 2002) I knew people who bought a Dreamcast precisely because they could get cheap games.
I certainly don't think piracy killed the Dreamcast, it was a lot of built up 'bad will' by Sega and lousy execution. Third parties didn't want to develop for Sega, because Sega was flaky. I remember I had the broadband adapter for the Dreamcast, but it was only supported by one game(Quake). If I wanted to play NBA2K or NFL2K online I'd have to physically remove the ethernet adapter and plugin the dialup modem. Those games would have been great over ethernet, but as it was dialup online play had its share of frustrations. I had a Genesis, a Saturn, Master System and Game Gear before the Dreamcast but I think if Sega came out with another system after Dreamcast I may have had to bolt the company, they were the epitome of 'overpromising and underdelivering,' piracy gave them an excuse to focus in on the things they were better at (not selling consoles).
Sidestepping the "Mechacon" (the DVD driver chip) happened a few years later, modifying ISO to mimic a "video" DVD and using a "loader" resident in RAM...
It wasn't hard, just getting the timing down.
I wouldn't know anything about that. But I did love the original Splinter Cell and Mechassault games. 007 Agent Under Fire was also halfway decent.
You wouldn't want to lose your progress though, so I'd also suggest picking up an Action Replay so you can back up your game saves to PC. Just in case you lose your XBox or something.
If you need instructions, you could search `splinter cell action replay xbox` and probably find what you need...
The sales of the Xbox and Dreamcast never catched up to those of the N64 or the PS2. I would say the market was over saturated around that time with 4 stationary consoles.
The GameCube and Xbox were fighting for second place that generation.
Maybe the Dreamcast too, in theory, but I think it had long been obvious it was a goner. I think Sega might even have dropped it by the time the Xbox was released.
Yes and no. N64 was 3 years earlier. PS2 was a full year later, Xbox/Gamecube were two years later.
I've always been confused how Dreamcast didn't win a that fight. The previous three rounds of console launches were heralded by improved graphics technology and immediately took over the market (1990 SNES/Genesis, 1994 Playstation/Saturn, 1996 N64). Dreamcast came out when nothing relevant had come out for 3 years, with a generation better graphics and a 1-2 year head start on competitors.
Then Microsoft stepped into the foray and was just throwing money around like crazy for exclusives. They were the smallest fish in a shrinking pond.
Wat? That sounds like you confused the Saturn and DC. The Saturn had iffy hardware choices for 3D (because nobody saw the PlayStation coming), but the DC was a 3D system through and through. I don't recall anyone at the time claiming otherwise.
No, the logic was the game critics were underwhelmed by the 3D hardware of the DC at the time. While it was state of the art for 1998. When Sega started shipping the DC Sony put out videos of PS2 previews and DC sales tanked. Also, at $499 the Saturn was DOA. No one but enthusiasts could afford that.
Part of it was the DC came out in between cycles. An undecided buyer would sit out purchasing waiting for all 3 consoles to arrive. By then the DC was years old hardware wise.