What if? If Grand Theft Auto III was a Dreamcast exclusive

There are rumors that GTA III was going to be a Dreamcast exclusive but since Sega killed the Dreamcast in March 2001 it never happened

What if Sega gave the console another year and what if GTA III did end being a Dreamcast exclusive. Would the game sell well. Would Sega still be around as a console manufacture.

Sega at that moment was pretty much like the Titanic after crashing against that iceberg, a cork wasn´t going to save it from sinking.

I love my DC, and I think that would have been a great title to keep it alive a bit longer. But Sega would probably still be where they are now, I think, because their mismanagement and budgeting just wasn't right to support it against the PS2 and eventually XBox as well.

I know some people view XBox as the successor for the DC, but I disagree - the partnership between MS and Sega helped get XBox off the ground, but that system was already in development during the DC's life, and had way more power behind it (both in terms of hardware and money) - it was being built to bludgeon its way into the busy market, and would have been a rival to the DC that furthered DC's demise in the end even if Sega had tried to keep the DC alive a while longer.

One of Sega´s biggest **** ups was not making the DC a DVD player too like PS2, actually at that time one of the cheapest DVD players you could find was ----> a PS2 !

This. The Dreamcast died because of two reasons:

1. No DVD Player

2. Piracy

If it did not have those 2 problems, it would have dominated that generation.

I'm not sure I agree. I'd like to agree, given how much I like it. But I think the problems were deeper and more complex than that. Sega broke the bank trying to make it happen and bail from their ho-hum experience with the Saturn, and thus couldn't really financially back the DC sufficiently. Seriously, when DC came out the coffers were in bad shape, as I understand it. Moreover, the DC released so much earlier than its competition that when the PS2 came out it wasn't a "comparable alternative" but was actually the "much more powerful" "exciting new thing" - people like powerful exciting new things. And it had momentum coming from the well-received PS1, where DC was trying to turn the ship around from the Saturn (which in turn followed a bunch of hokey life-support platforms for the venerable Genesis). I think DC, even though it was a 128-bit system, was perceived by consumers as the 64-bit system competition because of when it was released - perhaps something analogous to how people argue the Wii U "isn't next gen"

Do we actually have any numbers to support that piracy hurt the DC? The impact of "rampant" piracy on PC has long been shown to be a very gray area.

I do agree that the DVD player would have helped a lot, though. That was a major selling point for the PS2.

Still, I think DC was doomed by its parent company and being released so staggered from more powerful, better-funded systems that released later

If I remember correctly, the PS2 initially had a horrendous library. Any excitement coming off of the PS1 I don't think translated well initially. It picked up momentum when people realized the PS2 was a) a good dvd player and b) was cheaper than dvd players at the time.

I disagree that the Dreamcast was analogous to the Wii U as a system caught in "limbo" (not quite current gen, not quite next-gen). I think it had games that showed it was definitely next-generation.

I don't know if I'd say the Dreamcast was not as graphically capable as the PS2. The PS2 was a dropoff from the Gamecube and Xbox. But I do see your point.

That's too bad because Dreamcast had exclusivity to the 2K series, Sonic, and tons of other arcade and RPG properties. The VMU was the Wii U a decade and some change earlier.

I don't know if I'd label it as a horrible library - at least not for launch. But I know what you are saying. My counterpoint would be that the DC's library was starting to stagnate at PS2 launch already because of the limited support Sega could offer beyond then. PS2 could survive a slow launch year (which most consoles have), but could DC survive a slowing down post-launch during that same time when a new system is released? That's the heart of my question/thought - we have a brand new shiny system with a library "that can only get bigger!". Let's imagine a year past the DC's death: if the plug hadn't been pulled and DC was given that time, PS2 library would start to be gaining speed, XBox would be entering the market, and the DC library wouldn't have advanced much from its real world final year except for maybe lower profile titles and (at least for Western markets) more "fringe" Japanese titles.

Note, I'm not saying you're wrong. What do we really know? Just speculating back and forth. But that's the perception I have of its trajectory if it had been given one more year on the market

For the second point - I absolutely agree. That is to say, "I" don't believe the DC was graphically subpar. It was technically inferior in terms of horsepower, but had really nice smoothing that gave pleasant soft images and they had great color. The most important thing, though, that still sets it apart from PS2, was that it did VGA (not that many of the "masses" probably knew this even then). Honestly, my DC titles on VGA often look on part with Wii graphics (technically the same resolution at any rate). Truly ahead of it's time. Anyway, my point about PS2 being more powerful was much more about consumer perception than games truly looking leaps and bounds better.

Truly dedicated gaming systems have been out of fashion since the Dreamcast's end. SONY and MS try to have their machines still do everything, while Nintendo (which has more in common with SEGA than any other company) still makes consoles that are about games, not about connectivity and lounge-room domination. This is why Nintendo is out of fashion as well.

that fall/winter that GTA3 released was imo the best fall launch line-up in the history of gaming up to that point. Even if GTA3 is exclusive to DC, Sega still has to contend with MGS2, FFX, Ico, SH2, DMC, and some others. Even just prior to that fall PS2 got Twisted Metal Black, Red Faction and Gran Turismo 3 in late spring/early summer. Add to all this Halo on the Xbox.

Besides, the deathblow had already been struck on the DC long before thanks to sega's mismanagement. They killed themselves with massive losses on their DC launch...it just took them until 2001 to finally bleed out.

Anybody know how much sega lost on each dreamcast sold at the different price points?

Ironic that their optic medium of choice was meant to curb piracy, yet was easily bypassed.

They actually gave them away at one point (along with keyboards) for singing up for two years of Sega Net. Man... I miss Sega Net. The cool thing about the Dreamcast was that I met a lot of friends online thanks to the IRC channels they had.

DC was one of the biggest heartbreaks in all my years of gaming. Nothing could have saved Sega from themselves. They had up until that point made so many bad decisions that it wouldn't have mattered what they did or what game they had. The writing was on the wall.

It would have good graphics.

Library didn't matter as much as you think, or at least, for me it didn't, I had a bunch of PS1 games to play, 3 or 4 PS2 games and the DVD player kept me happy for a while, actually never owned another DVD player until I purchased a X360. Game exclusive consoles were condemned to extinction when PS2 was launched in 2000.

Oh yeah I remember hearing about that. How much did the subscription cost? Can't seem to find that.

They also sold Dreamcast's for $150 then $99 didn't they?

Anyways, yeah they were just losing money hand over fist in every direction and nothing could've saved them at that point.

Yeah started off at 199 and quickly dropped to 99. I think Sega Net was 10 a month. At two years, you'd be paying 240, so it was a real long shot that they'd make their money back after two years. Their goal was to try to get as much hardware in homes to start making more money off software and eventually get money on the hardware, but.. as we all know, the Dreamcast didn't even last two years. :(

It would've eventually ported to PS2 :D

What's a more interesting question is: What if Final Fantasy VII shipped on the Sega Saturn?