Trading down a system

[bonefish]

[SPLIT FROM: Did you buy any 3DO games after 3DO went multiplatform]

Never. I didn't want them to have another nickel of my money. They had enough. I still wait until a system is nice and mature when I buy it. Early adopter never again! Well... I kinda bought a Dreamcast on 9/9/99... Sold it for a PS2 a bit after it launched... BUT YEAH! NEVER AGAIN

[3DO Experience]

UGH! You sold a Dreamcast for a PS2!? Take about trading down!

And no, I never bought 3DO games outside the platform.

[Trev]

3DO Experience
3DO Zone ADMIN

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UGH! You sold a Dreamcast for a PS2!? Take about trading down!

I agree, not the best trade. (I also bought my DC on lanch day, btw)

[Vance]

Eh, the PS2 was better. The Dreamcast garnered a lot of unwarranted praise for being the last dying croak of Sega's console department, but the games... my god, man.

Sonic: Once you move into 3D, the logic paths of the 16-bit era give way to freedom... unless your schtick is a character that runs really fast, in which case you ain't getting pretty 3D freedom.

Crazy Taxi: Fantastic for the time, but the three song soundtrack was maddening and the closed-circuit maps haven't aged well. San Francisco Rush popularized the idea of finding shortcuts... would have kept this one higher in my esteem.

Blue Stinger: Well, it sucks, but I'd rather play it over Shenmue...


The DC has some good games... Skies of Arcadia comes to mind, and it certainly had a selection of great fighters without the usual fat other consoles have... but Sega pulled the plug right before it got Half-Life and the awesome Outcast.

In the meantime, the PS2 has God Hand, one of the most awesome things, ever.

[Trev]

Well, after 10 yrs on the market I would hope the PS2 accumulated a good library.

It sure took them long enough though (the launch lineup was so weak) ... the DC did more in 2 years with far less money & support.

I disagree with your knocks on the DC games you listed too.

Just my honest opinion ... the PS2 mainly gets play from me for being backwards compatible w/PS1.

[3DOKid]

The DC is over glorified, the PS2 under valued.

To what extent is open to debate, but the PS2 featured some of the greatest games ever.

[Vance]

Yeah, we need a topic split on this.

So as for the Dreamcast's launch:

Holy moley, was it bad. I was there, managing a Babbage's. Blue Stinger? 100% defective rate. Sega had to directly ship replacement discs to each store, in little paper sleeves because new cases would have broken the bank. We had an employee sitting in the back room, marking replacement sleeves with returned product with a huge X to avoid confusion because we had pushed about 300 copies. To a lesser extent, disc failure existed on Soul Calibur, Sonic Adventure (for some reason, pretty much every Adventure 2 disc people try to trade in doesn't work), and some other titles I can't remember.

Another employee was on the phone, telling people to "warm up" their units by playing a music CD for an hour, because a good cross-section of them weren't playing the games for some reason. This might have worked, because we weren't shipping replacement systems.

Every time I turn it on, my Dreamcast wants to know if it's still 1998. It keeps time slightly better than Microsoft consoles.

The mythology surrounding the console started well before release, too. My ASM kept telling people, before the release, about how the thing was SO POWERFUL that they had to install a liquid cooling system around the thing. I started interrupting him and saying it would also channel heat to an add-on toaster module so you could eat your toast while playing.

[Vance]

OOPS lost a post:


Trev

Never. I didn't want them to have another nickel of my money. They had enough. I still wait until a system is nice and mature when I buy it. Early adopter never again! Well... I kinda bought a Dreamcast on 9/9/99... Sold it for a PS2 a bit after it launched... BUT YEAH! NEVER AGAIN

I put the above quote to remind what started this ...

It isn't really a question of which system is better in 2010, it's which was better shortly after the PS2 launch. And on this, how can there be a question?

Love the PS2, but please don't kid yourself by thinking it had a great launch. Thank goodness it had a dvd drive and the Sony name, because the launch lineup (despite being large) was most certainly weak.

As for defects, I can only comment on my own experience. I was working retail at the time of the DC launch, and can recall no issues at all (although after the fact I read of some) I bought many launch titles on 9/9 including the 3 you mentioned w/no problems whatsoever.

Of course, this is something of the pot calling the kettle black since every Sony launch has been loaded w/defective hardware including PS2. In fact, the PS2 is the least reliable console I've owned (to be fair I don't own a 360)

-------------------

This part of the discussion started when you guys started going "You traded your Dreamcast for a PS2? Eww icky!" Both launches were mediocre, but guess what? Sony actually revises their hardware around problems.

Anyway, looking at the two systems from a legacy standpoint... yeah. I liked the Dreamcast, but it doesn't have many games I'm going to go back to. Even the 3DO has more legacy titles that I'm into.

[3DO Experience]

PlayStation didn't warrant the new hardware. PS2 only survived due to being able to play the games of the first system. The real jump in looks wasn't there. The DC always looked better, SEGA and SONY fanboys can argue until they are blue in the face about hardware but coding always plays a part. Yes PS2 has a few good games but when you look at the DC there is a much larger percentage of good games.

And this is coming from someone who hated SEGA back in the day. I saw the DC and said to myelf, "SEGA is still trying to make a system? Wasn't the Saturn's death enough to get rid of them?" Then a friend got one and I thought "That's it Nintendo and SONY are dead." Nintendo somehow managed to stay on and the the crazy over the PS2 hit. I thought, finally a system worthy of SONY's name, then I saw it in action. It was like a half jump. Hey here's PS2, we didn't make enough but that's because we don't want people to know that we didn't do a good job. BTW it plays DVDs too so you can save money by getting 2 in 1, never mind that they look somewhere between a VCD and SVCD.

God at least the PS3 did something right. They got the power going and the games look and play good. Too bad the things have a 10% fail rate and SONY refuses to repair them. But at least it won't set fire to your rug like the 360. (Vance's post was the first I've heard of a DC warm up, the Saturn had that issue for 3D games.) Plus there is the whole Blu-ray playback issue, my god if I hear one more person say "but the PS3 is the best player because all the websites use it as the base comparison" I'm gonna choke him.

OK rant over for now.

[3DOKid]

PlayStation didn't warrant the new hardware. PS2 only survived due to being able to play the games of the first system. The real jump in looks wasn't there. The DC always looked better, SEGA and SONY fanboys can argue until they are blue in the face about hardware but coding always plays a part. Yes PS2 has a few good games but when you look at the DC there is a much larger percentage of good games.

And this is coming from someone who hated SEGA back in the day. I saw the DC and said to myelf, "SEGA is still trying to make a system? Wasn't the Saturn's death enough to get rid of them?" Then a friend got one and I thought "That's it Nintendo and SONY are dead." Nintendo somehow managed to stay on and the the crazy over the PS2 hit. I thought, finally a system worthy of SONY's name, then I saw it in action. It was like a half jump. Hey here's PS2, we didn't make enough but that's because we don't want people to know that we didn't do a good job. BTW it plays DVDs too so you can save money by getting 2 in 1, never mind that they look somewhere between a VCD and SVCD.

God at least the PS3 did something right. They got the power going and the games look and play good. Too bad the things have a 10% fail rate and SONY refuses to repair them. But at least it won't set fire to your rug like the 360. (Vance's post was the first I've heard of a DC warm up, the Saturn had that issue for 3D games.) Plus there is the whole Blu-ray playback issue, my god if I hear one more person say "but the PS3 is the best player because all the websites use it as the base comparison" I'm gonna choke him.

OK rant over for now.

Now, I'm not going to argue, since I have secret hope that one day you will send me a picture of yourself in lurid outfit draped over an FZ1 but...


The best system by Sega was the Saturn. The system itself was a nightmare, the under powered 'me-too' product that it was, with crap graphics and zero-cool but at least it had some legendary games. Legendary for a westerner that is. (Most Saturn zealots start talking about Japanese SHUMPS that cost the earth at this point.)

Virtua Fighter, Virtua Cop, Virtua Racer, virtua-on and Sega Rally. These were the most important games sega made since Sonic the smudgehog .

The DC was a lost console. Sega was only good at arcade games, still is in all fairness, and the world didn't want arcade games, so it floundered. Crazy Taxi was aces, Shenmue taught me boring games can be aces, Fur Fighters, and after that you have to dig deep.

One-for-one PS2 had more better games.

I agree, the PS2 had a crappy start too, Ridge Racer 5 was okay, in hindsight, but meh at the time. Shadow of Memories? Anyone? I played that through because that was all there was.

... but since then: Ace Combat4 & 5? GTA 3? GTA VC? FFXII? Nipon Ichi titles? GT4? MGS3? Onimusha series? Ico? Shadow of Colossus? You might not like these game, but you can't ignore their impact.

I loved Sega. Not home console Sega, that was for little kids, I loved super-mega-uber powerful arcade Sega but I was alone...

As for the whole 360/PS3 reliability thing: it's a f**king disgrace.

The PS3, in my opinion, will be lucky to be half the system the PS2 was, which wasn't a scratch on the PS1 (which just copied the 3DO anyway!)

The point I'm getting, is the golden age of gaming was between 1993 - 1997. 3DO, CD32, Saturn, PS1, Jaguar and it really has been downhill since then. I still don't believe people think Bayoneta is good. It's crap. If it wasn't for the Uncharted series the PS3 would be just expensive and if they welded PGR4 or Ace Combat 6 to my 360 I wouldn't know the difference.

The whole generation has been devoid of any buzz or excitement what-so-ever.

[Lemmi]

i never played 1 game on the PS2/PS3/360, and i own all the Sega systems
i also have never traded down either, but i did sell 50 NES games for $2 each to a pawn shop to buy the TG16 when it came out, then i sold the TG16 with 25 games to buy the Genesis when the NHL series started, then 5 years later i bought my TG16 back from the guy for $10 because he only had 5 games out of the 25 i sold him left (his kid traded most of the TG16 games to funcoland for other games)

[3DO Experience]

Now, I'm not going to argue, since I have secret hope that one day you will send me a picture of yourself in lurid outfit draped over an FZ1 but...

You sure you wouldn't want to see a pic of my PS2 again?

One-for-one PS2 had more better games.

Well yeah, the Dreamcast didn't live anywhere near as long and the PS2.

[Trev]

Now, I'm not going to argue, since I have secret hope that one day you will send me a picture of yourself in lurid outfit draped over an FZ1 but...

Sounds like its time for yet another thread split.


Anyway, look at the first 2 yrs of the DC (basically the consoles whole life span) and compare it to the first 2 years of the PS2. See the difference? How many of those AAA games were around for Sony? The "impact" was still to come.

The game that did make me finally plunk down money for a PS2 was MGS2.

[BryWI]

I bought a ps2 the day it came out because at the time i didnt have a dvd player and my ps1 was dying. I spent most of my time playing FF8 on it. lol. I did buy timesplitters and ridge racer 5 but those didnt keep my interest for very long after i was finished with them. I think i bought midnight club after that. I remember waiting quite a while for mgs2 and gran turismo 3. But now that I look at it. I ended up buying more games for my gamecube and might of even enjoyed them more. I dont know what point im even trying to make here but one last thing. I think I have bought more 360 games than ps2 or gamecube games. But thats because video rental stores keep going out of business lol.

I will bring up the DC though. I remember "acquiring" games back in the day... (56k cough!) The only games I really ever remember putting alot of time into was house of the dead 2 (light guns!) and marvel vs capcom 2. And I dont remember ever putting a ton of hours into a single DC game. Maybe I never played the right games. I have a DC right now and the only time i use it is to play NES games on it when im too sick to get out of bed. It does a great job for that at least. I not ever sick really though. lol.

[3DOKid]

So the DC is better because Sony supported their product for 10 years where as Sega ditched it after 2 and because the PS2 has hundreds of top quality games and the DC had tens of top quality games?

When I'm getting my annual review with my boss, I'd like you all to be there.

[Trev]

Please refer to the top of this thread to familarize yourself with what this topic/debate is actually about.

Lots of great systems had s-l-o-w starts. I bought a DS in yr one, despite the library being spotty and the psp getting all the hype. Now almost 6 yrs later, the DS library is awesome but this doesn't change the fact that it took quite a while for it to get there.

How about the snes, beloved by nearly all. But in '91, next to speedy Sonic, the slowdown & flicker really stood out, as did the sub-par sport games to follow. Eventually (like the DS) the Snes really blossomed, but the launch was on the weak side.

There are more examples, but I hope you get the idea.

I only put these to illustrate what my real point (and perhaps 3DO exp) was/is. Shortly after launch, the PS2 sucked next to the DC. Sony supporting their console 10 yrs is not really relevant, unless someone says "I traded my DC for a PS2 10 yrs after launch"

[tinman]

Just an observation...

Funny how most of us are united about our feelings/experiences with the 3do system, yet when a topic drifts towards competitors models it turns into a big c*ck comparing exercise (sorry 3DOExp and any other female readers)...mind you I'm loving the passion and carefully scripted comments so keep it up.

I wonder whether the whole Sony vs Sega argument is really about the console and the games or is it really about whether how savvy we are as consumers...that you didn't buy a lemon and if you did you're going to defend what merits it has anyway.

For the record I hate Sony . My reasons are subjective and mute in this debate.

[Trev]

Hmmm ... good question.

I guess it comes down to how you define a lemon. I certainly don't think that the DC is one.

Of all the consoles I own, the only one I'd group in the category would maybe be my Nuon. And I won't defend it.

[3DO Experience]

So the DC is better because Sony supported their product for 10 years where as Sega ditched it after 2 and because the PS2 has hundreds of top quality games and the DC had tens of top quality games?

When I'm getting my annual review with my boss, I'd like you all to be there.

LOL Can you imagine if SEGA kept supporting the DC for the same length as the PS2??? OMG it could have been king of the consoles! But they didn't have faith and most of the consumers in America didn't either. In Japan however gamers freaked when SEGA stopped, hell they even got the company to start making more consoles, I still drool over the hello kitty ones.

[Scarlettkitten]

I love the DC especially the pink hello kitty ones with the little keyboard.

[3DO Experience]

If I got the pink hello kitty set I'd have to get the blue one too.

[Scarlettkitten]

I know what you mean, you need'em both