The Sega Dreamcast for many gamers remains one of the most beloved consoles of all time. Its unfortunate demise was a result of Sega's floundering business, but according to Kotaku, Sega Chairman Isao Okawa made an attempt to have the Dreamcast live on through the Xbox hardware. Many had labeled the first Xbox as a sort of "spiritual successor" to the Dreamcast, but as it turns out it nearly did include Dreamcast compatibility. "Before Mr. Okawa passed away, he visited [Bill] Gates several times, to see if it would be possible to add Dreamcast compatibility into the Xbox," former Microsoft executive Sam Furukawa tweeted.
Sega would have provided its Dreamcast assets to Xbox with the hope that most of its customers would upgrade to Microsoft's new console. Sega also wanted its Dreamcast games to take advantage of the robust Xbox Live service. Microsoft, however, wanted to keep the online gaming limited to Xbox titles, and the negotiations basically fell apart at this point.
It's interesting to think of what could have been. The Xbox did well for itself, but struggled mightily in Japan. You'd think that if existing Dreamcast owners in Japan had been able to just play those games on the Xbox hardware, it would have given Xbox a leg up in the region. As it turns out anyway, Sega made many of its titles available exclusively on the Xbox for a while. Between Jet Set Radio Future, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Crazy Taxi 3 and Shenmue 2, among others, Sega fans felt very much at home on Xbox.
2 Comments
January 15, 2010
As much as I'd want to believe it, I'd seriously doubt that the Japanese gaming audience would have bought an Xbox....even with Dreamcast compatibility. Why? Thats still very obvious: Japanese gamers rarely show love(as a whole) to Western/US made games. But to the systems? Never has happened and may never hapen. The excuses are too numerous to count(it's too big, not enough rpgs and rape similators, "X" means no so it must be bad, etc.)
The only way a US made console like the Xbox would succeed in Japan is if Nintendo stopped making consoles and made games exclusively for the Xbox system. And even then you'd still have Japanese gamers saying "I'm just going to purchase a PS4 because atleast it's made by fellow Japanese". It's unfortunately that they view the console market as that black and white but it is what it is.
January 15, 2010
It takes big driver franchises to change views in the Japanese market – while Microsoft has really tried hard, they never landed a “game changer” like an exclusive Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest title to break the cycle they're in but that never happened.