Peter Moore: I did not kill Dreamcast, I swear.

[thelastword]

The Dreamcast should have been a glorious return to commercial success for its creator, but it ended up being the final nail in the coffin as far as Sega's home hardware aspirations were concerned.

While the console was a hit with hardcore gamers and arcade lovers, it didn't sell in the volume required to keep Sega's head above water, and its failure infamously triggered the company's painful transition to third-party software publishing.

There's a narrative that exists that points the finger of blame at Peter Moore, who was Sega of America president and COO at the time of the Dreamcast. He's recently spoken to The Sega Guys channel and is keen to stress that he wasn't the one who pulled the trigger:

"I went over [to Japan] in January of 2001 [and] presented our numbers. The writing was on the wall there, and Europe was kind of hanging on. was told we're not going to be able to sustain producing hardware that's losing money because the attach rate isn't there. I think we were selling at 199 dollars and probably costing closer to 250-260. You need software attach rates, and it just wasn't there. So the guys in charge there said, 'you know we're going to shut it down, and we're going to move to third party, and you're going to tell the world.'

I often get blamed for killing the Dreamcast. I didn't do that. I did an interview where I said I had to make the call, meaning the telephone call, and people took that as [meaning] the decision.
It's one of the things I smile at when I still see stuff that goes on."

The interview in question was run by the British news outlet The Guardian in 2018, and here's the passage in question:

"So on January 31st, 2001, we said Sega is leaving hardware. We were selling 50,000 units a day, then 60,000, then 100,000, but it was just not going to be enough to get the critical mass to take on the launch of PS2. Somehow I got to make that call, not the Japanese. I had to fire a lot of people; it was not a pleasant day."

The 'call' Moore refers to took place on January 31st, 2001, when it was revealed to the world that Sega was getting out of the hardware business. "The following week, tail between legs, I'm calling Sony and Nintendo for Dev kits," Moore adds.

Moore joined Microsoft in 2003 to assist with launching the Xbox console before moving to Electronic Arts in 2007. He is currently employed as SVP and GM of Sports and Live Entertainment for Unity Technologies.


https://www.timeextension.com/news/2023/02/i-didnt-kill-dreamcast-says-former-sega-of-america-boss

 

[Bodycount611]

that's insane that they couldn't just launch the console at $100 more. Man gamers were spoiled back then. $199 for a world class system like the Dreamcast...

 

[Deleted member 417]

3 things killed the Dreamcast:

PS2 being sold a DVD player
Sega not future proofing their hardware
Piracy (you could literally copy a dreamcast game in a PC with 0 additional software, chips or crack needed)

Respect to Moore though. He was a suit, but he knew his stuff about games.

Moore joined Microsoft in 2003 to assist with launching the Xbox console

This is slightly incorrect. The Xbox launched in 2001 and was already on the market when Moore joined. He was the one who kicked the 360 into overdrive though and signed "the most expensive cheque of [my] his life" when he signed $1 billion dollars away to take the xbox 360 from 256 ram to 512 ram. Without that, the 360 would have been dead in the water.

futher proof that knowledge and good management made the xbox what it was and bad management and lack of knowledge has destroyed, if not killed, it completely

 

[EDMIX]

The biggest thing that killed them was lack of 3rd party support by some of the biggest publishers, along with the whole DVD thing. Playstation was so massive then, that they just had no hope to survive a PS2 launch.

 

[Alabtrosmyster]

I never thought that he did, but now that he mentions is he may have had a hand in the killing.

 

[ethomaz]

that's insane that they couldn't just launch the console at $100 more. Man gamers were spoiled back then. $199 for a world class system like the Dreamcast...

They were not selling enough consoles at $199 imagine at $100.
Their issue was not the console but the software were not seeling in the quantity they wanted and for that they needed either increase attach rate (very hard) or increase user base (that was not working at $199).

Fact is everybody wanted a PS2.

 

[Zzero]

Setting aside the userbase issues, they would have been absolutely screwed later in the generation when dual analog controls became standard. They would have been forced to pull a Wii U-->Switch and launch years early... again.

 

[thelastword]

This is slightly incorrect. The Xbox launched in 2001 and was already on the market when Moore joined. He was the one who kicked the 360 into overdrive though and signed "the most expensive cheque of [my] his life" when he signed $1 billion dollars away to take the xbox 360 from 256 ram to 512 ram. Without that, the 360 would have been dead in the water.

futher proof that knowledge and good management made the xbox what it was and bad management and lack of knowledge has destroyed, if not killed, it completely

Yes, I think they meant launching the XBOX 360, not the OG XBOX....He joined MS in January of 2003, the plan was to help MS compete with PS2 and also to launch the 360. Much of the Sega games being on XBOX was due to Moore.

I never thought that he did, but now that he mentions is he may have had a hand in the killing.

Lol, he was the plant. As soon as Sega fell, he was unto that MS train, so did Leadbetter btw. Anyways, I liked Moore, he is a good guy, never once felt Moore was a hypocrite during interviews, he always came across as genuine and candid, unlike another guy which shall not be named.....

 

[Alabtrosmyster]

Lol, he was the plant. As soon as Sega fell, he was unto that MS train, so did Leadbetter btw. Anyways, I liked Moore, he is a good guy, never once felt Moore was a hypocrite during interviews, he always came across as genuine and candid, unlike another guy which shall not be named.....

 

[Alabtrosmyster]

Their issue was not the console but the software were not seeling in the quantity they wanted and for that they needed either increase attach rate (very hard) or increase user base (that was not working at $199).

That would have been much easier to increase the attach rate (for bought games) if the Security did not allow any kid with a CD burner to copy retail games without any special hardware modification (PS1 required a mod chip) or even special software.

By the end everybody had TONS of games on their Dreamcast, there were very few retail jewel cases going around tho.

 

[daniel5043]

, he is a good guy.

He was involved with Liverpool so very unlikely, that he's a good guy

 

[thelastword]

He was involved with Liverpool so very unlikely, that he's a good guy

Ha ha. I'm a gunner, so I guess I love all....

 

[ethomaz]

That would have been much easier to increase the attach rate (for bought games) if the Security did not allow any kid with a CD burner to copy retail games without any special hardware modification (PS1 required a mod chip) or even special software.

By the end everybody had TONS of games on their Dreamcast, there were very few retail jewel cases going around tho.

The piracy side I don't know how affected them but I can say the lack of 3rd-party support contribuited a lot with the low attach-rate.

 

[thelastword]

That would have been much easier to increase the attach rate (for bought games) if the Security did not allow any kid with a CD burner to copy retail games without any special hardware modification (PS1 required a mod chip) or even special software.

By the end everybody had TONS of games on their Dreamcast, there were very few retail jewel cases going around tho.

They had the 2k sports games from Visual Concepts which was very good, but most were into the EA sports games. $199 was a great price too but Dreamcast just was not selling at the rate it needed. It has to be said that the launch was one of the most packed and diverse I've seen, they did put effort into that, still remember buying a tonne of gaming magazines at the time, with spreads for Soul Calibur, Blue Stinger and Ready to Rumble........There is no doubt Soul Calibur was one gorgeous looking game in 1999....

 

[Zzero]

They had the 2k sports games from Visual Concepts which was very good, but most were into the EA sports games. $199 was a great price too but Dreamcast just was not selling at the rate it needed. It has to be said that the launch was one of the most packed and diverse I've seen, they did put effort into that, still remember buying a tonne of gaming magazines at the time, with spreads for Soul Calibur, Blue Stinger and Ready to Rumble........There is no doubt Soul Calibur was one gorgeous looking game in 1999....

Right, Sega was a sports leader back in the day. This was when pretty much every company had a sports division but the two most notable were EA (which was on everything) and Sega. Saturn sort of fell away from that but both Genesis and Dreamcast were sports machines.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

The biggest thing that killed them was lack of 3rd party support by some of the biggest publishers, along with the whole DVD thing. Playstation was so massive then, that they just had no hope to survive a PS2 launch.

TBF Dreamcast did get some initial big 3P support like Soul Caliber and RE Code: Veronica. But they messed up the Japanese rollout so badly they were never able to build sufficient market share in the territory, and therefore were not able to win over more Japanese AAA support.

Meanwhile most Western 3P AAA support was still focused on PlayStation and PC, with N64 a somewhat distant 2nd, but Sega were virtually nonexistent with Western 3P AAA games by late 1997, let alone 1998, and Sega simply didn't have enough time to build up enough install base in the West to knock against Sony or even Nintendo's install base in those territories, to where those companies could prioritize Dreamcast with original 3P AAA games, particularly exclusive ones.

 

[Alabtrosmyster]

They had the 2k sports games from Visual Concepts which was very good, but most were into the EA sports games. $199 was a great price too but Dreamcast just was not selling at the rate it needed. It has to be said that the launch was one of the most packed and diverse I've seen, they did put effort into that, still remember buying a tonne of gaming magazines at the time, with spreads for Soul Calibur, Blue Stinger and Ready to Rumble........There is no doubt Soul Calibur was one gorgeous looking game in 1999....

I had one, the library was nothing short of amazing, but when you have games being copied like there was no protection at all it makes it hard to sustain the machine.

 

[BigMclargeHuge]

I love the Dreamcast, but one thing that isn't brought up much, is how the controller only had one analog stick. That wouldn't hurt them if they had lasted longer through that generation.

 

[thelastword]

I had one, the library was nothing short of amazing, but when you have games being copied like there was no protection at all it makes it hard to sustain the machine.

Yes, I remember it took a few moments for them to crack the PS2, but when they did you needed a modchip. Dreamcast was cracked from Day 1 because the GDROM is essentially a CDROM with 1GB of data, so all the modders did was to remove some files from the GDROM and burn it to a 700Mb CD. Crazy thing is, most Dreamcast games were not over 700Mb......so it was a breeze for pirates.

The funny thing is, one of the reasons why Sega went for the extra capacity was to offset the traditional CD-ROM specs and thus prevent piracy, well that didn't work out. Also, we can see that Sega and MS were close way back then too and Moore was instrumental. The Dreamcast used a tweaked Windows CE for it's OS, so I imagine it was much easier for pirates to circumvent any level of security there was, if any, through a windows PC......Truth be told, Dreamcast was a piraters' 101 class session. You remember bleemcast? Dreamcast was pretty much open season.

 

[Banana]

The Dreamcast used a tweaked Windows CE for it's OS

No it didn't. It was compatible with a windows abstraction layer to make games easier to port from PC. Hardly any games used it.

Basically in 1998 sega was trying to do what MS and Sony learned after the 7th gen.