[General Discussion] Generation6: 128-bit Memories (Cue the Toe-Tappin' Music)

The Dreamcast was released waaaaaaaay too early. 1999, I think. Yeah, definitely the middle to end of 1999. Even the PS2 didn't come out until 2001, so there's a 2 year advantage in development of the console. Anyway, Sega pulled the DC because ultimately they were going bankrupt, and developers were more interested in the PS2 at the time.

Unfortunately when the Dreamcast died, so did my incentive in games. The PS2 did extremely well due to the absurd amount of developers and as the console was easily accessible to them, they could get their games out faster.

The Gamecube always had quality over quantity, and I love Nintendo for it. But there wasn't enough quality to counter the PS2's quantity. There's a few gems, say, 5-8 games, but there just wasn't enough attention towards the console (disregarding first and second party) to keep it alive, so it suffered losing the console war.

I didn't like the xbox at all bar a few games, to be honest. There was still a great amount of appeal towards the console and it's games, as it was easily accessible to developers much like the PS2. Of course seeing as how the xbox was more powerful, some games were only released exclusively for that console. That's what forced me into buying it. But really I only use it for emulators and stuff like that because most of the games don't interest me.

Oh, and the xbox bombed in japan. I've rarely seen a good japanese xbox game or a good japanese sales record of the xbox at all. It's pretty much targetted at a western audience exclusively, and that's why it couldn't keep up with the PS2.

The PS2 had appeal worldwide and it wasn't by Sony's hand that it became a success. No, it was the developers and their games which brought attention into the console. I think versatility > quality, in this case.

It would have been great if Nintendo kept up the quality games with the Gamecube, but the price of quality is time. Still, it has some real great games, as do all of the consoles in this generation.

I always think the Dreamcast is excluded, simply because it didn't have much of a chance. It didn't get off the ground, and like I said it was released before it's time. Seeing Soul Calibur in 1999 was an amazing thing.

Even though there's still the odd Dreamcast game being made, it's basically just a beta-testing console which developers (such as Milestone, makers of Radirgy and Chaos Field) can test their games on, and possible gain some profit towards the final project. I don't know what they're doing though, since both of these games are on the Gamecube which is also dead.

I'm looking foward to the next generation but the future's uncertain. As many times as Sony fucks up, they'll attempt to fix the problem. Or try to. The same goes for Microsoft, which have corrected their mistakes and are making progress. Nintendo haven't made very many mistakes, and there'll always be those loyal fans.

We'll see what happens.

Jam it back in, in the dark.