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[VGEsoterica]

A story Ive been wanting to finish up for awhile now too! Because we all love Sega Dreamcast (ok someone is going to write they dont...I get that...but as a console its all meat, no filler) but not many people know that Sega had plans that would have basically made Dreamcast go "poof".

In 95/96 the 3DO company was hurting for cash and shopping around their next console design, M2, to any console manufacturer who wanted a turn key solution to release their next platform. Sony, Sega, Philips and Matsushita were all offered up a finished console minus a case and that console was the 3DO M2. More powerful than anything currently on the market and beyond what ever Nintendo had at that time.

And Sega took the bait first....getting to the final test before signing the deal and purchasing the platform to supplant the Saturn in the market as their first true "designed for 3D from the ground up" console...the Sega M2 (I mean who knows. Maybe they would have still called it Dreamcast haha)

but it all fell through at the last minute due to a missing layer of copper...and the rest is history

 

[Duchess]

due to a missing layer of copper

That's absolutely crazy!

Thanks for sharing the video. Was a fascinating watch.

 

[Deerock71]

Saving for later...(Dreamcast ROCKED).

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

knowing you were about to show ~2fps untextured models to sega wouldve been the worst feeling

any lawsuits with IBM?
a little surprised sega wouldnt wait for proper chips to demo... just a manufacturing oversight, after all--probably fed up with 3DO at that point.

 

[VGEsoterica]

knowing you were about to show ~2fps untextured models to sega wouldve been the worst feeling

any lawsuits with IBM?

Not that I’ve ever heard of. Sega just walked. From there they offered it to Philips as a CD-I 2 and Panasonic / Matsushita as an exclusive successor to the 3DO. Obv Panasonic bought it and sadly killed it

 

[Hookshot]

Why was the copper missing? Had thieves broke in and stripped it all away?

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

Sega just walked.

any more info on this?

post-meeting comments or such?

 

[EverydayBeast]

Dreamcast felt like a buttoned up N64, the online capabilities was smart, the one joystick drove some gamers crazy, another strength were the graphics on games like sonic adventure and NFL 2K but overall the marriage between the Dreamcast ecosystem and SEGA didn’t work.

 

[VGEsoterica]

any more info on this?

post-meeting comments or such?

the next offer went to Philips for M2 to be the CD-i too but that basically went nowhere. Sega just moved on and I have no clue what happened next with Sega as my info from the engineers on M2 comes from the 3DO side

 

[RAIDEN1]

Matsushita probably had cold feet because they didn't feel confident in going against Sony and their juggernaut of a Playstation.....the M2 deserved a lot better though...even the 3DO did, it was a more capable system than the likes of its "competition" at the time which was the Commodore CD32 and the Atari Jaguar...

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

the next offer went to Philips for M2 to be the CD-i too but that basically went nowhere. Sega just moved on and I have no clue what happened next with Sega as my info from the engineers on M2 comes from the 3DO side

yeah i was hoping for more of sega's perspective or comments from them regarding why they walked.

a ~2fps demo is awful of course, but to simply walk away during a final meeting indicates there's probably more to the story.
maybe im misinterpreting "final meeting".

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Shame, we could have had this…

 

[VGEsoterica]

yeah i was hoping for more of sega's perspective or comments from them regarding why they walked.

a ~2fps demo is awful of course, but to simply walk away during a final meeting indicates there's probably more to the story.
maybe im misinterpreting "final meeting".

from my understanding via first hand stories from people in the room; the meeting was to see final hardware. The deliverable "this is what you can put in a case and sell in a box"....and instead of getting 60p texture mapped demos they got 1-2 frames per second slideshows

 

[BlackTron]

yeah i was hoping for more of sega's perspective or comments from them regarding why they walked.

a ~2fps demo is awful of course, but to simply walk away during a final meeting indicates there's probably more to the story.
maybe im misinterpreting "final meeting".

I'm more likely to walk away seeing 2FPS at the (alleged) final meeting than at any point before that.

 

[Haint]

Shame, we could have had this…

Still completely baffled how companies were ever legally allowed to market stuff like this, criminal levels of false advertising.