The Shrine

<div style='font: 9pt Modern; text-align: left; '>I went up to my local mall tonight, looking for something totally non-video gaming-related, and ended up looking through all the video game stores/sections there anyway, and I noticed a disturbing trend. There were a lot of missing DC games - meaning that there were a lot of games of which stores had absolutely 0 copies of - and when I asked the guy at Babbage's what he thought, he said "Well, ever since the DC went off the market, companies have been making fewer copies of their games, and thus stores sell out of them a lot faster - since, after all, the Dreamcast <i>is</i> a dead system."

WHAT????? Sega says that they're discontinuing the hardware but continuing to support the system with software for another entire year while they do new software projects, and that constitutes the DC being a "dead system?" What the hell is wrong with gamers nowadays? I don't know about you, but my Dreamcast still works just fucking fine, thank you - in fact, I'm about to go pop my brand-new copy of Test Drive Le Mans in there and check it out before I play some Skies of Arcadia! How the hell can people just write off a system that still has new games coming out for it for an entire coming year? It's still a viable gaming platform for consumers, and software companies will still make money off selling games - the discontinuation simply means that the user base won't grow any more.

This sort of thing is what I really don't like about gaming nowadays - if something isn't hot, it's nonexistent, which is absolutely stupid. Console loyalty and an obsession with success has permeated this industry and turned the attention totally away from the quality of the games themselves, and to me, that's really depressing.

And of course, there's going to be one or two of you who's going to reply with "Well, the gaming industry has always been this way" or something like that, and to you I say this - sure, that may be the case, but when somebody as clueless as me picks up on it, it is a sad day for all of us.

<b>Spoiler Message:<b>
<span style="background: black; color: black;">Sorry if this was a downer, folks. It's just reality catching up with me, and I just wanted to say how I felt, that's all.</span></div>

<div style='font: 14pt Draconwick, Modern; text-align: left; '>Some of the games released on the Nintendo years ago are TONS better than a lot of games out now. The games we have now have good graphics and good sound, but the games themselves suck. The gaming community needs to get back to making GOOD games and not concentrating on making it look good.

And the Dreamcast isn't dead. The guy you asked was most like really dumb.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Yeah Sega may claim they're still supporting the DC, and maybe new games will still come out, but realistically when they say they're stop producing more DCs and going into the 3rd party development business everyone took that as a sign the system is dead. Looking at Sega's financial situation for the last 3 years, that is hardly surprising. I don't care how deep a pocket their backers may have, no one's going to continue to finance a company that's been losing money for the past 3 years. 

It's not an obsession with winning. Sega's at a point where they lose money just to have DCs on the market (including whatever the games that may sell), and that's why they bailed, and that's why most people are bailing on them, too. You can't support a system with just ideals. Someone has to pay the programmers and whatnot, and whoever's paying for this certainly can't be very satisfied with the way DC turned out.

Good thing I got the last copy of Grandia 2 in Best Buy. :)</div>

<div style='font: 14pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Eyaaahhhh......, posts like this make me feel more guilty for going with PS2 and Square(sorry but one ff game on ps2 is worth the purchase for me) over Sega+Dreamcast.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>What is good gameplay? Did the gaming God come to you one day and tell you game X has good gameplay and game Y does not? No, gameplay is merely something used to defend a game you like that happens to have inferior graphics to another one. Graphics is not everything, to be sure, but I find it convenient that every game that have lousy graphics happen to have good gameplay to balance out. Some people tell me back in the good old days 'gameplay' was all that mattered, so the games were good. Fine, go and play your Dragon Quest 1 or Final Fantasy or Super Mario Brothers on an emulator. Why are such people even buying new systems if Dragon Quest or whatever was the pinnacle of gameplay goodness? 

I daresay there are just as many *good* games in the next generation era as there ever was back in the 'good old days'. One of the reason why you may perceive games as not as good as that the genre is starting to get stagant. I've yet to see a RPG that offers a real different combat system from the old tried-and-true Fight/Magic/Other/Item system, a system that should've been done away with a long time ago, for such a system is far too limiting on what you can do. I forgot where I read this, but using 'Game X sacrfriced gameplay for graphics!' is a poor excuse. It's not like they axed their programmer to hire some guy to do CG instead. The game engine development team is not related to the CG guys. The FF series, as far as I know, has always been designed by the same couple of guys. It's not like these guys get locked up in a room to render CG instead of designing game engine.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>You'd REALLY enjoy Myst and Riven</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>I'm not saying this like it's a bad hing either, there are quite a few Myst and Riven fans out there</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Actually, I have a question, why is gameboy hogging 20-25% of the market if its only got 56 colors?</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>No, I never even touched Myst/Raven because I can't stand such games, but there is more to the gaming market than your hardcore gamers. I know a lot of people who actually enjoy the relatively slow paced graphics-based puzzle-solving-ish games like Myst. Yes Myst does have the advantage of being packed in virtually every PC out there for the longest time, but still, it had to do well in the first place for everyone to pack that game in. You can't make a best seller out of nothing. You guys sound like you believe if Sony just decides to throw $5 billion to promote a game they can re-release Pong and get it to sell 5 million. Well, maybe if they put a $100 bill on every copy of Pong they sell, yeah, but otherwise, no. 

A game has to be something good to begin with to get anywhere. There must've been enough people who liked Myst for it to get that kind of momentum. Even as much as I've detest the DQ series I can see that the engine must've been pretty impressive back in the days of the NES, though I don't know why the fans of the said series will suck up any number of DQ games that look like they can be done on the Super NES in the name of Tradition.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Gameboy is in a fundamentally very different market than that of PSX/N64/etc. It's not supposed to be something you sit down to play 10 hours at a time. It's portable, cheap, something to do when you don't have a TV around. The things people look for in a handheld console is very different than the traditional ones.

And don't forget even Gameboy went from primitive black and white to the now Gameboy Color (and soon Gameboy Advance). If gameplay was all that mattered, why would they come out with Gameboy Advance?</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Modern; text-align: left; '>LOL, put gameplay over graphics yeah right!!!! -casual gamer.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Modern; text-align: left; '>He's being realistic.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Why they are moving to Gameboy Advance? Not only are the graphics better, the sound is better, better graphics make a game more appealing, but without gameplay, the game sucks. Look at Final Fantasy 7, the game at first was fairly good, but after a while, most people disliked it because of the lowsy gameplay. Final Fantasy 8's gameplay had the problem of being too complex and slow making the game boring, FF7's had the problem of being so simple a 3 year old could figure out everything.

Goldeneye 007, it was a top seller for longer than any other game in North American History including Tetris, yet the graphics weren't all that great, other Bond games couldn't come close, the sound wasn't the greatest either. The Unique gameplay in the game made it a huge hit. also the best selling First Person game, let alone best selling First Person Shooter of all time.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Personally, I think the newer games have the better gameplay =) Look at Zelda and Conker for example compared to previous Zelda's and Rare Platformers</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Errr the games run for $24.99 PSX run $39.99 new.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>That's still pretty close, a 15 dollar difference</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Modern; text-align: left; '>15 dollars is alot to little kids who buy those GB games.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Remember that survey taken? The game system that has the highest percentage of Children playing it (12 and under) was Playstation, the oldest was Dreamcast</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>I'm serious, Myst and Riven have the best graphics of any game ever made</div>

<div style='font: 9pt Modern; text-align: left; '>I won't be able to play them, but I figured I might as well, while I can still find them. Last time I waited around I missed out on Panzer Dragoon Saga.

Anyways, things just aren't gonna work out for the DC. No matter what they say, people, especially retailers, already think it's dead so it's over.

Kinda depressing I know, people still buy PSOnes, and that's got a shorter life than the DC.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt arial, Modern; text-align: left; '>Eh...I've always been a Square fan, but I don't view their stuff as worth supporting one console over another anymore...hell, I still haven't gotten around to FFIX...</div>

<div style='font: 9pt arial, Modern; text-align: justify; '>I was one of those guys that gave Myst and Riven that momentum, and I'll keep giving it to them when Myst III: Exile comes out.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>The major distributers of Video Games all are still Selling Dreamcast games around here, but the bigger Department stores have stopped (aside from Walmart)</div>

<div style='font: 10pt papyrus, Modern; text-align: left; padding: 0% 7% 0% 7%; '>Let's not forget that it's the only portable system being sold right now, and it's been out for over 10 years.


Personally I think the GBC sags. I liked the Neo Geo Pocket more, but I realized it wouldn't last. The GB Advance looks to kick all kinds of ass, though.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt papyrus, Modern; text-align: left; padding: 0% 7% 0% 7%; '>Sounds like a bullshit survey. Go to any store and you'll see the children looking at GB or N64 stuff.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>I remember it being like, PSX 45% Children, 20% Teenagers, and 35% Adults; N64, 40% Children, 45% Teenagers, and 15% Adults, and Dreamcast like 90% Adults or something like that.

I'll see if I can find the story, I forget if Gameboy was mentioned.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt papyrus, Modern; text-align: left; padding: 0% 7% 0% 7%; '>Well if it was on IGN it must be right... ... ...<end sarcasm></div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>I worked in a gaming store for several years, and I can verify that it is fairly accurate</div>

<div style='font: 10pt papyrus, Modern; text-align: left; padding: 0% 7% 0% 7%; '>Just like Nintendo owns 87% of the Canadian market?</div>