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No, Xbox Isn’t SEGA

There’s a lot to criticize about Microsoft’s multiplatform “Everything is an Xbox” switch. Some are even comparing them to SEGA. Anybody who was there at the time knows it’s about as inaccurate as you can get.

The Dreamcast is one of the greatest consoles ever made. It’s exclusives ooze style and cohesion. Whether it’s Shenmue or Sonic Adventure, you can tell it’s a SEGA game, and a Dreamcast game too.

But none of that mattered, because the Dreamcast was dead before it arrived. The SEGA Saturn, and all the fighting between east and west, had made one of the greatest consoles ever made a non-starter. Then people found out you could burn discs, pop them in the console and it’d just play. The dead got deader.

SEGA, primarily a gaming company, pivoted to third party because it was the only way they were going to survive. Anybody who thinks that about Xbox, let alone Microsoft, is kidding themselves. So deep are they in the console war trenches that their brains are apparently broken. There’s a lot to be said about the current situation, and very little of it matches up with the Dreamcast.

For an easy starter, SEGA wasn’t the biggest third party publisher before it shut its console division. Xbox owns Call of Duty, and for every copy sold on PlayStation, 70 percent is going home to Microsoft. Xbox probably makes as much off CoD alone as SEGA did in its entirety for 1999.

SEGA pivoted because they had to. Microsoft have pivoted because they want to have their cake and eat it too. It might not work, but that’s what they’re trying to do.

Xbox, Dreamcast and the Changing Industry

Look back to the early 2000s, and you’ll see an industry that’s just discovered a golden goose. You know that the PS2 is the only place where you can play almost everything worth a damn, and it’s a nifty DVD player too. The Xbox isn’t out yet. The Dreamcast is dead. The Gamecube, God bless it, is trying its best. Nintendo is probably dead, someone says in the schoolyard when you mention Melee.

You bought a PS2 for exclusives and there were a billion of them. First party exclusives were cool and all, but Grand Theft Auto, Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid 2 were generation defining and Sony-adjacent.

And if you, like me, are getting teary eyed and nostalgic, it’s because those days are long gone. You no longer need a specific box to play the vast majority of games, and for the most part a decent PC will suit you better than a console. The Series X is going to last another five or six years at least. You’ll still be buying games for the PS4 in 2030.

Microsoft is taking a bet. They’re using all their significant might as a third party publisher. taking in billions each year from their closest rival. They’re hoping to still sell their fans consoles – although they’ve yet to suitably justify the purchase. But they suspect, as we all probably should, that the next generation leap isn’t going to be as significant as previous leaps. Less people will see the need to upgrade. They suspect cloud will be more viable. They suspect spending billions on subsidizing a box in the late 2020s is throwing good money after bad.

And they’re probably right.

Xbox isn’t Dreamcast because the industry is rapidly changing. The console, now just a PC, is the least important thing about where you choose to game. Xbox isn’t going anywhere.

 

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blank Mat Growcott has been a long-time member of the gaming press. He's written two books and a web series, and doesn't have nearly enough time to play the games he writes about.

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Twitter: @matgrowcott