Topic: YR: NX is Nintendo's Dreamcast (not in a failure sense)

I'd be supprised, but also would've expected it. I believe NX will be Nintendo's Dreamcast. No not because it will fail, but rather because it will be a way for Nintendo to regain it's relevance and market share by fixing most of the problems with it's predecessor. Years ago, Sega was in the exact same situation. They had an expensive console aimed at an audience Sega though still existed, it was difficult to make games for and port games to compared to the competition. It had poor marketing and 3rd party support (save for some japanese games), and died by having the company give up on the product. The only difference is that Sega was in financial crisis. The Dreamcast managed to fix many of the Saturn's problems, and repaired Sega's reputation amoungst gamers, if only temporary.

So how would you react if the NX was suddenly more powerful than the PS4, had a cool concept, innovative and unique games, fully modern online thanks to DeNA, and lots of 3rd party support with several great exclusives.

Sega's problem was Sony targetting the exact same audience with a much bigger marketing budget Sega couldn't counter with their wallet.
WiiU's problem is the 3DS, not the PS4 or Xbox One.

I think Wii U is Nintendo's Dreamcast, the question is whether NX is their tombstone.

The Wii U has much more in common with the Saturn than the Dreamcast. Rushed to market, expensive, Hard to develop for (at least in comparison to PS4/XB1), poorly marketed, suffers from game droughts, has damaged gamer reputation, and the company already announcing a new platform not even 2 years in to it's life.

I don't see how it could be compared to the Dreamcast. The Dreamcast was ahead of it's time, was easy to develop for and port to, had solid 3rd party support for a while, introduced online play, and had many unique and original games that dared to be different. Wii U has almost none of these things.

Nah. The Dreamcast was basically Sega going into full 3D gaming. But it was one generation after the other and it was too late. The audience was already taken. And the Sega games didn't sell enough to keep Sega alive.
The WiiU is Nintendo going into HD gaming one generation after the other. It's also too late. Audience for HD games is already taken. But Nintendo is lucky their games sell enough to make profits, basically because it's the kind of games you don't find on competitors systems. So they have another chance with their next system. The WiiU is closer to the Dreamcast than the Saturn in my opinion.

Actually, the Saturn was capable of full 3D, but it's 3D capabilities were a tacked on, last minute decision after Sega saw what the Playstation was capable of, which resulted in the system being hard to develop for and combined with other problems, costed Sega 3rd party support, and marketshare. I say the Wii U is like the Sega Saturn because like Sega, Nintendo rushed the system to market, and made many poor decisions regarding the platform. Such as not going with an x86 architecture like the competition, not having an online system comparible to the competition, not bothering to explain the gamepad fully, barely advertising the thing, and if and when they do advertise it, it's in the most obnoxious, embarrassing way that paints the system as "the thing you get for your 8 year olds". The fact that Nintendo keeps having software droughts, and the fact that they announced no new worthwhile games for it is already pissing fans off, and it's causing them to lose relevance in gaming. I'm one of Nintendo's strongest supporters, but even I admit, the Wii U was DOA.

The Dreamcast was Sega's last chance to make amends with both their consumers, and 3rd parties and for a while, if succeeded at doing both. But after the PS2 arived, Sega did all they could keep the DC alive, but it was too little, too late, as their poor financial situation prevented them from doing so. Basically, the NX is Nintendo's last chance to repair their reputation amoung the gaming community. Even though they're not in the same financial crisis Sega was in, if this thing fails, then Nintendo can kiss it's relevance goodbye. At least that's how I view it.

NX is like Dreamcast in the sense that if NX fail Nintendo will certainly get out of the hardware market

Sega's problem was Sega themselves due to the Sega CD, 32x and Saturn fiascos Sega burnt fans, developers and retailers it had nothing to do with their wallet or Sony targeting anyone.

Couldn't it be all of the above though?

Sega targeted the "cool audience" with their marketing.
Sony targeted the exact same audience but with a much bigger wallet and much more TV ads while Nintendo found a spot by focusing on the "powerful hardware" message.
I mean when you look at the numbers it's not hard to guess where the Genesis audience went.
Sure Sega made mistakes. But stealing the Sega audience was clearly a Sony's target.

Sega's problem, is that when Dreamcast was lauched they already were in a critical financial situation. This is a fact. Right after the lauch there was already the rumor of Sega going multi-platform (early 2000).
So in a way Dreamcast was doomed from the start. Yes things went downhill when PS2 was announced, but Sega had already lost the battle before entering the battlefield. And you people seem to forget that back then there weren't as many kinds of audiences as there are today. There wasn't the hip audience, the casual audience, the core audience. There was only one audience and every company was fighting to get its slice of it.

Nintendo is in a much much healtier financial situation. They know how to make money. They know how to produce games with minimal budget and sell millions of copies. They know the right companies to outsource their stuff to. Sega had no clue.

I feel like Nintendo is in a completely different situation than Sega was and comparing the two is misleading.

SEGA did what Nintendon't. That is to say, lose all their money. Nintendo has enough spare money to make up for several Virtual-Boy-level failed consoles.

You should read the book "Console Wars" by Blake J. Harris. It explains how Tom Kalinske made the Genesis a success by focusing their marketing on the fact their audience was the cool audience as opposed to Nintendo. Their ads weren't that much focused on the product, but on the audience it targeted. It was relatively new on this market. And Sony did the exact same thing few years later with their ps1 ads where you saw very few gameplay. The message wasn't "hey look at all the games we have the other don't" but "this is a product for you because you're like that". Nintendo did the exact same thing with the Wii.

I must admit with Mr Iwata being so prominent in marketing the Wii U, it gives me a sense of deja vu with the Sega Dreamcast adverts featuring the Sega president.

I may agree because as a console there was nothing wrong with the Dreamcast itself. It was SEGA entering next-gen with all guns blazing. It flopped because the company was already in dire straits after Saturn.
I mean DC actually outsold in it's short lifespan Saturn lifetime sales. So it was recovering lost ground. SEGA just could not keep it going.

I would pay all the money for a new Dreamcast. Just like all the Nintendo devs make ALL the crazy ****. That would be absolutely amazing.