PlayStation 3 for $299? → Re: $60 bucks a game HA!

"What are you talking about? Dreamcast had the most successful & highest rated (games) launch in video game history. Look at the launch titles: Soul Calibur, Sonic Adventures, the NFL/NHL/NBA 2K series, Virtua Fighter 3tb, Flag to Flag (Super Speed,) House of the Dead 2, Sega Rally 2, PowerStone, Ready 2 Rumble, etc and compare that to *any* console launch."

NBA 2K came out in November, NHL 2K in early 2000. Virtua Fighter 3tb was about a little more than a month after launch. Sega Rally was in November. Perhaps Canada launched slightly different from the U.S., although I don't know. But the U.S. launch was fairly unenthusiastic. It wasn't well advertised here - I bought a PSX about a week before the Dreamcast launched and none of the sales people even tried to convince me otherwise.

Here's a link to a page with an actual list of launch titles, which, to the best of my knowledge, is fairly accurate.

»www.shinforce.com/dreamc ··· unch.htm

There were some good games, like Soul Calibur, but a bunch were garbage. It was by no means a perfect launch. There were also many reported problems of games that had to be returned due to defects of some sort or the other that resulted in them just plain not loading.

I ended up getting a Dreamcast about a year after launch, and I still have it. My favorite games were by far the Sega Sports games, as well as Tony Hawk 1 and 2 and Skies of Arcadia. I haven't played it in a while, and I certainly don't regret getting one, but the launch titles honestly don't seem that much better than the launch titles for the PS2 (whose launch I worked at one of the local game stores).

The lack of compelling launch titles is the singular thing that always keeps me from jumping on a console immediately at launch. I think the same will hold true for the PS3 and Xbox 360, unless Sony pulls a Final Fantasy launch title out of some oriface.

Compare the games you listed on that website to the games on any other console launch to date, ratings for ratings, DC wins. I'm using IGN for the rankings, if there are any other sites, let me know.
IIRC Ridge Racer V didn't even have anti-aliasing. It looked like a PS1 game.

Well, first, how exactly are you compiling your ratings? I got curious and did this for Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube. I looked at the ratings for each game of each launch, and then averaged together the respective review scores for each console.

Using this method, yes, IGN did give an overall higher rating for the Dreamcast launch titles. It averaged an 8.2. However, the Gamecube earned an average of 8 from IGN for its launch titles - not a huge difference. Xbox earned a 7.8, and PS2 came in last with a 7.5.

IGN also contains ratings given by their readers. When you average these ratings, Gamecube wins with a 7.8, followed closely by Dreamcast with a 7.6. Xbox earned a 7.5 from the readers, with PS2 again coming in last with a 7.2.

Lastly IGN contains ratings from other publications/press. Gamecube again won this contest, with a 7.9 average rating. Dreamcast came in slightly behind with a 7.8, followed by a 7.7 for the PS2. Xbox came in considerably lower with an average of 7.2.

Given these numbers, I'd have to say that overall it's a toss-up. Slightly better in terms of ratings by the IGN staff, but still close to the GameCube. And readers and other publications gave it a lower average overall, although never *the* lowest - but solidly in the middle of the pack, which I don't find surprising. Dreamcast had a solid lineup, but it had one game - Soul Calibur - that received a 10 from IGN (the only 10 of any of the launch titles according to IGN) and a 9.7 for NFL2K, both of which pushed the average up a good chunk. Throwing those two extremely high ratings out drops the average from IGN to an 8 - equal to the GameCube.