guardian.co.uk/technology/ga … microsoft1
This is probably the best interview I’ve ever read from someone high up in the gaming industry. No half answers, just the truth. There’s some real insight into the last years of the Dreamcast.
good read, thanks
sheds a tear for dreamcast 
they had it all, but too early. imagine a dreamcast now, with everyone having internet access etc. i used to love dreamarena back in the day, but had to collect my own money to use the dial up modem.
I don’t know why people give so much attention to this guy, I don’t think he’s done anything so worthwhile, plus boasting about telling someone fuck you (especially someone like Naka) during a business discussion isn’t getting anybody in my great people list… I think he’s an idiot.
Why didn’t EA support the Dreamcast?
They typically publish games for every format under the sun, yet completely snubbed the DC.
Maybe the Saturn’s failure outside of Japan gave EA enough reason not to take another gamble on a Sega console.
This is a great shame, because we all know Sega went out of their way to make sure the DC ticked all the right boxes this time around - plenty of power and developer friendly hardware.
EA could have had a killer advertising campaign around the DC’s launch. Imagine how the masses would have reacted to seeing the latest FIFA game running on the first next-gen console with mind blowing next-gen graphics. It was a no brainer.
Sega should have pestered EA until they gave in. EA had nothing to gain from pretending the Dreamcast didn’t exist, but I’d like to think that had they supported the DC it could have lasted a lot longer. Well done EA.
Heheh yeah Scott, same here.
I was addicted to Quake 3 at the time and ran up a phone bill of ?200 (3 months). My mum and dad went mental at me, ripped out the DC phone line and banned me from playing online. Had to get my own money after that 
PS. Scott did you ever enter those competitions they held on Dreamarena? I tried to enter every single one and managed to win twice!! I won a copy of Sega Extreme Sports (a bit shit) and Ferrari F355 Challenge (lovely to look at but not my cup of tea).
Scott do you remember the free copy of Chu Chu Rocket Sega were giving away to all Dreamarena members? Good times!!
Sega Extreme Sports is a pretty unique racer, it had nice visuals aside from the deforming of the terrain as you got closer, and I liked how you didn’t just chose to race with one the available vehicles but it was a continuous race switching between all of them. They should do a sequel with that sort of thing.
Ferrari, well, yeah, a great arcade done turned a pretty good Dreamcast sim, but not my cup of tea either. Still a well made game with purdy visuals worth playing through all the tracks for. With all the driving assists enabled because I suck.
I never got my Dreamcast online but I thought that Quake 3 was the first console FPS to get the controls absolutely right, aside from the limited buttons on the controller (but I simply skipped putting functions like crouch and such and just assigned the basics well with the face buttons for moving/strafing and the triggers for jumping/firing and of course “mouselook” worked great with the stick). Well, the first fully 3D fps to have good controls, Exhumed on the Saturn was pretty sweet. That needs a sequel also.
And I think the opposite. Naka accused Moore of tampering the focus group footage with regard to Sega’s tarnished image. That’s a pretty shitty accusation to make out of the blue. When you’re trying to save a company and all you get in response from Yuji Naka is effectively a “you’re a liar”, I’d respond with “fuck you” as well.
Usually I don’t really have an opinion on people in the industry as anything other than figures of fun (RIIIIIIDGE RACEEEER!!!), but Peter Moore is different. He is creatively motivated and clearly knows exactly what buttons to press to get the public interested in whatever product it is he’s trying to push. I hope he doesn’t end up wasted at EA.
I used to love going on Dreamarena. It’s sad but my favourite game to play online was easily Planet Ring. I used to go on the chat rooms a hell of a lot too, both on DA and at another DC site (egodreams.net I think it was). I too racked up a couple of huge phone bills in the process though. Ah, the first few days of the internet.
But then again all you have to base this on is his word. What was the point of bringing this up anyway? I don’t think anybody asked him “so hey, did you ever tell Naka to fuck off?” as part of the interview for his obvious boasting to be even slightly justified. Not to mention the Dreamcast was doing everything right, being miles ahead of the competition in every aspect even well after the launch of the PS2, and it was people like him that failed to market it properly to the western audience with failed marketing campaigns that wasted millions without results. He should just shut up and go do a fake Spore tattoo or whatever he’s into these days.
[quote=“RYB”]PS. Scott did you ever enter those competitions they held on Dreamarena? I tried to enter every single one and managed to win twice!! I won a copy of Sega Extreme Sports (a bit shit) and Ferrari F355 Challenge (lovely to look at but not my cup of tea).
Scott do you remember the free copy of Chu Chu Rocket Sega were giving away to all Dreamarena members? Good times!![/quote]
haha… no i never entered the competitions i don’t think…
but i did get my Chu Chu Rocket copy! I loved the sound effects of the browser too. It was great.
I played planet ring a few times, not too much though. Although when SOnic Adventure 2 was launched, i spent ages on the SA2 BBS. It’s what encouraged me to make my Chao website 
anyone got a link to the moore/naka thing?
Will you take my word for it that it happened the way Peter says it did?
Yes, it was unprofessional of him, but it was also provoked. It wasn’t the first time they’d butted heads, and frustrations/stress/whatever was running high.
I don’t know, were you present? Was the dialogue actually tampered? Had Moore been an ass when Naka was around in the past? Was he constantly talking bad of Sega even though he was being employed by them? Did he actually have any decent plans to restore Sega’s image instead of merely present his “findings” ? And what kind of people were the ones he found to ask? Random? His nephews? Complete retards (if they actually used than language when asked that simple question)?
Even so.
Though this is obviously conjecture on my part, I’m sure Peter was asked about juicy details about his dealings with Sega and what he saw as his reason for leaving Sega.
As for me, would you believe me even if I told you that I was present? How would that be any different than Peter telling his story?
I don’t know the full extent of their relationship, but as far as I knew, it was a bit antagonistic. Naka-san always had a distrust for the western branches of Sega, possibly because many people didn’t believe Sonic would be a huge success (even though most of those people are no longer at Sega anyway).
No, he was not constantly talking bad about Sega. In fact, he was one of Sega’s most charismatic leaders and did wonders with the press.
And why do you put “findings” in quotes like that? The video presented was the results of a series of blind focus groups (nobody who attended knew that the focus group was sponsored by Sega, and Sega was only presented as one publisher amongst many other publishers that were being asked about). EA was the cool uncle. Activision was the skater guy (Tony Hawk was big back then). Sega was the guy that might have been cool once, but now is into Hello Kitty. Nobody put these words into the mouths of the focus groups. These were random people who were gathered by the 3rd party focus group organizers.
The point of the presentation was to show that Sega’s name and brand were becoming less and less relevant to the average gamer and that something needed to be done about it (by creating more content aimed at western audiences, not just vanity projects). Given the success that Capcom and even Konami with MGS have seen with this approach, I’d have to say he was right.
Peter Moore did wonders for the DC in my eye’s, If only SOJ and SOE did half as good as Moore did SEGA could still be in the hardware game.
Its amazing to think it was the complete reverse of the Saturn days , but SEGA America did wonders with the DC , and a huge part of that was down to Moore . That said the Shenmue II deal did so much damage and really peed off a lot of fans imo , of which many still hate him for