Dreamcast Gaming Console Project
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Dreamcast Gaming Console Project
• What project are you researching?
The projects being researched in this case id the Dreamcast gaming console.
•What is the background of the project?
The Dreamcast gaming Console project was started to give new life to the gaming industry. The project was based on introducing innovations and creativity in the gaming industry (Montfort and Consalvo, 2012). It is vital to note that the technological world is dynamic and thus organizations and their products need to be flexible to adopt the necessary changes. The changes are adopted to align products with the existing technology. Moreover, the need to adopt new and positive changes in the gaming industry was fuelled with increasing competitors. This fact prompted the developers at Dreamcast to introduce new changes that would keep the existing consumers as well as attract new consumers.
• What led to it being undertaken? What problem(s) was it trying to solve?
Dreamcast gaming was introduced to solve different problems experienced by the consumers and developers in the video games field. First, the project was based on presenting new designs of video games that would be appealing to the consumers (Montfort and Consalvo, 2012). The gaming industry was composed of the usual video games and thus there was a need to introduce new content with new designs for the consumers. Consequently, the video industry did not have content for all the generation thus they wanted to fill the gap. In this regard, the video games produced were only meant for the young generations and did not appeal to adults or the older generations. Additionally, the development of the project was based on the need to have a competitive advantage over the other players in the gaming industry. This fact inclined the developers to come with video games with content and design that would enable the organization to compete favorably.
• What were the project’s intended objectives and goals?
The Dreamcast gaming Console was developed and advanced with different aims and objectives. First, the Dreamcast wanted to introduce a lighter and unique box than the usual boxes (Deeming, Skot and David, 2017). In this regard, the boxes produced under the Dreamcast were lighter as opposes to the usual black and grey, a total of four joypad ports and a bizarre controller with a memory card with a special screen of its own. The prototype of the project was presented to the public thus realizing new dawn in the video gaming industry. Consequently, Dreamcast had the objective of stamping its mandate in the video gaming market and gaining a substantial number of customers for their games. Dreamcast was considered as an underdog in the video game console market and thus the introduction of the project was aimed at changing the market fortunes. Nintendo Entertainment system ruled 96% if the video games market thus inclining the Dreamcast to develop projects to overturn to gain a competitive advantage in the market. Moreover, the Dreamcast project was fronted to counter current and future competitors. Dreamcast has several competitors to handle such as Sonic and Sony who had developed powerful play stations. Dreamcast faced powerful and fierce competitors and thus the only way thus the project was mean to neutralize the competition and gain competitive advantages.
• Why did the project fail? For example poor planning, lack of stakeholder support, not enough resources, etc.
The Dreamcast projects did not meet its objectives and thus ended up failing due to different reasons. First, poor timing in the introduction of projects in the market failed the projects as the Dreamcast projects were overtaken by events and inventions of the competitors (Gutternbrunner, Becker and Rauber, 2010). In this case, the Saturn era Sega was only successful for a short period since PS2 was launched a year later and this was a killing blow to the Dreamcast project. Consequently, the Dreamcast projects and content had inferior products as compared to those that already existed in the market thus inclining the consumers to stick to the already existing product and ignoring the new ones. In this case, Dreamcast had poor graphics as compared to the already existing PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. This fact made the Dreamcast be products to perform poorly in the market. More so, poor management resulted in failures in the operations of Dreamcast. The Saturn disaster lasted for four years and thus no videos or content were produced making it impossible for people to franchise for products they had not seen thus losing revenues. On the other hand, poor management was Sega meekly handed over sports games to Sony in the course of the Saturn disaster thus losing business and customers to their main competitor. Therefore, different challenges and reasons resulted in the crumbling of the Dreamcast projects.
• What were the repercussions of the project failure?
The failure of the Dreamcast project had a wide range of undesirable repercussions. The failure of the Dream project resulted in the loss of resources and funds that were invested in the project. The company invested in the project intending to get substantial resources. However, the failure of the project not succeeding resulted in the loss of the funds invested as well as not realizing the targeted profits and revenue levels (Kirriemuir, 2002). Consequently, the failure of the projects made the company less competitive thus achieving low market rates. The project was launched to gain competitive advantages over the rivals but the failure of the project resulted in the company remaining less competitive. This fact made it impossible for the organization to raise over its competitors in attracting new customers while retaining the old ones. Additionally, the failure of the projects resulted in the customers and partners losing trust with the organizations for failure to present valuable and sustainable products in the market. The projects presented low-quality content to the market thus losing current and future customers due to loss of customer loyalty.
• What lessons did you learn about proper project management?
The process and failure of the projects have a wide range of reasons to learn on issues of proper project management. First, projects need proper timing and effective scheduling. The projects need to be presented to the market at the right time to maximize the returns and revenues on the project. Presenting projects when it’s too early or late can result in the organizations making losses or reduced profits. Consequently, the projects need to be flexible to enhance their sustainability. The flexibility of projects means thus projects can effectively incorporate changes in the process of development or when they are already in the market thus making them sustainable. This fact makes it possible for the organization to overcome barriers and challenges in the development stage or the market thus increasing the success levels of the project.
References
Deeming, S., & Murphy, D. (2017). Pirates, platforms and players: theorising post-consumer fan histories through the Sega Dreamcast. In Fans and Videogames (pp. 75-90). Routledge.
Guttenbrunner, M., Becker, C., & Rauber, A. (2010). Keeping the game alive: Evaluating strategies for the preservation of console video games.
Kirriemuir, J. (2002). Video gaming, education and digital learning technologies. D-lib Magazine, 8(2), 7.
Montfort, N., & Consalvo, M. (2012). The Dreamcast, console of the avant-garde. Loading…, 6(9).
