The sales figures which have been mounting over the last few weeks are proof that the Dreamcast is a success in the United States. Mr. Moore, the Senior Vice President of Marketing at SOA stated recently that the public has already purchased exactly 750,862 units as of October 31. What does this mean? For Sega, it means great things, and greater possibilities. As we hinted at in an earlier article, the company has officially redrawn its sales expection for 1999 and increased it by 50%. Originally the company hoped to move one million units by the Christmas Holiday frenzy. Now that figure has sky-rocketed to 1,500,000!
Sega has not stopped there. Mr. Moore continues to go into detail, regarding the company’s long-term forecast. While these figures can be somewhat ambiguous since no one can predict what problems may arise in the future, if Dreamcast continues to sell at these rates, we can expect to see these kind of numbers. In March 2000, the company hopes to sell through two million units, and then through price-slashing, network gaming, and heavy marketing, hope to achieve the amazing six million units mark by March 2001! “We feel there will be a great window of opportunity for the next eight to 10 months,” said Mr. Moore at a recent investment conference. How does Sega hope to take advantage of this momentum? By the end of next year, SOA hopes to have ten to tweleve network games which can be played against anyone else on the planet. This will make Dreamcast the only console in North America to offer such options for gamers; leverage over Playstation 2 which will not take advantage of networks for it’s first year. Sega also hopes to employ “highly competitive price points for hardware and software” in the words of Mr. Moore, to under-cut future hardware releases from their rivals Sony and Nintendo.
Source: Sega X