Monthly Archive for September, 2009

(This entry has been crossposted, no pun intended, to my own blog. All must know the majesty that is Dreamcast.)

One of the greatest video game systems of all time celebrates its tenth birthday today…yet it’s been dead and buried for most of the past decade.

Yes, I’m talking about the almighty Sega Dreamcast. I was a senior in college way back in September of 1999, and I knew one person who bought a Dreamcast on launch day. Everyone else was a bunch of pathetic fools. (Or, being in college, just broke.) Regardless, we played a hell of a lot of Sonic Adventure, Jet Grind Radio, Soul Calibur, Power Stone, and other mold-breaking titles that Sega saw fit to unleash upon us. Sadly, the hugely successful launch of the PlayStation 2 a year later essentially killed the Dreamcast. The gaming masses’ dismissal of the Dreamcast at that point infuriated many a Sega fan, myself included. They never even gave the system a chance!

Aside from the phenomenal games library, look at all of the forward-thinking technology Sega crammed into the Dreamcast. For starters, it had a built-in modem, making it the only console that supported free online play out of the box until the release of the PS2 Slim in 2004; the Xbox (released in 2001) had an Ethernet port, but online play was not free. (It still isn’t!) The Dreamcast also had a web browser, support for an optional Ethernet adapter, VGA/480p output capability, multiple memory card slots in the controllers, an offset analog stick, memory cards that doubled as handheld gaming systems…the list goes on. Some games even linked up with the NeoGeo Pocket!

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the Dreamcast is the most underrated video game system ever made. There was a boatload of fantastic titles produced for it, many of which are still ahead of their time today…but people practically ignored the console in favor of the PS2. That isn’t to say that the PS2 didn’t deserve the praise; far from it. (The damned thing is still going strong almost ten years after its release!) It’s just that too many fanboys had blinders on: PS2 was the only thing that existed in their field of vision after the success of the original PlayStation, and they weren’t going to give anything else a second look. Sure, Sega’s massive mistakes with the Saturn didn’t help the gaming public’s perception of their upcoming system, but plenty of blame does still lie with the consumer. The games released over the Dreamcast’s lifespan can easily go toe-to-toe with its competitors. Proof of this is the fact that many Dreamcast titles were later ported to the PS2, GameCube, and Xbox!

I maintain that if Sega had waited and released the Dreamcast alongside the PS2 in the fall of 2000, it would’ve been considerably more successful. Even if more people still wanted the PS2, that console had severe shortages. With another brand-new console sharing shelf space, what do you think they would’ve gone for, especially during the Christmas rush? Even though the Dreamcast launched only a year prior to the PS2, it was considered “old” by the time Sony’s console hit the shelves. (C’mon, even some Nintendo fanboys considered the PS2 “out of date” when the GameCube launched in 2001.) A final testament to the Dreamcast’s rabid fanbase was that Japanese developers kept releasing games years after the system’s demise!

The Dreamcast may be no more, but fortunately, it’s obtainable very easily and inexpensively. You’re doing yourself a great service if you pick one up, as there’s so many cheap, great games out there that will keep you entertained for a very long time. SEGA!