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It's hard to believe its been a decade since Sega released the little white console that tried to change the definition of what a game could be. Still considered by some to be the best system ever made, the Dreamcast had a profound effect on the game industry despite its short life. So in celebration of the oft-overlooked console, let's take a look back at the history of Sega's last effort in the world of hardware. Hit the link.
"Sega sucks," was the consensus before the Dreamcast arrived. Loyal customers had been scorned not once, not twice, but thrice before. The Genesis was a great system that had a darker, more mature vibe than its innocent competitor, the Super Nintendo. But after the Genesis came the exodus of the company's fan base. The Sega CD had very few titles worth buying. The 32X was the same story. Add-ons were just a bad idea. And then came the Saturn.
Originally planned to be released in September of 1995, Sega felt that they could beat Sony's PlayStation to the punch and make up for their inferior hardware by pushing the release date up to May of '95. This preemptive strike turned out to be a disaster. The launch titles were nothing special and the console itself cost $100 more than the PlayStation. Some retailers were excluded from the Saturn's early launch and, feeling shunned, decided to drop any support for Sega while giving more shelf-space to the PlayStation and, later, the Nintendo 64. Another turn-off for customers was the fact that the Saturn's architecture was more suited toward 2D games, rather than 3D. At the dawn of the 3D revolution, 2D games were the last thing most gamers wanted to play.
While the Saturn was arguably the best system of its generation for import gamers - a foreshadowing of the Dreamcast's fan base - most people were highly disappointed, yet again, with Sega's hardware. They pulled the plug in April of 1999.
In an unusual move, Sega's new president, Shoichiro Irimajiri, hired an external, non-Japanese group from IBM Austin to develop the Saturn's successor. But at the same time, Hideki Sato and his team - the previous Sega hardware developers - would not step down from their duties. Thus, both rival teams went on to independently develop two different hardware configurations.
Sato's team chose to use a Hitachi SH4 CPU paired with a PowerVR GPU manufactured by NEC. The code name for this configuration, which became one of the unofficially designated names for the press to use before the official naming of the system, was Katana.
Coming from IBM, the US team, headed by Tatsuo Yamamoto, of course chose an IBM/Motorola PowerPC 603e paired with a 3Dfx Voodoo 2 GPU. This system became known as Dural.
Even more drama begins when Sega at first chose the Dural configuration. For one reason or another, 3Dfx leaked Dural's tech specs, infuriating Sega and influencing them to change their decision and move forward with the Katana configuration. 3Dfx, feeling betrayed and misguided by Sega, sued the company and NEC for $155 million due to breach of contract after the decision to use the NEC-equipped Katana. The lawsuit was settled in August of 1998 with Sega paying a sum of $10.5 million to 3Dfx.
Despite customer contempt, Sega was able to win back part of its following. After seeing the Dreamcast's graphical capabilities, which vastly improved upon the PlayStation's and Nintendo 64's, people knew Sega's next hardware effort was the real deal.
Oh, and it could connect to the Internet. Many consoles could connect to the Internet or a satellite system, but no one did it like Sega did. The Dreamcast had a modem right out of the box, and it even had a web browser which was compatible with a mouse and keyboard duo. For 1998, these features were unprecedented.
Sega promoted their new system like no other. In movie theaters, on the television, and in print, one couldn't consume any media without seeing the ubiquitous 9/9/99 launch date.
The infamous Bernie Stolar was the genius behind the Dreamcast's Western launch. The Japanese premier of the system, in November 1998, was abysmal. There were only a few games available, and they weren't even of decent quality. And that's not to mention the hardware shortages caused by NEC's lack of a sufficient amount of GPUs.
Stolar decided to delay the Dreamcast's North American launch by almost a full year. This allowed Sega to get enough systems to retailers, allowing everyone who wanted a Dreamcast to get a Dreamcast. Sega was also able to pick and choose what games they wanted to accompany the system's launch, which led to the most critically-acclaimed set of launch games ever.
While Americans did have to wait an extra year for their next-gen fix, it turned out to be a great decision on Stolar's part. In fact, Dreamcast pre-orders tripled the 100, 000 unit landmark set by PlayStation and had the most successful launch in gaming history up to that time.
In what seems to have been a bad move, Stolar was forced to resign from Sega only a few days before the Dreamcast launch. Apparently, Stolar wanted the Dreamcast to be more first-party focused, rather than relying on third-party support, and allegedly did not get along with his boss, Sega CEO, Isao Okawa, either. In any case, the man who made the Dreamcast launch such a success was forced out of Sega, only to be followed by at least two other high-ranking American employees.
The public was enthralled by the Dreamcast's technology. But not to be outdone, Sony sabotaged the Dreamcast with their own new technology, first revealed in March of 1999. With its more sophisticated technology and the inclusion of a DVD player, the PlayStation 2 made the Dreamcast look like a kid's toy.
The knowledge that the successor to the legendary PlayStation was right around the corner made many potential Dreamcast customers weary of buying yet another Sega product, which if history was an indicator, would flop. The PlayStation brand, on the other hand, was a sure thing. Why risk buying a potential failure when one could wait another year for a more powerful console that was almost sure to be more successful?
Sony's hype machine was enough to deter a substantial amount of perspective Dreamcast customers, even after the PS2's atrocious launch line-up. Despite a star-studded launch and fantastic sales numbers right out of the gate, as well as an extensive library of killer titles, the Dreamcast's popularity and success quickly waned.
Sega tried to resuscitate the perishing Dreamcast by dropping the console's price, which was low to begin with. They also decided to give the Dreamcast away when customers signed up for two years of SegaNet. Unfortunately, these tactics did little to lure in more customers. Sega's future as a player in the console industry seemed uncertain, if not doomed.
On January 31, 2001 - barely more than two years in the North American market, Sega announced that they planned to end Dreamcast production in March of that year. It turned out though, that Sega was sitting on thousands of consoles yet to be sold to retailers. Console production had most likely ended far before Sega's announcement. With the PlayStation 2's more powerful hardware, DVD player, and brand reputation, Sega was forced to wave the white flag of surrender, even before the Xbox and Gamecube hit the market.
But Sega assured its fans not to worry - now they would be developing games for all consoles. Sega would be cranking out the same great titles, but they would just be home to non-Sega hardware. Everyone's happy, right? Wrong. With the death of the Dreamcast came the decline in Sega's reputation for quality software. While the company did release some exceptional titles like Panzer Dragoon Orta and Jet Set Radio Future, the majority of their games, most notably the Sonic series, were sub-par at best.
The ghost of gaming past still lingers. Thanks to the Dreamcast's architecture being a near clone to Sega's NAOMI arcade technology, arcade ports continued to populate the console long after its being discontinued. In fact, some of the system's best games were released during this period. Under Defeat, Radilgy, Psyvariar 2, and more resuscitated the Dreamcast, it's zombie arm sticking out of its grave site, grasping for anything in its range. The last officially sanctioned Dreamcast game was Milestone's Karous, released on the eighth of March, 2007.
While much less common, Dreamcast games continue to be commercially released to this day. Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles, developed by the Costa Rican Yuan Works, came out last year, while HUCAST.net & KonTechs Ltd's horizontal shooter, DUX, was commercially released this June.
So thanks, Sega, for making such a great little console. It died far too early, possibly because it was, ironically, ahead of its time. The Dreamcast's special place in gamers' hears, though, is a testament to its lasting and classic quality. The life of Sega's swan song was undeniably short, but oh so sweet.
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At some point, I was tempted to buy a Dreamcast. The fact that this is coming from a Nintendo kid is a big enough deal! Eventually, I decided against cluttering more my living room, and I was repaid by seeing all of the Dreamcast titles I was really interested in being ported to the GameCube. Thanks, Sega!