Guide for Sega Dreamcast 101

How long were actually dreamcast at market ?

Can you believe the Dreamcast has already been around for a decade? (and that it was only on the retail scene for three of those years?) To help celebrate the landmark, we’ve revised and expanded the Dreamcast beginner’s guide to help those interested in Sega’s little white box get started on their journey.

The RetroGaming 101 series is aimed at gamers who are just starting out in the classic gaming scene or are curious about an older console that they don’t know much about yet. Those of you that are especially knowledgeable about the featured console, I encourage you to add any information that you think would be beneficial into the comments section. If you are new to the featured console, and still have questions, you can also use the comments section and I will do my best to help you out.

Background Information

• After the Saturn’s poor sales in the USA, Sega’s American branch began pressuring it’s headquarters in Japan for a new console in 1997. Two competing teams are formed, one headed by Tatsuo Yamamoto, the other by Hideki Sato.
• Though Sega first favored Yamamoto’s design, eventually Sato’s choice of using a PowerVR2 graphics processor from VideoLogic won out. This resulted in a lawsuit from 3dfx, who had developed the graphics processor that Yamamoto’s team had been pushing. The lawsuit was settled in 1998.
• Sega broke console sales records in North America on launch (9/9/99), and initially did very well worldwide, though sales eventually slowed to a trickle, and Sega announced in 2001 that they were stopping production. In 2002, the US would see its last release, NHL 2K2. New games continued to be developed in Japan until 2007, while Sega managed to sell off the last of its units in Japan in 2006. There have been additional independent games released for sale as late as 2009.
• Watch G4’s Icons episode on the History of the Dreamcast
• More Dreamcast History at Wikipedia

Historical Impact

• The Dreamcast was Sega’s fifth and final video game console and the successor to the Sega Saturn. Sega cut off the Saturn’s lifespan early to try to get a head start in competing with the Playstation 2.
• Dreamcast was ahead of its time in many ways. It was the first console to include a built-in modem, make Internet support for online gaming commonplace, and natively provide stunning VGA video output. It was also a large leap in graphical and storage capabilities over the existing PS1 and N64 consoles.
• The Dreamcast only lasted a few short years on the retail scene outside of Japan, but still maintained a strong cult following due to its innovative games, homebrew capabilities and the trickle of interesting imports coming from Japan.