9/9/99 - 9/9/09: Happy 10th Birthday, Dreamcast!!!

[Ginsu Victim]

I love my Dreamcast(s)! I have three of them. Thanks for 10 years of great gaming!

[versapak]

Happy Birthday!!!


I still have 2 of them, one of which in one of my arcade cabinets. Though it now shares duties with a 360.

[Ginsu Victim]

After getting raped on the SMS, Genesis, 32X, and Saturn - SEGA owed me.

Explain the problem with the ones in bold. No one got "raped" on those systems.

[versapak]

After getting raped on the SMS, Genesis, 32X, and Saturn - SEGA owed me.

Explain the problem with the ones in bold. No one got "raped" on those systems.

I'm pretty sure the explanation is right there in his name and the post history that goes along with it.

[Nipedley]

Happy birthday Dreamcast though for us in Europe it will be the 14th of October the day to celebrate - the day before my birthday infact Best birthday ever, it has to be said.

I think I will have a long Dreamcast gaming session on the 14th

[Malenko]

After getting raped on the SMS, Genesis, 32X, and Saturn - SEGA owed me.

Explain the problem with the ones in bold. No one got "raped" on those systems.

I love my saturn too. Sega doesnt owe me anything and Im one  of the tards that knew he could pirate games and still bought em (much like my 360)

[Ginsu Victim]

After getting raped on the SMS, Genesis, 32X, and Saturn - SEGA owed me.

Explain the problem with the ones in bold. No one got "raped" on those systems.

I'm pretty sure the explanation is right there in his name and the post history that goes along with it.

Yeah, I knew that going in...

After getting raped on the SMS, Genesis, 32X, and Saturn - SEGA owed me.

Explain the problem with the ones in bold. No one got "raped" on those systems.

I love my saturn too. Sega doesnt owe me anything and Im one  of the tards that knew he could pirate games and still bought em (much like my 360)

Same here, but I can understand people feeling screwed over by the Saturn. Sega CD and 32x screwed us over enough, so the Saturn was a bit of a letdown. I love my Saturn, but they really didn't do enough with it before abandoning it.

[Ginsu Victim]

Happy birthday Dreamcast though for us in Europe it will be the 14th of October the day to celebrate - the day before my birthday infact Best birthday ever, it has to be said.

I think I will have a long Dreamcast gaming session on the 14th

Yes, I was aware. Just posting from a US-centric POV.

[Franco B]

Happy birthday Dreamcast!

My DC feels born again now I have it in all its 640x480 glory with arcade controls 

[Malenko]

Same here, but I can understand people feeling screwed over by the Saturn. Sega CD and 32x screwed us over enough, so the Saturn was a bit of a letdown. I love my Saturn, but they really didn't do enough with it before abandoning it.

Iunno, I have a LOT of Saturn games I love, but most are imports; so I guess US Gamers who are afraid to import titles  The saturn was supported for YEARS in japan after the US abandoned it.

[Ginsu Victim]

Yeah, Saturn had some great titles in Japan....

...but today is about DREAMCAST!

[HaRuMaN]

Saturn was alright if you didn't mind being a pariah...

So, you liked your Saturn just fine...   

[dafelandry]

haha how appropriate i JUST finished ordering a DC VGA Box & xarcade dreamcast console adapter..  DC FTW!!!now i cannot wait to play Gauntlet Legends on my cab....

[DJ_Izumi]

I think I owned every 32X game and 90% of the SegaCD library.

A wise consumer would generally avoid buying every single game for a platform if they think the platform is terrible. o.O;;;

[Malenko]

i care, Id love to get a sega cd /32x

the game youre talking about is Motocross Championship, and it was really good but nearly impossible in the later levels. I like Kolibri, but it was more pretty then fun. Virtua Fighter and Virtua Racer were really good too. I was a huge wrestling fan so I like both WWF games.


oh yeah Saturn had terrible ports....


JPN RAM cart & Action replay ,Arcade PERFECT ports of Night Warriors, Samurai Shodown 3 &4 , Vampire Savior


Arcade PERFECT ports of X-Men VS Street Fighter, KoF95, KoF96,KoF97, Lord Of the Vampire


Arcade PERFERCT ports of CyberBOTS, Marvel VS Street Fighter, Real Bout Fatal Fury, Real bout Fatal Fury Special


I have others, Im just too lazy to take pix; Like Virtua Fighter, Virtua Fighter 2, Virtua Fighter Kids, Virtua Racing.


PS Im celebrating Dreamcast's 10th birthday by hyping its hated bastardized older brother :p

[Epyx]

I loved the Dreamcast even when I worked at EA who refused to support the console (damn you EAC!)

My Dreamcast has been through at least 5 moves...been bashed about...played for thousands and thousands of hours and never let me down. Im not sure what the official return rate was due to hardware failure but im sure it wasn't as bad as the Xbox 360's RROD.

Most of the game still hold up today.

[Malenko]

Virtua Fighter 1 was terrible on Saturn, Remix was even worse.  There's never been a good port of Virtua Racing.  Virtua Fighter & Cop 2 were good.

I was talking more like the Saturn version of Tomb Raider when I was referring to ports.  Niche fighting games from gray market importers weren't exactly in wide supply in the 90s.

I liked the 32x and Saturn Ports of VF racing. stellar ports? no, fun ports? yes. I dont see what was so bad about VF on the saturn, it looked and *felt* like the arcade version to me; but of course I was terrible at it, so there very well may be a timing or fighting system issue I didnt notice.

Tomb Raider sucked on every system. And I didnt seem to have a problem getting imported games, it wasnt easy to pay for them though,lol but they were worth the money.

and for the record, I love my Saturn and DC equally; I wish I could pirate Saturn games but I dont know where to get games or a modchip

[Nipedley]

I always had a special connection with my Dreamcast, I don't know why as my first console launch was the PS1 and soon after the N64. The Dreamcast just had something about it Still just as much fun to play as the day I got it, too.

Matter of fact it's the earliest console I have that I've kept hold of, my PS1 got replaced with a PS2 and my N64 got sold though I ended up with another a few years later.

It even has the little stain where I spilled macaroni cheese on it many years ago.

I love you Dreamcast

[northerngames]

I have many console's but am in the middle of re-playing the original Shenmue in vga and dont have time for the other console's at the moment 

[DJ_Izumi]

Dear Sega: How about a new high definition port of Daytona USA with upgraded tracks for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network?  And make the physics work, not like that crap in the Dreamcast port.  That was like driving a car made of butter across a hot skillet.

Every Daytona and Daytona 2 track from every port, in high detailed gloory with live multiplayer?  Arcade accurate physics?  Come on, you all want it.

[northerngames]

I never finished Shen Mue... I remember driving 35 miles to go get it and got about halfway through it.  Amazing game, though.  Saturn version looked pretty decent, too.

Never played the second one either... hell, I think I even bought it.  Wonder if the Xbox 360 will play it....

Funny you mentioned that I actually just bought one like a week ago to play on the 360 I figured I would play the first through again and then play the 2nd on the 360.

I never played the 2nd one yet and forgot the first one since I have not played it since launch so I am going through it again and then going to play 2 on the 360.

it is a backwards compatible game 

[Ginsu Victim]

The 4th disc of Shenmue II was amazing.

(Obviously I'm referring to the Dreamcast version)

[gavkiwi]

I just wanna say, I am happy to see this thread, I got my DC for fathers day in 2006, my mother in law gave me $30 to spend that day, I went to game x-change and bought a used DC in great condition with a controller and a VMU & a jewel case Crazy Taxi.

And I have to say, thanks to the ease of use of getting games for it  via the interwebz, this has been one of my all time favorite consoles, I have at least 80-100 games for it, even my kids loved it, esp Ecco.

I always had a soft spot for Sega, in 1983 my dad bought a sega sc-3000 'home computer' with 8k of onboard memory and it played cartridge based video games, apparently the sc-3000 was only popular in Japan, Australia and my native New Zealand, with little popularity in the US.

A few years later my parents bought a video store, and I guess through my fathers loyalty to Sega, I was exposed to pretty much every Sega Master System & Genesis/Megadrive game that was released. Heck even in 1995 he focused on the Saturn.

So I was one of those ppl that played/liked Sonic and really didnt know or realize what the hoopla was about Mario lol til I got married and wifey at the time told me all about it.

I still remember playing Sonic for the first time in 92 or 93, and thinking how cool the game was.

My favorite games for the DC have to be Ikaruga and Under Defeat!, love them

I think in the near future, I will splurge and get some VGA cables for it, I love my DC, just love it!!!

[Ginsu Victim]

I really think the ease of copying games on Dreamcast ultimately lead to its downfall, to be honest.

Poor marketing and the announcement of the PS2 had way more to do with it. Plus, some third party companies, like Square and EA, wouldn't support it, so that hurt them in the mainstream.

[DJ_Izumi]

I really think the ease of copying games on Dreamcast ultimately lead to its downfall, to be honest.

It actually didn't have anything to do with it.  The Dreamcast was unpiratable for years, not without retooling a factory to actually produce GD-ROM knockoffs.  No one ever built a modchip for the Dreamcast.  The Mil-CD hack was discovered by the Bleem guys but no one else figured it out untill June 2000.  That was the Utopia Boot Disc's release.  It wasn't untill later that the piracy would ramp up and self booting discs came around.  The NTSC Dreamcast was modified in October 2000 with code that kept it from booting Mil-CDs.  (Thusly, last generation and the limit run new Dreamcasts that are still built and sold by Sega today can't run pirated games)  By Jan 2001, Sega announced the Dreamcast was being discontinued.  The piracy time frame is too short to have doomed it.  Especially in the 2000 when P2P networks didn't really exist outside of Napster and the majority of consumers wouldn't have any idea what an IRC DCC bot was... Or what IRC was.

[Ginsu Victim]

The Dreamcast was unpiratable for years

Excuse me? YEARS? The Utopia Boot Disc came out June 22, 2000

[DJ_Izumi]

Excuse me? YEARS? The Utopia Boot Disc came out June 22, 2000

I did say June 2000 in my post.  The Dreamcast was unpiratable for almost two years untill that point.

[Nipedley]

I don't think piracy was the major factor in its death rather the PS2 as someone up there stated I didn't get into dreamcast cd-rs until at the very earliest 2002, it was when the selfboot scene just got into motion, and even then I and I'm sure many others were still (in the UK, at least!) on 56k modems and a 700mb iso was a big ask.

Though really, June 2000 isn't long considering the US launch was only September 9 1999, and us in the UK only got it December 1999!

[danny_galaga]

  (Thusly, last generation and the limit run new Dreamcasts that are still built and sold by Sega today can't run pirated games)  By Jan 2001, Sega announced the Dreamcast was being discontinued.  The piracy time frame is too short to have doomed it.  Especially in the 2000 when P2P networks didn't really exist outside of Napster and the majority of consumers wouldn't have any idea what an IRC DCC bot was... Or what IRC was.

Wait, they still make them?

[Ginsu Victim]

I always heard that 'gd-roms' were nothing more than 99 minute CDRs, but I've never seen a 99 minute CDR in my life.

 

GD-ROM was 1.2 GB and had an inner ring that was CD based, but the main data was unreadable by CD or DVD drives.

Excuse me? YEARS? The Utopia Boot Disc came out June 22, 2000

I did say June 2000 in my post.  The Dreamcast was unpiratable for almost two years untill that point.

A year and a half (Japan release Nov 98) is not "years"

[bartre]

so, with all this talk about piracy what games do you all actually own?
myself, i only got my first dreamcast back in 2005, so it's always been fairly hard for me to get a hold of the real gems of the library, but i think i got most of 'em.
power stone 1+2
shenmue
sonic adventure 1+2
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
crazy taxi
Sword of the Berserk: Gut's Rage
House of the Dead 2
Bleem! Metal Gear Solid
Marvel vs. Capcom 1+2
Jet grind radio

Jet grind radio is actually the game that made me find out about piracy on the dc though, my copy has this circular scratch on the disc that stops parts of the game from loading.  thing is, it only happens during levels, so if you pause and unpause you can keep playing, just the floors and some other random objects won't load.

[Nipedley]

Sega Japan occasionally does a refurbished line of DC's now and then (looks like the last line went out in 2006, http://kotaku.com/159984/sega-continues-selling-refurbished-dreamcasts), I still have my fingers crossed for the DC-2 though I'm not sure if Sega can reclaim the magic they lost when they went 3rd party..

I own all of my favouritest games, skies of arcadia, the sonics, house of the dead, jet set radio etc I'd buy more but the prices seem to be going up, DC seems to be the 'in' retro console in the UK at the moment

[DJ_Izumi]

Wait, they still make them?

The Dreamcast is still produced in limited runs.  Sega has kept selling them through their offical site non-stop.  ThinkGeek.com recently picked up sales of the Dreamcast too; http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/retro-gaming/ba52/

The Dreamcast is only in LIMITED production however and pretty much only available online.

My understanding is that the Dreamcast is produced in a big batch and then Sega just sells them all off before running another batch.  I don't think they are in continous production.

[danny_galaga]

Man, I can remember either late 1998 or early 1999 getting my hands on all these 'confidential' Dreamcast documents that were mainly just tech guides and developer info.  I dutifully printed them all out and put them in binders.  lol wtf was I thinking?  Sadly a search of the hard drive churns up nothing.

Chad?

[danny_galaga]

Sega Japan occasionally does a refurbished line of DC's now and then (looks like the last line went out in 2006, http://kotaku.com/159984/sega-continues-selling-refurbished-dreamcasts), I still have my fingers crossed for the DC-2 though I'm not sure if Sega can reclaim the magic they lost when they went 3rd party..

I own all of my favouritest games, skies of arcadia, the sonics, house of the dead, jet set radio etc I'd buy more but the prices seem to be going up, DC seems to be the 'in' retro console in the UK at the moment

The Dreamcast hardware that is sold on SegaDirect is all used, not newly manufactured. SEGA's business direction is that to be one of the top publishers in the global market, so SEGA is not returning to the hardware business.

The Dreamcast is still produced in limited runs.  Sega has kept selling them through their offical site non-stop.  ThinkGeek.com recently picked up sales of the Dreamcast too; http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/retro-gaming/ba52/

The Dreamcast is only in LIMITED production however and pretty much only available online.

My understanding is that the Dreamcast is produced in a big batch and then Sega just sells them all off before running another batch.  I don't think they are in continous production.

Dear Retro Gaming Enthusiasts
These Dreamcasts come from surplus stock sitting around in a warehouse in California. We do our best to make sure that each Dreamcast is new and the box is in relatively good shape.

Wait, they still make them?

 

[DJ_Izumi]

Doesn't change that Sega still produces the Japanese version of the Dreamcast and sells them through Sega Direct of Japan.

Of course I imagine they're actually just built in lump sums and the go through the stock till it's done rather than persistant production.

[Ginsu Victim]

Yeah, I used to have that stuff too. Lost 'em all, but never had a use for them in the first place. Luckily I didn't print 'em out, though I HAVE printed some pretty useless crap in the past.

[Nipedley]

I still think it's pretty nice Sega takes the time to sell these Dreamcast's, refurbished or not it shows that they are still in some measure supporting it and that there is still some demand for them

I'm actually considering trying to get hold of a "new" one myself, or as close to it as I can get. My DC is a launch day one and while it's not given me any trouble so far, the GD-Rom drive won't last forever..

[Ginsu Victim]

I'm actually considering trying to get hold of a "new" one myself, or as close to it as I can get. My DC is a launch day one and while it's not given me any trouble so far, the GD-Rom drive won't last forever..

That's why I own three. I bought my first one back when they came out, then picked another up at Goodwill for $15 and bought a third off my friend for $30.

Definitely not a console I want to die off from my collection.

[abispac]

wow , im getting old, i still remember when i got my dreamcast, costed 140 bucks and bought the kof99, it was a dream come true, kof in my own house.... happy bday...

[DJ_Izumi]

It's too bad that a lot of the major game store don't regularly stock older games.  EB/GameStop for example seems to be convinced that the PS2 was the first video game console ever.

Dreamcast games are pretty hard to find these days unless you resort to piracy.

[danny_galaga]

Doesn't change that Sega still produces the Japanese version of the Dreamcast and sells them through Sega Direct of Japan.

Of course I imagine they're actually just built in lump sums and the go through the stock till it's done rather than persistant production.

Well, that link you gave is entitled "Sega Continues Selling Refurbished Dreamcasts". And the link to sega direct is broken. Here is another link:

http://www.engadget.com/2005/12/13/sega-not-re-launching-dreamcast-only-selling-refurbs/

 Any recent links? I hate to be a party pooper. I would love it if they were still making them. But it doesn't seem to be the case. If you think about it, it would be very unlikely that a company that doesn't make hardware anymore would have someone else tool up for a short production run. They would probably cost thousands each...

[Nipedley]

Opinions seem to be divided but it seems certain that the last time Sega Direct put out these dreamcasts was in 2006, the Sega Direct service itself being discontinued in 2008. And pretty much every article states that they were refubished, what that means exactly who knows. It's cool anyway

I spent the morning playing Typing of the Dead, one of my favourite DC games!

[ark_ader]

Every time I think of the Dreamcast I remember buying my first one when they were selling at $299.  The week after I got mine they sold for $50 and no refunds.

I still have it and it works great, so at least you can say I got my money's worth.

[versapak]

Every time I think of the Dreamcast I remember buying my first one when they were selling at $299.  The week after I got mine they sold for $50 and no refunds.

I still have it and it works great, so at least you can say I got my money's worth.

Not.

[Nipedley]

HAPPY 10TH BIRTHDAY DREAMCAST!!!

(For all you European Dreamcasts)

It's a day I will never forget