Sega Dreamcast, A marvel in console history

Sega's Dreamcast was one of the most ahead of time consoles to ever release, at least from my prospective and many others. Why did it fail? Well, several reasons could be supplied to answer. The main reason was Utopia. What is Utopia? Utopia was a boot disc for the Dreamcast which allowed you to play games that were burnt on to CD-R's (Not CD-RW). The Dreamcast was released on September 9 , 1999 the Utopia Boot CD was created by Wildlight of Utopia and was released on Jun 22, 2000. This was only the beginning of Dreamcast piracy, sadly it got steadly worse. To get the full background read the article below, which can be viewed [here](Thanks to Answerbag) :

"The Sega Dreamcast was released in the USA on Sep 9 1999, the Utopia Boot CD was created by Wildlight of Utopia and was released on Jun 22 2000. It ushered in the age of Dreamcast piracy, with Utopia releasing Dead or Alive 2 and Soul Calibur in the next two days, then Kalisto released Evolution on the 26th and continued to flood the DC scene with games, mastering the art of the self boot and DiscJuggler with their release of Dynamite Cop on Aug 19 2000, until Sept 02 2000, when they called it quits, claiming Sega had offered them stock options to stop releasing DC games (note that their other console groups like the PSX remained and remain in full swing.) Only 2 days afterwards, Echelon released Flag to Flag CART Racing, and quickly filled in the gap left by Kalisto, releasing most of the major games in the scene and going forth with new tools like the Echelon Selfboot Kit. Kalisto came out of hiding on Nov 09 2000 to release the highly anticipated 4-CD Shenmue. Eurasia, Hooligans, Paradox, Paradiso, Drastic, NBC, Accession, CCS, MiniMe, Stone Arts, Infinity, Lightforce, Aphex, R18, Genius, Krema, Ecko, and last but not least, Klone, to name a few, have all provided many quality US and import releases where Echelon may not have had access to the games or interest in releasing them.

The scene was wild and rampant until December when Kalisto and Echelon were expected to release at least one game daily. In January, new releases started coming few and far between, since most of the games that could have been ripped had already been ripped. In mid-February 2001, Sega announced the end of Dreamcast unit production would take place on 31Mar01 citing the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars, and many third party companies scrapped their DC games in development even if they were near completion for more viable platforms, such as the Playstation 2, Nintendo GameCube and Microsoft X-Box. In late March, Sega announced that they were planning on developing Sega games for other platforms, namely the Microsoft X-Box which was a no-brainer since the Dreamcast's inclusion of MS' WinCE. Mar 31 2001 came with a whimper, and the Dreamcast scene continues slowing as the number of slated games decreases..."

As most of you know, the Dreamcast uses a unique type of disk called the GD-ROM. Although CD-ROM drives can't read it, you can connect the Dreamcast to your PC and copy the game like that. Since the GD-ROM holds more than a CD-ROM, games had to be cut down to fit on a CD, but this could be done easily (i.e. removing audio). The Utopia Boot CD is a CD to let you play pirate games on your Dreamcast. Self-boot, is the ability to just put a pirate game in th Dreamcast and play it.

The Dreamcast allowed you to play games on CDs as well as GDs (although the laser wasn't designed for it, and repeated use of CDs can strain the laser). which opened it up to easy piracy."


Dreamcast in its self was a marvellous machine, it was astonishing, and still is. Sega released a console far ahead of its time, and should be commended for the great console. I myself had one at one point but decided to sell it seeing the Xbox 360 launch; however, now I am searching once again for this great console.


The games this system have to offer is incredible. Some of my personal favorites are:

1. Grandia II
2. Marvel VS. Capcom 2
3. Soul Calibur
   
4. Power Stone 2
5. Power Stone
6. House of the Dead 2
7. Armada
8. Elemental Gimmick Gear
   
9. Ecco The Dolphine- Defender of the Future
10. Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram

One of the other cool things that I thought was extremly innovative of Sega, was the VMU. It was a truly unqiue device that acted as a memory card, and on its small monochrome screen it could show maps, a HUD, and lots of other things. The VMU, through the use of additional software could even act independent without the Dreamcast. For example, in Sonic Adventure 2 you could load your choa onto the VMU, and bring it around with you. Similar to Tamagotchi in a way.