Late last year a group of SEGA Dreamcast fans announced they where petitioning SEGA to start Project Dream, which was basically a Dreamcast 2 console. The users behind the project used a Change.org petition to garner support for their Dreamcast 2 project. After getting over 30,000 signatures from fans around the globe, getting some mainstream press coverage and showing off a few Dreamcast 2 video concepts the team has now called it quits.
We give you all the information you might have missed on the project, talk about why they shut down and our opinions on the whole thing. Tell us what you think in the comments below. If you haven’t, make sure to subscribe to get more SEGA News Bits videos.
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Honestly I was surprised Bits and Nerds covered it.
I’m surprised when we news SEGA stuff too.
Hey,
I was not being rude but I guess I came off that way again. It was a Sega fan project that you already knew would not happen hence why I was surprised by the newsing. Maybe it’s because the Dreamcast scene is so jaded of projects that never come to fruition that in order to not disappoint the community, we don’t cover projects such as Project Dream or Tahi.
You’d have to be utterly crazed to think this would ever have happened.
And wow, especially with a piss poor 30,000 signatures on the change.org petition – that’s really going to get ‘Sega to take it seriously.
Why would Sega even call it Dreamcast 2 if it was going to be a next gen Sega console, Sega doesn’t do that with their hardware.
I heard someone at ProjectDream say that Sega did acknowledge the projects existence at one point earlier this year too.
The best chance of Sega doing something like this is what SNK still does with their NeoGeo platform – where they commission a new system every so often for the cultists, like what companies still do with Dreamcast software releases.
Sega already licenses some of their hardware out even today but it’s usually the MegaDrive (Genesis).
Realistically, I could see SEGA licensing out to a third party hardware dev to make a console that could play disc-based games. The Genesis and Master System hardware has been played out, I think it’s time for SEGA CD, Saturn and Dreamcast to be revived similar to those Genesis “console on a chip” machines. I would also be all for a Game Gear player that connects to the TV. Another option would be a SEGA branded Steam Machine built to their specs for their games, and have it come with Saturn USB controllers and some bonuses like a download pack of SEGA PC games and wallpapers.
But the notion that SEGA would not only make a Dreamcast successor, but would also make exclusive games for it including sequels to Jet Set Radio and Space Channel 5, AND have an online marketplace for older Dreamcast titles is a pipe dream.
It’s not the end of this quite yet, ProjectDream has stalled off for now, but as expected, they’ve just today set up another project called ‘Dreamcast Reloaded’.
Andrew Stinton on FB is adding all previous members of the ProjectDream page as well.
The original ProjectDream has been splintered into several groups now, Dreamcast Reloaded appears to be one of them and at this point the main one.
What really kills me about this personally is that the people in charge of Project Dream seem to be under the impression that Sega’s games today are all bad BECAUSE they’re not made for a Sega built console like the Dreamcast. That just boggles my mind. Sega is still around making awesome games like Sonic Generations, Alien Isolation, Valkyria Chronicles, and the Project Diva and Yakuza series, along with re-releases of their classics hits, yet these guys choose to turn a blind eye to them cause they’re not made for a Dreamcast 2. I’ve even seen them argue that re-releases of Sonic’s Genesis classics don’t work as well for newer systems cause they’re more powerful than the Genesis, making them less amazing than they once were, which makes no sense. I suppose that would also mean they’d be inferior on Dreamcast 2’s Virtual Console-like platform too since that would surely be more powerful as well.
Bottom line, if you love Sega, then why don’t you support Sega? Why not buy their games, take part in their game surveys, and get over your stigmas? It’s not like you have to buy all of them anyway. Just pay attention and when Sega comes out with a game that looks cool, then go get it and don’t let the fact that it’s not on a Sega made system stop you from enjoying it.
In fairness, they do have a point to an extent, the later Sonic re-releases were technically inferior to their Sega home console originals, the one real rare exception that actually surpassed the originals was Sonic Jam on the ‘Sega Saturn – though only just, and that’s more because it added a few elements to the originals that worked well. But for the most part, ports are simply less impressive because they are essentially just glorified (albeit official) emulated versions of the originals that have to be translated in a way that a machine that they were not originally natively written for can read them well enough, and for the vast majority of Sonic games, this still holds true. If ‘Sega did bring a new ‘Sega home console out, they’d probably be biased enough to re-releases all the previous multiplat Sonic titles and actually make them play superior on their home consoles, they used to do it with their arcade classics in the mid-80s to early 90s, when other companies were granted ‘Sega licenses, they still played better on Sega consoles for the most part.
Some might say well the machine they were originally written for was a Sega arcade console so obviously Sega being Sega, they’ll base their home consoles on their arcade consoles to make them easier to cross convert their games to, but not every single Sega arcade console had an identical Sega home console to mirror it perfectly.
That’s true, we need to be supportive to
them. When I buy a game, the First thing that grabs my eye is that signature logo, and I don’t really care what system it may be on. Plus I know it’s a going to be a good game, because it says SEGA!.
Great News Bit. I’m going to keep saying this, but it would be really cool if these were also in your Podcast feed. I think they would work just as well as audio-only episodes.
I wouldn’t mind if SEGA made a custom Steam Machine that could also play old SEGA games as well through discs and/or cartridges. I think it’s funny that this is called Project Dream, because as far as we know they never had anything physical to show anyone, just digital mockups.
I thinks project is still alive its called Dreamcast Reloaded now – https://www.change.org/p/petitioning-sega-of-america-japan-to-license-and-release-a-dreamcast-2-designed-by-fans/u/16872083