The Dreamcasts Legacy and Sega’s Reputation a Decade on

As we are all celebrating the birthday of our beloved Dreamcast (R.I.P), I was browsing our great and wonderful forum and came across a pretty interesting take on the Dreamcast’s short but sweet life. The post, by our forum member R.O.J.M takes an interesting look at the lasting legacy the Dreamcast era has had on the minds of Sega fans and gamers today.

You may or may not agree with the post, but I think it is worth giving it a read none the less.

Check out R.O.J.M’s post as well as my take on the matter after the jump:

Senile Team interview with Roel Van Mastbergen

Senile Team started off in 2003 with the creation of the freeware game Beats of Rage, a popular tribute to Streets of Rage. In addition to being an excellent game itself, its  game engine has been used to recreate classic arcade games for Dreamcast such as Golden Axe and the Final Fight trilogy.

In 2009, the team made their commercial debut with Rush Rush Rally Racing. Today Roel Van Mastbergen sits down and talks with us about GamesCom and their upcoming game Age of the Beast.

[For the Interview we partnered with DC Emulation and Dreamcast-Scene]

How Dreamcast changed the video game world


On September 9th, 1999 SEGA let loose its white dream machine upon the United States. This new console was called the Dreamcast and was advertised as a highly advance console. It even carried the slogan “It’s thinking”.

It has been 11 years since the day it hit store shelves in North America and we now see how it effected the games industry.

The All Day Dreamcast Party Begins NOW! [party is over]

As this is a day that I’m sure will be filled with articles involving the Dreamcast, I’ll cut right to the chase: In celebration of 9/9, the Dreamcast’s 11th Birthday, both Gagaman of SEGA Memories fame and myself will be hosting back to back streaming Dreamcast parties! His is already in progress and will go right up to when my party begins, so check him out at the link below and then be sure to jump over to mine at 12am-11pm EST (US), 6pm-5am GMT (UK). Make sure to join in on the chat, because what is a party without that?

Dreamroom 2010 UK:

Watch live streaming video from gagaman at livestream.com

Dreamroom 2010 USA:
Watch live video from Dreamroom on Justin.tv

My Eleven Hour Dreamcast Party

Last year I held a Dreamcast birthday party which streamed live online. As the Dreamcast was turning ten, I held the party for ten hours. This year, I’m doing one better: one hour better! I’m excited to share “Dreamroom 2010: The Eleven Hour Dreamcast Party”! The official date and times are as follows:

September 9th, 2010
12am-11pm EST (US), 6pm-5am GMT (UK)

Last year was a blast, and I’m sure this year will be just as fun. For those who missed last year’s Dreamroom, essentially it will be ten hours of Dreamcast gaming streamed live online with live chat. The first half will be me going solo playing Dreamcast games. During the second half the IRL party kicks off with whoever I invited showing up for multiplayer games and the occasional visit to Seaman.

Games will be played from my library, and requests are welcomed! Expect to see some of the best, worst and delightfully oddest Dreamcast games. Of course a Dreamcast birthday party isn’t a birthday party without the guests, so I hope to see everyone (virtually) there!

MadWorld poster spotted in new Weeds episode


Something I like to do is look for SEGA related things in shows. Its like my fetish, my sick pathetic fetish.

In the newest episode of Weeds (Season 6, Episode 2), the Botwins are on the run and need to get new identities. So what do they do? Get fake IDs from a nerd. No seriously, look at him, he is a real mouth breather.

Oh, he also goes by the “Chinaman” in the show. I guess its some weird nerdy kung fu white kid stereotype thing?

(Seen SEGA related items or references in a recent show or movie? Send us a tip)

Sega Series – Hurt and Healed.

Disclaimer; What follows is the humble opinions of a Sega fan! You may not agree with these opinions, but that would just make you WRONG! 😉

I would usually argue that anyone still toting the ‘Sega makes crap games’ line needs a swift kick to the nuts. Not only because this all to common phrase is simply not true, but also because this must mean the person suggesting such a thing would have missed a lot of frankly brilliant Sega games released recently such as Yakuza 3, Valkyria Chronicles, Bayonetta, Phantasy Star Portable 2, Napoleon: Total War and After Burner Climax to name but a few released this year.

Not to mention, we often tend to forget forget Sega has a strong Arcade presents to uphold. Games like Border Break, Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown and Lets go Island are all quality games that have yet to see the light of day outside of a Japanese arcade.

I’m not here to talk about all of the things SEGA’s done right, though. Anyone who’s actually interested in good SEGA games can find that out for themselves. What I intend to talk about is how this misconception started and where it does have some grounds in truth. We’ll be looking at the games Sega really did mess up, how they were fixed and if they weren’t how I personally feel they could be.
So let’s start this ruckus!

Hit the jump for more of my ramblings.

Is that a SEGA arcade in your pocket?

A little over a month ago I went to my family cabin in northern Minnesota. It had been nearly seven years since I had last been there, and yet when I went back to the same bargain warehouse that I had been to back in 2003 I found the exact same SEGA Tiger LCD handhelds that I had seen hanging on the pegs all those years ago. Guess nobody wanted them.

The Tiger SEGA Pocket Arcade line hit stores during the Saturn years at a time when the clunky old Tiger handhelds were on their way out. Tiger, it seemed, was struggling in a world of Game Boy Colors and was attempting to use the names of big name SEGA Saturn console titles to sell cheap little flip open handhelds. I’m going to assume Tiger failed as a good number of these were found at an overstock warehouse, marked down from $15 to $8 to a final $4.79.

Click here to read more!

Aliens vs Predator sells over 300,000 in the UK

 

The success of the new Aliens vs Predator game has no doubt taken everyone, including SEGA, by surprise and recently released figures from January – June 2010 just shows how much of a big impact the title has had for SEGA’s fortune in the United Kingdom. Not only did the title manage to get into a top ten position at eighth, but it even managed to outsell Final Fantasy XIII (Though to be fair to the latter, it was released a month later)

Top 10 selling games in UK (Jan-Jun):
Position / Title / Publisher / Sales
1. Just Dance (Ubisoft) – 940358
2. Red Dead Redemption (Rockstar/Take2) – 819161
3. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (Electronic Arts) – 590580
4. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision Blizzard) – 540761
5. Wii Fit Plus (Nintendo) – 499998
6. Wii Sports Resort (Nintendo) – 439920
7. 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa (Electronic Arts) – 396858
8. Aliens vs Predator (SEGA) – 359968
9. Final Fantasy 13 (Square Enix Europe) – 339996
10. FIFA 10 (Electronic Arts) – 318719

It rounds off an excellent achievement for both publisher and developer and no doubt spells good news for Aliens fans eagerly awaiting either a sequel to Aliens vs Predator or the up and coming Aliens: Colonail Marines. It’ll be interesting to see what final sales figures for the title will be, as in console specfic charts for the UK, the title still retains a high title position but no doubt that Aliens vs Predator has been a massive success for SEGA.

[Source: Chart-track]

SEGA Sammy group post profits of 7 billion yen

 

There was plenty of good news in SEGA Sammy’s recently disclosed financial report for the first period for the fiscal year ending March 2011, although note all of it was a rossy picture. Despite that, the group posted strong profits of 7 billion yen this quarter, an exceptionally sound result considering recent reports from other major publishers. Read on to follow the general breakdown. 

Classic SEGA Magazine Corner: UK’s Dreamcast Magazine – September 2001

Welcome back, true believers, to another trip down memory lane. This time it’s back to September 2001 by way of Dreamcast Magazine!

Dreamcast Magazine was an unofficial UK based mag, and as you can see, it stuck with SEGA’s white box of wonder until the bitter end. Unlike last week’s look at SEGA Megazone during the lead up to the Saturn, this magazine is from the darker days, when the Dreamcast console had been discontinued and releases were beginning to slow down to a trickle. You can tell a console is struggling when the magazine cover article is a game that was never intended for it. As you will all know though, the Dreamcast went out with a hell of a bang, and was still giving us a number of great titles to play.

Hit the jump to see tears of both joy and sorrow from the end days of Dreamcast Magazine.

Classic SEGA Magazine Corner: SEGA Megazone – July 1995

Ahh the Halcyon years of gaming before the internet. When gamers roamed the earth, waiting eagerly each month for a new issue of their favourite magazine to get the latest news and reviews for upcoming games. Let’s take a look back at a classic SEGA periodical with the July 1995 issue of SEGA Megazone Magazine. If you think this is nifty, wait until you hit the jump and see the rest of what the magazine had in stock. There will be boobs…

Cancelled Dreamcast games that looked awesome


When I was in middle school, all I did was read the Official Dreamcast magazine and look at the long list of upcoming games. There is always something about seeing new information about a game before it hits the store shelves, especially when those games you are looking forward to never make it to the shelves. You are stuck wondering what those games could have been, if they came out.

Here is my salute to the most awesome looking cancelled Dreamcast games.