How Dreamcast continues to be influential

[ROJM]

Here's an intresting article about the dreamcast's influence on modern gamesystems and games.

http://whatculture.com/gaming/how-segas-dreamcast-continues-to-be-influential.php

To be honest I think it goes far beyond the obvious comparisons. The Wii definatly owes its exisistence to the DC preperials among other things.

[SOUP]

Definitely a good read. I had a couple of friends over the other night who had never played anything on a Dreamcast before. I just couldn't let them go through life like that, and hooked up Samba De Amigo for some good times, followed by a complete 2 player playthrough of Typing of the Dead. Needless to say, they're hooked.

[Barry the Nomad]

One of the many things I love about the Dreamcast is how every special feature was a success. The web browser and DLC worked incredibly well. My old setup was a 15" tv sat on my bedroom desk like a computer monitor, with my Dreamcast to the side and a keyboard and mouse. I was able to use the browser to download/upload VMU files, games and animations with ease and even occasionally surfed the net. Also, online gaming was near flawless. You boot up the game, select online and you're on. So easy and well implemented.

The VMU was great, as I could transfer files with my friend at school and more than enough games utilized it, so it wasn't a wasted effort.

I cannot think of an add-on or peripheral that was a waste of space or time. The lightgun was great, the maracas were great, the mic was great for both seaman and online chat (Alien Front Online), steering wheel was great. The only accessories that were so-so were the ones that never left Japan, and I'm sure they were much better if you were living in Japan and could use them to their fullest (the karaoki add-on does not do a thing anymore due to needing to connect to a certain server and the DreamEye does very little without an internet connection and another DreamEye. Also, iChat and modern tech makes it useless). At least it's great for JSR custom graffiti. Take a DreamEye photo and you can use it in the game.

Compare all of that to some modern consoles. The Wii especially has had more failures than successes in terms of online play and peripherals. Dreamcast totally dominates it in those two fields.

[SOUP]

It sure does have some excellent peripherals.
After seeing the mouse, keyboards, DDR pad, maracas, microphone and gun, it was the fishing rod that really blew their minds.

[Team Andromeda]

The VMU was great, as I could transfer files with my friend at school and more than enough games utilized it, so it wasn't a wasted effort

Yes it was great and so neat. Sadly it let down but the tiny amount of memory SEGA put into for saves (it should have been 8MB) and not enough developers ever used it

The web browser and DLC worked incredibly well. My old setup was a 15" tv sat on my bedroom desk like a computer monitor, with my Dreamcast to the side and a keyboard and mouse.

Well I had a 27' TV but yes it was great to be able to surf the web, while lying down in bed

The lightgun was great, the maracas were great, the mic was great for both seaman and online chat (Alien Front Online), steering wheel was great. The only accessories that were so-so were the ones that never left Japan, and I'm sure they were much better if you were living in Japan and could use them to their fullest (the karaoki add-on does not do a thing anymore due to needing to connect to a certain server and the DreamEye does very little without an internet connection and another DreamEye. Also, iChat and modern tech makes it useless). At least it's great for JSR custom graffiti. Take a DreamEye photo and you can use it in the game.

Spot on and imo the Light Gun is the best ever (shame more wasn't made of the d-pad)Loved the Rod and VGA Box was brilliant (again SEGA ahead of the game) . The trouble with that article is that it's wrong in a couple of area's and doesn't praise other area's. The N64 was the 1st console to really have Voice Chat (Hey You, Pikachu!) , JSR wasn't really the 1st game to use the Cell look (fear effect) , and Shenmue wasn't really the 1st Open world game: The likes of Zelda N64 , Omikron: The Nomad Soul beat Shenmue to that . That said the DC was pretty much the 1st console to be able to ouput a VGA signal, and offer a classic download service of classic games (long before XBLA)