post #1278654

The Sega Dreamcast is Sega's fifth and final game console. The Dreamcast was launched on November 27th, 1998 in Japan and September 9th, 1999 (9/9/99) in the United States. After the commercial failure of the Sega Saturn, Sega decided to put out one more console to try and recoup their losses from it. The Dreamcast is notable for being one of the first 128-bit systems and the first console to offer online play, being released with a built-in 56k modem (a broadband modem was made later however.). However, like the Saturn, this console was also a commercial failure, due to three main reasons:

1. The PlayStation 2.
The original Sony PlayStation was a a massive success for Sony, and people naturally got excited for the new sequel system. Due to the hype surrounding the PlayStation 2, Sega Dreamcast sales started dwindling, and by the time the system came out, the Dreamcast was done for.

2. Lack of consumer faith.
After the Genesis, Sega released many consoles at once that all ended up failing, with the Sega CD, Saturn, and especially the 32X. This all led to people losing faith that Sega would put out a console that was good, leading to the system not selling as much as it could.

3. Easy to pirate.
The Sega Dreamcast used its own proprietary discs called GD-ROMs. However, pirates found a system within the Dreamcast's hardware called Mil-CDs, which were used to add software contents to discs. This allowed people to burn discs and play games on there.

Due to these factors, along with the fact that Japan got hit with a recession when the system was on the market, meant it got discontinued in 2001, and was announced that Sega was dropping out of the console market, making the Dreamcast the last system Sega ever made. The last major release for the system was Sonic Adventure 2. However, the Sega Dreamcast has a very large cult following, with it being considered one of the best consoles of all time and head of its time. The fact that the system was based off of Sega's NAOMI hardware and the system having little copy protection means that people are still making Sega Dreamcast games to this day.

Hardware and components

• dreamcast_console
• dreamcast_controller
• visual_memory_unit - The memory card that slots into the controller.

Sega consoles

• Sega Master System
• Sega Genesis (Mega Drive)
• Sega CD (Mega-CD)
• Sega 32X
• Sega Saturn
• Sega Dreamcast