Happy Birthday (US) Dreamcast!

[Flashback2012]

I remember working/attending the midnight launch at FuncoLand 14 years ago. Sonic Adventure, Soul Calibur II, and Power Stone were the titles I remember picking up at launch along with Final Fantasy VIII .

[squirrelnut]

You will always live on in our hearts. Can't believe you would have been 14 years old today.

[wayultratech]

Here's a Dreamcast retrospective regarding the ideas behind the initial launch of the system and more, done by the guys at Gamespot, and it's delightfully/painfully outdated but still somewhat interesting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRgZg2UhzEU

[MidnightRider]

What do you mean "would have been?" Every console gets discontinued, and if it were the biggest success a console could be, it still wouldn't have lasted 14 years. For the record, that makes it roughly half the age of the NES at the moment.

[Gamevet]

I picked up my Dreamcast on 9/9/99 from Funcoland. I had bought Ready to Rumble Boxing and Airforce Delta. I had to wait a week or 2 for NFL2K and had to purchase a 3rd party memory card for the game, since all of the VMUs were sold out.

[PreZZ]

Most groundbreaking console ever, and greatest launch ever!. Awesome library and exclusives (at the time, a lot of ports were made after DC death), very good online gaming through 56k and even worldwide online rpg , cool memory cards with screens and minigames, this console is the most fun I had in my life as a gamer. It was also the biggest leap graphically from one generation to another, going from psone to DC was nothing short of amazing.Sega had such amazing studios back then that kept releasing such unique and great games in the DC 3 year lifecycle : Overworks, smilebit, sonic team, am2, visual concepts, hitmaker, amusement vision, wow entertainment, united game artist, wow entertainment and sega rosso. I bought 4 to 6 dreamcast games each month! All these studios combined made Sega the best game developper ever, even if the sales werent there, gamers knew they were spoiled between 1999 and 2002. Even the exclusive 2k sports games were all better than EA's.

[Red Warrior]

Beginning of summer 2001. Spring semester at college had just ended and I and some friends were at my house discussing what to do next. I decide to count my money, and, after counting every last penny in my possession, I determine I have enough for a Dreamcast. I bag up all my cash, and we drive like lightning to the mall before it closes. We make it with one minute to spare. We run to EBGames just as they're lowering the cage, but they let us in to make our purchase. I pick up my Dreamcast along with a VMU, extra controller, and Marvel vs Capcom 2. Luckily, I had just enough without a penny to spare.

Once we get back to my place, we call up another friend (who is also a huge comic junkie) to come over and play my new game that no one except my brother and I knew anything about. Hours later, the sun's coming up, but we're still playing. The next week, we purchase Capcom vs SNK and Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, and the incredible amount of awesome continues for the entire summer. By the beginning of Fall Semester 2001, I'd amassed at least 20 Dreamcast games (and a PS2 and some games, but that's another story). Over the next year or so, my friends all purchased their own Dreamcasts, and the console was pretty much our go-to gaming system for quite awhile... even after fading from the public eye thanks to the PS2. The memories of fighting game tournaments with MvC2 and Capcom vs SNK, Phantasy Star Online sessions, Power Stone calamities, Chu Chu Rocket madness, Sega Swirl craziness, Crazy Taxi, Shenmue, Sonic Adventure, Soul Calibur, Skies of Arcadia.... wow... that all made for some of the best gaming we'd experienced in our lives.

Here's to you, Dreamcast. There will never be another like you.

[goob47]

I love you more than all my family members, Dreamcast! ;~;

[GhostDog]

Enjoy this four part series about the launch of the Dreamcast!:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aouEyoAVBBw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVBdqbg1m9A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gJt2Y5L7xs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTRXhBV1Nj8

[FrankSerpico]

I was trying to work it so I'd finish my first ever Shenmue playthrough on 9/9 this year. Didn't work out because of that damn motorcycle race to the Harbor

[JakeM]

Enjoy this four part series about the launch of the Dreamcast!:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aouEyoAVBBw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVBdqbg1m9A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gJt2Y5L7xs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTRXhBV1Nj8

I love how that one guy pointed out "It had GD-ROMs so piracy wont be an issue" AHAHAHAHAHA! Reminds me of what the Grim Repear told Alucard at Darcula's castle.

[wayultratech]

I believe the first DC title i played was Crazy Taxi, and that game did some sort of Sega magic to the pleasure center of my brain because even now i find the gameplay ridiculously addicting, and the blatant product placement seals the deal of awesomeness. Only thing brutal about it is the annoying-as-all-hell-after-2-minutes soundtrack.

Also, i was curious if anyone here has any experience with Typing of the Dead? It looks to be simply a runthrough of HotDII using the SegaNet keyboard, but i'd love to hear a first-hand account of how awesome it feels to blast zombies with lower case t's.

Dreamcast will most definitely live on in gamer's hearts, there's just something about the system!! And i must mention the Casio Dreamcast Dreampoint Portable Color TV, apparently given out to individuals in Japan who amassed 10,000 Dreampoints.

[wayultratech]

Sorry for the small photo, wasn't sure how to post it larger? i'm aware the DC TV has most likely been touched on before around here, but i just want to show some love for the odd promo stuff associated with the DC, and of course the peripherals like the Seaman microphone, fishing controller, maraca's, and that Densha De Go! train/railway driving stick, just to name a couple. Not too functional/interesting for average Joe gamer as most are functional with only one game, but pretty cool to hardware and oddity aficionado's. It seems the Dreamcast really cultivated developers imaginations, being that it was a pretty powerful box for the time and the seemingly endless possibilities that power could allow.

[T2KFreeker]

Dreamcast is still awesome to this day. Games are still releasing for it, although I would certainly invite a new library of more than shooters and puzzle games, but it's still so cool. When the system launched, I went to Toys R' Us for my system and traded in my Playstation and it's library for the console and games. As it were, I had enough Playstation stuff I was no longer using to walk out with a Dreamcast, 8 games, an extra controller, and two VMU's as well as having Geoffrey bucks (Haven't seen those in years, by the way.) left over. Was an awesome as Hell day. Good news was that my Sonic CD was one that actually worked, however, my Blue Stinger wasn't! Still, I remember having a blast with the system and falling in love with some games many people actually didn't like, example being Expendable. That game was awesome as all Hell for what it was. If you got passed the one camera issue that it had, there was so much fun to be had on the game. I still fire the system up to this day and still have quite a game collection for it, even though there are still a few out there I must get. Awesome daye, Ladies and Gentleman, the Dreamcast will live on forever, It's Thinking.

[Neb6]

As an older gamer and one that was huge into high-end 3D rendering software, I wasn't all that impressed with most 90s consoles. So when the Dreamcast came out, I wasn't really paying all that much attention.

Then a buddy of mine introduced me to it. There was a group of six of us, a Dreamcast, and Soul Cailbur. We played about four hours of 'pass the eliminated player's controller to the next person'. It was at that point that I was hooked. Then I saw the other titles for the Dreamcast and was blown away!

It was the first system that handled real-time 3D to the level that I had been waiting for (along with exceptional anti-aliasing). Rez, Bangai-o, and Ikaruga sealed the deal. They're still on my list of favorites for any console. Then there's the Virtua-series. Great examples of excellent quality control and playability.

The Dreamcast is a dream console.

[PizzaKat]

Beginning of summer 2001. Spring semester at college had just ended and I and some friends were at my house discussing what to do next. I decide to count my money, and, after counting every last penny in my possession, I determine I have enough for a Dreamcast. I bag up all my cash, and we drive like lightning to the mall before it closes. We make it with one minute to spare. We run to EBGames just as they're lowering the cage, but they let us in to make our purchase. I pick up my Dreamcast along with a VMU, extra controller, and Marvel vs Capcom 2. Luckily, I had just enough without a penny to spare.

Once we get back to my place, we call up another friend (who is also a huge comic junkie) to come over and play my new game that no one except my brother and I knew anything about. Hours later, the sun's coming up, but we're still playing. The next week, we purchase Capcom vs SNK and Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, and the incredible amount of awesome continues for the entire summer. By the beginning of Fall Semester 2001, I'd amassed at least 20 Dreamcast games (and a PS2 and some games, but that's another story). Over the next year or so, my friends all purchased their own Dreamcasts, and the console was pretty much our go-to gaming system for quite awhile... even after fading from the public eye thanks to the PS2. The memories of fighting game tournaments with MvC2 and Capcom vs SNK, Phantasy Star Online sessions, Power Stone calamities, Chu Chu Rocket madness, Sega Swirl craziness, Crazy Taxi, Shenmue, Sonic Adventure, Soul Calibur, Skies of Arcadia.... wow... that all made for some of the best gaming we'd experienced in our lives.

Here's to you, Dreamcast. There will never be another like you.

Great story. DC Capcom fighters were killer

[wiggyx]

I didn't buy a US console at launch, but did buy a JP console on its launch day. I think it was even more exciting since I knew that nearly nobody else in the US would have one on that day. By far and away my favorite console purchase. The only game I had at launch was Pen Pen, but it still blew me away. The frame rate alone seemed so amazing. The right system at the wrong time. Poor Sega.