The Dreamcast (ドリームキャスト, Dorīmukyasuto?, code-named White Belt, Black Belt, Dural, Dricas, Vortex, Katana, Shark, and Guppy during development) is Sega's last video game console and the successor to the Sega Saturn. An attempt to recapture the console market with a next-generation system, it was designed to supersede the PlayStation and Nintendo 64. Originally released sixteen months before the PlayStation 2 (PS2) and three years before the Nintendo GameCube and the Xbox, the Dreamcast is part of the sixth generation of video game consoles. Dreamcast was widely hailed as ahead of its time, and is still held in high regard for pioneering online console gaming.[4] Nevertheless, it failed to gather enough momentum before the release of the PlayStation 2 in March 2000. Sega discontinued the Dreamcast in March 2001,citation needed and withdrew entirely from the console hardware business; however, support continued in Japan where consoles were still sold until 2006 and new licensed games were still being made by companies of the arcade market until 2007, as well as the huge and current worldwide support of the homebrew community.
Hardware
The power light, like the Dreamcast logo in NTSC regions, was orange (this color was chosen because the Japanese consider it to be lucky). Games were sold in jewel cases. In North America, these initially had the Dreamcast name and logo on a white background, but later games used a black background, similar to the PlayStation's. Japanese games used an orange-and-white scheme, and European and Australian games used blue.
The unit was packaged with a video cable which supported composite video and stereo sound. Available separately were an RGB SCART cable, an S-Video cable, an RF connector (included as standard in the UK, Germany and Portugal), and a VGA adapter (see accessories below).
Although there was no reset button on the Dreamcast system itself, there was a way to reset a game during play. If the player wanted to reset a game, they would have to press the A, B, X, and Y buttons all together and then press the start button. This would then take them to the game's main menu. If repeated, it would take players to the Dreamcast menu.
In North America, a black Dreamcast was released in limited numbers with a sports pack which included two Sega Sports titles. This was the same as other models except for the black casing and the Sega Sports logo located directly below the Dreamcast logo on the lid. Electronics Boutique offered a blue Dreamcast through its website. Similar offerings were sold through the Lik Sang website. Cases of different colors like blue, red, orange, and green were sold for replacements of the original casing. In Japan, Sega released many varieties of the system, including a limited edition Sonic anniversary version, a pink Sakura Taisen version, and a Hello Kitty version released in 2000 in Japan which, due to its limited production, has become an extremely rare collector's piece. The package contains a keyboard, controller, VMU, mouse, and a Hello Kitty trivia game. The console and accessories came in both translucent pink and blue in color with some printed designs.
The Brazilian version, manufactured by Tec Toy under license, was essentially the same as the North American version, but its video output was converted to the PAL-M standard and did not come with the modem, which was available separately.
Dreamcast in Europe had a blue spiral logo, similar to the logo on earlier Sega systems. This change is thought to have been for copyright reasons: German company Tivola Publishing[1] had been using a similar swirl logo years before Sega branded Dreamcast with the orange swirl.
As well as the VGA mode to connect to a PC monitor (again using an adapter), the European Dreamcast supported PAL video, in both 50 Hz and 60 Hz modes. This was a first for game consoles, as no previous PAL console had offered the option to play games at full speed, using the ability of many PAL televisions to operate at 60 Hz. This feature was exploited in previous consoles but only by modifying the console with a chip to allow it to run NTSC games (e.g., Sony's PlayStation), or by adding switches to the internal circuitry to manually select between 50 Hz and 60 Hz (e.g., SEGA's Master System, Mega Drive or Saturn). Although the 60 Hz code had to be enabled on the disc, doing so was a simple matter, and only a small number of games lacked it. The 60 Hz feature has become standard on all major consoles released since.
Games in Europe were sold in jewel cases exactly twice as thick as their North American counterparts, possibly to enable the inclusion of thick instruction booklets containing instructions in multiple languages.
A third-party company from China named Treamcast released a portable modified Dreamcast which used the original first-party Dreamcast components with a custom made plastic casing. This small system with its fold-down display resembled the later PS One. Many companies included software and a remote with the unit that enabled it to play MP3s and Video CDs. When the Internet import video game store Lik Sang contacted Sega to ask permission to sell a modified version of the system with Sega trademarks on the system, they were told that Sega did not approve of the unit, and felt that it violated their trademarks. In reality, this system is no different from a Dreamcast pre-modified with a third party shell, as the system's internals still use first party hardware, and the only modifications are the outside casing and internal sound and video adjustments.
In 2005, the internet import store Lan-Kwei started selling a "Treamcast" portable modified Dreamcast with a 16:9 widescreen LCD. Aside from the cosmetic differences in the case to accommodate the larger screen, there are no differences between the original Treamcast and the newer widescreen model.
Technical specifications
Internal view of a Dreamcast console.
The mainboard of the Sega Dreamcast.
Processor
- SH-4 RISC CPU with 32-bit Instruction Set and 128-bit FPU functions (operating frequency: 200 MHz, 360 MIPS, 1.4 GFLOPS)
Graphics Engine
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- CLX2, 7.0 Mil polygons/second peak performance, supports Trilinear filtering. Actual maximum in game performance (with full textures, lighting, gameplay, etc.) of over 5 Mil polygons/second.
- Tile Based Deferred Rendering eliminates overdraw by only drawing visible fragments. This makes required fillrate almost independent from scene depth complexity, thus making up for a low, compared to other 6th generation consoles, nominal fillrate of 100 MPixels/s as effective fillrate can be triple that amount.
- Graphics hardware effects include gouraud shading, z-buffering, anti-aliasing and bump mapping.
Memory
- Main RAM: 16 MB[5] 64 Bit 100 MHz
- Video RAM: 8 MB 4x16 Bit 100 MHz
- Sound RAM: 2 MB 16 Bit 66 MHz
- VQ Texture Compression (5:1 texture compression)[6]
Sound Engine
- Yamaha AICA Sound Processor: 22.5 MHz 32-Bit ARM7 RISC CPU: 45 MHz,[6] 64 channel PCM/ADPCM sampler (4:1 compression), XG MIDI support, 128 step DSP
Storage
Input/Output
Dimensions
- 189 mm × 195 mm × 76 mm (7 7/16in × 7 11/16in × 3in)
- Weight: 1.9 kg (4.2 lb)
- Color: Majority are white.
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- Japan: Various limited edition designs and colored consoles were produced
- North America: Only a black "Sega Sports"-labeled model and a blue model from Electronics Boutique were officially available
- PAL: No known alternate designs or colors
Networking
A black 56k Dreamcast modem.
- Modem: Removable; speed varied among regions:
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- Original Asia/Japan model had a 33.6 kbit/s; consoles sold after September 9, 1999 had a 56 kbit/s modem
- All American models had a 56 kbit/s
- All PAL models had a 33.6 kbit/s
- Broadband: these adapters are available separately and replace the removable modem
-
- HIT-401 "Broadband Adapter", the more common model, this used a Realtek 8139 chip and supported 10 and 100 Mbit speeds, this device was released in Japan.
- HIT-400: "Broadband Adapter", the more common model, this used a Realtek 8139 chip and supported 10 and 100 Mbit speeds, this device was released in US.
- HIT-300: "Lan Adapter", this version used a Fujitsu MB86967 chip and supported only 10 Mbit speed.
See Also: Dreamcast Broadband Adapter
Accessories
Visual Memory Unit
The Visual Memory Unit, or "VMU", was the Dreamcast memory card. It featured a monochrome LCD screen, a D-Pad, and two gaming buttons. The VMU could play mini-games loaded onto it from certain Dreamcast games, such as a Chao game transferable from Sonic Adventure. It could also display a list of the saved game data stored on it, and two VMUs could be connected together end-to-end to exchange data. Also while playing games such as Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 or Crazy Taxi messages like "Awesome", "Rad", and "Nice Combo" would appear on the VMU screen.
Standard memory cards could also be purchased without the additional features of the VMU. Most of these were manufactured by third-party companies, (such as the Nexus Memory Card), although Sega eventually released a 4X memory card. The 4X cards did not have the VMU screen or stand-alone abilities, but they had four times the space thanks to the ability to switch between four 200-block sectors.
The VMU design cannot be considered a full success, as it was fairly power-intensive, draining the two watch batteries at an alarmingly fast rate, and the architecture could not be expanded. However, contrary to popular belief, the VMU does not need the batteries to retain the saved data once the VMU is disconnected from the controller, as it incorporates flash memory storage for this purpose — the batteries are only used when the VMU is disconnected from the controller in order to browse/exchange saved data and play mini-games in a handheld fashion away from the console.
Controller and Rumble Pack
Most Dreamcast games supported a rumble pack, or "Jump Pack", which was sold separately and could be plugged into the controller. In Japan, the Jump Pack was named the "Puru Puru Pack".
The Dreamcast controller featured a similar design to the Sega Saturn's analog controller, offering an analog stick, a D-pad, a Start button, four action buttons (labeled A, B, X, and Y, two buttons less than the Saturn), and two analog triggers on the underside. It also contained two slots which could hold memory cards or the rumble pack, with a window on the front of the controller through which the VMU's display could be seen. The Dreamcast controller was somewhat larger than many other controllers, and some players found it difficult to hold. Other players complained about the odd positioning of its controller cord, which comes out from the bottom of the controller.
VGA Adapter
Unique to Dreamcast was a VGA adapter for output to a computer display or HDTV compatible sets in true 480p, providing much better quality than a standard television set. Not all games were compatible with the VGA adapter, but work-arounds existed to trick all but a handful of games into working with it. There are also certain models of the VGA adapter that have Composite and S-Video out, which is helpful those games that do not support VGA.
Dreamcast mouse and keyboard
Dreamcast supported a mouse as well as a keyboard, which were useful when using the included web browser (fully functional), and also supported by certain games such as The Typing of the Dead, Quake 3, Phantasy Star Online and Railroad Tycoon 2. Other games such as REZ offered undocumented mouse support.
Fishing Rod
A motion sensitive fishing rod was released for the few fishing games on the system. The fishing rod can actually be used with SoulCalibur and Tennis 2k2 like the Wii Remote.
Microphone
There was a microphone peripheral used for version 2.6 of the Planetweb web browser (providing long distance calling support), the European Planet Ring collection, Alien Front Online, and Seaman, the first console game to use speech recognition in the U.S.
Lightgun
Sega also produced a light gun for the system, although this was not sold in the United States, possibly because Sega did not want its name on a gun in light of recent school shootings (the Columbine High School massacre). American versions of light gun games even blocked out using the official gun. However, several third parties made compatible guns for the American Dreamcast. One of them was Mad Catz's Dream Blaster which became the official Sega Dreamcast light gun for use in the United States. The games that did not work in United States with the official Dreamcast light gun were The House of the Dead 2 and Confidential Mission. Other light gun compatible games were Death Crimson OX and its Japanese prequel Death Crimson 2, Virtua Cop 2 on the Sega Smash Pack, and a light gun minigame in Demolition Racer No Exit.
-
Arcade Stick
A heavy-duty Arcade Stick was put out by Sega, featuring a digital joystick with six buttons using the same microswitch assemblies as commercial arcade machines. Although it could not be used for many Dreamcast games due to the lack of an analog joystick, it was well-received and helped cement Dreamcast's reputation for playing 2D shooters and fighting games. Adaptors are now available to use the Arcade Stick on other hardware platforms.
Third-party sticks were also made, like the ASCII Dreamcast fighting pad, which some regard as having a more comfortable 6-button configuration and a more precise digital direction pad.
Twin Sticks
A twin stick peripheral was released specifically for use with the game Virtual-On. This add-on mimicked the original dual arcade stick setup and made gameplay much more precise. This peripheral is extremely rare and often quite expensive.
Dreameye
Sega developed the Dreameye, a digital camera for Dreamcast, but it was only released in Japan.
Dream Karaoke
Developed as a Karaoke add-on for the Dreamcast by Sega and released only in Japan. It included a Microphone and built in modem (due to Japanese Dreamcast's not including the modems) It would download Karaoke songs onto the system to be played; however, it could not save any songs so you had to re-download the songs if you wanted to play them again. The servers for the system went offline in 2006.
Samba de Amigo controller
Sega developed a special maraca controller for the Samba de Amigo music game.
Densha De Go! 2 controller
A special controller made specific to Densha De Go! 2 only. The controller was only available in Japan and is very rare because of the few numbers produced.
Canceled Accessories
Toward the end of Dreamcast's lifespan, Sega created and displayed prototypes of a high-capacity VMU/MP3 player, DVD player, and Zip drive peripherals. None of these items were ever released.
Games
- See also: List of Dreamcast games
As of November 2007, the Dreamcast has more than 325 official games available in its library. Over 100 games were released only in Japan. [7]
Copying
The Dreamcast's proprietary GD-ROM format served as a means of copy protection. It was ultimately circumvented. By using a combination of reverse-engineering and exploits in firmware, a standard CD could boot code in the Dreamcast BIOS to enable multimedia functions. This utilized functionality designed for Mil-CD a special type of multimedia CD released to the Japanese market. Soon, creations such as the Utopia bootdisk appeared, which allowed the ability to boot burned CD games. Mil-CD support was removed from the final Dreamcast revision.
Recently it has been rumored that CD-R games on Dreamcast damage the console. The laser has to check the CD-R twice, making the Dreamcast read the CD-R at 6x instead of 12x. This wears out the laser quickly, and it is also rumored to destroy the motor that spins the GD-Rom.
The benefits of the GD-ROM are rendered obselete, however, if the .iso can fit on a regular consumer CD-R which was usually achieved by hacking groups by downsampling audio and video files so the contents of certain games could fit a 80-min 700MB CD-R.
Online
- See also: List of Dreamcast network games
The Dreamcast was composed of online servers run by SegaNet, Dreamarena, and GameSpy networks. Online servers were sustained by the lifespan of the system although in Japan it was generally considered as a more popular online system because of its superior arcade game play. Hence more available network modes in games such as Frame Gride, Tech Romancer, and Project Justice. Dreamcast was previously online before the emergence of online play upon its release. Browser technology was made by independent companies such as Planetweb in order to customize the Dreamcast web service into standard HTML coding. This as well as Java, was available for uploads, movies, and mouse support in its later browsers. Dreamarena came with games such as Sonic Adventure, and Chu Chu Rocket while Planetweb offered free browsers with the Dreamcast demo disc inside the Official Dreamcast Magazine. Its final browser, Planetweb version 3.0, was available with all the support and was sold separately.
There are still six online games available: Phantasy Star Online, which is run via the private server at www.schtserv.com; 4x4 Evolution, which is run by Gamespy, though you will always be able to play games via IP address; Starlancer, which is also run by Gamespy, though there have been reports saying that this game is also going to be forever accessed online; Quake III Arena, which can be ran via a home server on Linux or Windows; Maximum Pool, ran by home servers as well; and SEGA Swirl, which is a strategy game where scores are sent via e-mail to your opponent.
Independent Software
- See also: List of commercially released independently developed Dreamcast games
The Dreamcast continues to have a modest hacking enthusiast community. The availability of the KallistiOS software development kit on the Internet, as well as ports of Linux[8] and NetBSD/Dreamcast[9] operating systems, gave programmers a selection of familiar development tools to work with.
KallistiOS is a homebrew minimal operating system that offers support for a majority of the Dreamcast's hardware and peripherals. Its license allows hobbyist programmers to release games created with this SDK to be released commercially. Recent examples being Cryptic Allusion's Feet of Fury (2003), S+F Software's Inhabitants (2005), JMD's Maqiupai (2005), Harmlesslion's Cool Herders (2006), and NG:DEV.TEAM's Last Hope (2007).
Using KallistiOS, many free games, emulators and other tools such as MP3 and DivX players and image viewers have been ported to or written for the console, taking advantage of the relative ease with which a home user can burn a CD that can be booted by any unmodified Dreamcast. One of the unusual but interesting hack examples is QNX Dreamcast Project.[10]
Using the free KallistiOS SDK, a port of the Neo Geo independent game Last Hope, developed by NG:DEV.TEAM and published by redspotgames was sold via various online stores and retailers in Japan and Hong Kong on January 31, 2007.[11] redspotgames is the last company remaining that produces commercial Dreamcast games. Their upcoming game Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles will be released by the end of 2008.
In popular culture
- As part of Sega's promotions of the Dreamcast in Europe, the company sponsored four European football clubs: English team Arsenal F.C.,[12] French team AS Saint-Étienne,[13] Italian team U.C. Sampdoria[14] and Spanish club Deportivo de La Coruña.[15]
- Sega was a sponsor of the 1999 and 2000 MTV Video Music Awards. During the 2000 program, Ulala (of Space Channel 5 fame) announced the nominees for the Viewers' Choice category.citation needed
- The plot of the fourth season episode of South Park entitled "The Tooth Fairy Tats 2000" centers around the children trying to gather enough money to buy a Dreamcast.
- In MTV's short running show Doggy Fizzle Televizzle, Snoop Doggy Dogg had a skit where he was making demands to police for a crime he committed, and one of the demands was "a Dreamcast with a blue controller".
- Mega64, a comedy show parodying video games, made a song parody about the history of Dreamcast done in the style of Nuthin' but a "G" Thang by Dr. Dre.citation needed
- The rap artist Del is seen with a Dreamcast controller on the cover of his album Phoney Phranchise.citation needed
- In the movie The Forbidden Kingdom, a Dreamcast is visible on Jason's shelf near the beginning of the movie.
- In the anime show Full Moon wo Sagashite, one of the characters, Takuto Kira, makes a reference to a Dreamcast keyboard when the main character, Mitsuki Kouyama, mishears the kanji in a Japanese word.
- In the TV show My Wife And Kids a Dreamcast can be seen on the lounge table and is even played in some episodes. It was soon replaced with a Gamecube and then a Playstation 2.
- In the film Malibu's Most Wanted, one of the gangsters admits to owning a "Gamecast," an obvious knockoff alluding to the Game Cube and Dreamcast console systems.
- At the start of the music video for the song E.I. by hip hop artist, Nelly, a Dreamcast can be seen being played by Nelly and another person in the video.
References
External links
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