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Dreamcast: Ahead of its Time

Author	Stuart Andrews
Published	27th Apr 2008
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Five years ago the Dreamcast name was associated with Sega's dismal failure to compete with the PlayStation 2. Some blame the weakness of Sega's marketing, some blame the strength of Sony's, while others blame the likes of EA and Activision for never giving the machine the third-party support it needed. Whatever happened and whomever is to blame, Sega's final console shuffled off into obscurity at an embarrassing pace. The Arsenal shirts were no more, and only in Japan would the console hold much of an audience (the last Dreamcast game to launch in Japan was released in 2007!)

These days we look back on the console with a little more affection. The machine still has its fans - people who drag it out for a quick game of Soul Calibur or Samba de Amigo. What's more, the top-ten success of ports of House of the Dead or Sega Bass Fishing, not to mention the presence of Dreamcast-era characters in the popular Sega Superstar Tennis, points towards a growing nostalgia for the good old days. Just this March fans of the Dreamcast were hoaxed by a group of Phishers, showing how much love the console still commands.

Will Sega ever return to the console hardware market? Probably not, and rightly so. Since going software only, the company has gone from strength to strength. But next time somebody mentions Dreamcast, let's not lump it in with the 3DO, the Saturn or the Jaguar - let's treat it with the respect that it deserves. It might not have changed the world, but at least it gave us a taste of things to come.

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