Today the Dreamcast turns 16 and It’s still one of the BEST console ever made

Back in 1999 Sega released the one system that would be there greatest achievement and the unforeseen downfall it was the Sega Dreamcast. At that time Sony still held 60 percent of the overall video game market share in North America with the PlayStation, but the Dreamcast still had a successful launch. It also gave the fans Sonic in a beautiful package unlike anything we had seen to date. Also games such as Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Crazy Taxi, and 2k Football which helped to give their fans what they wanted and needed.

Now the decline started with many reasons like the hype for the PS2, a lack of support from EA and Squaresoft, considered the most popular third-parties in the U.S. and Japan respectively, and piracy of games. This is what help lead the company to going from software and away from hardware.

The Dreamcast offered a neat thing called a VMU  (or “Visual Memory Unit”) that plugs right into the controller that with its small LCD screen would display game pics, animations and could be used for some games as a way to boost your games on the go with simple games and the controller also let you plug in a Jump Pack as well for that real game feeling. Some of the other fun accessories included a microphone, arcade-style joysticks for fighting games, Sega fishing “reel and rod” motion controller and a keyboard for text entry.

Now all this has not stopped the love for this system (I myself own 2) and even to this day, games are still being developed for the Dreamcast as seen here. We did a post on Aug 24 this year about a game titled Ghost Blade which will be available September 27th 2015 and exclusively for the Sega Dreamcast , and many have been made since it’s discontinuation in 2001 such as Gunlord, Rush Rush Rally Racing, and Elysian Shadows  just to name a few.

You can find a full list here.

 

Some of the best games have been on this system and even ported to other systems like Grandia II, Skies of Arcadia, and Shenmue and that game is getting it’s 3rd game worked on as i type this so the love for this system will never die.

All I have to say is this is one system that will still be played by me and many others for years to come.

I hope you enjoyed reading and as always do it for the love of the game!!