Yesterday, it was
the 17
th anniversary of the SEGA Dreamcast in the U.S. and
the occasion caused Twitter and Faceback to fill with birthday
greetings for the console that refuses to die. If you're reading this
you are probably well aware of the stubborn and ever-growing
“Dreamcast Scene”, but if this is news to you then I'll give you
a quick overview.
After SEGA stopped
supporting their last home console, homebrew developers made tools to
create games for it, and every year more and more games created by
indie developers are released. On top of that, the Dreamcast
continues to gain more and more online multiplayer games as aspiring
geniuses reverse engineer the old game servers. Just in the past year
alone, Chu Chu Rocket, Toy Racer (dial up), PAL Quake 3 and The Next
Tetris, have returned from the dead. On the horizon is Alien Front
Online, and there are sure to be more to come. There are weekly game
nights scheduled for both the U.S. and UK, and well over 100 people
now regularly play online. Which is quite some achievement
considering you have to actually do some soldering to get the dial-up
Dreamcast to connect in a fibre-optic world.
In summary, the
Dreamcast isn't dead, it's alive and well. Sure it doesn't compete
with current gen consoles but no other console in history has had as
much community support. Which brings me onto the main topic of the
article; SEGA should bring the Dreamcast back.
