Dreamcast

The Dreamcast (ドリームキャスト Dorīmukyasuto?) is a sixth bearing video bold animate which was appear by Sega in backward 1998 in Japan and in September 1999 in added territories. It was the aboriginal access in the sixth bearing of video bold consoles, above-mentioned Sony's PlayStation 2, Microsoft's Xbox and the Nintendo GameCube.

Dreamcast sales were absolute during launch, but because of the able antagonism from battling Sony which appear the PlayStation 2, the Dreamcast absent abundant momentum. When the Xbox and GameCube were announced, Sega came to the ability that it did not accept the assets to attempt and discontinued the Dreamcast in March 20011 which apparent its abandonment from the animate accouterments business, authoritative it the company's final console. Abutment of the arrangement connected in Europe and Oceania until the end of 2002,5 while in Japan, consoles were still awash until 2007 and fresh accountant amateur connected to be released.6 10.6 actor units were awash worldwide, as of 2002.2

Despite its abbreviate lifespan, the Dreamcast has garnered band cachet for its history and features. It saw the absolution of abounding fresh bold alternation which accept been advised artistic and innovative, such as Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, and Shenmue.7 The animate itself was broadly hailed as advanced of its time, and is still captivated in aerial attention for beat online animate gaming; it was the aboriginal animate to accommodate a congenital modem and Internet abutment for online play.89 To date, the animate is still accurate through assorted MIL-CD absolute releases.10

Development

n 1997, the Sega Saturn was disturbing in North America, and Sega of America admiral Bernie Stolar was acute Sega's Japanese address to advance a fresh platform. Two aggressive teams were tasked with developing the console–a skunkworks accumulation headed by IBM researcher Tatsuo Yamamoto and addition aggregation led by Sega accouterments architect Hideki Sato.

Sato and his accumulation chose the Hitachi SH4 processor architectonics and the VideoLogic PowerVR2 cartoon processor for their prototype. Yamamoto and his Skunkworks accumulation additionally autonomous for the SH4, but with 3dfx hardware. Initially, Sega absitively to use Yamamoto's architecture and appropriate to 3Dfx that they would be application their accouterments in the accessible console, but Sega afterwards autonomous to use the PowerVR accouterments of Sato's design. This was attributed to 3Dfx aperture capacity and abstruse blueprint of the then-secret Dreamcast activity back declaring their Initial Public Offering11 in June 1997, a move which readers on Gamespy.com called "one of the dumbest mistakes in video bold history".12 Sega's about-face in architecture prompted a accusation by 3dfx that was eventually settled.1314

With Sega's machine, no operating arrangement resides in the accessory until it is loaded in on a disc with anniversary game. The advantage, Sega admiral say, is that developers can consistently address articles that use the adaptation of an operating arrangement with the newest appearance and achievement enhancements. The operating arrangement acclimated by some Dreamcast titles was developed by Microsoft afterwards two years of assignment with Sega. It was an optimized adaptation of Windows CE acknowledging DirectX. According to Richard Doherty, admiral of Envisioneering Group, "Microsoft had initially capital Windows CE to be Dreamcast's capital operating system. It isn't." 15 The Dreamcast's boot-up arrangement was additionally composed by able Japanese artist Ryuichi Sakamoto.16

Launch

The Dreamcast was appear in November 1998 in Japan; on September 9, 1999 in North America and on October 14, 1999 in Europe and November 30, 1999 in Australia. Despite problems with the Japanese launch,9 the system's barrage in the United States was successful. In the US alone, a almanac 300,000 units had been pre-ordered9 and Sega awash 500,000 consoles in aloof two weeks (including a almanac 225,132 awash during the aboriginal 24 hours). In fact, due to active sales and accouterments shortages, Sega was clumsy to accomplish all of the beforehand orders. Sega accepted that it fabricated US$98.4 actor on accumulated accouterments andcomputer application sales with Dreamcast afterward the September 9, 1999 launch.17 Four canicule afterwards its barrage in the US, Sega declared that 372,000 units were awash bringing in US$132 actor in sales.9

Launch titles such as Soul Calibur, Sonic Adventure, Power Stone, Hydro Thunder, Marvel vs. Capcom, The House of the Dead 2, and NFL 2K helped Dreamcast accomplish in the aboriginal year.18 Sega Sports titles helped ample the abandoned larboard by a abridgement of Electronic Arts sports amateur on the system.19 Dreamcast sales grew 156.5% from July 23, 2000 to September 30, 2000 putting Sega advanced of the Nintendo 64 in that period.20 However, the barrage of Sony's PlayStation 2 that year apparent the alpha of the end for the Dreamcast.21

End of production

On January 31, 2001, Sega appear that they were alternate Dreamcast assembly by March of that year.1 The aftermost North American absolution was NHL 2K2, which was appear in February 2002. With SEGA announcement no affairs to advance a next-generation almsman to Dreamcast, this was Sega's aftermost attack into the home animate business. According to Bernie Stolar, above President and CEO of Sega of America, the Dreamcast was discontinued because the fresh armchair of Sega capital the aggregation to focus on software.22

Sega Europe connected to abutment the Dreamcast until mid 2002, with BigBen Interactive publishing the aftermost accumulation of PAL titles such as Evil Twin: Cyprien's Chronicles, Cannon Spike, Heavy Metal: Geomatrix, Razor Freestyle Scooter and Conflict Zone 5 During the afterward years, unreleased amateur like Propeller Arena, Hellgate, and Half-Life were leaked to the Internet in about completed, playable forms.citation needed

Although assembly of the Dreamcast concluded in 2001, Sega of Japan connected affairs refurbished systems and absolution fresh amateur until 2007. Many of the amateur were initially developed for Sega's NAOMI arcade hardware, including Sega's final first-party Dreamcast game, Sonic Team's Puyo Puyo Fever, appear on February 24, 2004.6

The aftermost Dreamcast units were awash through the Sega Direct analysis of Japan in aboriginal 2006. These refurbished units were arranged with Radilgy6 and a buzz card. The aftermost Dreamcast amateur appear by Sega of Japan were the 2007 releases Trigger Heart Exelica and Karous.6

Three added NAOMI amateur Exzeal, Illmatic Envelope: Illvelo and Mamonoro were declared to be ported to the Dreamcast, about Sega abruptly absitively to abandon the assembly of GD-ROM's.23

The Dreamcast continues to be accurate by homebrew developers. Thousands of freeware and accessible antecedent applications accept been appear back the end of production. Even afterwards 2007, fresh bartering amateur were appear (now on CD-ROM instead of GD-ROM and after official SEGA license), best conspicuously Rush Rush Rally Racing and Aftermost Hope.

Legacy

The Dreamcast alien abundant appearance that would be accepted to approaching consoles. All models were alien with modems acceptance users to browse the net and comedy amateur online via committed server through SegaNet (Dreamarena in Europe), a forerunner to casework such as Xbox Live. ChuChu Rocket! was Sonic Team's aboriginal online multiplayer game. Alien Front Online was the aboriginal online animate bold to affection alive in-game articulation chat. It additionally featured downloadable content, such as items and missions for amateur such as Phantasy Star Online and Skies of Arcadia. Jet Set Radio, a Dreamcast original, affected cel-shaded graphics. Shenmue had alien a bold with all-inclusive ambit and Seaman was one of the aboriginal basic pet amateur for a console.24 In 2009, IGN called the Dreamcast the 8th greatest video bold animate of all time, out of a acreage of 25.25

Independent bartering amateur such as Feet of Fury, Last Hope and DUX accept additionally been released.26 On June 10, 2010, at E3 Sega appear that Dreamcast titles would anon be accessible on Xbox Alive Arcade and PlayStation Network. The aboriginal two titles to be appear are Sonic Adventure and Crazy Taxi, followed by Sega Bass Fishing and Space Channel 5 Part 2.27

Hardware

The system's processor is a 200 MHz SH-4 with an on-die 128-bit agent cartoon engine, 360 MIPS and 1.4 GFLOPS (single precision), application the agent cartoon engine. The cartoon accouterments is a PowerVR2 CLX2 chipset, able of 7.0 actor polygons/second aiguille achievement and trilinear filtering. Cartoon accouterments furnishings accommodate gouraud shading, z-buffering, anti-aliasing, per-pixel airiness allocation (also accepted as adjustment absolute translucency) and bang mapping. The arrangement supports about 16.78 actor colors (24-bit) blush achievement and displays interlaced or accelerating browse video at 640 × 480 video resolution.

For sound, the arrangement appearance a Yamaha AICA Complete Processor with a 32-Bit ARM7 RISC CPU operating at 45 MHz,28 64 approach PCM/ADPCM adornment (4:1 compression), XG MIDI abutment and 128 footfall DSP.

The Dreamcast has 16 MB 64 Bit 100 MHz capital RAM, 8 MB 4 × 16-bit 100 MHz video RAM and 2 MB 16-bit 66 MHz complete RAM.footnotes 1 The accouterments supports VQ arrangement compression at either asymptotically 2 bpp or alike 1 bpp 29

The arrangement reads media application a 12x best acceleration (Constant Angular Velocity) Yamaha GD-ROM Drive.

Accessories

One of the best notable accessories for the Dreamcast was the VGA adapter, acceptance Dreamcast amateur to be played on computer displays or High-definition television sets in 480p (progressive scan) In addition, added accessories included a cavernous jump pak and a VMU accent which was a anamnesis agenda with a baby awning that provided a array of functions for assorted games. Also fabricated accessible for specific amateur were the arcade stick and ablaze gun controllers.

In best regions, the Dreamcast included a disposable modem. The aboriginal Asia/Japan archetypal and all PAL models had a alteration amount of 33.6 kbit/s, while consoles awash in Japan and the US afterwards September 9, 1999 featured a 56 kbit/s modem. Brazilian models bogus beneath authorization by Tec Toy did not accommodate a modem, which was accessible separately. The approved modem could be replaced with the Dreamcast Broadband Adapter, that was awash separately. This transferred the dial-up access to a accelerated broadband.

A appropriate articulation cable was produced acceptance the Dreamcast to collaborate with the Neo Geo Pocket Color,3031 but the Neo Geo Pocket Color was bootless in western regions.clarification needed In addition, actual few amateur took advantage of this feature.

Games

As of November 2007, the Dreamcast has 688 official amateur attainable in its library, and unofficial, absolute amateur abide to be appear by assertive companies.32 Amateur were awash in jewel cases. In Europe, the jewel cases were alert as blubbery as their North American counterparts, possibly to acquiesce added amplitude for thick, multilingual apprenticeship manuals. Unlike US jewel cases usually featuring one door, European cases had two doors and could abundance two disks.

Among the official amateur are Dreamcast's online amateur that could be played over the Internet. The online servers were run by SegaNet, Dreamarena, and GameSpy networks. Online bold abutment was decidedly accepted in Japan, with releases of arrangement accordant amateur such as Tech Romancer and Project Justice. Web browsers were developed by absolute companies such as Planetweb to acquiesce admission to web sites and included appearance like Java, uploads, movies, and abrasion support. Dreamarena came with amateur such as Sonic Adventure and ChuChu Rocket!.

There are six amateur that can still be played online. Quake III Arena and Maximum Pool are still attainable via assorted servers. 4x4 Evolution and Starlancer are still online through Gamespy. SEGA Swirl can be additionally be played online with its comedy by e-mail game. Phantasy Star Online has clandestine servers.

Models

Due to its abbreviate assembly span, alone a few official models were released. The primary models appear in 1999 featured a blah tint. The after archetypal disc drives added added aegis adjoin piracy by abnegation to cossack from MIL-CD discs (audio/data). Pirates formed about that brake by afire self-bootable amateur as data/data.

Some appropriate Dreamcast models were appear in assertive regions. In North America, a bound archetype atramentous Dreamcast was appear with a Sega Sports logo beneath the Dreamcast logo on the lid with analogous Sega Sports-branded atramentous controllers. Electronics Boutique offered a dejected Dreamcast through its website.

There were abounding Japan-only models made, including a Sakura Taisen version. A Hello Kitty adaptation was additionally appear in 2000, which, due to its bound production, has become an acutely attenuate collector's piece. The amalgamation contains a keyboard, controller, VMU, mouse, and a Hello Kitty trivia game. Two bound archetype Dreamcast models based on Capcom's Resident Evil Code: Veronica bold were additionally released, one a bright blush "Claire Redfield" archetypal and VMU, and the added a bright aphotic dejected archetypal and VMU; both included a archetype of the game. The R7 archetypal ("Regulation#7", apropos to the adjustment seven in the Japanese chastening cipher pertaining to businesses affecting accessible morals) consisted of a appropriate refurbished Dreamcast assemblage that was originally acclimated as a arrangement animate in Japanese pachinko parlors, in a anew advised atramentous case. The final Dreamcast models were appear in gold.