10 Long years....

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

So guys it's time....

10 years, It kinda makes me feel old considering I'm 17 (At the time of this writing) but I'd be lying if I said that I got in on the Dreamcast when it was new and on store shelves. The clearest memory I have of the Dreamcast during it's heyday is from a day in Nov./Dec. 99' around when the Wal-Mart in our town opened up and I first laid my hands on Sonic Adventure, but as young and stupid kids do I stupidly forgot to read what the console's name was and forgot all about it. Fast forward to 2004 and I finally truly put my hands on a Dreamcast from a gamers perspective....

It was simply put, amazing....

Never before had I experienced a console with such an amount of games all with identities uniquely their own: Crazy Taxi, Soul Calibur, Jet Grind/Set Radio, Shenmue, Marve l Vs. Capcom, Street Fighter III, REZ, Cosmic Smash; the list goes on and on. The games were an experiment in individuality, creativity, gameplay, quirkiness and sheer fun and in the years following the first time I played the machine it's stuck with me and I haven't yet played anything quite like it.

But, what makes it so important and why SEGA and the Dreamcast will never be forgotten to me is simply the fact that after I first played it it cemented my decision that for the rest of my life, whatever I may do, I wanted it to be in the gaming industry.

So, now I sit here at my computer, at the anniversary of the Dreamcast's release and have to say thank you, SEGA. You helped me finish out the obsession that started when I first played an NES years before and gave me a dedication to create, promote, enable or publish whatever games I can that capture or reach the level of what I experienced when I first played your final swan song to nerds, geeks and anyone who's ever picked up a controller. But for the rest of my life wherever I go I'll carry the memories and experiences that the Dreamcast gave me.

In the end though the brightest stars burn out the fastest and the Dreamcast was quite the star, even given it's shortcomings and misguided efforts to provide an experience for only the core gamer audience. But reality and time wait for no one and the PlayStation had the mass public. A little over a year and a half later it was dead, slaughtered by the impregnable juggernaut that was the PlayStation 2.

We'll never know what else the Dreamcast may have given us had it lived just a bit longer in the eyes of the public consciousness, but I'll cling to what you gave us and treasure each moment I have with it.

From a fan that gets way too wordy and tends to ramble on long after their point gets out all I have to say is thanks, SEGA.

-Kevin

[Upsidedown Fuji]

Don't make me feel so old! I bought the dreamcast during my first week of college and I was 18 at that time... XD

Thank you Dreamcast for being there after high school graduation. I would have completely went to PC gaming if it weren't for you.

I remember reading about it on the interet about a year before its launch. Drooling over leaked screen shots, prototype designs, etc. I haven`t enjoyed a system launch as much as my Dreamcast launch setup with Sonic Adventure, Soul Calibur, and Ready to Rumble Boxing. I put so much money into it in the first couple months.

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

It's always cool to hear launch day stories for older systems.

[hashiriya1]

I remember when I got my Dreamcast back in 99. My first games were Sonic Adventure and Monaco Grand Prix. My last Dreamcast game was Triggerheart Exelica.

[MrPopo]

I remember when we got our Dreamcast. My brother had just gotten his Bar Mitzvah money and my mom was going to let him spend about $300 or so and put the rest in a few CDs. I bought an N64 with mine and now my brother wanted to get a new console with his. I kept trying to convince him to wait the 6 months or so for the PS2 to launch, as I knew that Sega had been fucking up hardcore in the market while Sony had made a killing. The Gamecube was still the Dolphin and a while off, so I figured a PS2 would be the best investment. Of course, my brother is the kind of person who can't wait. If he wants to spend money he'll find something to spend it on, even if he knows something he wants more is coming soon.

So we got the Dreamcast, the Sega Sports edition. We ended up only getting a few extra games for it. There was Ready 2 Rumble Boxing 2, Tony Hawk 2, and I think that's it aside from the packins. I tried out Shenmue and found that I couldn't get into it. About a year later Sega discontinued it, like I figured.

Honestly, it wasn't until recently that I felt the Dreamcast had enough games to be worth a purchase. I got into fighters, which gave me about four titles, and then snagged the three RPGs on the system that aren't Shenmue.

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

Honestly, it wasn't until recently that I felt the Dreamcast had enough games to be worth a purchase. I got into fighters, which gave me about four titles, and then snagged the three RPGs on the system that aren't Shenmue.

Definitely give the system a shot, it's an amazing machine for arcade ports and has a ton of great action/adventure games as well.

[Inazuma]

I was always heavily into gaming and wasn't bothered much by Sega's recent hardware fuck ups so I had planned on buying the Dreamcast on launch day for as long as I remember. Also, I was able to play Sonic Adventure and Power Stone a few weeks in advance and those games blew me away.

This might be a little embarrassing but this seems like a good time to say it. I actually dropped out of college so I could play more PSO on the Dreamcast. That was in early 2001, I think. PSO was the most amazing thing I had ever seen and pretty much devoted my life to it and all it's sequels up until Phantasy Star Universe: Illuminus no Yabou. I played somewhere around 14 thousand hours between the various PSO/PSU games from 2001 until 2009. From PSO Blue Burst and onward I played the Japanese versions and quickly became fluent in Japanese because I felt a strong need to learn it. It's a lot of hours but I didn't do much else during that time, or play many other games. I quit PSU cold turkey a few months ago and now I'm back to buying/playing everything like the old days.

The Dreamcast will always have a special place in my heart as the console that had the biggest impact on my life.

[samuraifez]

^ Well, uh, at least you learned Japanese!

For my Dreamcast anecdote, I remember playing the demo kiosk at a Blockbuster or some such place right before it came out. Needless to say, I was quite impressed. Sonic Adventure was MINDBLOWING (HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THAT WHALE!!) and Ready 2 Rumble was adequate. Unfourtunately, I was still at the mercy of my mothers/grandmamas wallet, so I didn't get a Dreamcast until a few years after it was killed off (for a mere $20 from my cousin).

I remember watching one of those "It's Thinking" commercials in 2000 with some other folks and saying WHOOOA I WANT ONE OF THOSE.

How I wish the little white box that couldn't would have stuck around a while longer, but honestly, it seems like it eventually would have been crushed beneath the PS2 goliath at some point or another.

Come back to the home console business, Sega!

[Alpinex2]

I was 19 and stood in line at a local gamestop to buy it. Good times.

[Rounin]

Living in England I had to wait a little longer than you guys October 14, I was 15 at the time I had saved up all my birthday and paper round money to buy it. This was the first time I had brought a console on lunch day I waited in the line for what seemed like hours I got Sonic Adventure bundled in with the console and I also picked up Virtua Fighter 3.