Question about Dreamcast jewel cases

[Kevman]

So I got a dreamcast for christmas and now I need some games. I found a seller on eBay who says he/she replaces the cases for the Dreamcast games they sell. Being the OCD person I am I tend to be picky when it comes to everything being original. Did Dreamcast games have just plain jewel cases or was there any kind of special branding that would be missing if I bought these games?

The eBay item if anybody wants to know:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT

[Breetai]

I only know about the Japanese cases.

-some of the jewel cases are just regular white (or clear, maybe sometimes black... I'm not sure about black) jewel cases and would be totally fine to use replacement cases on.
-some about a bit thicker, and would be very difficult to replace. The reason they are thicker is to accommodate this instruction manuals. You'll notice that the tabs to hold the manuals in place have a lot more space between the front of the case then usual.

It doesn't bother me personally to have replaced cases, but if it bothers you then now you know what to look for. I don't know of any lists what show which games use special cases and which ones don't. Also, the white DC cases have rivets on the white part (like PC Engine CD cases, if you're familiar with those). I'm not sure how common these would be on replacement cases.

[Hobie-wan]

They're just standard jewel cases with a clear tray for all of the single disc US releases AFAIK. The teeth on the tray bit all all different styles in the ones I have, so no, there's no special anything to look for as long as they have clear trays.

[Zandengoff]

Good thing you asked. There is something that you would notice right away. Even though the dreamcast used standard CD cases in the US, it was not a compact disk, but a GD-Rom and thus could not bear the compact disk markings that are on every other CD case sold. Normally if you open a standard jewel case, you will see a rectangular logo that is embedded in the plastic around the disk holding slot. On a dreamcast case, the rectangular logos are blank. This is true for all US cases. What I end up doing is taking broken dreamcast cases and stealing the plastic CD side of the case and combining the other pieces from a standard jewel case to make a complete repaired dreamcast case. As all the other pieces are the same.

[Kevman]

Good thing you asked. There is something that you would notice right away. Even though the dreamcast used standard CD cases in the US, it was not a compact disk, but a GD-Rom and thus could not bear the compact disk markings that are on every other CD case sold. Normally if you open a standard jewel case, you will see a rectangular logo that is embedded in the plastic around the disk holding slot. On a dreamcast case, the rectangular logos are blank. This is true for all US cases. What I end up doing is taking broken dreamcast cases and stealing the plastic CD side of the case and combining the other pieces from a standard jewel case to make a complete repaired dreamcast case. As all the other pieces are the same.

This is very helpful. Thank you!

Guess I'll keep looking. No biggie since his prices weren't the best anyway I was just looking to get a bunch of games in one fell swoop.

[Hobie-wan]

Good thing you asked. There is something that you would notice right away. Even though the dreamcast used standard CD cases in the US, it was not a compact disk, but a GD-Rom and thus could not bear the compact disk markings that are on every other CD case sold. Normally if you open a standard jewel case, you will see a rectangular logo that is embedded in the plastic around the disk holding slot. On a dreamcast case, the rectangular logos are blank. This is true for all US cases. What I end up doing is taking broken dreamcast cases and stealing the plastic CD side of the case and combining the other pieces from a standard jewel case to make a complete repaired dreamcast case. As all the other pieces are the same.

This is very helpful. Thank you!

Guess I'll keep looking. No biggie since his prices weren't the best anyway I was just looking to get a bunch of games in one fell swoop.

Good point. You could ask if someone's just replacing the outer shell and keeping the inner tray though. That's what I've done with mine. Heck, it seems a waste to replace the case before shipping anyway unless they're being sent in a box.

[Hateshinai]

However the PAL boxes are totally different and really thick for no good reason (except maybe to fit a multi-language manual).