Australian gamers are today celebrating the 10 year anniversary of Dreamcast. It is now a decade since Sega's last console was released in this country.
Sega's parting shot in the hardware industry was a spectacular failure in business terms, but the stylish machine is revered today as a cult hero for its high-quality software collection and countless pioneering features such as online gaming, handheld connectivity and VGA adapter.
The recent Dreamcast worship by many gamers around the world must make Sega simultaneously proud and angry. The Japanese gaming giant must feel frustrated that where today there is huge nostalgic affection, 10 years ago there was largely indifference.
In Australia the Dreamcast was burdened with a $499 price tag and the bumbling antics of distributor Ozisoft, which at the time had just been acquired by French company Infogrames.
While the American debut of the Dreamcast a month earlier was a huge success, the Australian launch was a very low-key affair, with little marketing or retail fanfare, and no official magazine to support the local launch. Dreamcast hardware was in limited supply, as were copies of some important games, while extra controllers and those dinky Visual Memory Units (which could not only save your games but also offer little LCD diversions) were virtually non-existent. It was also disappointing that the built-in modem was only 33kbps and users had to sign up with Telstra.
There was no one solitary reason why most gamers kept their wallets firmly shut.
Some clearly wanted to save their cash for the much-hyped PlayStation 2, which was powered by an "Emotion Engine" guaranteed to make anyone swoon. Others were simply tired of being burnt by Sega hardware, particularly the diabolical Mega CD and 32X add-ons for the Megadrive, and to a lesser extent the short-lived Saturn.
There was also worrying signs like the lack of support from industry behemoth Electronic Arts, what seemed to be a lack of financial commitment from Sega to ensure the console's success in terms of marketing, and the relatively disappointing Japanese sales of the machine. There was also relatively little interest from most players in online console gaming, especially with low-key pioneering online titles like Chu Chu Rocket and Phantasy Star Online.
Yet there are many who believe that the industry wouldn't be the same today without the Dreamcast. Peter Moore, former Sega of America president, recently blogged that its pioneering work was crucial. “I don’t think it is an overstatement to say that the Dreamcast and it’s online network laid the ground for what we all take for granted today – online game play, linking innumerable gamers from around the world to play, compete and collaborate, as well as enabling new content to be delivered in addition to that which was delivered on the disc.”
Of course, less than 18 months after its Australian launch, Sega had already conceded defeat and announced it would be exiting the hardware business and becoming a platform agnostic software developer. But in that short time gamers had been treated to many, many superb and innovative games.
Highlights of the Dreamcast roster included Jet Set Radio, Metropolis Street Racer, Soul Calibur, Crazy Taxi, Virtua Tennis, Resident Evil: Code: Veronica, Bangai-O, Skies of Arcadia, Power Stone, Shenmue, Rez, Samba de Amigo, Seaman and Space Channel 5, as well as popular fare like Sonic Adventure and the 2K Sports titles. Many are still great fun to play today.
Looking back it is obvious that Sega's first party games were the most bold and varied that the company had ever produced. Sega's stable of gaming auteurs had given the company a glorious send-off from the hardware business, one that is still worth celebrating today.