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Dreamcast On a Chip

Posted by Zonk on from the late-lamented-console-casualty dept.

rsw writes "I'm still reeling from Sega's decision to discontinue the greatest console ever made. So when I saw this story about a forthcoming Dreamcast-on-a-chip, my thoughts turned immediately to the possibilities: a portable 2nd-generation backwards-compatible Dreamcast?"

2 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. Is Sega Coming Back to the Hardware Business? by blueZhift · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Hmmm, I gotten used to stories here on /. about people doing all sorts of technically interesting things, like Unix on a GBA, for example. But this story isn't about some hobbyist with too much time on their hands. Presumably, Renesas would like to make some money on their work. So what is going on here? Who would be interested in a souped up DC on a chip? Who would know what to do with it? Hmmm, could it be....Sega (now Sega-Sammy I believe)!?

    Why not? This chip could be the basis for cheap arcade boards, or maybe a handheld. The arcade angle is a bit more believable as the handheld battle heating up between Nintendo and Sony makes the field too crowded (and don't forget Nokia). A new console though would not be out of the question. The small chip might even make it possible to sell the console hardware (DCtwo anyone?) at a profit. And backwards compatibility to the DC library is very easy, rereleases of popular titles could be profitable too. Just some things that make you go, hmmmm.

    --
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  2. Re:Stick it in DVD players if it's cheap enough by mrgreen4242 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    That's a really interesting idea. Could let DVDs come with a bonus feature that is a game you play right from the settop DVD player. Also, if I am not mistaken, the Dreamcast could play MPEG2 streams without any issues, so one would think it could handle doing the decoding and post-processing for DVD playback as well. With the subtraction of cost for the MPEG decoder, the addition of this couldn't be THAT high... cheap enough to compete with the current generation of consoles easily.

    The trick would be to get several major DVD distributers (FOX, MGM, etc.) to agree on the standard for the 'interactive game bonus features' so that lots of hardware makers could make and sell this as a new DVD+ or something... anywho, neat idea.