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The Dreamcast's Final Death
Croakyvoice writes "The Dreamcast games Last, Hope Karous and Trigger Heart Exelica will the last officially licensed Sega games for the Dreamcast because from February Sega Japan plans to stop production of GDRoms. The death of the GDRom format will mean no more Dreamcast or Naomi Arcade games. The Dreamcast Community has sent emails to Sega Japan to ask for a rethink on this issue. From the article: 'This doesn't need to happen, as developers are fond of the NAOMI for its relative low cost, ease of production and accessibility, and straightforward ports to the Dreamcast home console. Warashi returned to the scroll shooting genre with Trigger Heart Exelica on NAOMI, and Milestone would likely gladly continue to produce further games following Karous on the system as well. Sega themselves have recently presented Dynamite Deka EX running on NAOMI. If GD-ROM production continues, there is a much greater chance that we'll see a home console port of this game on DC within a year.'"
Raise your hand if you're surprised they still make games for the Dreamcast. However, I'm in favor of anything that keeps an old console alive. I wish Nintendo would still produce SNES carts.
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That's sad that it's the end of the Sega-produced game era, but one reason the Dreamcast is so popular is that it's quite hackable, plays CDs also, and has a lot of user support. I use mine mainly to emulate older console systems like the NES, and it works great for that with CDs I burned myself. I don't see the hobby market for the Dreamcast going away any time soon.
Later models of Dreamcast don't boot the special multisession disks at all, for obvious reasons. There were a few legitimate music CDs that had Dreamcast content on them, but Sega sacrificed that feature to prevent piracy - a good decision, considering.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
This is why you use a tool to create a large amount of dummy space at the beginning of the image before burning it. By pushing out the data to the outer edge of the disc, you reduce the stress on the drive.
I've had my Dreamcast since US launch, and I've been using burned backups of Japanese stuff on it since then without issue.
So far the only thing that looks like it has a chance of displacing it is the Wii.
:-)
Funny you should mention this. I'm a big Dreamcast fan and recently the very happy owner of a Wii, and for reasons that I can't quite put my finger on the two systems remind me of each other.
The white case and Japanese UI aesthetic are obvious factors, but I think it goes beyond that. Neither system has the most powerful processor, but both are overflowing with creative engineering that goes beyond mere novelty, both are ideally suited to party play (IIRC the DC was the only system of its generation that easily supported 4 controllers, and for virtual console games the Wii could in theory support up to 8), both are IMHO the most fun consoles of their generation.
I fondly remember having absurd amounts of fun playing Bomberman with 4 players on the DC. It naturally follows that the first Virtual Console game I pulled down for the Wii was Bomberman '93.
I've never understood why the Dreamcast wasn't a runaway success, and the whole sad saga was like living in Bizzaro world where the better system is forgotten by the world. At the risk of sounding 'woo-woo', the Wii feels like the spiritual successor to the Dreamcast, and seeing the more innovative system finally getting the popularity it deserves this time around takes a lot of the bitterness off of the DC's ignominious end.
If they ever come out with Chu Chu Rocket for the Wii then all will truly be right with the world.
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
[Sarcasm mode]
Oh yes, because PS2 didn't have native hardware support:
[/Sarcasm mode]
PS2 did achieve a high polygon and fill rate (provided you didn't mind the simple blend modes) but it did use a hectare of silicon.
I could go on but I'm already bitter and twisted enough as it is.
Cripes, there are still games being made for the Atari 2600. http://www.atariage.com/store/index.php?main_page= index&cPath=21_85
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