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The Dreamcast is Still Dead

Posted by Zonk on from the please-let-chu-chu-rocket-come-to-xbla dept.

00_NOP writes "Dreamcast lovers' hopes were raised earlier this month when it came to light that Sega had extended trade mark protection on the console's name. But hopes have now been dashed that we'll ever see another Dreamcast console, as even GameDaily's optimistic take on Sega's motivation makes clear. 'SEGA has no plans to get back into the hardware business, but we also want to protect our past and current brands. The trademark application was filed to protect our current and potential future use of the word DREAMCAST and to prevent other parties from using it in a way that could be confused or linked with SEGA.'"

5 of 131 comments (clear)

  1. What do you mean, still dead? by BenoitRen · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Dreamcast never really died. It kept getting new games, mostly in Japan. Then there's the whole homebrew game scene, of which some games get a commercial release once in a while.

  2. Re:Maybe they should make a console by flitty · · Score: 2, Informative

    No.

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    Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
  3. Re:That's just what they *want* you to think... by nschubach · · Score: 2, Informative

    Oh, give him a break. He's a seven digit. Still learning. **hides extremely close to seven digit ID**

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    Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
  4. Doubtful. by Cyno01 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Due to size restraints, it wouldnt be feasable for virtual console to support CD based games. The largest N64 cartridges were 512Mb (small b), compared to a potential 700MB for CDs, although i dont know how much space the average CD game used. The Wii only has 512MB of useable storage (the SD slot is for backups), so its unlikely we'll ever see games that were originally on CD on the Wii.

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    "Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
  5. Re:Good by twistedsymphony · · Score: 2, Informative

    And all three brands have lockout mechanisms to keep the little guy off the platform. Imagine an independent game developer who has a PC-based prototype of a game that allows four players holding gamepads to play at once. It works great with TV output, but I am not convinced that most potential customers know how to connect a PC's video card to a TV. So on which platform should this game be published?
    Download XNA Express for free, tweak the game to run on Xbox 360 hardware, and either hock it to a publisher to front the necessary QA and clean up for XBLA distribution or run it in the next game design competition where MS will take care of that for you. You could also purchase a basic Wii dev kit for $2000 (or if your cheap, pirate some GC dev tools and run your code on a hacked console) and hock your game to Nintendo's upcoming WiiWare service.

    There are opportunities for "the little guys" to get published on home consoles. I'd say the barrier for entry today is probably the lowest it's been since the Atari days. You might not be competing with the Halos and Orange Boxes of the world but there's certainly a good home for the "little guys" on XBLA, WiiWare, and PSN...
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    Collector's Edition