[Josh]

I'll never forget seeing the first pictures of Sonic Adventure, playing it at a demo kiosk at Toys R Us in the Summer of '99, the crazy anticipation and hype all through the year, and finally unwrapping it for Christmas. I'd probably go so far as to call it my favorite game console ever. It may not be the best in terms of the games, but it's certainly the one I have the most affection for.

Fifteen years doesn't seem possible. Happy birthday to the Dreamcast, the console that might not have been able to save Sega's hardware division, but certainly will be remembered as the groundbreaking, risk-taking and altogether awesome machine it was.

I'm planning on putting up a little PSO gameplay video later today, and I might do some streaming later on today to celebrate. I just wish more servers were up, I could still do dial-up, and/or BBA adapters won't so expensive. I'd challenge you all to Sega Swirl.

[TheInvisibleSun]

Man, I love the Dreamcast! I remember my older brother unwrapping his Christmas morning 2000, with a demo disc of Sonic Adventure and a couple of other games. Back then, it was the first real 3D Sonic game I had ever seen (Genesis 3D Blast didn't count, and I didn't even know about Sonic R or Jam), and Emerald Coast absolutely blew my mind. Got the game myself soon after. But yeah, I have lots of fond weekend memories of waking up and seeing that bouncing red dot; whether it was 2-Player marathons of Soul Calibur and Marvel vs. Capcom 2 with my brother, amusing glitches in some games (the 'Glen Rice Free Throw Glitch' in NBA 2K comes to mind), or even some of the mildly annoying experiences with games like Sonic Shuffle, I can always look back and say that I had a great time with the system. I do wish that we were able to use the internet capabilities of the system though, that's sort of something I missed out on.

Though now I occasionally have problems booting up the system now, I'll still always have that sound of that bouncing red ball etched onto my memories.

[RubyEclipse]

Happy Anniversary to you, Dreamcast!

Still my favorite console. So many hours of PSO, Sonic Adventure(s), Power Stone 2, Chu Chu Rocket, Jet Grind Radio... the list goes on and on.

[Black Squirrel]

As lovely as the 9/9/99 date was, we really ought to move away from it. The Dreamcast launched in November 1998, and IIRC its fifteenth birthday was celebrated ten months ago.

The world is bigger than the USA!


Also it brings back bad memories of European delays.

[JaxTH]

9/9/99 is the best date ever though.

[Overlord]

Black Squirrel, on 09 September 2014 - 10:05 AM, said:

As lovely as the 9/9/99 date was, we really ought to move away from it. The Dreamcast launched in November 1998, and IIRC its fifteenth birthday was celebrated ten months ago.

The world is bigger than the USA!


Also it brings back bad memories of European delays.

Seconded. We should really be celebrating world debuts, not country-specific ones. Not to intentionally poop the party. =P

[Josh]

Black Squirrel, on 09 September 2014 - 10:05 AM, said:

As lovely as the 9/9/99 date was, we really ought to move away from it. The Dreamcast launched in November 1998, and IIRC its fifteenth birthday was celebrated ten months ago.

The world is bigger than the USA!

Also it brings back bad memories of European delays.

Yeah, like Jax said, I think this day will always be largely remembered as the launch of the Dreamcast, partly because of us 'mericans and our admitted tendency toward a self-centered worldview, and partly just because the date itself is so memorable.

That said, while the Dreamcast did of course first go on sale in Japan on November 27, 1998, those who grew up in the west aren't likely to have memories of anything more than seeing pictures of it online. The Saturn was still going strong in that market, and the perception was that Sega didn't need to rush a new system out the door. Plus, the Dreamcast had a pretty soft launch in Japan, shipping with only four games. Of those, only Virtua Fighter 3TB is really remembered. Poor, poor Pen Pen TriIcelon...

The Dreamcast's launch in both Europe and North America was a lot more robust. There, the Saturn had failed pretty spectacularly, and people were hyped for a brand new Sega console.

So I'm not saying it should be seen as the "true" launch of the system, because of course it's not. But I do think 9/9 is a fine date to look back on the Dreamcast.

And hey, if nothing else, you guys got Shenmue 2! I was SO upset when I heard how they were handling that. I mean, I'd have been willing to wait an extra month to get that.

This post has been edited by Josh: 09 September 2014 - 02:23 PM

[TheKazeblade]

Black Squirrel, on 09 September 2014 - 10:05 AM, said:

As lovely as the 9/9/99 date was, we really ought to move away from it. The Dreamcast launched in November 1998, and IIRC its fifteenth birthday was celebrated ten months ago.

The world is bigger than the USA!


Also it brings back bad memories of European delays.

I can agree to an extent, but from a different perspective, I feel like it's also important to remember from a purely marketing perspective. Considering the gargantuan role marketing took during Sega's heyday, ignoring 9/9/99 is like ignoring Genesis Does just because the US was the only territory to call the system that.

If people decide to celebrate the system's original birthday instead, hey great! But good luck remembering. There's a reason people think it's 9/9/99. 11/27/98 doesn't quite roll off the tongue. So if we're not going to represent its birthday today, at least celebrate the stroke of genius that was the campaign, and Sega's fantastic marketing in Western territories in general.

As for Dreamcast memories, I remember before really knowing what Sonic was playing the demo of the Chaos 0 fight from Sonic Adventure at the Dreamcast kiosk at Hollywood Video and KB Toys and thinking it was just about the coolest thing I had ever seen. When I started to get into Sonic through the Archie comics, and realizing they were the same franchise just basically compounded my perception of its coolness. Such good times.

This post has been edited by TheKazeblade: 09 September 2014 - 02:50 PM

[Josh]

Took WAY longer to convert and process than I thought it would, but here at last is some Phantasy Star Online gameplay/commentary that I recorded last night:

[Jen]

Josh, on 09 September 2014 - 02:50 AM, said:

I'll never forget seeing the first pictures of Sonic Adventure, playing it at a demo kiosk at Toys R Us in the Summer of '99, the crazy anticipation and hype all through the year, and finally unwrapping it for Christmas.

This is more-or-less what happened to me as well - except I'd not actually seen any pictures, I just walked into Toys R Us one day, saw someone playing the demo and had to pick my jaw up from the floor. Once the person finished playing I had a go - I was glued to the demo pod for around half an hour, my mum was getting a bit pissed off after a while because I refused to move and had a queue behind me =P When my parents eventually told me that I'd be getting a Dreamcast that Christmas, it was the best thing ever. I barely slept on Christmas Eve night because I was so excited.

So Christmas '99 was basically me playing Sonic Adventure non-stop. It was so impressive for its time; I already had a PS1 and Saturn, but this was something else entirely. And then I started going online early in the following year (I didn't have a computer at that time) and found the Sonic Community!

I love the Dreamcast. It was incredibly innovative and has some amazing games. It saddens me that it wasn't more successful.

[Mecha Sally]

Can't believe it's been that long. I'm sad to say my Dreamcast launch day memories aren't the happiest ones, as I wasn't able to get a working copy of Sonic Adventure that day. We had to return the game three times and the console once before I could get one that worked, and even then it only worked maybe 80% of the time. I think I might've had to wait a month to get a working copy, which meant I only had the demo to play during that time. Not fun.

Ah well, Happy Anniversary Dreamcast!

[Josh]

Mecha Sally, on 09 September 2014 - 07:10 PM, said:

Can't believe it's been that long. I'm sad to say my Dreamcast launch day memories aren't the happiest ones, as I wasn't able to get a working copy of Sonic Adventure that day. We had to return the game three times and the console once before I could get one that worked, and even then it only worked maybe 80% of the time. I think I might've had to wait a month to get a working copy, which meant I only had the demo to play during that time. Not fun.

Ah well, Happy Anniversary Dreamcast!

Woah, that sucks. I don't remember launch issues being too widespread. My launch unit eventually got the power reset problem, but I ended up buying Kalin's for $20 (manufactured in February 2000, so it still boots CD-Rs).

My cousin had a MUCH later production unit, and I remember his wasn't nearly as noisy.

[Mecha Sally]

Josh, on 09 September 2014 - 07:18 PM, said:

Mecha Sally, on 09 September 2014 - 07:10 PM, said:

Can't believe it's been that long. I'm sad to say my Dreamcast launch day memories aren't the happiest ones, as I wasn't able to get a working copy of Sonic Adventure that day. We had to return the game three times and the console once before I could get one that worked, and even then it only worked maybe 80% of the time. I think I might've had to wait a month to get a working copy, which meant I only had the demo to play during that time. Not fun.

Ah well, Happy Anniversary Dreamcast!

Woah, that sucks. I don't remember launch issues being too widespread. My launch unit eventually got the power reset problem, but I ended up buying Kalin's for $20 (manufactured in February 2000, so it still boots CD-Rs).

My cousin had a MUCH later production unit, and I remember his wasn't nearly as noisy.

Yeah I remember seeing some article that claimed a small number of the games released at launch had problems, and I guess I just happened to be in that area that got the bad batch. Never had the power reset problem, but that sucks you got it. =/ Seems we both lucked out and still have consoles that boot CD-Rs, though.

Here's an IGN article about it from all the way back then: http://www.ign.com/a...-defects-launch . I remember seeing another article from that year that claimed the amount of games affected was 1% or some insanely small number like that. It never occurred to me at the time to actually read up on this online and/or try to contact SEGA directly like IGN suggested... >.>

This post has been edited by Mecha Sally: 10 September 2014 - 06:40 PM

[Neko Kit Su]

I didn't get a Dreamcast at launch. We had gotten the PS2 for Christmas that year, and I'm guessing our parents had already planned on that-- it wasn't unusual for us to get a new console at Christmas when we were kids, so we just never thought to bother anyone about it.

We then tried saving up our allowance for a Dreamcast, after getting some PS2 games out of the way, but no dice-- Walmart never had them, and Kmart never stocked them here.

We managed to get one-- finally-- at the end of the console's life, price slashed to 80 bucks. It was a late production run, but it could still read CD-R's.

So, I can't wax nostalgic like some about it's launch, or even about most of it's life. But I can say I had a lot of fun on it-- one of my good friends, who had just moved back to Japan (his dad was in the Navy), told me all about how awesome Sonic Adventure was, and I decided to give it a shot.

It may not be the best game out there, but when you were like 14 and a friend tells you it awesome...

I can see its flaws now, but I always loved the music, and the level aesthetics. Lost World and Red Mountain are some of my favorite Sonic levels to date.

We even got Sonic Adventure 2, though we had previously gotten Battle for the Gamecube. Completions sakes?

We got PSO at the same time as Adventure, though we never got any online play out of it. Go figure. Single player was fun enough.

Sadly, we didn't get that many more games for it. I think we got Jet Grind Radio at some point, when Game Crazy was still in town, and they sold classic games. I found NiGHTs in the same pile, so it wasn't a terrible day. But, at this point, the Dreamcast was more my sister's console and I couldn't touch it, so I never got a chance to play it, same with Chu Chu Rocket.

At least I had a Saturn, all my very own, with NiGHTs. I was quite happy for that.

Anyways, a belated happy 15th, Dreamcast.