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Sega Dreamcast
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The is a video game console made by Sega, and is the successor to the Sega Saturn. An attempt to recapture the console market with a next-generation system, it was designed to supersede the PlayStation and Nintendo 64. Originally released in late 1998, sixteen months before the PlayStation 2 (PS2) and three years before the Nintendo GameCube and the Xbox, the Dreamcast is part of the sixth generation of video game consoles. Dreamcast was widely hailed as ahead of its time, and is still held in high regard for pioneering online console gaming.
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Encyclopedia
The is a video game console made by Sega, and is the successor to the Sega Saturn. An attempt to recapture the console market with a next-generation system, it was designed to supersede the PlayStation and Nintendo 64. Originally released in late 1998, sixteen months before the PlayStation 2 (PS2) and three years before the Nintendo GameCube and the Xbox, the Dreamcast is part of the sixth generation of video game consoles. Dreamcast was widely hailed as ahead of its time, and is still held in high regard for pioneering online console gaming. Sega discontinued the Dreamcast in March 2001, and withdrew entirely from the console hardware business; however, support continued in Japan where consoles were still sold until 2006 and new licensed games were still being made by companies of the arcade market until 2008. As of 2009, there are several games in active development for the console, such as Dux , Rush Rush Rally Racing, Age of the Beast and Little Ninja.
History
In 1997, the Saturn was struggling in North America, and Sega of America president Bernie Stolar pressed for Sega's Japanese headquarters to develop a new platform. At the 1997 E3, Stolar made public his opinion on the Saturn with his comment, "The Saturn is not our future" and referred to the doomed console as "the stillbirth".
Design
The then newly-appointed president of SEGA, Shoichiro Irimajiri, took the step of appointing researcher Tatsuo Yamamoto from International Business Machines Austin Research Laboratory as the head of a newly-created Skunkworks project named the "US Skunk works group", which was responsible for the research and development of a next-generation SEGA console. However, due to SEGA hardware engineer Hideki Sato and his group refusing to relinquish control of the internal hardware department, competing designs for the console were established by each team.
Sato and his group opted to use the Hitachi SH4 processor architecture, along with the VideoLogic PowerVR2 graphics processor in the production of their mainboard, which was originally given the codename "White Belt", with later prototype boards being named "Guppy" and eventually "Katana". Yamamoto and his "Skunkworks" group opted to use the then-3dfx Voodoo 2 and Voodoo Banshee family graphics processors, and after initially trialing other RISC processors, settled on the SH4 as Sato and his group had. The codenames given for the "Skunkworks" project were firstly "Black belt", followed by "Shark" and lastly "Dural"; the latter referring eponymously to a character from the Virtua Fighter series.
Initially, SEGA had decided to opt for the design of the "Skunkworks" project, and had suggested to manufacturer 3Dfx that they would be using their graphics chipsets in their upcoming console, but later opted to using the PowerVR graphics chipset as suggested in Hideki Sato's design which was then renamed the Dreamcast. This was supposedly due to 3Dfx mistakenly revealing the details of SEGA's then-secret development project, the Dreamcast, and it's technical specifications when declaring their Initial Public Offering (IPO) in June 1997.
In response to this occurence, 3Dfx filed a $155 million suit in September, 1997 against SEGA and NEC, claiming that they had led them to believe that they were committed to using the 3dfx chipset for the console "whil[st] knowing that [they] would ultimately choose to use the NEC chipset", and that SEGA also had confidential materials and hardware relating to their Intellectual property which they had been deprived of. . In August 1998, 3Dfx, SEGA, and other companies involved in the suit settled.
Launch
The Dreamcast was released on November 27, 1998 in Japan; on September 9, 1999 in North America (the date 9/9/99 featured heavily in U.S. promotion); and on October 14, 1999 in Europe. The tagline used to promote the console in the U.S. was, "It's thinking", and in Europe, "Up to 6 Billion Players."
Due to technical problems Sega did not achieve their shipping goals for the console's launch in Japan. This was due to the lack of a graphics chip manufactured by NEC.
The Dreamcast was the first console to include a built-in modem and Internet support for online gaming. Previous consoles such as the Genesis, Saturn, and SNES had online capabilities, but these were comparably limited and/or required extra hardware (XBAND, NetLink, Sega Channel).
In the United States alone, a record 300,000 units had been pre-ordered and Sega sold 500,000 consoles in just two weeks (including 225,132 sold on the first 24 hours which became a video game record). In fact, due to brisk sales and hardware shortages, Sega was unable to fulfill all of the advance orders.
Sega confirmed that it made US$98.4 million on combined hardware and software sales with Dreamcast with its September 9, 1999 launch. Sega even compared the record figure to the opening day gross of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, which made $28.5 million during the first 24 hours in theaters. Chris Gilbert, the senior vice president of sales at Sega of America, said on November 24, 1999: "By hitting the one million units sold landmark, it is clear that the Dreamcast consumer has moved beyond the hard-core gamer and into the mass market."
Four days after its launch in the US, Sega stated 372,000 units were sold bringing in US$132 million in sales.
Before the launch in the United States, Sega had already taken extra steps in displaying Dreamcast's capabilities in stores nationwide. Much like the PlayStation's launch in North America, the displays of titles such as Soul Calibur, Sonic Adventure, Power Stone, and Hydro Thunder helped Dreamcast succeed in the first year.
Although Dreamcast had none of Electronic Arts' popular sports games, due in part to EA's losses from the Sega Saturn, Sega Sports titles helped to fill that void. The biggest competition between Sega Sports and EA Sports in the U.S. was their American football and basketball games. This started with one of the launch titles of the Dreamcast, NFL 2K. Both the non-Dreamcast Madden NFL 2000 and NFL 2K were highly regarded, with the Dreamcast boasting a new graphics engine and Madden retaining the same solid engine of previous incarnations. According to a press release, NFL 2K1 outsold Madden NFL 2001 by 49,000 units in its first two weeks of release, selling a total of 410,000 by November 2000, two months after its debut.
Competition
In March 1999 Sony unveiled its PlayStation 2. The actual release of the PS2 was not until March 4, 2000 in Japan, and October 26, 2000 in the United States. Sony's press release, despite being a year ahead of the launch of the PS2, was enough to divert a lot of attention from Sega. With the looming PS2 launch in Japan, the Dreamcast was largely ignored in that territory. While the system had great initial success in the United States, it had trouble maintaining this momentum after news of the PS2's release.
Dreamcast sales grew 156.5% from July 23, 2000 to September 30, 2000 putting Sega ahead of the Nintendo 64 in that period. During that time, the PlayStation 2 was plagued by production shortages, with people often paying in excess of $1000 on eBay for Sony's next-generation console. However, Dreamcast's online capabilities through SegaNet, and a price cut around the second half of 2000 (which made it half the price of the PS2) did little to help sales once the PlayStation 2 was launched with its much hyped graphics and ability to play DVDs.
A key to Sony's relatively easy success with the PlayStation 2 was that they already enjoyed brand-name dominance over Sega after the huge success of the original PlayStation, while Sega's reputation had been hurt due to commercial failure of the Sega Saturn and Sega 32X. In particular, Sega's attempt to quickly kill off the struggling Saturn (which lagged in North America and Europe) in favor of Dreamcast had angered many third-party developers in Japan, where the Saturn had still been able to hold its own. While initial Dreamcast sales were strong, many prospective buyers and game developers were still skeptical of Sega and they held off from committing, possibly to see which console would prevail. By early 2001, game publishers abandoned Dreamcast development en masse in favor of the PlayStation 2 and canceled many nearly completed projects (notably Half-Life).
In 2000, the announcements of the Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo GameCube fueled speculation that Sega did not have the resources for a prolonged marketing campaign.
Outside U.S. and Japan
For the European and Australian PAL release of the Dreamcast, Sega changed the Dreamcast's familiar Orange swirl logo to blue. This was done to avoid copyright confliction with the German video game/DVD publisher , which already used an Orange swirl as their company logo.
Many important titles were never released outside of Japan, and many were hard to find without importing them. While Dreamcast did receive a price cut in the U.S. to coincide with the PlayStation 2's American release, the European pricing remained the same, even when the PlayStation 2 was released in Europe.
Sony marketed the PlayStation 2 in each country's local media, such as newspapers and street shows. Sega recruited third-party companies to promote Dreamcast, some of which did not allocate sufficient money for advertising.
DreamArena (the European equivalent to SegaNet, the Dreamcast online service) was a fiasco in Finland because the cost of connection was more than three times the amount of a normal ISDN internet connection. This was because Sega allowed open pricing for third-party companies. The companies stated that the price was steep due to a lack of potential customers, but most users believe that the companies were just using the open pricing to their advantage.
End of production
On January 31, 2001, Sega announced that production of Dreamcast hardware was to be discontinued by March of that yearalthough the 50 to 60 titles still in production would be published. The last North American release was NHL 2K2, which was released in February 2002. With the company announcing no plans to develop a next-generation successor to Dreamcast, this was Sega's last foray into the home console business. Massive price cuts were quickly instituted in order to move the abundance of unsold hardware and the system had quickly dropped to prices as low as US$49.99 new. By late 2002 in the UK the Dreamcast was sold brand new for as little as £39.99 and was subject to incentive giveaways with contract mobile phones.
Though Dreamcast was officially discontinued in early 2001, commercial games were still developed and released afterwards, particularly in Japan. Unreleased games like Propeller Arena and Half-Life continued to become available to the public through warez groups and independent hackers.
On February 24, 2004, Sega released their final first-party Dreamcast game, Puyo Pop Fever. Afterwards, a small number of games continued to be released, which were mostly conversions of arcade shooters based on the Sega NAOMI arcade board, itself essentially a Dreamcast with extra video RAM.
Sega would sell the last Dreamcast units in stock through the Sega Direct division of Japan in early 2006. Although they were only refurbished units, they did come with the new Radilgy game and a phone card.
Several Dreamcast emulation projects have emerged after Dreamcast's end of production, with Chankast being the most notable, along with the recently released nullDC.
The first Sega title to be released on another console following the Dreamcast's demise was Crazy Taxi, which was ported onto the PlayStation 2, and later Nintendo Gamecube, by Acclaim.
Hardware
The power light, like the Dreamcast logo in NTSC regions, was orange (this color was chosen because the Japanese consider it to be lucky). Games were sold in jewel cases. In North America, these initially had the Dreamcast name and logo on a white background, but later games used a black background, similar to the PlayStation's. Japanese games used an orange-and-white scheme, whilst European and Australian (PAL region) games used blue, due to a copyright claim from a European electrical company who had already used an Orange swirl as their logo.
The unit was packaged with a video cable which supported composite video and stereo sound. Available separately were an RGB SCART cable, an S-Video cable, an RF connector (included as standard in the UK, Germany, Italy and Portugal), and a VGA adapter (see accessories below).
Although there was no reset button on the Dreamcast system itself, the player could press the A, B, X, and Y buttons all together and then press the start button to reset a game. This would bring up the game's main menu, and if repeated, would display the Dreamcast menu.
In North America, a black Dreamcast was released in limited numbers with a sports pack which included two Sega Sports titles. This was the same as other models except for the black casing and the Sega Sports logo located directly below the Dreamcast logo on the lid. It included matching black controllers which also had the Sega Sports logo beneath the VMU window. Electronics Boutique offered a blue Dreamcast through its website. Similar offerings were sold through the Lik Sang website. Cases of different colors like blue, red, orange, and green were sold for replacements of the original casing. In Japan, Sega released many varieties of the system, including a limited edition Sonic anniversary version, a pink Sakura Taisen version, and a Hello Kitty version released in 2000 in Japan which, due to its limited production, has become an extremely rare collector's piece. The package contains a keyboard, controller, VMU, mouse, and a Hello Kitty trivia game. The console and accessories came in both translucent pink and blue in color with some printed designs.
The Brazilian version, manufactured by Tec Toy under license, was essentially the same as the North American version, but its video output was converted to the PAL-M standard and did not come with the modem, which was available separately.
Dreamcast in Europe had a blue spiral logo, similar to the logo on earlier Sega systems. This change is thought to have been for copyright reasons: German company Tivola Publishing had been using a similar swirl logo years before Sega branded Dreamcast with the orange swirl.
As well as the VGA mode to connect to a PC monitor (using an adapter called "VGA box"), the European Dreamcast supported PAL video, in both 50 Hz and 60 Hz modes. This was a first for game consoles, as no previous PAL console had offered the option to play games at full speed, using the ability of many PAL televisions to operate at 60 Hz. This feature was exploited in previous consoles but only by modifying the console with a chip to allow it to run NTSC games (e.g., Sony's PlayStation), or by adding switches to the internal circuitry to manually select between 50 Hz and 60 Hz (e.g., SEGA's Master System, Mega Drive or Saturn). Although the 60 Hz code had to be enabled on the disc, doing so was a simple matter, and only a small number of games lacked it. The 60 Hz feature has become standard on all major consoles released since.
Games in Europe were sold in jewel cases exactly twice as thick as their North American counterparts, possibly to enable the inclusion of thick instruction booklets containing instructions in multiple languages.
A third-party company from China named Treamcast released a portable modified Dreamcast which used the original first-party Dreamcast components with a custom made plastic casing. This small system with its fold-down display resembled the later PS One. Many companies included software and a remote with the unit that enabled it to play MP3s and Video CDs. When the Internet import video game store Lik Sang contacted Sega to ask permission to sell a modified version of the system with Sega trademarks on the system, they were told that Sega did not approve of the unit, and felt that it violated their trademarks. In reality, this system is no different from a Dreamcast pre-modified with a third party shell, as the system's internals still use first party hardware, and the only modifications are the outside casing and internal sound and video adjustments.
In 2005, the internet import store Lan-Kwei started selling a "Treamcast" portable modified Dreamcast with a 16:9 widescreen LCD. Aside from the cosmetic differences in the case to accommodate the larger screen, there are no differences between the original Treamcast and the newer widescreen model.
Technical specifications
Processor
- 200 MHz SH-4 with an on-die 128-bit vector graphics engine, 360 MIPS and 1.4 GFLOPS (single precision), using the vector graphics engine
Graphics Engine
- CLX2, 7.0 million polygons/second peak performance, supports trilinear filtering. Actual maximum in game performance (with full textures, lighting, gameplay, etc.) is 5 million polygons/second or more.
- Tile Based Deferred Rendering eliminates overdraw by only drawing visible fragments. This makes required fillrate almost independent from scene depth complexity, thus making up for a low, compared to other 6th generation consoles, nominal fillrate of 100 MPixels/s as effective fillrate can be triple that amount.
- Graphics hardware effects include gouraud shading, z-buffering, anti-aliasing and bump mapping.
Memory
- Main RAM: 16 MB 64 Bit 100 MHz
- Video RAM: 8 MB 4x16-bit 100 MHz
- Sound RAM: 2 MB 16-bit 66 MHz
- VQ Texture Compression (5:1 texture compression)
Sound Engine
- Yamaha AICA Sound Processor: 22.5 MHz 32-Bit ARM7 RISC CPU: 45 MHz, 64 channel PCM/ADPCM sampler (4:1 compression), XG MIDI support, 128 step DSP
Storage
Input/Output
- Inputs: USB-like "Maple Bus". Four ports support devices such as digital and analog controllers, steering wheels, joysticks, keyboards, mice, and more.
- Color Output: Approx. 16.78 million colors (24-bit)
- Video resolution: 640x480 interlaced or progressive scan
Dimensions
- 189 mm × 195 mm × 76 mm (7 7/16in × 7 11/16in × 3in)
- Weight: 1.9 kg (4.2 lb)
- Color: Majority are white.
- Japan: Various limited edition designs and colored consoles were produced
- North America: Only a black "Sega Sports"-labeled model and a blue model from Electronics Boutique were officially available
- PAL: No known alternate designs or colors
Networking
- Modem: Removable; speed varied among regions:
- Original Asia/Japan model had a 33.6 kbit/s; consoles sold after September 9, 1999 had a 56 kbit/s modem
- All American models had a 56 kbit/s
- All PAL models had a 33.6 kbit/s
- Broadband: these adapters are available separately and replace the removable modem
- HIT-0400: "Broadband Adapter", the more common model, this used a Realtek 8139 chip and supported 10 and 100 Mbit speeds, this device was released in Japan and the US. It is a common misunderstanding that the Japanese broadband adaptor has the code HIT-0401, but this code actually refers to the Japanese adaptors packaging and documentation - not the broadband adaptor itself.
- HIT-0300: "LAN Adapter", this version used a Fujitsu MB86967 chip and supported only 10 Mbit speed. The LAN Adaptor does not work with any retail games and was only compatible with the included web browser disk.
See Also: Dreamcast Broadband Adapter
Accessories
Visual Memory Unit
The Visual Memory Unit, or "VMU", was the Dreamcast memory card. It featured a monochrome LCD screen, a D-Pad, and two gaming buttons. The VMU could play mini-games loaded onto it from certain Dreamcast games, such as a Chao game transferable from Sonic Adventure as well as other online downloadable VMU games. It could also display a list of the saved game data stored on it, and two VMUs could be connected together end-to-end to exchange data. Also while playing games such as Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 or Crazy Taxi messages like "Awesome", "Rad", and "Nice Combo" would appear on the VMU screen. While playing Sonic Adventure animations not related to the game would appear on the screen, in Sonic Adventure a Chao would mimic what action the character on the screen was doing. For example, if the player was falling the Chao would appear to fall. Games such as the Resident Evil series showed the player's health. It required two CR2032 batteries for use as a standalone mini-game player, clock and address book.
Standard memory cards could also be purchased without the additional features of the VMU. Most of these were manufactured by third-party companies, (such as the Nexus Memory Card), although Sega eventually released a 4X memory card (model HKT-4100). The 4X cards did not have the VMU screen or stand-alone abilities, but they had four times the space thanks to the ability to switch between four 200-block sectors.
The VMU design cannot be considered a full success, as it was fairly power-intensive, draining the two watch batteries at an alarmingly fast rate, and the architecture could not be expanded. However, contrary to popular belief, the VMU does not need the batteries to retain the saved data once the VMU is disconnected from the controller, as it incorporates flash memory storage for this purpose — the batteries are only used when the VMU is disconnected from the controller in order to browse/exchange saved data and play mini-games in a handheld fashion away from the console.
Controller and Rumble Pack
Most Dreamcast games supported a rumble pack, or "Jump Pack", which was sold separately and could be plugged into the controller. In Japan, the Jump Pack was named the "Puru Puru Pack".
The Dreamcast controller featured a similar design to the Sega Saturn's analog controller, offering an analog stick, a D-pad, a Start button, four action buttons (labeled A, B, X, and Y, two buttons less than the Saturn), and two analog triggers on the underside. It also contained two slots which could hold memory cards or the rumble pack, with a window on the front of the controller through which the VMU's display could be seen. The Dreamcast controller was somewhat larger than many other controllers, and some players found it difficult to hold. Other players complained about the odd positioning of its controller cord, which comes out from the bottom of the controller.
VGA adapter
Unique to Dreamcast was the "VGA box", a VGA adapter, that switches the Dreamcast's display to RGBHV at 31 kHz to allow output to a computer display or HDTV compatible sets in true 480p (Progressive Scan), providing much better quality than a standard television set.
Dreamcast mouse and keyboard
Dreamcast supported a mouse as well as a keyboard, which were useful when using the included web browser (fully functional), and also supported by certain games such as The Typing of the Dead, Quake 3, Phantasy Star Online and Railroad Tycoon 2. Other games such as REZ offered undocumented mouse support.
Fishing Rod
A motion sensitive fishing rod was released for the few fishing games on the system. The fishing games for the US Market are Sega Bass Fishing (Get Bass in Japan), Sega Bass Fishing 2 (Get Bass 2 in Japan), Sega Marine Fishing and Reel Fishing: Wild (Fish Eyes Wild in Japan). Lake Masters Pro and Bass Rush Dream were only released in Japan. The fishing rod can actually be used with Soulcalibur and Tennis 2K2 like the Wii Remote to a very limited extent.
Microphone
There was a microphone peripheral which was gray plastic, similar in form to a VMU or memory pack, and was inserted into a VMU slot in the contoller. The microphone itself is detachable via 3.5 mm jack, extends 90 degrees from the controller towards the player, and featured a spherical, green foam wind shroud. The microphone was used for version 2.6 of the Planetweb web browser (providing long distance calling support), the European Planet Ring collection, Alien Front Online, and Seaman, the first console game to use speech recognition in the U.S. The microphone was available bundled with Seaman, Alienfront Online, Kiteretsu Boys Gan Gagan (Japan), and the Planetweb browser as well as individually packaged as Sega device #HKT-7200.
Lightgun
Sega also produced a light gun for the system, although this was not sold in the United States, possibly because Sega did not want its name on a gun in light of recent school shootings (the Columbine High School massacre). American versions of light gun games even blocked out using the official gun. However, several third parties made compatible guns for the American Dreamcast. One of them was Mad Catz's Dream Blaster which became the official Dreamcast light gun for use in the United States.
The games that did not work in United States with the official Dreamcast light gun were The House of the Dead 2 and Confidential Mission. Other light gun compatible games were Death Crimson OX and its Japanese prequel Death Crimson 2, Virtua Cop 2 on the Sega Smash Pack, and a light gun minigame in Demolition Racer No Exit.
See also: Dreamcast light guns
Arcade Stick
A heavy-duty Arcade Stick was put out by Sega, featuring a digital joystick with six buttons using the same microswitch assemblies as commercial arcade machines. Although it could not be used for many Dreamcast games due to the lack of an analog joystick, it was well-received and helped cement Dreamcast's reputation for playing 2D shooters and fighting games. Adaptors are now available to use the Arcade Stick on other hardware platforms.
Third-party sticks were also made, like the ASCII Dreamcast fighting pad, which some regard as having a more comfortable 6-button configuration and a more precise digital direction pad.
Twin Sticks
A twin stick peripheral was released specifically for use with the game Virtual-On. This add-on mimicked the original dual arcade stick setup and made gameplay much more precise. This peripheral is extremely rare and often quite expensive.
Dreameye
Sega developed the Dreameye, a digital camera for Dreamcast, but it was only released in Japan.
Dream Karaoke
Developed as a Karaoke add-on for the Dreamcast by Sega and released only in Japan. It included a Microphone and built in modem. It would download Karaoke songs onto the system to be played; however, it could not save any songs so you had to re-download the songs if you wanted to play them again. The servers for the system went offline in 2006.
Samba de Amigo controller
Sega developed a special maraca controller for the Samba de Amigo music game.
Densha De Go! 2 controller
A special controller made specific to Densha de Go! only. The controller was only available in Japan and is very rare because of the few numbers produced.
Canceled Accessories
Toward the end of Dreamcast's lifespan, Sega created and displayed prototypes of a high-capacity VMU/MP3 player, DVD player, and Zip drive peripherals. None of these items were ever released.
Games
As of November 2007, the Dreamcast has more than 325 official games available in its library. Over 100 games were released only in Japan. There are also numerous homebrew games for the Dreamcast. Games by corporations continue to be released for the Dreamcast, the most recent as of October 10,2008 being DUX.
Copying
The Dreamcast's proprietary GD-ROM format served as a means of copy protection. It was ultimately circumvented. By using a combination of reverse-engineering and exploits in firmware, a standard CD could boot code in the Dreamcast BIOS to enable multimedia functions. This utilized functionality designed for Mil-CD, a special type of multimedia CD released to the Japanese market. Soon, creations such as the Utopia bootdisk appeared, which allowed the ability to boot burned CD games. Mil-CD support was removed from the final Dreamcast revision.
The benefits of the GD-ROM are rendered obsolete, however, if the .iso can fit on a regular consumer CD-R which was usually achieved by warez groups by downsampling audio and video files so the contents of certain games could fit a 80-min 700MB CD-R.
Online
The Dreamcast was composed of online servers run by SegaNet, Dreamarena, and GameSpy networks. Online servers were sustained by the lifespan of the system although in Japan it was generally considered as a more popular online system because of its superior arcade game play. Hence more available network modes in games such as Frame Gride, Tech Romancer, and Project Justice. Dreamcast was previously online before the emergence of online play upon its release. Browser technology was made by independent companies such as Planetweb in order to customize the Dreamcast web service into standard HTML coding. This as well as Java, was available for uploads, movies, and mouse support in its later browsers. Dreamarena came with games such as Sonic Adventure, and Chu Chu Rocket while Planetweb offered free browsers with the Dreamcast demo disc inside the Official Dreamcast Magazine. Its final browser, Planetweb version 3.0, was released in late September 2001 with support sold separately.
There are still six online games available: Phantasy Star Online, which is run via the private server at www.schtserv.com; 4x4 Evolution, which is run by Gamespy, though you will always be able to play games via IP address; Starlancer, which is also run by Gamespy, though there have been reports saying that this game is also going to be forever accessed online; Quake III Arena, which can be run via a home server on Linux or Windows; Maximum Pool, run by home servers as well; and SEGA Swirl, which is a strategy game where scores are sent via e-mail to your opponent.
Homebrew
The Dreamcast continues to have a modest hacking enthusiast community. The availability of the KallistiOS software development kit on the Internet, as well as ports of Linux and NetBSD/Dreamcast operating systems, gave programmers a selection of familiar development tools to work with.
KallistiOS is a homebrew minimal operating system that offers support for a majority of the Dreamcast's hardware and peripherals. Its license allows hobbyist programmers to release games created with this SDK to be released commercially.
Using KallistiOS, many free games, emulators and other tools such as MP3 and DivX players and image viewers have been ported to or written for the console, taking advantage of the relative ease with which a home user can burn a CD that can be booted by any unmodified Dreamcast.
Using the free KallistiOS SDK, a homebrew port of the Neo Geo independent game Last Hope, developed by NG:DEV.TEAM and published by redspotgames was sold via various online stores and retailers in Japan and Hong Kong on January 31, 2007. redspotgames is the last company remaining that produces commercial Dreamcast games. Their newest game, Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles, was released on November 10, 2008.
Sponsorship
As part of Sega's promotions of the Dreamcast in Europe, the company sponsored four European football clubs: Arsenal F.C. (England), AS Saint-Étienne (France), U.C. Sampdoria (Italy) and Deportivo de La Coruña (Spain). The logo also appeared on foosball tables produced for the hotel chain Hilton.
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