Sega Opens Gate, Puts Dreamcast Out To Pasture

Earlier this year we discussed the discontinuation of the GDRom, and what that likely meant for the Dreamcast. In news covered by Kotaku, who translated a blurb on the Sega Nerds site, Sega has now announced that they're officially stopping the repair service for the Dreamcast and Sega Saturn. They've offered the service all these long years to loyal fans, and two new Dreamcast games were even released this year in Japan. Just the same, this looks to be the end of official support for 1999's unsung console hero.

wow i had no idea...

[kennedy]

that sega was still willing to repair the saturn (well until now).

laugh all you want, but i still keep my saturn hooked up to my TV for imo the most perfect home versions of street fighter.

Re:wow i had no idea...

[AKAImBatman]

i had no idea that sega was still willing to repair the saturn

Yep. And as the summary mentions, Sega was even providing GDRom (the DC optical format) manufactering services to independent studios and homebrewers up until recently. As a result, there have been a LOT of new releases for the DC in recent years.

At this point it looks like companies might have to switch over to CDRoms. The only reason why they haven't to date is some information suggests that certain DC models may have trouble reading CD-Rs. At this point that info looks like it may be overblown. And since pressed CDs are not affected, a clear path forward exists. Don't expect the Dreamcast to die too soon.

As for the Saturn, it should make it long enough for NiGHTS 2 to be released. :P

Re:wow i had no idea...

[twistedsymphony]

I've still got my Saturn too, I play the occasional game of nights, recently I picked up an Netlink adapter and a copy of Virtual On Netlink Edition. There's actually group that still play Netlink games regularly: The Saturn Netlink League [saturnleague.com].

I have more affinity for my Dreamcast though, I've got quite a few games for it, just this weekend I played through Space Channel 5.

Sega isn't known for their customer support

[spyrochaete]

If Sega discontinues Dreamcast service, how will they populate their canned technical support response?

I bought Outrun 2006 for PC via Steam a couple of months ago. The game consistently froze my computer every time I played the game for more than about 30 seconds. It's the only game I have trouble with so I asked Sega for support, noting specifically that I needed assistance with my PC. It took them 2 weeks to reply and they sent me a generic response featuring links on how to repair and clean a Dreamcast. Luckily Steam was understanding enough to issue me a refund - one of two refunds I've ever gotten for a software product in 20 years.

I was going to paste the generic reply letter here but it's longer than I remembered it, so here's a link to my blog [demodulated.com] where I give a full description of my account. Needless to say I won't be buying Sega software for a PC ever again.

Re:NiGHTS 2 coming for the Wii

[AKAImBatman]

NiGHTS 2 coming for the Wii

Thus the reference. Though I just had a vision of the mysteeeeeerious future. In it, I saw a Slashdot article about NiGHTS 2 being officially confirmed. I wonder if I my post had anything to do with that? ;-)

Re:Emulaton

[miscz]

Yup, although Chanka seems to be dead nullDC public beta was released just yesterday and Makaron shows much promise.

Open Source It

[Anonymous Coward]

So they're not getting anything from the Dreamcast, why not open source it so it can be hacked to support CDROMS. Make the Dev Kit downloadable for free. Give it all to a community that even when five years have passed still plays with it. Keep playing!