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Games Entertainment

Sega Drops Dreamcast Price To $50 357

Posted by timothy from the good-luck-finding-the-broadband-adapter dept.
kerskine writes: "Just read this article on CNET that says Sega has just dropped the price of the Dreamcast console to US$49.95. Given past articles on Slashdot on all sorts of fun Dreamcast projects, now's the chance to get one. Why not get two (in case you break one)?" See also this article on getting Linux to run on Dreamcast, and NetBSD is another option to explore. 8ight points out even more interesting Dreamcast information.
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Sega Drops Dreamcast Price To $50 More

Sega Drops Dreamcast Price To $50

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  • Now I can get a dreamcast for the same price as a 486 xterminal.... nice sega!

  • consoles (Score:2, Informative)

    by Transient0 ( 175617 )
    on the other hand, you can get your hands on a working super nintendo for under $20, and while we're considering buying unsupported consoles, why not go with one that has an almost limitless library of games available for it.

    although I'd be really impressed if anyone managed to get linux running on a snes.
  • Just a small step below the new generation - PS2/X-box/Gamecube, and only $50! I bought one for $90 Canadian a short while ago, and am duly impressed with the graphics. Buy the damn thing, already - it comes with 3 or 4 demos, and costs about as much as a single *game* for other systems out there.

  • Firewall? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by crow ( 16139 ) on Wednesday November 21, 2001 @02:28PM (#2597030) Homepage Journal
    The article mentions that there is a "broadband adapter" that you can get for this--it's an ethernet port. Now if you could get it to work with two of them (I have no idea how the hardware works), then you could use this as a firewall/router. Since it's running on a CD, you don't have to worry about someone modifying files on it if they manage to hack in (which is unlikely, as the script kiddies wouldn't be up to modifying the x86-based Linux hacks to deal with the dreamcast, even if you didn't fix the known vulnerabilities). Of course, not having a hard drive also means limited logging.

    Anyway, something to think about.

    • Re:Firewall? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by jrstewart ( 46866 )
      The DC only has one expansion port. You can either have a modem (which it comes with, I believe) or an ethernet adapter.

      Still, it does have a keyboard and mouse, so if not a firewall, maybe a cheapo terminal?

    • Re:Firewall? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Howie ( 4244 )
      Good luck finding a BBA though - Sega stopped making them almost as soon as they started. They didn't sell that well due to the limited range of compatible games (it wasn't the same API that the dial-up online games used). They now change hands on EBay for $100 and up ($60 RRP).

      Wish it wasn't the case, because talking to the DC via a serial cable is a pain in the ass.

    • DreamCast Hard Drive (Score:4, Informative)

      by hattig ( 47930 ) on Wednesday November 21, 2001 @03:06PM (#2597258) Journal
      http://www.ma.nma.ne.jp/~ikehara/dc/dcwdc.html [nma.ne.jp]

      http://homepages.compuserve.de/bITmASTER32/dc/dc-i de.html [compuserve.de]

      With pictures, etc.

    • Crow writes:
      "Of course, not having a hard drive also means limited logging."

      > lpt

    • Since it's running on a CD, you don't have to worry about someone modifying files on it if they manage to hack

      Or, you could buy any one of a number of solid-state firewall routers that periodically sell for less than $50 and run on less than 5watts. (Mine is an SMC that cost $49 a few months ago, is the size of a small cigar box, and is also a printe server and DHCP server.)

      e.g., www.smc.com

      Perhaps the sega box is fun for playing games and experimenting, but there are more practical solutions for firewalls today.

    • Re:Firewall? (Score:2, Informative)

      by MadCamel ( 193459 )
      You don't need 2 ethernet ports for that, an IP alias and the correct routing can work just as good in most cases. $50 linux firewall, now that's not a bad deal!

    • Re:Firewall? (Score:4, Informative)

      by RobertFisher ( 21116 ) on Wednesday November 21, 2001 @05:14PM (#2597962) Journal
      Actually, Sega stopped the manufacture of their "broadband adaptors" (BBAs) after just a few months on sale, and even then you had to purchase it directly from Sega.

      This limited supply, coupled with a high demand from gamers who want one for netplay (QIIIA, UT, and a precious few other games support the BBA), means the average going price for a BBA is far more than the DC box itself. A quick scan of eBay shows only one currently available, at a starting bid of $120 (!).

      So the cost of two of these puppies, and one DC box, would set you back far more than an Ethersys router, which is an all-around better option in any case.

      In addition, the DC has only one modem/BBA port; getting two to work with it would be nontrivial.

      Bob

  • BBA (Score:2, Informative)

    by syates21 ( 78378 )
    Why can't they just sell some more of the friggin "broadband adapter" ethernet cards. Does anyone know of a way to hack together one without blowing the money on an overpriced ebay auction?
  • Is where can I pick one of these up for $50? Most stores around me (central CT) don't carry them anymore...Anybody out there have a website that carries them?

    Thanks!

  • Better link (Score:3, Informative)

    by zarathud ( 255150 ) on Wednesday November 21, 2001 @02:30PM (#2597044) Homepage

    That link points to part 2 of the article.

    You might want to start at the beginning [linuxdevices.com]
    ( http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT7466555948. html [linuxdevices.com])

  • Buy Two! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Exmet Paff Daxx ( 535601 ) on Wednesday November 21, 2001 @02:31PM (#2597045) Homepage Journal
    The absolute best part about this is that you can get two Dreamcasts for $100. Anyone who has ever player VOOT [gamezone.com] for the Dreamcast knows that there's pretty much no console based multiplayer game that has ever gotten within miles of being as good as this game. With game prices falling, now's the chance to put together a head-to-head system that will still be playable and extremely enjoyable 10 years from now when the console is both dead and obsolete.

    Don't believe me? The game is THAT good. I still play Lode Runner, and I'll be playing Virtual On ten years from now.

  • Great fodder for an arcade cabinet! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 2Flower ( 216318 ) on Wednesday November 21, 2001 @02:31PM (#2597049) Homepage

    Here's my project for December: turning my Dreamcast into a sweet arcade cabinet. Build a wooden frame or buy an empty one and use your dreamcast + cheap TV for an excellent combo. I'm estimating the whole project will come in under $300 bucks.

    I've seen MAME projects which use PCs and other gear, but this is the best value. You can burn a MAME emulator along with some roms on a bootable disc, you could buy Atari's Greatest Hits for 20... or if you like modern games, there are lots of arcade-straightforward titles like Crazy Taxi, Dead or Alive 2, and Marvel vs. Capcom 2 that make great pickupandplay games for a few minutes.

    Just because the system didn't make it in the market, don't write it off; the potential for hacking, modding, or simply playing quality games is high. And by the end of the year I'll have a standup version of Crazy Taxi to play...


    • 2Flower writes:


      Here's my project for December: turning my Dreamcast into a sweet arcade cabinet.


      From linuxdevices.com [linuxdevices.com]: The Dreamcast sports a Hitachi SH7750 CPU running at 200 MHz, with 16MB of memory.


      Okay, MAME, under Win98SE, needs over a 300 Mhz K6-2 for some games (KOF, etc). Any early arcade games, or anything up to and including the SNES generation consoles should run fast enough on a dreamcast (although this is an educated guess that assumes the Dreamcast performs at about the same rate as a P200).


      However, I'm tempted to turn a Dreamcast into an emulated gaming machine as well. I like the idea of of a desktop omni-console. However, I don't think the dreamcast is fast enough for some arcade games, although I'd be happy if I was wrong.

      • Windows itself is a big part of the overhead in mame. It's not all chip speed there.
      • Don't underestimate the CPU's power. It is a pure RISC-based core, which can't be well compared to x86 speeds. Just like those 500mhz Macs that can run circles around a P3-800mhz most of the time. Also keep in mind that all of the DC's subsystems are designed for fast smooth graphics and stutterless sound, and you don't have to share CPU time with a bloated OS. A good MAME port to the DC would probably run 95% of games at full framerate, which is the most power you can get for 50$ these days.

  • Wow only 50 bucks..... (Score:3, Funny)

    by MrWinkey ( 454317 ) on Wednesday November 21, 2001 @02:31PM (#2597053) Homepage
    ....for that price I can buy two. One to use and one to hold up the low end of the couch!

  • Cheaper than a GameBoy Advance! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) <jhummel.johnhummel@net> on Wednesday November 21, 2001 @02:33PM (#2597068) Homepage
    On the one side, that's a great plug for the Dreamcast. It's a great little system - the games are fun, interesting, the controller is fairly comfortable, and yes, there's all the other cool (Linux) tricks coming out for it.

    But there is a dark side to this. A lot of the good games (Grandia II, Phantasy Star Online, Skies of Arcadia) are being ported to the Playstation 2, GameCube, and the Xbox.

    Then we can take the other side and say it's a good thing Sega is porting those games over. Take Resident Evil: Code Veronica - it's around $40-$50 for the Playstation 2 version, while the Dreamcast version can be found (usually used, granted) for around $20. Looks the same, plays the same, and except for those added scenes in the Playstation 2 version, is pretty much the same game.

    So you could get a Dreamcast for $50, and the good games for around $20-$30 each, or just wait until the good games (because most of the crappy ones won't be brought thanks to Darwin's Survival of the Funnest, except for Sakura Taisen which will probably never reach an English market).

    Me? I'm buying another Dreamcast, just in case the one I have ever blows up ;).

    • Another point to consider is that with the X-Box and GameCube coming out now that alot of people may be turning in their Dreamcasts for store credit. Guess what they'll be doing with their software? They'll either be turning those in too or selling them on eBay or something. So you win/win! You can get the console for cheap and pick up all those games for cheap too!


      Sakura Taisen DOES rock, by the way. Part Four comes out on Dreamcast in 2002! w00t!

      • I'm sure that Sakura Taisen is great, but as I don't have the time to learn Japanese, I'll never know.

        And I don't get Sega. They have to know they'd sell 1,000,000 units in the US if they brought it over - the fanboy element alone would handle that.

  • What's the point? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Skevin ( 16048 )
    I started shopping for the DC games I always planned to get, but...

    Soul Calibur - Discontinued
    House of the Dead 2 - Discontinued
    Hydro Thunder - Discontinued
    Ready to Rumble - Discontinued

    The list goes on and on, and it seems like the only games I can still buy in the original shrink wrap are the ones that nobody really wanted. I guess the only thing left to run is Cheap Linux Console.

  • And don't forget... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anixamander ( 448308 ) on Wednesday November 21, 2001 @02:34PM (#2597070) Journal
    the dreamcast can also play games. Lots of them in fact. So much has been made of its usage as an internet appliance, a linux box, etc., but it is also an excellent gaming console. Soul Caliber is still one of the best looking titles on any console IMO. And the price of dreamcast titles continues to drop, making it even eaiser to amass a decent collection of games.
  • Fifty dollars is cheaper than my Thanksgiving dinner's going to be. Wonder what the family'd say if they opened the serving tray and saw a Dreamcast?

  • Dammit!!! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Ardax ( 46430 )
    And I just paid $59.99 for mine on Sunday!!!!

  • I LOVE my Dreamcast...! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 21, 2001 @02:39PM (#2597102)
    Let me tell you about my Dreamcast: I use it to play games for NES, SNES, Sega Master System, MAME, Colecovision, Gameboy, and other systems, all of which are emulated (some near-perfectly) on the Dreamcast. An N64 emulator is reportedly in the works, too, as is an Apple ][ emulator, and more. I have run Linux on it successfully (although I wish I had a hard drive). I can also use it as an MP3 player, and using the newest VCD player I get full-motion, full-screen playback of VCDs on my TV (some earlier attempts were choppy, but the new player is great). I can use it as a web browser (if I want to see what the web is like on TV for some odd reason), or to send e-mail. Right now, I have it set up for my roommate to use for her e-mail so she doesn't need to "borrow" my computer. All that use out of it, and that's without even looking at the large library of Dreamcast Games. For 50 bucks, this thing is a steal.
    • I use it to play games for NES, SNES, Sega Master System, MAME, Colecovision, Gameboy,

      ...at what framerate? My friend and I got the NES emulator working on the DC, but we had to set it to skip every 3rd frame if we wanted a decent clip. And thats NES, for chrissakes! You can see why we didn't even attempt SNES or MAME. The DC's 200MHz is seriously under-powered for emulation (either that, or the emulator ports need a lot more work. I'd like to believe #2, because *real* DC games have crazy graphics and framerate, and if that can be done, then so should emulation.)
  • So the Dreamcast comes with a modem, right? And you can add an Ethernet card of some sort? I was just told that you can't you them both at the same time, but what about when you run it under Linux/NetBSD? If it's possible, I'm thinking of buying one and using it to replace my dialup/NAT box so I can turn off my loud-ass PCs at night and just leave the Dreamcast on. Is this possible? Any pointers on how to do it?

  • New Dreamcasts CANNOT run linux (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SuzanneA ( 526699 ) on Wednesday November 21, 2001 @02:56PM (#2597199)
    Don't forget that the Linux/DC and NetBSD/DC ports rely on being able to boot from a CD.

    This is a functionality that Sega took away several months ago, meaning that the newer dreamcasts cannot boot Linux/DC, NetBSD/DC, the Bleem packs, the Utopia bootdisk, or anything else that isn't on a GDROM.

    The $50 dreamcasts are a nice cheap game system, but don't buy a new DC expecting to run linux or netbsd just by burning the images on the net to a CDR.

    • Don't forget that the Linux/DC and NetBSD/DC ports rely on being able to boot from a CD.

      This is a functionality that Sega took away several months ago, meaning that the newer dreamcasts cannot boot Linux/DC, NetBSD/DC, the Bleem packs, the Utopia bootdisk, or anything else that isn't on a GDROM.

      And that includes MAME discs, too. I wonder how much this affected DC sales? I sure know that I don't want a $50 DC that won't play imports or hacks.

      So can anyone tell us how to tell the new ones from the old ones, preferably while they're still in the original box?

      • Dreamcasts made before October 2000 can boot from a CDROM. After, cannot. Most on the shelf now cannot. If you can find a Smash Pack Bundle anywhere, those for the most part are good to go. You can sometimes see the "Made On" date through the windown on the back for the serial number.

    • So you're saying new dreamcasts are incompatale with the Sega Dreamcast web browser that comes with them, which is on a normal CD-ROM??? I don't think so there chumpie...


    • One thing that is quite common is for the drive to go bad on a dreamcast. Find an old broken unit and replace the drive with a drive from a new non-cdr bootable unit and the old unit will be able to boot cd-rs again.

      Or so I hear :)

    • These will too boot on CDR's and even CDRW's (Score:5, Informative)

      by cybrthng ( 22291 ) on Wednesday November 21, 2001 @03:24PM (#2597350) Homepage Journal
      I have purchased 4 dreamcast systems, 2 for me and 2 as gifts, all of them have been able to play cdr's and the one i use i've moded to read cdrw's as well.

      It includes 1 09/09/99 unit, 2 sportspack units and one unit purchased at bestbuy on latest batch 3 weeks agai.

      All play jap imports using the hacked bootdisk by utopia

    • Thats not true! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Skuld-Chan ( 302449 )
      First - this was a rumor - I have a dreamcast that was just purchased in the store the other day - in the black and red box (with the sports scene on it) - boots CDR's just fine. I don't know where it came from, but I have YET TO SEE a DC that can't boot cdr's and I've picked up like 4 of these for friends and family.

      Second you can boot a DC off a CD and then bootstrap it off a NFS server (or whatever) - I've got this kind of setup at home - so in essence the cdr is just a bootstrap medium. Of course it helps to have a cross compiler for SH4 - but that seems to be more effort then the average slashdotter is in to.
      • From: http://www.megagames.com/dc/dc_backup_faq.shtml [megagames.com]

        6.1. Newer Non-CDR DCs and workaround Thanks to DJ Motion from isonews, jc, OEM, and Xeal on dcwarez.

        The new DCs have their BIOS programmed to prevent booting CD(R)s which have audio (audio boot data in this case) before the game data (formally known as the MIL-CD format). Not nice. Especially considering nearly all previous games - including ECHELON rips - work like this. When buying a Dreamcast, look for Dreamcast units manufactured BEFORE November 2000. There have been some units manufactured in Nov. 2000 with the new BIOS revision that will not work with CDR's. Note that retail box type (regular or Smash Pack) does not matter, only the manufacture date of the unit, which should be visible through a small window on the Dreamcast retail box. Also identified as not working with CDR's are the Sakura Taisen and Hello Kitty special edition Dreamcasts available in Japan.

        So it looks like data only CDRs should work, just not audio _before_ data.

        lnical

    • Yeah they can, get your facts straight. Those were only released in Japan and in small quantities of certain types of DC: Hello Kitty and one I can't remember, I have yet to run across a US DC that can't boot a CDR.

    • Oh no (Score:2, Funny)

      by ppetru ( 24677 )
      Sheesh, after all the work of brainwashing people on buying me Dreamcasts for Christmas, now I need to do it again for something else (since the darn thing won't run Linux).

      Ah well...
    • Apparently anything before November (or September according to some) 2000 will work. I just went to Toys-R-Us and all they had were July 2000s and also Sept/Nov 2000s.

      I had expected that the ones in stock would be more recent, but getting a pre Sept 2000 shouldn't be too difficult if you want to be safe.

  • Sorry to ruin all your beowulf fantasies... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 21, 2001 @02:59PM (#2597217)
    But the Broadband (Ethernet) adaptor is extremely rare. It costs over $100 on ebay. So your DC node is going to cost you around $150 each.

    Better uses include playing games (duh!), internet appliance (comes with 56k modem), and the emulators/mp3 stuff.

    Just don't count on networking it for a decent price!
  • hit google's cache [google.com]

  • Emulators for the DC (Score:4, Informative)

    by nft ( 12680 ) on Wednesday November 21, 2001 @03:14PM (#2597297)
    Seems like boob.uk is slashdotted right now, but also check out dcemulation [dcemulation.com] for news about emulators for the DC. There's a bunch.

    There's also quite a few cool proggies to do other things with your dc. MPEG vid players, streaming mp3 players, and demo disks to check out.

    And if you're thinking about running linux on the DC, my man Fivemouse [fivemouse.com] has got 119MB Disk Juggler images you can dl and burn up. And check out his GBA webserver while you're there.

  • Offtopic: Slashdotter hardware interests (Score:5, Funny)

    by Junks Jerzey ( 54586 ) on Wednesday November 21, 2001 @03:22PM (#2597339)
    It's always interesting see the different reactions to hardware on Slashdot.

    Dreamcast: Mostly gushing praise, even though Sega is a huge corporation (and Slashdotters in general seem to be anti-corporate, at least in theory).
    Mac: 80% flamingly negative, 20% positive. OS X is changing this somewhat, though it seems most people don't want UNIX being used by people who aren't geeks.
    iPod: High praise, though some people hate it because it's from Apple.
    iPaq: Generally positive.
    PS2: Brings out lots of anti-console rhetoric; negative overall.
    Xbox: 60% positive, generally from people who dislike Sony and Nintendo and want a console to be more computer-like. This is even though Microsoft is usually hated otherwise.
    Transmeta: 90% negative, though often for no real reason.
    Intel: Intel suxors, down with Intel!
    AMD: We'll make another exception to the "multi-billion dollar corporations are evil" rule, because we like those inexpensive processors.
    Amiga: Misty-eyed nostalgia, including some people who incorrectly think that the Amiga sported the world's first multitasking OS. About 10% of the responders are still fighting the "Amiga is better than ____" battle, like Japanese sailors on small islands in the 1950s who didn't know WWII was over.

  • Here in Brazil anything bought by mail/internet don't pay taxes if under US$50. Now I can buy my DC and pay only US$50 + shipping :o)

    I wonder what will happen to local retailers.

  • cheapest internet access ever? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Docrates ( 148350 ) on Wednesday November 21, 2001 @03:46PM (#2597460) Homepage
    I have never seen a dreamcast in action other than those demo units you see in some stores, so I'm not sure if what i'm about to say will be as wrong as that email from kabul Katz told us about

    Can I buy a dreamcast, a keyboard, connect it to the internet and have it run a browser? if this is so, this is the cheapest way to setup an internet cafe, and since I live in a third world country, I can actually see this being an option for inernet access on very poor regions, where telephone service is available, but computers are out of the question.

    anyone knows about this? I think I might be willing to donate several if this is viable.
    • Yes, that should work. The TVs need to be large enough to read the text, and you can probably guess at the resolution of the browser, but it's feasible. Also note that development has stopped on the browsers, though the latest release is fairly capable. It's fine now, but won't be sufficient in the future as standards change. You also need to know if your third world location has the access to, and funds for, ISP service. Definitely an interesting idea though. I think, however, that computer donations from companies could be a better solution. More upgradeable for one, and companies tend to dig that sort of thing as it's an easy tax write-off (*ahem* see Microsoft 'settlement' *ahem*)
      • VGA adapters for DC are fairly cheap.
      • I live in Panama (central america) and most ISPs have local access in poor areas. These are not Afghanistan poor, these are people that might have telephones and might have a TV, but the schools have very limited resources. Besides, Cable and Wireless is the local telco, and they might be interested in doing this. I think I'm gonna give them a call. How about etherenet? We could get cheap ADSL service in a room with 20 dreamcasts (yes our poor areas have ADSL access) and make a lot of kids happy...
    • Can I buy a dreamcast, a keyboard, connect it to the internet and have it run a browser?

      Yes.

      A Broadband Adapter for each would be ideal, but might be rare/expensive. What might be cheaper yet kludgier, would be to set up some sort of modem-to-modem connection between the DC out-of-box 56k and some cheap modems set up in NAT gateway PCs. But that would be VERY kludgy
    • Docrates,

      I bought one of the Dreamcasts when the price dropped to $80. I paid about $160 that day for DC stuff. But, I got the DC itself, a keyboard, mouse, extra controller, two "rumble packs", two VMU's, and a few games that I bought solely because of title/pictures/whatever. (some cheesy role playing games), and a 'VGA Box'.

      First thing I did when I got it all home was hook it all up to my television (didn't screw with the VGA box thing yet), plugged in a gamepad, keyboard, and mouse. Booted up, put in my ISP settings, and I was online browsing and doing emails. So, as long as you've got a dialup ISP, technically, you're good to go out of the box. You don't need the keyboard to type (you can have some keyboard overlay thing on the screen pop up and use the gamepad to control a cursor around to type --- royal pain in the ass though -- spend the $8 for a keyboard!).

      Out of the box net appliance? You betcha! Plus, my kids and I have a blast playing games as well!

      --Xan
  • Any one else remember those old atari 2600 commercials? when the 2600 was $49.99? It was a rap song and it was like "under 50 bucks - 50 bucks ? - now isn't that nice?"

    i miss atari.
  • I might as well buy this console since I also bought:

    1. Atari Jaguar
    2. Nintendo virtual boy
    3. Atari 7800
    4. Vectrex.

    I'll hook it up to the TV card, and have some fun. Hopefully it won't end up in the closet like the 4 mentioned above reside.
  • The console is $49.95, but the ARCADE STICK is still $59.95? Come on! Always wanted one, but it's just not worth it for the price.

    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00001ZV3 7/ qid=1006373038/br=1-29/ref=br_lf_vg_29/002-7781294 -2395242
    • From amazon anyway, there is no buy button and they don't have any in stock. Adding it to one's wish list gives " This item is currently unavailable. "

      I have been looking around for a good joystick for the Dreamcast, and the one from Agetec pointed to in the above amazon link seems to be the best from what I hear. The problem is that Agetec has stopped producing them and they are almost as rare to find and get as Kryptonite. I have tried looking around a few months back in stores that Agetec listed and could not find one. There are places online that I can get them which is also rare, but I don't really trust them and one store would not take my credit card order for some unknown reason.

      Good luck finding a decent arcade stick. Besides this one and the one by interact which is also hard to find, all the others I have seen are cheap pieces of junk.

      For those interested you can see both joysticks here [planetdreamcast.com])
  • Great console to have, not just for its own nostalgic merit, but for also for emulating other nostalgic systems (handles MAME and Nintendo very well)...It's just crazy to believe that about 1450 nintendo games can all fit on the same self-booting cd...and all under 300MB I believe.
  • DC manufactured Sept 2000 or before can run anything, and are the ones you want to get.

    Some Oct 2000 and all Dec 2000 and later do not boot using the audio+data format. This is the format that most pirated games and emulator disks use. There is an alternative burn method to get the later manufactured ones to boot CDs, www.dccopyworld.com and www.isonews.com and www.dcemulation.com has more info on that.

    Only VERY few DCs were manufactured that do NOT boot from CDs at all. They were only released in Japan, and were generally "special" DCs, like the Sakuren Taisen (sp?) special edition DC.

    BleemDC works on all US DCs, so other CDs should also.
  • Does anybody know if there are any good games that will keep a youngster entertained for hours on end? Somebody that already likes Mario.

    I've seen Sonic and that's just a little too fast for a 5 year old.
  • I never really looked into the dreamcast, but is it possible to play a networked game of doom?

    if so Im going out right now and buying one!

  • $20 at Target (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kninja ( 121603 ) on Wednesday November 21, 2001 @05:05PM (#2597918)
    I got a phone call today telling me that they were only 20.00 at target. Aparrently it has been so since sunday. Good luck finding one though...

  • good idea (Score:2, Informative)

    by LocoSpitz ( 175100 )
    Buy one. Even though almost no new games are coming out for it, the games that are currently out are some of the best. And since they're only 20-40 dollars each, you can buy a whole lot. If you're getting a Dreamcast, I'd recommend: Soul Calibur, Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, Jet Grind Radio, Shenmue, Crazy Taxi (original), Virtua Tennis (or Tennis 2K2, i suppose), and Phantasy Star Online (they're both good). Believe me, you won't regret it. Even if you can't run Linux on it...

  • Australia misses out. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Dief_76 ( 171262 ) on Wednesday November 21, 2001 @09:48PM (#2599021)
    Unfortunatly, the price drop isn't going to be passed on to Australia.

    Ozisoft, the Aussie distributer for Sega, has said that their supplies have dried up, and Sega won't be sending any more our way.

    Hmm. Luckily enough, I already own one!

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