28 replies to this topic

[IceCold]

Well, I just thought I'd tell you guys I bought a dreamcast today, $25. I had a dreamcast, but it stopped working, but I finally got another one. It's the newest system I own

[Ze_ro]

Wow, for $25, everyone should have a Dreamcast. It's such a good system, especially with all the emulators and stuff available for it. I bought my DC for $100 just after Sega had given up on it, and it was the best $100 I've ever spent.

Maybe I'll wait for the Gamecube to fail before I buy that too ...

--Zero

[MrRetroGamer]

I got one for $30, I've also picked up a few games and extra controllers from various places (EBGames.com has pretty good prices). This is a pretty cool system, and I can't stop playing Crazy Taxi! And the emulation possibilities are pretty nice too!

[IceCold]

I got my original a couple years ago for christmas for $150. And yes, I know about the emulation part, one of the reasons I got it

[eldunko]

Wanna know what's wierd? In all my journeys across the internet, i've never met anyone else who bought their DC at launch.

[joeybastard]

That's the best $25 bucks you ever spent. I gotmy DC when they were closing them out for $50 and I LOVE that thing. I like it much better then my GC.

[MegaManFan]

I think that's partly what killed the system. It's a fabulous console, but out of the gate the whole "it's thinking" concept didn't grab people, and the launch titles were only average, and with a stiff price tag people probably saw the PlayStation (and yes even the N64 perhaps) as good cheap alternatives. Plus, there was that whole Sega Saturn debacle, and many Saturn owners who felt burned (especially considering all the best titles came out in Japan, and not here) probably said screw Sega and didn't buy their NEWEST disc based system. Even backwards compatibility probably wouldn't have helped. It's not until the dire end when Sega bailed out of the console market and Dreamcasts started being unloaded cheap everywhere that a lot of us had the "Holy shit this system is great!" reaction; too little too late. Dreamcast will forever remain the system that SHOULD have won the console wars, but didn't.

[oesii]

eldunko said:

Wanna know what's wierd? In all my journeys across the internet, i've never met anyone else who bought their DC at launch.

My wife got it for my as a present at launch $200 right? First new console I had since a Sega Genesis.

[IceCold]

I have a question, is there a program that can play VCD's on Dreamcast?(that I can download right now and burn to cd-r, and that doesn't have to be on the VCD)

Also, how good is Mame for Dreamcast? I have like 2 CD-r's left, so I'm trying to use them wisely

[ubersaurus]

My friend bought Dreamcast at launch, he was also the first person in the city to get it, since he bugged the guy at meijers to let him pick up his preordered one a few hours in advance

I think the sad part about the Dreamcast is that sega did practically everything right with it, and yet it still failed to beat a system that had absolutely no good games until after the dreamcast died. Statistically it has the best lineup of good games, it's got innovative titles like Seaman, Space Channel 5 1 & 2, and Shenmue 1 & 2, Extremely high quality arcade ports like Ikaruga, Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike, Marvel vs Capcom 2, it had pretty graphics, quality sports titles, all the stuff you basically need to get a successful system, and all of these in good quantities. But it still failed. Sega had basically hurt their image so badly after all the Genesis upgrades and the Saturn, that no one was biting, but those that did were snapping up titles without a problem.

I'm convinced that if Sega hadn't fucked themselves with the 32X and actually released good games stateside with the Saturn, they would have been able to at least keep interest enough for the Dreamcast to hold its own...hell, by the time the Xbox and the Cube came out, the DC could have been marketed as the low cost alternative, which would have hurt GC and Xbox sales.

This is all theory of course...Sega had alot of problems over the years and the death of the DC was the culmination of it all.

[Lost Monkey]

I had my first DC in March 99, imported from Asia... actually I traded 2 new TurboDuos for it to Video Game Depot...

I was totally geeked for the DC because I had just really started to like the Saturn when it was announced.

BTW: Congrats on your new DC!

[chrisbid]

my friend picked up an import DC six months before launch. i fell in love with it almost on first sight

i bought mine in jan 2000. the used game store i frequent, had picked one up, and they replaced the case with a clear shell, and added a mod chip. they sold it for 200 though, and threw in a couple of crappy games (pen pen tri-icelon and something else...). it wasnt quite at launch, but close enough for me. its hands down my favorite 3D console

[Ze_ro]

IceCold said:

I have a question, is there a program that can play VCD's on Dreamcast?

Check out this site for lots of homebrew Dreamcast programs. I haven't tried any VCD players, but scroll down and look on the right hand side of that site, and you'll see stuff like DCVCD and DC Movie Player.

Quote

Also, how good is Mame for Dreamcast?

Not that good unfortunately. For the most part, you have to get seperate versions of MAME that are tuned for specific games. For example, Double Dragon and TMNT MAME's were recently released. You can stick a bunch of these "single game MAME's" on a disk, but it's a bit of a hassle, and a lot of them still won't run full speed unless you turn off sound.

I wouldn't bother wasting a CD on them if I were you. In case you haven't burned any of the following, I'd highly recommend NesterDC, [D]Colem, DCStella, and ScummVMDC. I'm actually extremely impressed with ScummVM.. lets me play classics like Day of the Tentacle and Monkey Island 2... too bad Full Throttle doesn't seem to work too well

--Zero

[IceCold]

Ze_ro said:

IceCold said:

I have a question, is there a program that can play VCD's on Dreamcast?

Check out this site for lots of homebrew Dreamcast programs. I haven't tried any VCD players, but scroll down and look on the right hand side of that site, and you'll see stuff like DCVCD and DC Movie Player.

Quote

Also, how good is Mame for Dreamcast?

Not that good unfortunately. For the most part, you have to get seperate versions of MAME that are tuned for specific games. For example, Double Dragon and TMNT MAME's were recently released. You can stick a bunch of these "single game MAME's" on a disk, but it's a bit of a hassle, and a lot of them still won't run full speed unless you turn off sound.

I wouldn't bother wasting a CD on them if I were you. In case you haven't burned any of the following, I'd highly recommend NesterDC, [D]Colem, DCStella, and ScummVMDC. I'm actually extremely impressed with ScummVM.. lets me play classics like Day of the Tentacle and Monkey Island 2... too bad Full Throttle doesn't seem to work too well

--Zero

That stinks that MAME doesn't run too well. I already have nesterdc and [d]colem(played this a lot today) from back when my DC worked. What is ScummVMDC though?

[Cafeman]

I bought my (first) DC on launch day, 9/9/99. It was a Thursday and I took the day off, bought Sonic Adventure and NFL2k plus a VMU. I have loved the DC since day 1. There have always been awesome titles available for it, sometimes it was hard to 'keep up' especially when titles started to get discounted to insanely low prices.

[video game addict]

eldunko said:

Wanna know what's wierd? In all my journeys across the internet, i've never met anyone else who bought their DC at launch.

I bought my first one at launch with an extra controller, vmu, NFL2K, Sonic Adventure, & Ready 2 Rumble.

I had a friend that split the cost with me, and his friend worked at Wal-mart so we saved 10% on everything we bought.

Then I think the very next day we went back and bought House of the Dead 2, Soul Calibur, & an arcade stick. I don't remember ever buying a gun though.

And still later, that same weekend from after the launch we went back a third time and bought, PowerStone & Marvel vs. Capcom.


All that in the first week it had came out. After that we didn't buy much for a while. I remember getting Sega Base Fishing & fishing rod, but that wasn't at launch.


I ended up selling everything on ebay just before the PS2 came out. That was a mistake, but I bought another new one for $50 on Thanksgiving year before last, has it been that long now? I've got around 70 titles now, mostly all the good stuff I want. I've been trying not to just collect any crap title. I had a few more, and was up around 84-85 titles, but some I just didn't care for so I sold them off. I still have a few wants, mainly Fighters & shooters, but I'm taking my time finding them. Gives me something to look for at the pawn shops.

I've picked up pretty much everything locally. But I did go ahead and buy a few of the imports, like Shenmue II, Headhunter, & Ikaruga. I figured my chances of seeing them in a pawn shop was kind of slim. Of course now they've all come to the US on other platforms, but I like having the original versions of them.

[moycon]

DC was the first Sega system I got from the store. I got it Xmas 1999.
I honestly think it's one of the best consoles ever!! Its really too bad it didn't last a couple more years. It makes me sad to think what games could have been put out on that machine.

[Ze_ro]

IceCold said:

What is ScummVMDC though?

It's a port of ScummVM. ScummVM is an open source interpreter for LucasArts Scumm games. Scumm is an acronym for "Script Utility for Maniac Mansion", and the engine was used for all of LucasArts point & click adventures. So, you can use ScummVM to play games like the Monkey Island series, Full Throttle, Sam & Max, and various other LucasArts games on modern PC's... or in this case, on your Dreamcast. Check out the website for more information about the games it supports and such.

The Dreamcast version is actually very good. There are some points where cut-scenes stop while it loads from the disc (PC version does this too though), and Full Throttle has a number of problems, but it's definitely worth trying. Of course, you need the data files from the original games to actually play them... but since the games are old, you can probably find them for fairly cheap, or if you're really strapped for cash, there's always KaZaA

--Zero

[Brian R.]

IIRC, I bought my Dreamcast for $149, and I got a free second controller when I bought it at a Software Etc. store. Wanted blue, but all they had was red.

It was the first new console I'd bought since my Genesis, and is still the newest console I own. I thought I was getting a system that would be going for a few more years, it seemed to be doing well at the time, but Sega pulled the plug a few months after I bought it.

I have never had any regrets about buying it. So many of the games are so very good. I believe technology-wise the Dreamcast could still be competing today.

[smsforce2k3]

eldunko said:

Wanna know what's wierd? In all my journeys across the internet, i've never met anyone else who bought their DC at launch.

I got mine about a month after launch. I got NFL 2k3 and Sonic with it. I've been faithfully buying all Sega Systems since Genesis (even Sega CD and 32x) as soon as they came out. I later bought the black "Sports" Dreamcast. A nice little addition too.

Brett (smsforce)

[Ze_ro]

I'm quite sure you mean NFL 2K... NFL 2K3 wasn't available for quite some time. Yeah, I'm a nit picker

--Zero

[walter_J64bit]

Ive got my DC in a trade for my 7800 he he!

[Atari2600Lives]

I bught my DC for $99 from a guy at work so that I could play Ultimate Fighting championship when it came out (great game).

I could not resist picking up a new one at Toys R us when they were blowing them out for $49.

So now I have 2!

Soul Calibur is worth owning the console by itself, it really is.

[Willard]

They currently sell dreamcasts for $30 at gamestop, unfortunatelly i got mine for $120. The dreamcast is the best system EVER made, especially because they made ILLBLEED for it!!! Also, new releases such as half-life and propeller arena make me think the system is still alive

[smsforce2k3]

Ze_ro said:

I'm quite sure you mean NFL 2K... NFL 2K3 wasn't available for quite some time. Yeah, I'm a nit picker

--Zero

LOL. You're right. You also missed something more obvious (to me anyway). NFL only went up to 2k2 on Dremcast!

Brett (smsforce)