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A Classic Launch
Written by Dantastic on Wednesday, November 2, 2005
The days become shorter and nights become colder. Many people out there dread the coming of winter, but not us gamers. For gamers it means launch season. Whether you'll be picking up an Xbox 360 or not, you can't help but feel the excitement that a console launch brings. The Xbox 360 is almost here and although I'm not as excited about a console launch as I was when I was younger, I still can't help but get sick with the launch fever. In honour of yet another console launch, I bring you a classic launch story of my own:
9.9.99, The Sega Dreamcast Launch
The Dreamcast launch on 9.9.99 meant more than just a new console for some of us. For the few diehard Sega fans that remained, it meant our favourite company was back from the dead. In North America, the Playstation was destroying our beloved Saturn and despite all of our pleas that Virtua Fighter was a better game than Tekken, we knew Sony had won the war.
Everyone knew that this was Sega's last shot. One more failure would mean financial ruin for the company and an exit from the home console business. Looking back, I'm not quite sure why so many of us cared whether or not Sega would make another console. The Playstation was a quality console. It was a well-made product, handled 3d games perfectly, and most importantly had an amazing library of games. It was everything we hoped our Saturn to be. For some reason, we just loved our Saturn and although most of us owned a Playstation as well, we held our Saturns in the highest regard.
While standing in line at EB waiting for my Dreamcast pre-order, you couldn't help feel how special this launch was. While everyone else was in Playstation heaven, here is a group of people who believed in a product that everyone else believed would fail. We were a group that still enjoyed the odd game of Virtua Cop. We remember our childhood as being filled with non-stop "blast-processing" Genesis fun. Even though we were stared at while carrying the ridiculously sized Nomad on the bus, we continued to play on. Some of us even bought the 32x when it was so obvious Sega had no real plans with it. So when the nice man handed me my bag of Dreamcast goodies, complete with a special edition Dreamcast bag for pre-ordering (gee thanks EB), I knew that all those years of toughing it out would finally pay off.
When I finally hooked up my Dreamcast and turned on the console, a sense of relief came over me. Sure I had to trade in everything I owned to afford the console. Sure I wouldn't be eating lunch for the next few months. All those thoughts went away when I saw that bouncing swirl hit that soft white screen. The first game I played was a cooky new football title from Visual Concepts called "NFL2K". The fact that this brand new title kicked the crap out of Playstation's beloved Madden, meant a bright future for Sega. After I was done playing, I noticed the a dial-up modem in the back that could be one day used for online play and a VMU that would change the state of gaming forever. Surely this was the greatest console of all time and it would only be a matter of time before people realized it.
...
Long story short, EA said screw you Sega, Sony poured millions into marketing the Playstation, and the Dreamcast was dead. Although we had some fun times along the way with the likes of Virtua Tennis and Power Stone, our beloved Dreamcast was gone forever and our favourite company would never make a console
again. I'll probably never play my Dreamcast again but I know I won't ever sell it. To me its more than a console, its a memory of one of the greatest days ever for a gamer, 9.9.99.
posted November 2, 2005