dreamcast lcd screen price

Simultaneously blessed and cursed with powerful, technical and visionary hardware, the Sega"s Dreamcast was active on the market and relevant for only three years spanning from 1998 to 2001, when the company decided to discontinue the project due to severe economic problems. Although very short, these three years of service were enough to create and leave a new legacy as one of the greatest console and game libraries/rosters of all time.

This article will first discuss what made the console unique before diving into the factors that led Sega to ultimately make the Dreamcast their last and final home console even 20 years later. We will be concluding the article with how Sega miraculously "survived" and what lies ahead for the company"s future [particularly in terms of hardware].

As mentioned, the Sega Dreamcast was way ahead of its time. One of its most substantial key perks stemmed from one of the most excellent line-ups of games at launch ever released for any home console. With 18 titles, the list included legendary games such as Sonic Adventure, The House of the Dead 2, SoulCalibur, NFL Blitz, Mortal Kombat Gold, the infamous Blue Stinger, Hydro Thunder, Crazy Taxi and more. Some of which are still running franchises that are running today. Sadly, this crazy line-up was only ready in time for the Western launch as the earlier Japanese launch was minimal in-game selection.

Alongside the console benefiting from an excellent roster of games, creating the most memorable fighting games and arcade library ever seen, it also created strong partnerships Sega created with developers like SNK and Capcom. Intending to support the diversity of the games" genres present on the console, Sega also allied with the best RPG developers and was able to release big productions like Skies of Arcadia, Shenmue 1 & 2, Grandia 2, and more. To cite a few gems released on the Dreamcast: Jet Set Radio, Space Channel 5, Power Stone, Soulcalibur, and of course, Sonic Adventures 1 & 2, which we will talk about a little bit more in the next part.

In terms of hardware, the console was mighty, even more than its main rival counterpart Sony"s Playstation 2, against which it was competing particularly with more outstanding image quality and resolution, texture compression, VRAM, and overall buffering. The colorful palette offered by Dreamcast still looks good in 2022, especially with the help of a HDMI adapter. The console also competed on the number of controller slots available; the Dreamcast allowed up to 4 players to play simultaneously, whereas the PS2 only allowed 2.

One of the most memorable critical traits of the console - still to this day - is the Visual Memory Unit equipped with a D-pad, action buttons and LCD Screen. Initially placed inside the controller as a memory stick for the console, the device synchronized with the game being played to offer the player additional visibility on game information through the LCD screen"s display, similar in composition to the later released Nintendo"s WII U. Equipped with a battery, the VMUs allowed the players to do mini-games on compatible software, most of the necessary licenses offered such but not all. It is compatible with many different mods, hardware, and software since it runs on Windows CE.

Another critical technical point which made the Dreamcast an iconic console was its access to internet networks. Equipped with online connectivity hence internet access, Sega encouraged their developers to create multiple compatible games and even MMOs like Phantasy Star Online for their innovative home console which allowed its user to browse the internet [with the use of a phone cable].

So, with all of the benefits the Sega Dreamcast provided, it somehow stilly only had a short lifespan. The absence of a built-in DVD player was deadly to the console sales and was a poor choice. Since its main competitor, the PS2 [and the upcoming Xbox] was equipped with one, the console was in jeopardy. What is interesting, and more so frustrating for Sega is that they were in fact the first company within the industry to mention the use of in-built movie players using DVDs as early as 1995. They came up with the idea and decided not to implement it, leaving it to the competition to use against them.

One of the critical problems leading the Dreamcast to discontinuity was piracy. Compatible with Windows CE, combined with Mil-CDs and the overflowing appearance of Boot CDs, the console was insanely easy to hack. Individuals started to buy the console with the intent of hacking it and its entire game library. Highly vulnerable to piracy, people started bootlegging SEGA"s costly developed games at an insane rate. After investing millions of dollars in the development of AAA games like Shenmue, having their player base downloading these expensive games for free was a critical hit to their sales revenues and thus the overall profit. It was vital for Sega to invest in new franchises and exclusivities to compete against Sony, but they all ended up in the hands of hackers at no cost. A great time for burning/copying CDs, just not for Sega.

Not cost-efficient, the price of manufacturing one Dreamcast is estimated at precisely $250.90 against $199.90 of the selling price. Bear in mind that the above price cost of $250.90 did not include marketing costs, a domain in which Sega invested absurd amounts, both in its home country and in America but particularly more in the latter.

The video game industry was moving fast, with consoles released every year or two maximum from various key manufacturers/competitors in the scene. Another hard factor for their fall was the overall competition in the industry at this time against the giant Sony and the brand new console, the legendary and globally acclaimed Playstation 2. The Dreamcast was indeed powerful, but not enough to compete against the new upcoming competitors: Nintendo"s Gamecube and Microsoft"s Xbox [which made a successful new entry in the industry], both released just a few years later in 2001-2002 in Japan and USA respectively.

Internally within the business the Sega Dreamcast would also start to fall due to poor decision making. The management team was stuck with a long-term vision for success and rentability, relying on heavy investment, which hopefully should have brought profit over the long run. Sega made numerous promotional/marketing campaigns and invested absurd amounts in games licenses such as the infamous Shenmue, which cost Sega over 50 million dollars. In addition to these internal issues that the company was going through locally, there was abysmal communication between the western team and the Japanese headquarters, emanating from a lack of trust between Japan and the US due to multiple events/misunderstandings, non-consulted decision making causing overall brand perception issues.

The billionaire president of Sega, Mr Okawa, was nurturing a good relationship with the American company Microsoft [hence all the compatibility with Mil-CDs and Windows CE]; the latter company was progressively investing more and more into the video game industry with already released IPs such as the critically acclaimed Age of Empire series, as well as smaller IPs like Flight Simulator. During the late 90s, Microsoft was planning to collaborate with Sega to tap into the home console market, but with the Dreamcast failing, Sega was going down along with their relationship.

It was then that Microsoft decided to create their competing hardware: Xbox. It is important to mention their partnership because the console is seen as the spiritual successor of the Dreamcast. With careful due diligence and analysis of case studies throughout the good and bad of the Dreamcast, Microsoft was able to learn from Sega"s mistakes and create a powerful and underrated console following the steps of its spiritual predecessor. In a way, the vision of Sega"s Dreamcast keeps on living still to this day through the Xbox series.

Mr Okawa donated millions to help the company offset abandoning the Dreamcast console for $370million. Two years later, Mr Okawa, who was suffering from cancer, decided to make another and final donation of 695 million dollars from his deathbed, accumulating over one billion $ in donations to save Sega.

While he was still business active, Mr Okawa had tried to get Microsoft to implement complete compatibility with Dreamcast software and CDs. This merging is something that would have changed everything for the entry and impact of the Xbox in Japan and Asia in general. Unfortunately, it never happened. Instead, Microsoft agreed to buy all the publishing rights from most Dreamcast game libraries; this is why all the games developed during the console"s death were exported to the Xbox. The list includes Gun Valkyrie, ToeJam, Jet Set Radio sequel and reboots, Panzer Dragoons, Crazy Taxi, Earl, Shenmue 2, Sonic Heroes, which was available on Windows PC as well and even Peter Molyneux"s Fable, which was initially planned to release on Sega"s Dreamcast, and many more.

You can find all sorts of strange tech on Indiegogo, but this fundraiser for an improved version of the virtual memory unit (VMU) for the Sega Dreamcast is one of the zanier gadgets I’ve heard about this year (via Notebookcheck). The company, Dreamware Enterprises, is in the process of developing the VM2, which it calls a “next-gen VMU for the Dreamcast.” It’s a one-to-one recreation of a niche accessory made for a failed console that it plans to release in black or white in the summer of 2023.

Some of the improvements seem great, like a higher-resolution LCD screen with backlighting, microSD card storage for offloading and injecting saves, a rechargeable battery with USB-C charging, and mini-game support. It’ll ship with PC connectivity, with its own GUI for Windows. The firmware and software of the VM2 are being developed by a single person named Chris Daioglou. The Indiegogo page states that production will take place in Greece.

It costs a whopping $114 to place an order for one, and I mightjust do it. Why, exactly, do I really want one of these? Because I’m one of those people who still has a Dreamcast in their entertainment system. I guess that I have an obsession with dead gaming gadgets.

Enough about me. I could see the VM2 being very popular among the Dreamcast’s surprisingly active player base. There are those who still play it for the enjoyment of some of the finest fighting games. And then there are the more involved fans who have figured out ways to host or join dedicated servers for online games that have been officially out of commission for several years. Not to mention, some indie developers are still making games for the Dreamcast. So, yeah, there’s an audience for this thing. And that audience has spoken with its cash. The campaign has 18 days left, yet it has sailed past its goal of raising $89,119.

I might get one because I also just really dig the original concept. In case you missed the too-brief Dreamcast years before it was squished by the PS2, the VMU stood out because, unlike other memory cards, it had a screen that could display contextual info on a per-game basis through a window on the console’s controller. It could display your health, your next football play, or just show off the game’s logo recreated in pixelated fashion as you played. And notably, you could yank it out of the controller and trade saves by linking up with another VMU. You could also play solitaire on it with its D-pad and two face buttons, take care of Tamagotchi-style pets, or play other mini-games installed from some of the Dreamcast’s titles. Look, it was a different time.

Sega Dreamcast Provides Portable and Enhanced Game Play With Visual Memory Unit; Sega Dreamcast First Console to Offer Hand Held Gaming and Internet Functionality.

Sega(R) of America will bring gamers more ways to play their favorite videogames on 9-9-99 with the launch of Sega Dreamcast(tm), the 128-bit superconsole with a built-in 56K modem that brings the most realistic and advanced game play ever achieved in a videogame system.

With Sega"s Visual Memory Unit(tm) (VMU) -- a portable gaming device that allows for hand held gaming -- gamers can save games, play mini-games on the road, trade games with friends and even download special characters and plays for use on Sega Dreamcast from the Internet. The VMU will be sold separately for an SRP of $24.99.

Sega Dreamcast"s VMU is an 128K memory card with a built-in LCD screen that plugs into the Sega Dreamcast control pad and works as both a memory device to save games and a game-enhancing peripheral. Using the LCD screen on the VMU gamers have a strategic advantage by being able to call sports plays without their opponent knowing what they are doing and view vital information, that usually appears on the Television screen, on the VMU.

"In creating Sega Dreamcast we found that gamers wanted more ways to play their games and didn"t want to feel confined by any limits," said Greg Thomas, vice president of product development, Sega of America. "With the VMU, players can enjoy not only Sega Dreamcast games away from the home, but they can expand gameplay on Sega Dreamcast, experiencing a new level of strategy and raising the level of competition."

Sega Dreamcast VMU allows games to take on a life of their own and exist away from the Sega Dreamcast unit. Following are some first and third party games that will utilize the VMU: -0-

"Sonic Adventure(tm)" -- Watch as Sonic the Hedgehog(tm) races onto the Sega Dreamcast at unprecedented speeds! The VMU extends gameplay with a special "virtual pet" feature in which gamers can download characters (AKA "Chao") directly from the game into their VMU. From there, gamers must nurture, feed and care for them in order for them engage in head-to-head "Chao" battles and mini games.

"Sega Sports(tm) NFL 2K(tm)" -- The VMU will provide gamers with strategic options they have never had before for in sports games. Using the VMU, gamers will be able to surprise their opponent with secret attacks by allowing them to enter their plays on the VMU"s LCD screen instead of on the television screen where their opponent could see what they had planned.

"Ready 2 Rumble(tm) Boxing" (Midway) - Featuring Michael Buffer, The Voice of Champions(tm), this hyper-realistic 3D boxing game gives gamers the opportunity to compete as one of 16 boxers, each with their own fighting style. Gamers can track their health meter, punches thrown and the percentage of accuracy on their VMU which will give them a competitive advantage by clearing up the gameplay screen and helping them focus on the action of the game.

"TrickStyle(tm)" (Acclaim) - "TrickStyle" features one mini-game called TrickStyle Jr. In this game, futuristic hover-boarders attempt to ride over pickups that increase the length of the colorful streak of light trailing behind their boards in the actual game. However, the longer the streak, the harder gamers find it to traverse the area as their tail gets in the way. Gamers will then be able to upload their light streaks into the visually-stunning Dreamcast game.

Sega Dreamcast will be available in the US at a suggested retail price of $199, with the built in 56K modem. The system will have 16 titles available at launch, with the number growing to 30 by the end of the year. Third-party titles now in the works will bring the total Sega Dreamcast game library count to more than 100 in the year 2000.

Along with its low price point, Sega Dreamcast will achieve other industry firsts at launch. Its advanced 128-bit architecture makes it the first console with evolutionary capabilities, allowing it to grow and change to match advances in technology and the needs and desires of the consumer. Sega Dreamcast is also the most powerful video game console ever created. It is 15 times more powerful than a Sony PlayStation, ten times more powerful than a Nintendo 64 and has four times the graphics processing power of the fastest Pentium II processor. In addition, Sega Dreamcast is the first console to utilize hand-held gaming through its Visual Memory Unit (VMU), which allows players to swap games with friends in the home, arcade or head-to-head using two VMUs.

Thisstand is laser cut from acrylic and featureslaser-etchedgraphics. Itis specifically designed to hold your Sega Dreamcast Controller. Available in Crystal Clear or Gloss Black.

The Visual Memory Unit (VMU), also called the Visual Memory System, is the primary memory card produced by Sega for the Dreamcast home video game console. Sega Corporation is a Japanese video game developer and publisher.

The Visual Memory Unit features a monochrome liquid crystal display (LCD), multiplayer gaming capability (via connectors at the top of the device), second-screen functionality, a real-time clock, a file manager, built-in flash memory, and sound capability. Before the launch of the Dreamcast, a special Godzilla edition Virtual Memory Unit was released in Japan and was preloaded with a virtual pet game. The VMU is basically a removable storage device, but can also serve as an auxiliary display during normal gameplay and acts like a handheld game console through the use of additional software. The Visual Memory Unit includes a screen, speaker, proper directional pad, four action buttons, the ability to download additional games, and the ability to connect and interact with other VMUs.

Hoping to recapture the video game market, Sega designed the Dreamcast to supersede both the PlayStation and the Nintendo 64. Originally released sixteen months before the PlayStation 2 (PS2), and three years before the Nintendo GameCube and the Microsoft Xbox, it was considered to be ahead of its time and was initially successful.

However, it failed to gain enough momentum before the release of Sony"s PlayStation 2 in March 2000, and Sega decided to discontinue the Dreamcast in January of 2001, withdrawing entirely from the console hardware business and becoming exclusively a third-party developer.

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 which eventually became Dreamcast. At E3 1997, 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".

When it was announced that Sega would be discontinuing the Saturn permanently in favor of Dreamcast, many third-party developers in Japan were angered, as it meant that they were putting money into developing titles for what would soon be a dead system.

The Japanese group led by Hideki Sato settled on an Hitachi SH4 processor with a PowerVR graphics processor developed by VideoLogicand manufactured by NEC. This was originally codenamed "White Belt". The first Japanese prototype boards were silk-screened "Guppy", and the later ones "Katana".

The U.S. skunk works group, 11 people in a secret suite away from the Sega of America headquarters led by Tatsuo Yamamoto settled on an Hitachi SH4 processor with a 3dfx Voodoo 2 graphics processor, which was originally codenamed "Black Belt". The first U.S. prototype boards were silk-screened "Shark" and later "Dural".

In July 1997, perhaps as a result of 3dfx"s IPO, it was decided that the Japanese "Katana" would be the chosen format, renamed Dreamcast. In September 1997, 3dfx filed a lawsuit against Sega and NEC later including VideoLogic, stating "breach of contract",

Dreamcast was released on November 27, 1998 in Japan; on September 9, 1999 in North America 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".

Dreamcast was the first console to include a built-in modem and Internet support for Online Gaming. Previous consoles such as the Genesis/Mega Drive and Saturn had online capabilities, but these were comparably limited and/or required extra hardware (XBAND,NetLink).

Dreamcast enjoyed high sales in its first season, and was one of Sega"s most successful hardware units. In the United States alone, a record 300,000 units had been pre-ordered before launch and Sega sold 500,000 consoles in just two weeks including 225,000 sold on the first 24 hours which became a video game record. In fact, due to high brisk sales and hardware shortages, Sega was unable to fulfill all of the advance orders.

Sega confirmed that it made $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, senior vice president of sales, Sega of America, said on the November 24, 1999: "By hitting the one million units sold landmark, it is clear that the Sega Dreamcast consumer has moved beyond the hard-core gamer and into the mass market."

Before the launch in the United States, Sega had already taken the extra step in displaying Dreamcast"s capabilities in stores nationwide. Much like the PlayStation"s launch in North America, the displays of titles such as Hydro Thunder helped Dreamcast succeed in the first year.

Although Dreamcast had none of EA"s 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 football games. Both games were highly regarded, NFL 2K1 having the advantage of online play, coinciding with release of SegaNet and Madden NFL 2001 arguably having a graphics edge. NFL 2K1 outsold Madden NFL 2001 with about 410,000 copies, which was about the number of PlayStation 2"s that had been sold in America at the time. The Dreamcast however suffered from poor to mediocre soccer titles, a sport popular in Europe.

In April 1999, Sony announced its PlayStation 2. The actual release of the PS2 was not until March 2000 in Japan, and late-October 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, Dreamcast was largely ignored in that territory. Dreamcast had great initial success in the United States, but had trouble maintaining this momentum after news of the PS2"s release.

Dreamcast sales grew 156.5% from July 23 1999 to September 30 1999 putting Sega ahead of Nintendo 64 in that period. For the month of November 2000, Dreamcast passed the Nintendo 64 as the second best selling system. 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 Autumn 2000 did little to help sales once the PlayStation 2 was launched.

A key to Sony"s relative ease for 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, Sega 32X, and Sega CD. In particular, Sega"s attempt to quickly kill off the struggling Saturn (which lagged in North America) 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 cancelled many nearly completed projects (notably

PS2"s main advantage over the Dreamcast was DVD playback capability. While the Dreamcast lacked this, PS2 did have it, and cost less than the average DVD player at the time of its release. This fact alone was possibly the biggest factor contributing to the console"s demise in Japan.

In 2000, the announcements of the Nintendo GameCube were widely regarded as the last straw for Dreamcast, which fueled speculation that Sega did not have the resources for a prolonged marketing campaign. The Xbox would help Sega even during the Dreamcasts lifespan

Sega had problems choosing suitable companies to promote Dreamcast outside the USA. Marketing in European countries was done somewhat poorly, whereas Sony marketed the PlayStation 2 in each country"s local medias, such as newspapers, street shows, etc. Sega recruited third-party companies to promote Dreamcast, some of which did not allocate sufficient money for advertising.

Some important games also lacked European releases. Many important titles were never released outside of Japan, and many were hard to find without importing them to the United Kingdom. Sega put most of its efforts into fighting the console war in the USA, disregarding European markets. While Dreamcast did receive a price cut in the USA to coincide with the PlayStation 2"s American release, the European pricing remained the same, even when the PlayStation 2 was released in Europe.

Sega Europe spent most of its promotional budget on sponsoring 4 football teams: Arsenal, St Etienne, Sampdoria and Deportivo La Coruna. In the year 2000, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was asked by a journalist what a Dreamcast actually was, he replied "a computer games console".

On January 31, 2001, Sega announced that production of Dreamcast hardware was to be discontinued by March 30 of that year, although the 50 to 60 titles still in production would be published. The last North American release was

Though Dreamcast was officially discontinued in early 2001, commercial games were still developed and released afterwards, particularly in Japan. Many consider the critically acclaimed arcade shooter Propeller Arena and

On February 24, 2004, Sega released their final Dreamcast game, Chaos Field released in December 2004, Trizeal released in April 2005, Radilgy released in February 2006, Under Defeat released in March 2006, and most recently Radium, Trigger Heart Exelica released February 2007, and Karous released March 2007.

Despite its short lifespan, as of 2007, Dreamcast is still a popular and highly-regarded console among many fans due to its impressive library of both mainstream and more offbeat titles. It is even starting to gain a cult following, as the system is becoming harder to find. In fact, although Dreamcast was officially discontinued in January 2001, Sega continued to produce the console for a short time afterwards due to rising demand, especially among collectors and hardcore fans.

Several Dreamcast emulation projects have emerged after Dreamcast"s end of production, with Chankast being the most notable, along with the recently released nullDC.

Another Dreamcast looks Very similar to the normal Dreamcast. There are holes in the back of the console. They were in-built-speakers pretty cool right? And it looks a lot similar to the Sega Saturn too.

On February 16, 2006, Sega once again began selling Dreamcast consoles through its online store, Sega Direct of Japan. The package deal included a refurbished Dreamcast, a cell phone card, and Radilgy — a new 2D shooter game by developer Milestone. A short time later, developer G.rev followed that game with a second new 2D shooter game called Under Defeat in March. Both releases were for the Japanese market alone. While the refurbished package has been discontinued, Sega Direct does still sell several Dreamcast software titles.

On May 30, 2006, the gaming website IGN officially relaunched IGN Dreamcast with the goal of revisiting the 243 North American-released Dreamcast games and give "new impressions, screens and videos" and compare them to the gaming experience provided by PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii games.

On February 22, 2007, a port of the Naomi powered 2D shooter Trigger Heart Exelica, developed by Warashi, was released on Dreamcast for the Japanese market with both a current and a limited edition release. Despite rumors that went around the internet, the game was not retitled to Trigger Heart Extension for the Dreamcast release.

In addition, Dreamcast continues to have a modest hacking enthusiast community. The availability of Windows CE software development kits on the Internet, as well as ports of Linux [1] and NetBSD/Dreamcast [2] operating systems, gave programmers a selection of familiar development tools to work with. A homebrew minimal operating system named KallistiOS offers good hardware support. Many 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 an unmodified Dreamcast. One of the unusual but interesting hack example is QNX Dreamcast Project [3].

After The discontinuation of the Dreamcast, Sega had most of their Sega games ported to the Xbox. Sega wanted most of their games on Xbox because of how popular it was. And since Microsoft worked with Sega on the Dreamcast, they made their Sega games Xbox Exclusive So they decided to only sell Sega games to Xbox (At the time)

The standard Dreamcast unit was made of white and grey plastic. 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. Japanese games used an orange-and-white scheme, and European and Australian games used blue.

Although there was no reset button on the Dreamcast system itself, there was a way to reset a game during play. If the player wanted to reset a game, they would have to press the A, B, X, and Y buttons altogether and then press the start button. This would then take them to the game"s main menu. If repeated, it would take players to the Dreamcast menu.

In North America, a black Dreamcast was released in limited numbers with a sports pack which included two Sega Sports titles. 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 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.

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. A German company, Tivola, had been using a similar swirl logo years before Sega branded Dreamcast with the orange swirl. As well as the VGA mode (again using an adapter), 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 (a feature that was first discovered after the expansion of import gaming through chipping/modification of the Sony PlayStation, which forced PAL consoles into NTSC mode unlike the MegaDrive/SNES before it). This became a feature of all major consoles released since. The 60 Hz option had to be enabled on the game disc, however, but only a small number of games lacked this. 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.

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. 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.

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. 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 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 (labelled 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.

Most Dreamcast games supported a rumble pack, officially known as the Jump Pack outside of Japan and the Puru Puru Pack in Japan, which was sold separately and could be plugged into the controller. The Tremor Pack is a third-party implementation by Performance.

Unique to Dreamcast was a VGA adapter for output to a computer display or HDTV compatible sets, providing much better quality than a standard television set. Not all games were compatible with the VGA adapter, but work-arounds existed to trick all but a handful of games into working with it.

Dreamcast supported a mouse as well as a keyboard, which were useful when using the included web browser, and also supported by certain games such as Quake 3, Phantasy Star Online and Railroad Tycoon 2. Other games such as REZ offered undocumented mouse support.

A heavy-duty Arcade Stick was put out by Sega, featuring a digital joystick with six buttons using the same micro switch 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. Adapters 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.

Konami, through its Bemani devision, developed a dance mat for its dance games (Dance Dance Revolution 2ndMix Dreamcast Edition and Dance Dance Revolution Club Version Dreamcast Edition) and a Pop"n Music controller for its first four Pop"n Music games.

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 became available to the public.

The proprietary GD-ROM format was the only means of piracy protection and was quickly defeated. Using a combination of reverse-engineering and insecure firmware, one piracy method was made possible by the existence of regular CD booting code in the Dreamcast BIOS to enable multimedia functions (called Mil-CD) for music CD releases on the Japanese market. This lead to the creation of the Utopia bootdisk. Mil-CD support was removed from the final Dreamcast revisions. It has been said upon discovery of this information and the addition of a boot-disc that over 100,000 additional Dreamcast units were sold within months.

As part of Sega"s promotions of the Dreamcast in Europe, the company sponsored four European football clubs: English team Arsenal F.C., French team AS Saint-Étienne, Italian team U.C. Sampdoria and Spanish club Deportivo de La Coruña.

In the television show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, the characters of Nick Stokes and Warrick Brown were hinted to be playing Dreamcast sports games, and Stokes was shown playing a Football game with a Dreamcast controller early in the first season.

In the sitcom My Wife and Kids, a Dreamcast can be seen played by Michael and Junior in various episodes. The console was replaced with a PlayStation 2 in later episodes.

In the 2001 hip hop-styled film The Wash, Snoop Dogg"s character Dee Loc can be seen playing a Dreamcast when Sean (Dr. Dre) asks him to turn the music down.

When the Saturn was phased out and the Sega Dreamcast released, Sanshiro"s end came in the form of a commercial involving a missile directed at the Tokyo headquarters of SEGA, implied to be launched by Sony and Nintendo. Sanshiro heroically jumps off the roof of the building, onto the missile, deflecting it into the atmosphere while riding it, in which he lives his last few moments chanting out "Sega Saturn Shiro!!" for one last time, and is killed in the subsequent explosion. Shinji Nakae narrates that "Segata Sanshiro will live on in your hearts," followed by a display of the game Segata Sanshirō Shinken Yūgi, a Sega Saturn game in which Sanshiro plays a major role.