While some are dreaming of a White Christmas many are still dreaming of a world where Sega can return to the console glory it enjoyed throughout the 90s. One of my own fondest memories of Christmas was finding my original Sega Mega Drive under the tree when I was 9 years old. It set me up as a Sega fan for life.
The Sega Mega Drive was succeeded by the Sega Saturn in 1994, and the company’s final home console – the Sega Dreamcast, which was released in 1998 (1999 in the UK and Europe). Despite becoming a much-loved addition to the Sega family, the Dreamcast arrived just before Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation 2 which stole much of the market attention when each was launched.
These powerful new consoles ushered in a new era of gaming and established a duo of brands which would dominate the console market for over a decade. In time, Sega stepped away from console development to focus solely on creating games and even did what was once unthinkable by making games for Nintendo!
It’s been more than 15 years since Sega released that last console and now, as we approach a new year, the modern-age trend of crowd-funding may bring the Dreamcast name back to gaming in 2016 with a concept called ‘Project Dream’.
Full details are expected in 7 days when www.projectdream.co goes live, but it’s believed that the console will be a hybrid of console style and functions with PC hardware and Intel processor. With enough support and backing the developers hope to approach Sega to get Project Dream (or the Dreamcast 2 as it may become) authorised and launched officially as a Sega product which will offer a vastly promising catalogue of titles.
We envision it may be a streaming console along the lines of the Valve and Alienware Steam-based console – but hopefully at a more affordable price point than other gaming PCs.
We would love to see the Sega brand up there with the greats once again with a reimagining of the Dreamcast but it may be too much to hope for another mainstream success and this one may only appeal to the most hard-core of nostalgic Sega gamers. It is good to know that the name of one of gaming’s most beloved consoles may, in some way, live on.