Wize from your gwaaave, o knight of dreams cast

[FlashTHD]

You may maim me for the title in a minute. Here's what's happening: Sega is up to something interesting on the official Dreamcast site. For some reason they want to know...


(urg, tables chopped off the end)

You click that banner, and it leads you through a few steps to register for...a user.dreamcast.com Gmail account. Bear with me. Instead of a username, you punch in your DC's serial number (hint: flip the system over, look towards the bottom). When you enter the details, they email your login info and a little later, the place where you log in once they approve your account. For now, that's as far as it goes.

So, cue the guessing games. I interpret this as Sega using it to take a headcount, a gauge for demand of something DC-related they're thinking of doing - and i'd say that demand is pretty damn high because as i'm typing this, they've stopped registrations due to overwhelming volume. It's prolly something they've been planning for a while, at least since they updated the DC trademarks.

[Green Gibbon!]

[Isuka]

I know it won't be easy in case it's true, but I get that they're still selling Dreamcast-related peripherals, among them the highly sought-after VGA Box and Twin Stick.

Back to the topic on hand, I wished SEGA stopped teasing us with weird ideas like this... unless they indeed intend to do something relevant regarding their Mute Swan.

[FlashTHD]

Something to consider I really wish had been caught onto earlier:

EDIT: Okay, fuck this. It's fake as hell, as we suspected.

I forgot to to the most basics of basics when looking into this, I didn't check if this site was still hosted by SEGA. So I pinged dreamcast.com and lo' and behold http://72.29.74.51/ was the IP I got. It links to a cPanel set up page. I then pinged SEGA.jp and got the IP 210.174.184.7, SEGA.com: 204.155.67.210, Sonic Team: 202.3.142.231. All SEGA sites are no where near the IP range of dreamcast.com. Running a trace on this IP brings us right back to square one with DimeNoc/dizinc.
http://www.ssukstudios.co.uk/_rubbish/drea...t_com_trace.htm for a report from http://visualiptrace.visualware.com/
SEGA.com is run from San Fransisco under their own, internal servers. SEGA.jp and Sonicteam.com are run from inside Japan, as you'd expect.

So to sum up, it's a site not on ANY of SEGA's servers, it's supposedly a Japanese site running on a shared server in Orlando, emails set out are from a dizinc email address, uses Gmail as a front for a Dreamcast email address, the site poses as an official website (including copyright marks from SEGA). It's fake, don't use it. If you have used it, as a few of you have, hope this comes to nothing.

Edit: Huh...registrations are working again. If you must roll the dice, set up a free decoy email account someplace.

[Opa-Opa]

I know it won't be easy in case it's true, but I get that they're still selling Dreamcast-related peripherals, among them the highly sought-after VGA Box

Which I finally aquired! Shenmue and Ecco the Dolphin look amazing.

[UCHU]

I have a VGA box, too. It's a wonderful thing.

[cjmcray]

[Green Gibbon!]

When you guys say VGA boxes, do you mean the Sega brand or one of the off-brands? If it's the Sega brand, where did you get it, how much did you pay, and are there any left?

[FlashTHD]

I get it I get it, now who is that?

[Arcade]

I still own a Dreamcast, and it still works, may go home later, open the box and see the serial number...

PS: I bet is a "Dreamcast to Wii" emulation thing...maybe a Dremcast controlers that works conected to the Wii mote, maybe not...

But, since a lot of Dreamcast games where ported to the gamecube, forget it...

[Oompa Star]

I have heard rumors on other gaming sites a few months back which suggested that Sega might re-release the Dreamcast. Coincidence?

[Crazy Penguin]

It's amazing how little gaming console technology has progressed since the Dreamcast.

[UCHU]

When you guys say VGA boxes, do you mean the Sega brand or one of the off-brands? If it's the Sega brand, where did you get it, how much did you pay, and are there any left?

The one I have has a giant "PERFORMANCE" logo on it with a small drawing of a flag. I don't think it's Sega brand. =P

It's amazing how little gaming console technology has progressed since the Dreamcast.

Online console gaming: Dreamcast.
Downloadable content: Dreamcast.

Heck, I think the Dreamcast had even more DLC than the Xbox and PS2.

*fondly remembers Shenmue Passport and the one time I ever used it*

[Oompa Star]

Online console gaming: Dreamcast.

The Genesis and the Saturn both had online gaming services. Online console gaming only started to pick up with the Dreamcast.

I alway's wanted to take my Dreamcast online, but my family already upgraded to high-speed internet by then.

[DackAttac]

PS: I bet is a "Dreamcast to Wii" emulation thing...maybe a Dremcast controlers that works conected to the Wii mote, maybe not...

But, since a lot of Dreamcast games where ported to the gamecube, forget it...

I honestly doubt a valid point like that would stop a Sega exec from trying to whore out their shining moment of glory for a few more years.

[Green Gibbon!]

The Genesis and the Saturn both had online gaming services.

If you want to get really technical, the Intellivision had a cable-based download service called PlayCable that started in 1981. There was a similar phone-based product released a couple years later for the Atari 2600, but it was a third-party venture (Atari had nothing to do with it).

There was also the Satellaview for the Super Famicom, though that was years after the Mega Modem.

[Arcade]

PSO made online gaming popular for a freaking videogame console, and PSO “game 1” was first on the Dreamcast...

What if they ported Shenmue 1 and 2 to the Wii? The first one would be easy to port, since it was on the Dreamcast, the second, I don’t know...maybe they could add the audio from the Xbox version, I bet Microsoft doesn’t have the rights anymore, since that was almost seven years ago.