Sega Hardware- Dreamcast

The next Sega Hardware post I had planned to do was focused around the Sega 'Mega Drive' or 'Genesis' depending on your region. I would like to go fairly in-depth on that particular console however and with submission looming, I will return to that topic at a later date within my leisure. One post I feel I must include before judgement day, however, looks at the decline of the company through the late 90's. This console inevitably plays a part in that post also, so this particular post will be kept nice and short, a mere summary of the hardware, designed to accompany the next post.

Dreamcast

Specifications:

• The system's processor is a 200 MHz SH-4 with an on-die 128-bit vector graphics engine, 360 MIPS and 1.4 GFLOPS (single precision), using the vector graphics engine.
• The graphics hardware is a PowerVR2 CLX2 chipset, capable of 7.0 million polygons/second peak performance and trilinear filtering. Graphics hardware effects include gouraud shading, z-buffering, anti-aliasing, per-pixel translucency sorting and bump mapping.
  
• The system supports approximately 16.78 million colors (24-bit) color output and displays interlaced or progressive scan video at 640x480 video resolution.

• For sound, the system features a Yamaha AICA Sound Processor with a 22.5 MHz 32-Bit ARM7 RISC CPU operating at 45 MHz,^[20], 64 channel PCM/ADPCM sampler (4:1 compression), XG MIDI support and 128 step DSP.

• The Dreamcast has 16 MB 64 Bit 100 MHz of main RAM, 8 MB 4x16-bit 100 MHz video RAM and 2 MB 16-bit 66 MHz sound RAM.^[21] The hardware supports VQ Texture Compression at either asymptotically 2bpp or even 1bpp ^[22]

• The system reads media using a 12x maximum speed (Constant Angular Velocity) YamahaGD-ROM Drive.
• The Dreamcast can also read data from a Visual Memory Unit ("VMU") removable storage device and 4x memory cards that hold four times as much data.
• Input devices such as game controllers are connected to four USB-like "Maple Bus" ports.
  

Sega's 'Dreamcast' was the first of the sixth generation consoles, released in November 1998 in Japan and late 1999 in N. America and Europe, before the competition from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo hit the market. It was considered by many as a giant leap forward in gaming technology that would revolutionize the industry.
Breaking records in America, 300,000 units were pre-ordered and the console sold over 500,000 in just two weeks, with a record 225,132 units selling in the first 24 hours. With quick sales and hype, and a hardware shortage, Sega had big troubles meeting sales requirements. The console aimed to outdo the 'Saturn' in every aspect; looks, size, power, and more importantly, it was much easier to program software for. The console sold well in both Europe and Japan. Games available upon release included 'Sonic Adventure', 'Soul Calibre' and 'Powerstone', all of which became very popular and are still renowned to this day.
The development of the console itself proved controversial and attracted a $155 million lawsuit against Sega and collaborating companies NEC and Videologic. When the idea for the console was conceived two competing companies, 3Dfx and NEC, were hired to develop a chipset. The lawsuit came about due to Sega terminating the contract it had entered into with 3Dfx in favor for the technology designed by NEC. At the time Sega apparently gave no response to 3Dfx as to why they were terminating the contract. The lawsuit was to find reparations for breach of contract, interference of contract, threatened misappropriation of trade secrets and unfair competition. NEC were involved as the defending company claimed that they deliberately usurped the contract and force a breach. Eventually all of the disputes were cleared up and Sega were never charged.
The Dreamcast was ahead of it's time in many respects and the first steps towards the current generation of hardware. It's operating system was co-developed with company Microsoft and was essentially a modified version of 'Windows CE' with Direct X compatibility. The inclusion of the operating system allowed for more of a multimedia experience. It had a built in modem which allowed for internet access and online gaming, and a removal visual memory device that included interactive features. The modem itself was almost not included, causing an internal debate within Sega, but it came to Isao Okawa, the late Sega president, to see the choice through:

"I forced [Sega] to put in modem functions. At that time, I had a lot of opposition that said it was ridiculous to stick in a modem that cost several thousand yen. But, I managed to get it my way. The Dreamcast is still alive because it has the modem. If it didn't have one, we would have shut the doors on the system." Isao Okawa, Sega President until March 2001
http://archive.gamespy.com/articles/july03/25smartest/index17.shtml

The inclusion of the modem is still considered today as the precursor to modern console gaming, and the main reason why the Dreamcast had so much support. 'The Dreamcast -- and Okawa's vision -- paved the way for online console gaming in a monumental way. We're just starting to live up to the promise that was born at Sega almost five years ago.' (http://archive.gamespy.com/articles/july03/25smartest/index17.shtml) It is hard to find a console not in production today that holds such a strong cult following as Sega's Dreamcast.