Consoles: The Dreamcast's Life After Death

Gaming consoles are pioneering machines. The Dreamcast pushed the
limits of what even consoles could do. But that wasn’t enough to
guarantee commercial success. Despite that failure, fans say no
other console has accomplished so much. 


 The Dreamcast was meant to restore Sega to its glory days.
After the disappointing Saturn, Sega pitted two teams against
each other to build a new console. Andrew Borman describes the
Dreamcast as a generational leap in hardware. Jeremy Parish
explains how big a departure its production was from Sega’s usual
processes. Mineko Okamura provides an insider’s insight on
developing the Dreamcast. Brian Bacino recounts the console’s
massive U.S. launch. But despite record U.S. sales, Sega had to
pull the plug on the Dreamcast. Too good to let die, homebrewers
like Luke Benstead plugged it back in.


  If you want to read up on some of our research on the
Dreamcast, you can check out all our bonus material over at
redhat.com/commandlineheroes. You’ll find extra content for every
episode.  


 Slight correction: While the Dreamcast did have a keyboard
and mouse available, it did not have a full keyboard
controller. 


  Follow along with the episode transcript.