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Software Sega to Cease GD-ROM Production
Marcus Yam (Blog) - January 19, 2007 1:47 PM
Print 44 comment(s) - last by BadKarma.. on Jan 22 at 4:35 PM
The end is near for Sega's legendary last console

According to a report from Softpedia (by way of Engadget), Sega will soon discontinue production of its proprietary GD-ROM optical format in February. The GD-ROM is a format developed originally by Yamaha for exclusive use on Sega systems, including its Dreamcast console and NAOMI arcade hardware. The technology behind the disc is similar to CD-ROM, except it uses smaller pits on the recording surface, resulting in a capacity of up to 1.2 GB.

Released in Japan in late 1998 and worldwide in late 1999, the Dreamcast met an untimely demise only three years after its release. Some believe that rampant piracy and lack of support from EA were key causes of death. Sega ceased production of it last console in March 2003. Amazingly enough, the Dreamcast still sees periodic software releases, mostly as a result of the hardware’s close ties to Sega’s arcade board.

Reports are saying that the end is near, as Sega will no longer produce the media used for delivering games to the hardware. While some are spelling this as the end for new NAOMI arcade games, there is no reason to believe that developers won’t be able to run off ROM boards rather than GD-ROM. The end of the optical format does necessarily mean the end of Dreamcast games.

The Dreamcast still has a couple games left on its Japanese release calendar. Nearly all of the systems' new game releases are arcade shooters. Trigger Heart Exelica is expected to release on February 22 and Karous is slated for March 8.

Diehard fans of the system are hoping to band together in a petition to Sega to continue GD-ROM production in an effort to keep the system alive. Even if the petition doesn’t change anyone’s mind, the Dreamcast managed to stay alive for nearly a decade – longer than anyone originally expected.

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I still have my dreamcast
By Glavinsolo on 1/19/2007 2:18:24 PM , Rating: 5
I didn't realize they were still producing games for it though. I imagined this happened a long long time ago. And I strongly believe the Dreamcast met its demise due to piracy. Apparently it was the easiest to crack and required no hardware mod.




RE: I still have my dreamcast
By Vertigo101 on 1/19/2007 2:31:09 PM , Rating: 2
The Dreamcast still has a very active homebrew scene that's putting out original titles, ports of open-source games like Doom and Quake, and some fantastic emulators to boot. Couple that with all of the fantastic retail releases that were made, and it still holds up pretty well.

My Dreamcast is still my favorite console. It's a pity that the PS2 hype train killed it.


RE: I still have my dreamcast
By Messudieh on 1/19/2007 2:50:03 PM , Rating: 3
And that sega released like ... a bajillion systems, which probably didn't help.

Sega Genesis!
Wait ... 32X!
Wait .. sega CD!
Wait ... sega CD FOR the genesis! (there might not have been a stand alone sega cd, I can't remember any more)
Wait ... Sega Saturn!
Finally ... Dreamcast... after all that other stuff...

I remember reading in a PC gamer a few years ago that if you were to put all of the add-ons on a genesis you would
quote:
be able to fulfill ancient man's dream of building a ladder to the moon

And cause rolling brownouts


RE: I still have my dreamcast
By Vertigo101 on 1/19/2007 4:06:47 PM , Rating: 2
Yep, I remember that PC Gamer line. Those were the days.

None of the other products were as versatile as the Dreamcast has proven to be though. One of its great strengths is the inclusion of Windows CE, and the availability of a broadband adapter.

Man, I'm gonna go fire up Shenmue when I get home!


RE: I still have my dreamcast
By Spivonious on 1/19/2007 4:40:03 PM , Rating: 3
Here's the real sequence (if anyone's interested)

Sega Master System/Power Base
Sega Genesis
Power Base convertor
Sega CD add-on
Sega TV
32X
Sega GameGear
Sega Saturn
Sega Nomad
Sega Dreamcast


RE: I still have my dreamcast
By masteraleph on 1/21/2007 11:36:09 PM , Rating: 2
The nomad was a freaking awesome system, I do have to say.

And incidentally, the best way to build a tower to the moon included the Genesis, the 32x, and a Game Genie.


RE: I still have my dreamcast
By ElJefe69 on 1/20/2007 1:56:27 AM , Rating: 2
yes, the dreamcast was the best till now.

simple cheap machine that died because you could buy 10 games for like 25 dollars on the streets of NYC. big stack of games with nice decals on them. terrible!

thought this thing was dead 3+ years ago!


RE: I still have my dreamcast
By pugster on 1/19/2007 2:36:06 PM , Rating: 2
Yes, they are producing several games in Dreamcast in Japan. For example:

http://www.dreamcast-scene.com/index.php/Main/Karo...



RE: I still have my dreamcast
By killerroach on 1/19/2007 5:24:12 PM , Rating: 2
I've heard some stuff about Trigger Heart Excelica... it's shaping up to be a pretty solid title for those that enjoy space shooters.


RE: I still have my dreamcast
By Assimilator87 on 1/20/2007 4:07:59 PM , Rating: 2
I bought the limited edition of Under Defeat for the DC, which is G.Rev's last game for the console, and it was believed to be the last game overall. It's actually a pretty good shmup.Trigger Heart Exelica on the other hand, looks boring as hell and Karous is basically a sequel to Rajirugi, which wasn't all that great either. I'm pretty disaapointed with these upcoming releases and I sincerely hope that these aren't the last games released for the DC.

If there's anyone who thinks the DC has nothing on the PS2 in terms of power, check out Shenmue 2. I just got to the last disc yesterday and I'm still amazed at how great the game looks. Shenmue was proabably one of the first games to really push facial animations.


RE: I still have my dreamcast
By FITCamaro on 1/19/2007 2:36:34 PM , Rating: 2
Actually I didn't either. Didn't think any company would actually release a game on a console thats not even sold in stores anymore. I haven't even really heard the word Dreamcast for almost 4 years.


RE: I still have my dreamcast
By semo on 1/19/2007 2:38:43 PM , Rating: 2
well i strongly believe that the nintendo gamecube came out last in the previous generation console wars because of lack of piracy.

many bought a ps2 or xbox because they could be modded. hell some bought an xbox to use as a pc.


RE: I still have my dreamcast
By h0kiez on 1/19/2007 4:04:53 PM , Rating: 2
I did. It's a shame that something as simple as XBMC still has no equal.


RE: I still have my dreamcast
By NotAok on 1/19/2007 4:10:44 PM , Rating: 2
haha, hell yeah. My xbox is still the most used console in my house because of xbmc. I love being able to stream all of my videos to my hdtv with ease


RE: I still have my dreamcast
By FITCamaro on 1/19/2007 4:17:35 PM , Rating: 2
Same here man. I stream all my TV shows to my TV. My Xbox will be in use for years to come until something similiar becomes available for the Xbox 360 and then I'll do the same thing with it.


RE: I still have my dreamcast
By Christopher1 on 1/19/2007 10:49:01 PM , Rating: 2
Lack of piracy? Maybe home piracy, but not piracy in general. Almost all consoles, including the GameCube, could be pirated and were by piracy rings overseas.

If you are talking about home piracy, yeah, there wasn't much of that, but only because the CD's/DVD's/whatever were a weird size and couldn't be burned on a home computer.


RE: I still have my dreamcast
By Saist on 1/20/2007 11:22:51 AM , Rating: 2
scuse me.

Original Xbox is still dead last in World Wide Sales. Up to, during, and after the launch of the 360, the console never managed to pass numbers of Gamecubes sold.

So, no. Microsoft came in dead last last console race. The US is not the "only" console market out there. It might be the only one that matters to "you", but when it comes to the bottom line, having lost over $26million in the first year alone, and with the 360 not projected to break even until late 2007 or 2008, the Xbox project has been a decided flop overall.


RE: I still have my dreamcast
By BladeVenom on 1/19/2007 2:52:55 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
And I strongly believe the Dreamcast met its demise due to piracy.

Then DIVX (Digital Video Express) should have done better than DVD. It had the the strongest anti-piracy protection. I don't think anyone ever cracked it. To this day all the DIVX discs are still unplayable.

The Sims was easy to pirate. How well did that game sell again?


RE: I still have my dreamcast
By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 1/19/2007 9:16:15 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
I don't think anyone ever cracked it. To this day all the DIVX discs are still unplayable.


Pretty obvious reason for that -- there's no players!


RE: I still have my dreamcast
By BladeVenom on 1/20/2007 12:57:04 AM , Rating: 2
I think it had more to do with the triple DES encryption, and that it had to phone home for a key.

They made about 400,000 players.



RE: I still have my dreamcast
By sprockkets on 1/20/2007 1:01:24 AM , Rating: 1
uhh, when it was easy to crack dvds with the same content, there was no demand to crack divx, that's why


I sold my Dreamcast
By jasd2d on 1/19/2007 5:07:54 PM , Rating: 2
I regret it too. I got that system on launch day (9/9/99) and it got me through the first half of my college years splendidly. Then I did something that seemed like a good idea at the time. I sold Dreamcast to one of the game stores (funcoland, gamestop, EB, I don't remember) and used the credit towards a PS2. When you're a poor college kid and all your money goes to beer and weed...I mean books and food, you make those sacrifices.

Miss those games though. Crazy Taxi, Shenmue, NFL 2k (and 2k1), Soul Caliber, Beserk, Maken X... those were classics.

That system was a soldier though. Glad the homebrew community has carried the torch. There were only two things I didn't really like about it.

1. - The controllers were a little awkward. I didn't like how the cord was attached and they were a little big.

2. - Damn thing was loud. The 360 makes some noise, but I would swear it isn't as much as the dreamcast.

Maybe I'll pick one up on Ebay...




RE: I sold my Dreamcast
By Choppedliver on 1/19/2007 8:22:53 PM , Rating: 2
Man I forgot I had one of these things till I saw this post. I have a bunch of games and a perfectly working dreamcast if anyone wants it id be glad to get rid of it


RE: I sold my Dreamcast
By Merry on 1/19/2007 9:02:13 PM , Rating: 2
I have a Dreamcast. It cost me £3 (about $5-$6) second hand, and I must admit I was impressed with it. Never did get Metropolis Street Racer for it though, and i wanted that game more than Gran Turismo 3!

Maybe I'll dig it out again at some point too...


RE: I sold my Dreamcast
By nunya on 1/19/2007 10:15:10 PM , Rating: 2
I actually wouldn't mind owning a DC again. Maybe PM me on the Anandtech forums (same username) and we can work something out.


RE: I sold my Dreamcast
By Flunk on 1/20/2007 12:56:08 AM , Rating: 2
I sold mine too, good system but luckly I have the games I miss the most for other systems: Marvel vs Capcom 2 (PS2), Sonic Adventure 1 + 2 (GC), Capcom vs SNK 2 (GC) and Ikaruga (PS2). It's not the same but oh well (Jet Grind Radio, sniff), can't change the past.

I also do not miss the controllers they where narrow and pointy on the bottom with the wire on the wrong end.

As for the sound I've always wondered why it was so loud. Running without a disc in it's not too bad but every time it reads from the disc it gets really loud. Does the system have to physically scratch up the discs to read them? ok maybe not that bad but it is unusually loud.


Dreamcast vs PS2
By exdeath on 1/19/2007 5:51:13 PM , Rating: 5
I played around programming on both systems for a while.

Dreamcast = 16 MB framebuffer
PS2 = 4 MB framebuffer

Dreamcast used the SH4 with special opcodes for vector and matrix operations (I think it even had a single 'matrix multiply' instruction if I remember). PS2 had the R4300 EE and the two VU's, so it had far more geometry processing power.

And I think the PS2 had more fill rate? I don't remember off hand, I just know the PS2 could do 16 shaded pixels per clock or 8 textures pixels per clock, but it was all basic single texture and with 8 bit indexed textures due to the small framebuffer.

First gen Dreamcast games were far more colorful and vibrant than even current PS2 games due to the available texture memory.

Alot of PS2 games look like the old murky olive green PC games like the original Quake, because of use of 8 bit CLUT textures instead of 24 bit RGB (Quake also used 8 bit textures at the time, hence the similarities)




RE: Dreamcast vs PS2
By exdeath on 1/19/2007 5:54:35 PM , Rating: 2
Oops, it was 8 MB video ram and 16 MB main ram for the Dreamcast.

Damn it's been a long time.

http://mc.pp.se/dc/pvr.html

Ahhh.... *sniffle*


disagree
By LumbergTech on 1/19/2007 6:34:39 PM , Rating: 2
I dont reeally agree that it failed because of piracy...it was very easy to pirate games on the ps2 with hdloader but people still bought games..

im so tired of people and companies using piracy as an excuse for failure...if you dont have a business model that melds with people who are willing to purchase your product then you simply failed to provide a product that the market was willing to pay for..

if there was no piracy of the dreamcast, that doesnt mean that all those people would have just gone out and bought all those games...yes some people might have purchased a bit more..im not denying that it dents revenue....but i dont believe for a minute that it would have saved the dreamcast if you couldnt pirate..i think it would have failed even earlier




RE: disagree
By Christopher1 on 1/19/2007 10:50:34 PM , Rating: 1
The biggest problem with failure of systems is the OUTRAGEOUS prices they want for new games right now. $100 dollars? I don't think so, Bubu.

No way in HELL and I going to pay that much for a game, even if it's the next Final Fantasy IX.


RE: disagree
By MrPickins on 1/20/2007 11:09:32 AM , Rating: 2
FFXII was only $30 at launch... :P


RE: disagree
By BadKarma on 1/22/2007 4:35:56 PM , Rating: 2
You're either quoting a promotional price or a sales price. I paid $50 for my copy at launch.


Mindless mainstream killed Dreamcast
By Tanclearas on 1/19/2007 4:43:20 PM , Rating: 2
Very few people purchased a Dreamcast because they were waiting for PS2. I can't tell you how many people I talked to about Dreamcast when it was released, and they would reply that they were waiting for PS2. I honestly couldn't believe people continued playing PlayStation games (which looked absolutely horrible next to DC games), and were waiting to buy a console that was going to cost nearly double. Not only that, but the first games available for PS2 didn't look any better than the games available for DC.




RE: Mindless mainstream killed Dreamcast
By MDme on 1/19/2007 8:30:46 PM , Rating: 2
agreed. Sony hyped the PS2 like crazy (EE: 1,000x more powerful than PC) and kept on announcing that the PS2 "will ship anytime this week, month etc...) that many people did not buy DC's and prevented it from getting the critical mass it needed to succeed. Third party support then crumbled and soon after the DC.

That being said, the DC was/is a really great console ahead of it's time and had a loyal fanbase. Considering that it has lasted till this day with game releases, it has indeed lasted a decade. That's the longest lasting console I believe. longer than PS1 or maybe even PS2.

PS, I have to admit, I really hated Sony's tactics and how it killed sega in the console business. I know sega made a lot of mistakes too, but the DC was not one of them.


By Samus on 1/20/2007 1:09:44 AM , Rating: 2
It's ok...Sony's getting what was coming to them for being an evil empire with evil tactics.

You basically took the words out of my mouth. Because of what SCEA did to the Dreamcast here in the USA, I will never buy another Sony product from any Sony division.

That is their punishment (from me) for destroying one of the great pioneers of the gaming industry, an industry they wrongfully invaded with nothing-spectacular products. All of their consoles lack something or other that simply makes them less-than-appropriate for the hardcore gamer. Even Microsoft knows what I'm talking about by including things Sony usually leaves out in their consoles.

Sony's Playstations are successful only because of software that could otherwise be developed (possibly better) on the competing consoles.

nuf said.


Another reason..
By superunknown98 on 1/19/2007 5:03:23 PM , Rating: 2
The lawsuit they had with 3DFX. 3DFX was originally going to supply the graphics chip for the dreamcast, but instead broke the contract and went with Powervr. Many people also believe this is also why the Voodoo3 was lacking in features compare to the TNT2.




RE: Another reason..
By Samus on 1/20/2007 1:13:05 AM , Rating: 2
The 3DFX Rampage still made its way into many Sega arcades (previous generation to the newer PowerVR SH4000-based JAMMA-style boards.)

The Rampage was basically a Voodoo2 generation product with intense fillrate capacity.


Dreamcast
By CoreGamer on 1/19/2007 10:54:31 PM , Rating: 2
I would rather see Sega competing against Nintendo and M$ than Sony. Who knows, since the Ps3 inst selling well maybe Sony will give up and Sega can come back




RE: Dreamcast
By Samus on 1/21/2007 2:02:45 AM , Rating: 2
The PS3 will succeed after a few price cuts. Although that strategy didn't work well for Dreamcast, the Dreamcast didn't MSRP for $600 at launch either.

If the PS3 were $300, I'd buy one.


The Dreamcast is dead, long live the Dreamcast
By Domicinator on 1/19/2007 8:23:52 PM , Rating: 1
The Dreamcast was the last console I ever owned, and after that my hardcore PC gaming days began. But man did I love that system. It doesn't get much better than a long session of Virtua Tennis or Power Stone. My brother and I were livid when Sega announced that they were discontinuing them. They still had TONS of these machines in their warehouses when they made that announcement. They probably should have held off for just a little while longer before they announced it.

But the Dreamcast was VERY hackable. After the games stopped being available my brother somehow got all the cracked copies of all of them, so he pretty much has the whole library now. But that doesn't explain the demise of Dreamcast. The Xbox 360 games are very easily cracked as well. I don't believe in hacked software at all, but I have a friend that has the entire 360 library pirated. That system sells really well, so it's probably not the piracy issue that ruined the Dreamcast.

I think the problem is that back in the day, Sega depended too much on their past Genesis successes and decided they didn't need to market anything. The Saturn probably could have had just as much impact as the PS1 being as how it was the first 32 bit system (or maybe it was even 64), but people barely knew the Saturn existed because there was no marketing hype. I think there were only one or two commercials for it in the US, and they didn't run very long. In fact, I remember wondering what the Sega Saturn even really was!! They did a much better job at hyping up the Dreamcast, but by then Sony and Nintendo had already pretty much taken over the market and it was much too late.




By shortylickens on 1/19/2007 8:54:23 PM , Rating: 2
Wow, thats weird. I recall I slowed down my TV watching during those years and I still remember seeing TONS of ads for the Saturn and its games.
I remember not liking Sega much at the time and the ads were annoying to me.
The Dreamcast was the one that I thought lacked proper hype, and hells yes it got overshadowed by a crummy little thing called Playstation 2.
Was totally amazed to hear they still make games for it.


What I find interesting
By zsouthboy on 1/19/2007 5:01:25 PM , Rating: 2
Regardless of the reason of the Dreamcast's death, I recall seeing a stat of something like 10 million sold.


With that install base, how the hell did it fail?

Granted, Sony's excellent marketing and fantastic sales of the PS2 didn't help.

Anyway, I never even bought a dreamcast when they were still making them! I bought one for $20 from a gamestop, a few years ago. It's like a mini-xbox1, with all of the homebrew stuff you can run. Had TONS of fun playing NES games (since all, yes, all of them, fit on a CD) with friends when we were bored.

Okay, I admit it. I lied, I don't actually have friends.

But it was still fun.

I think we all (by which I mean "I") complained about the digital pad on the DC controller, though.




Also
By zsouthboy on 1/19/2007 5:04:03 PM , Rating: 2
What are the odds Sega would release the DC design to the public?

I know it won't happen, but that would be ballsy.

Build your own dreamcast kit! For the up and coming hackers :)




Really the death of Dreamcast?
By Thorburn on 1/19/2007 9:29:39 PM , Rating: 2
Just because GD-ROMs are ceasing production doesn't mean the end.
The Dreamcast can still read CD-ROM's as well (I have 'backup' copy of Crazy Taxi on one ¬_¬)
So a software developer could release games on that which would probably be cheaper anyway?




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