Impressions of Sega's Dreamcast Presentation

As everybody knows by now, Dreamcast is the name of Sega's next console.

When Shoichiro Irimajiri (president of Sega Enterprises) introduced the machine to us, he explained that Dreamcast is a hybrid of the words 'dream' and 'broadcast.' The orange whirl logo is a symbolization of the universe and the infinite power of human beings.

We were in attendance at the conference, titled "Sega New Challenge Conference," to take a look at the power of the new console with our own eyes.

First, Irimajiri told us the Dreamcast's specs. It utilizes a Hitachi SH4 RISC CPU which has a 128-bit graphic processor, a NEC/VideoLogic's PowerVR 2 graphics engine, a Super Intelligent Sound Processor with a Yamaha-built XG sound set and a customized version of Microsoft's Windows CE operating system.

Bill Gates was then introduced and addressed the crowd via a pre-recorded video on his thoughts about the Dreamcast. He told attendees how excited he was to collaborate with Sega and that the machine's Windows CE-based OS will make it easier for developers to bring games across platforms easily. Gates added that Dreamcast will set a "New Standard" for entertainment and will achieve "huge success" in this industry.

After Gate's address, Irimajiri demonstrated the power of Dreamcast using himself as the demo.

Irimajiri's digitized head appeared in a big screen. The head had a detailed face with well-made textures. The Virtual Irimajiri then said "Hi, Everybody! Now I'd like to show you all how wonderful 'Dreamcast' will be. This is Dreamcast."

As he is saying this, multiple shining balls colored with red, green, yellow and blue flew around his "virtual" head. It shows off the Dreamcast's capability of light sourcing.

Then the head turned metallic to show off environment mapping, and next the head turned transparent to show off alpha blending. Then the head morphed into golf ball (surreal, eh?). Next, the head was then suddenly floating among skyscrapers, shooting fire from his mouth.

After the segment, Sonic appeared for a split second and was soon gone, followed with his famous "ring" sound. Could be a hint at what Sonic Team's next game is, right?

Finally, the head blasted off into the air as he said "Well, thank you everyone." and laughed.

After the animation sequence, entitled "Dreamcast Live Demonstration featuring IRI-san," Irimajiri told us that the demo was not a movie but actually real-time generated polygon animation done by actual Dreamcast hardware.

We also witnessed another sequence of animation called "Tower of Babel." It was set around a tower located on an isolated island surrounded by water. The camera floated through the air, panning up close and than pulling back on several parts of the island. The demo was accompanied by rich music with strings and piano. It looks like it could be a scene from an RPG.

After the demo, Irimajiri explained to us that demo was also not a movie but real-time polygon animation. To prove this, Irimajiri controlled the camera angles and lighting and later stated that one designer and two programmers under the direction of Yu Suzukin had produced the sequence within 10 days.

After the two sequences, Irimajiri showed us two features that Dreamcast will have. One is built-in modem. It will be used for multiplayer gaming and chat via a network. The other is a PDA-style device called the Visual Memory System. It's an idea similar to Sony's PDA, and can be played without the Dreamcast, and has a built-in calendar feature.

The VM System is well suited to play games like Tamagotchi or can just be used as a memory card. The VM will attach to Dreamcast controller's slot so that you can use the LCD screen as a sub-monitor for the system for choosing strategies and moves in games so your opponent can't see them.

Also, VM can be connected to a friend's so you can trade data. Sega's thinking about installing a VM connection slot in different kinds of locations. The video footage Sega showed us indicated that coin-ops, mobile phones or even stereo components are possibilities.

After the video footage ended, Irimajiri told us the time schedule for the launch.

June 8, 9 - Briefing meetings for developers and publishers.Mid September - Announcement of the first titles.October at Tokyo Game Show - Dreamcast will be playable.November 20 - The launch of Dreamcast.

After the brief Q&A session, we were invited to a reception. The reception started with toast with a glass of Don Perignon in everyone's hand.

There were lots of celebrities there, with a live performance by an energetic vocal group and fine cuisine for all the guests. Of course there were also lots of familiar, significant faces in this industry in attendance including Tomoyuki Takechi from Square, Yuuji Horii from Enix, Koichi Nakamura from Chun Soft, Kenji Eno from Warp. We had chatted with some of the attendees. Among them, Hideo Kojima of Konami, the producer behind Metal Gear Solid commented that he is "interested in the online capability of Dreamcast."

We also had a chance to speak with Capcom's dynamite duo - Yoshiki Okamoto and Noritaka Funamizu. Okamoto admits that Dreamcast doesn't have any significantly superb features in any part of the spec, but overall it is the most advanced console yet and he said he is really interested in it. As for actual development of games for Dreamcast:

Okamoto: Yes. We are already working on not one, two or three but more. One of the features zombies. uh.. what is it called? Oh, The House of the Dead!Funamizu: No, that's not ours.Okamoto: Oh, really?

We sincerely express our thanks for their always media-friendly attitude.

After the party, we were handed an interesting souvenir. It's a ticket called the Sega Memorial Option. A year after the Dreamcast's launch, Sega will hold a One-Year Anniversary party. At the party, attendees who have the Memorial Option will receive a gift coupon equivalent of Sega's stock price at the time. So we'll sure be keeping our eyes on Sega's stock price in the future.