Sega Dreamcast

Sega Dreamcast
Manufacturer: Sega
Variants: Sega NAOMI, Atomiswave, Sega Aurora
Release Date RRP Code JP 1998-11-27 ¥29,80029,800 HKT-3000 US 1999-09-09 $199.99199.99 HKT-3020 DE 1999-10-14 DM 499,-499,- HKT-3030 ES 1999-10-14 HKT-3030 FR 1999-10-14 1,690F1,690 HKT-3030 UK 1999-10-14 £199.99199.99 HKT-3030 AU 1999-11-30 $499.00499.00 BR 1999-10-04 R$899.00899.00 KR 1998-11 HKT-3010 AS 1998-11 HKT-3010

The Sega Dreamcast (ドリームキャスト) is a home video game console manufactured by Sega as a successor to the Sega Saturn. It was originally released in November 1998, becoming first machine to be released in what is now known as the sixth generation of video game consoles, sharing a platform with the PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube and the Xbox.

The Dreamcast was Sega's last home video game console, and was discontinued in early 2001. Roughly 10.6 million Dreamcast consoles have been sold worldwide.

An arcade counterpart to the Dreamcast exists as the Sega NAOMI.

Hardware

The Dreamcast is a small, white box with aesthetics designed to appeal to a wide-ranging audience. It was envisioned as an "128-bit" "super console", designed to leapfrog "32-bit" and "64-bit" contemporaries in the form of the PlayStation and Nintendo 64, respectively (although from a technical standpoint, its main processor deals in 32-bit or 64-bit instructions, with the 128-bit figure coming from the graphics hardware). Incidentally the Dreamcast was the last home console to use "bits" as a selling point, with processing capabilities now typically measured in other ways.

Taking design cues from the Nintendo 64 and the Sega Saturn, the Dreamcast contains four control ports, a removable modem, disc drive and an extension port (as well as the expected AV and power inputs). It is not backwards compatible with any prior Sega hardware or software (although its controller derives from the Saturn's 3D Control Pad), and operates in much the same way as the Saturn (and PlayStation) does, with a configurable settings and memory management accessed through a BIOS screen.

The Dreamcast uses a proprietary format of storage called GD-ROMs for games in order to circumvent software piracy, a strategy that ultimately backfired when the first run of discs had a high rate of defects. The format was also cracked fairly quickly (and in some cases, the pirated games were released before the legitimate versions). Sega largely had themselves to blame for the high levels of Dreamcast piracy—their use of the GD-ROM format was completely undermined by the console's support for the Mil-CD format, which allowed the console to boot from a standard CD-R. Mil-CD support was removed from the final Dreamcast revisions toward the end of the console's life.

The GD-ROM format also put the console at a disadvantage when competing against the PlayStation 2 - the PS2 used DVDs, and could therefore run DVD videos making it an inexpensive DVD player as well as a video game console. DVD-ROMs also have more storage space, allowing for bigger games (though the initial run of PS2 games used a blue CD-ROM format). Sega looked into DVD technology during the Dreamcast's development but claimed it was too expensive.

The Dreamcast was the first video game console to ship with a built-in 56k modem, with broadband adapters being made available later on in certain regions. This allowed the system to connect to the internet using a custom, fully-functional web browser and e-mail client. Many games released for the Dreamcast shipped with online play modes, the most popular being Phantasy Star Online and the Sega Sports lineup (now published under the ESPN label). Although other consoles before the Dreamcast had network gaming support, such as the Sega Saturn's NetLink and the Sega Mega Drive's XB∀ND, the Dreamcast was the first game console to include this ability out of the box and is therefore considered the first internet-enabled home game system.

The Dreamcast has a modest hacking enthusiast community. The availability of Windows CE software development kits on the Internet—as well as ports of Linux (LinuxDC) and dreamcast NetBSD operating systems to the Dreamcast—gave programmers a selection of familiar development tools to work with, even though they do not really support the high speed graphics. A homebrew minimal operating system called Kallistios offers support for most hardware, while not offering multi-tasking, which is superfluous for games. Many emulators and other tools (MP3, DivX players, and image viewers) have been ported to or written for the console, taking advantage of the relative ease with which a home user can write a CD which is bootable by an unmodified Dreamcast.

Sega released an arcade board, using the same technology as the Dreamcast, called Sega NAOMI, leading to many Dreamcast-exclusive games with a high level of arcade quality. The NAOMI has the same CPU, the Hitachi SH-4, at the same clock rate, but is more powerful in other ways, with the PowerVR CLX2 having a higher GPU clock rate, additional RAM and VRAM, higher bandwidth, and faster ROM cartridge storage. The NAOMI was, in turn, the basis for two significantly more powerful arcade systems, the Hikaru (debuted 1999) and NAOMI 2 (debuted 2000). Sega later packaged the Dreamcast into an arcade board as the Atomiswave. While the Dreamcast is not as powerful as 1997–1999 Sega arcade hardware, including the Model 3 Step 2 (debuted 1997), NAOMI, and Hikaru, the Dreamcast surpassed the Model 3 Step 1 (debuted 1996).

The Dreamcast (DC) was the most powerful home system during 1998–1999, outperforming high-end PC hardware at the time. The DC's SH-4 geometry engine calculates 1.4 GFLOPS and more than 10 MPolys/s, higher than a PC with PIII 800 (1999's strongest PC CPU) and Nvidia GF256 (1999's strongest PC GPU) which calculates 800 MFLOPS and 6.7 MPolys/s. The DC's CLX2 has an additional 200 MFLOPS for tiled rendering, and has a fillrate of 3.2 GPixels/s with opaque polygons and 500 MPixels/s (500 MTexels/s) with translucent polygons, higher than the Voodoo3 3500 TV SE's 200 MPixels/s (400 MTexels/s) and GF256's 480 MPixels/s (480 MTexels/s). The DC's 800 MB/s CPU–GPU transmission bus is faster than the Voodoo3's 533 MB/s AGP bus (2x AGP 2.0) and has a higher effective bandwidth than the 1064 MB/s transmission bus from a PIII 800EB (133 MHz FSB) to GF256 (4x AGP 2.0) due to the DC's more efficient bandwidth usage, including its lack of CPU overhead (from operating system), and the CLX2's tiled rendering architecture: 32 bytes per polygon (less than standard 40 bytes per polygon), textures sent directly to VRAM (freeing up CPU–GPU transmission bus for polygons), 8:1 VQ texture compression (higher than Voodoo3's 4:1 compression and GF256's 6:1 S3TC compression), on-chip tile buffer (no need for Z-buffer), and deferred rendering (no need to draw, shade or texture overdrawn polygons). The CLX2 was also the first GPU to support Dot3 normal mapping, which the Voodoo3 lacked and a year before the GF256. The CLX2's rendering throughput is 7 MPolys/s, with game engine performance peaking at 5 MPolys/s; in comparison, a Celeron 300A 450 MHz (100 MHz FSB, 364 MFLOPS) with Voodoo3 3500 TV (183 MHz) renders 750,000 polys/s, a PIII 800 (800 MFLOPS) with Voodoo3 3500 TV SE (200 MHz) renders 1.8 MPolys/s, and a PIII 800 with GF256 has a peak rendering throughput of 6.7 MPolys/s and peak game engine performance of 2.9 MPolys/s. DC game engines rendered 50,000–166,666 polys per scene (3–5 MPolys/s), while PC game engines of 1999 rendered 10,000–15,000 polys per scene (1–1.6 MPolys/s).

Compared to the rival PS2, the PS2 is better at untextured polygons, particles, and lighting, while the DC is better at textures, anti-aliasing, and image quality. The PS2 has a more powerful CPU geometry engine (6.2 GFLOPS Emotion Engine), higher translucent fillrate (2.4 GPixels/s), and more main RAM (32 MB, compared to DC's 16 MB), while the DC has more VRAM (8 MB, compared to PS2's 4 MB), higher opaque fillrate (3.2 GPixels/s), and more GPU hardware features, with its CLX2 having capabilities such as tiled rendering, supersample anti-aliasing, Dot3 normal mapping, and texture compression, which the PS2's Graphics Synthesizer GPU lacks hardware support for. The DC's VRAM is twice as large; with tiled rendering, it could render a larger framebuffer at a higher native resolution (without needing a Z-buffer), and with texture compression, it could compress around 20–60 MB of texture data in its VRAM. Because the PS2 has only 4 MB VRAM, it relies on the main RAM to store textures, but the PS2's CPU–GPU transmission bus for transferring polygons and textures has a bandwidth of 1.2 GB/s; while 50% faster than the DC's 800 MB/s CPU–GPU transmission bus, the DC has textures sent directly to VRAM (freeing up the CPU–GPU transmission bus for polygons) while texture compression gives it around 2–6 GB/s of effective texture bandwidth. DC games were effectively using 20–30 MB of texture memory (compressed to around 5.8 MB), while PS2 games up until 2003 peaked at 5.5 MB of texture memory (average 1.5 MB). PS2 game engines up until 2003 peaked at 7.5 MPolys/s (145,000 polys per scene), with most PS2 games rendering 2–5 MPolys/s (average 52,000 polys per scene); in comparison, DC game engines peaked at 5 MPolys/s (166,666 polys per scene), with most DC games rendering 2–4 MPolys/s (average 50,000 polys per scene). The DC is more user-friendly for developers, making it easier to develop for, while the PS2 is more difficult to develop for; this is the reverse of the 32-bit era, when the PlayStation was easier to develop for and the Saturn was more difficult to develop for.

Models

Main article: Dreamcast consoles.

• 

  Japanese model

• 

  North American model

• 

  European model

Japanese Dreamcasts can be identified by the triangle at the front of the unit. Though the power LED is identical across all regions, the piece of plastic attached to the lid of the Japanese model is transparent, while in North America it is grey.

For a full list of special edition Dreamcasts, see Special Dreamcast Models.

Technical specifications

CPU

• Main CPU: Hitachi SH-4 (RISC, 2‑way Superscalar)
  • Operating frequency: 200 MHz
  • Units: 128‑bit SIMD vector unit with graphic functions, 64‑bit floating‑point unit, 32‑bit fixed‑point unit
  • 128‑bit SIMD @ 200 MHz: Vector unit, geometry processor, graphic functions, DMA controller, interrupt controller
  • 128‑bit graphic computational engine: Calculates geometry and lighting of polygons, creates display lists of polygons for tiling, DMA allows SH4 access to VRAM and PowerVR2 access to Main RAM, store queue mechanism (allowing high‑speed packet transfers between Main RAM and VRAM)
  • Bus width: 128‑bit internal, 64‑bit external
  • Bandwidth: 3.2 GB/s internal, 1.6 GB/s external
• Fixed‑point performance: 360 MIPS
• Floating‑point performance: 1.4 GFLOPS (7 MFLOPS per 16 MB/s)
• Geometry performance: More than 10 million polygons/sec, with lighting calculations (140 FLOPS per polygon)

Graphics

Graphical specifications of the Dreamcast:

• GPU: 2 graphics processors (SH‑4 SIMD, PowerVR2)
  • Cores: 6 cores (SH‑4 SIMD, 5 PowerVR2 cores)
• GPU Geometry Processor: Hitachi SH‑4 SIMD @ 200 MHz (1.4 GFLOPS)
• GPU Rasterizer: NEC‑VideoLogic PowerVR2 CLX2 (PVR2DC/HOLLY) @ 100 MHz
• PowerVR2 Cores: Tile Accelerator (TA), Image Synthesis Processor (ISP), Texture & Shading Processor (TSP), Triangle Setup FPU, RAMDAC
  • TA: Tile renderer, partitions infinite strip polygon data, divides polygons into tiles, performs tile clipping, generates object lists, retrieves display lists from SH4 (through store queues and DMA), generates ISP/TSP parameters
    • Tile buffer: 600 tiles, 128 bytes per tile, 75 KB tile buffer
  • ISP: Rasterizer, depth‑sorting, RLE tile/polygon compression, parallel‑processing of tiles/polygons at high speeds (1 clock cycle per vector, 32 pixels per clock cycle)
    • ISP units: ISP Precalc Unit, ISP PE Array, Depth Accumulation Buffer, Span RLC, Span Sorter
  • TSP: Shader and texture‑mapping unit, avoids shading/texturing overdrawn pixels/tiles and back‑facing polygons to maximize bandwidth for on‑screen pixels/tiles and front‑facing polygons
    • TSP units: TSP Precalc + Param Cache, Texture Cache, Iterator Array, Pixel Processing Engine, Micro Tile Accumulation Buffer
  • Triangle Setup FPU: 2 FPU rendering units, 200 MFLOPS
    • ISP Setup FPU: 100 MHz, 100 MFLOPS, 14 cycles per polygon, 7,142,857 polygons/sec
    • TSP Setup FPU: 100 MHz, 100 MFLOPS
  • RAMDAC: 230 MHz
• PowerVR2 Buses: 2 buses at 100 MHz, 64-bit TA Bus for transferring polygons and textures (800 MB/s), 32-bit PVRIF Bus for register memory (400 MB/s), 96-bit total bus width (1.2 GB/s total bandwidth)
• PowerVR2 Capabilities:
  • Texture mapping: Perspective‑correct mipmapping, environment mapping, 1×1 to 2048×2048 texture sizes, VQ texture compression, 12.52% (7.94:1) to 37.5% (2.67:1) texture compression ratios, texture clamping/wrapping/mirroring, multi‑texturing, bump mapping (2‑pass), normal mapping (Dot3 bump mapping)
  • Filtering: Point filtering, bilinear filtering, trilinear filtering, anisotropic filtering
  • Anti‑aliasing: Super‑sampling anti‑aliasing (up to 4× SSAA), full‑scene anti‑aliasing (FSAA), edge anti‑aliasing
  • Alpha blending: 256 levels of transparency, multi‑pass blending, per‑pixel translucency sorting
  • Shading: Perspective‑correct ARGB Gouraud shading, flat shading, shadows
  • Rendering: ROP (render output unit), 32‑bit floating‑point Z‑buffering (on‑chip), 256 fog effects, vertex fog. per‑pixel table fog, hardware clipping to viewport
  • Lighting: Specular highlighting, per‑pixel lighting
  • Tiled rendering: Screen partitioning into 32×32 tiles, tile/strip/line buffer (framebuffer compression), each tile rendered in internal 32×32 buffer in register memory before being copied to main framebuffer, increases fillrate significantly
  • Deferred rendering: Hidden surface removal (32‑bit floating‑point), back‑face culling, culling of tiny polygons
  • Polygons: Triangle polygons, quad polygons, sprite polygons, effective performance of more than 10 million polygons/sec (including overdrawn and back‑facing polygons), capable of drawing 7 million front‑facing polygons/sec on screen (geometry data storage for polygon models reduce VRAM available for textures), purely opaque polygons drawn at high speed (32 pixels per clock cycle)
  • GMV (general modifier volumes): Light beams, shadows, lasers, glowing suns
• Display Resolution: 320×240 to 800×608 pixels, interlaced and progressive scan, TV and VGA
  • Internal resolution: 320×240 to 1600×1200 pixels
• Frame rate: 30-60 frames/sec
• Color Depth: 16‑bit RGB to 32‑bit ARGB, 65,536 colors (16‑bit color) to 16,777,216 colors (24‑bit color) with 8‑bit (256 levels) alpha blending, YUV and RGB color spaces, color key overlay
• Framebuffer: Optional (raster method can be used)
  • Strip/Tile buffer: 32×32×16‑bit (4 KB) to 32×32×32‑bit (8 KB) in local tile buffer cache memory
  • Full framebuffer: Up to 1600×1200×24‑bit (5625 KB) in VRAM (optional)
  • Note: Due to deferred rendering, framebuffer only needs to be filled once per frame for opaque polygons, while translucent polygons can overdraw with up to 100 MPixels/s (200–300 MB/s).
• Floating-Point Performance: 1.6 GFLOPS
  • SH-4 SIMD: 1.4 GFLOPS geometry
  • PowerVR2: 200 MFLOPS rendering
• Vector Performance:
  • Geometry: 23 million vertices/sec (60 FLOPS per vertex)
  • Rendering: 21,428,571 vertices/sec (14 ISP FPU cycles per 3 vertices)
• Polygon Geometry: Effective performance, including overdrawn and back‑facing polygons not drawn on screen
  • 11 million polygons/sec (130 FLOPS per polygon)
  • More than 10 million polygons/sec: Lighting (under 140 FLOPS per polygon)
• Rendered On‑Screen Polygons: Front‑facing polygons drawn on screen, not including overdrawn and back‑facing polygons (including them, effective performance is more than than 10 million polygons/sec)
  • 7,142,857 polygons/sec (14 ISP FPU cycles per polygon)
  • 7 million polygons/sec: Lighting, textures, shadows
  • 7 million polygons/sec: Textures, trilinear filtering
  • 6 million polygons/sec: Lighting, textures, trilinear filtering, Gouraud shading (243 FLOPS per polygon)
  • 4.2 million polygons/sec: Lighting, textures, anisotropic filtering
  • 3.3 million polygons/sec: Lighting, textures, trilinear filtering, Gouraud shading, bump mapping (430 FLOPS per polygon)
• Rendering Fillrate:
  • 3.2 GPixels/s: Opaque polygons (32 pixels per clock cycle)
  • 500 MPixels/s: Translucent and opaque polygons
  • 100 MPixels/s: Translucent polygons with hardware sort depth of 60 (1 pixel per clock cycle)
  • 100 MPixels/s to 3.2 GPixels/s, depending on opacity/translucency of polygons (1–32 pixels per clock cycle)
• Texture Fillrate:
  • 500 MTexels/s: Effective fillrate (including overdrawn and back‑facing textures)
  • 100 MTexels/s: Front‑facing textures drawn on screen
• VRAM: 8 MB (unified framebuffer and texture memory, effectively 21–63 MB with texture compression)
  • Framebuffer: Up to 5625 KB (optional), 1200 KB (640×480, 16-bit color, double-buffered)
  • Polygons: Up to 7840 KB (10 million textured polygons/sec with Gouraud shading and modifier volumes, 48 bytes per polygon, 60 frames/sec, 166,666 polygons per frame), 3646 KB (7 million textured polygons/sec with Gouraud shading, 32 bytes per polygon, 60 frames/sec, 116,666 polygons per frame), 5334 KB (5 million textured polygons/sec with Gouraud shading, 32 bytes per polygon, 30 frames/sec, 166,666 polygons per frame)
  • Textures: Up to 8 MB (effectively 21–63 MB with texture compression), average 2–6 MB (effectively 20–30 MB with texture compression), 3.2 MB (7 million textured polygons/sec with Gouraud shading, 640×480 framebuffer, 60 frames/sec, effectively 8.5–25 MB with texture compression), 1.6 MB (5 million textured polygons/sec with Gouraud shading, 32 bytes per polygon, 30 frames/sec, effectively 4.2–12 MB with texture compression)
  • Note: Main RAM also used to store polygon display lists. Textures transferred directly to VRAM. Main RAM can also optionally be used to store textures.
• VRAM bandwidth: 800 MB/s (effectively up to 6.3 GB/s with texture compression)
  • Framebuffer: Up to 300 MB/s (100–3200 MPixels/s, 24-bit color), 200 MB/s (100–3200 MPixels/s, 16-bit color)
  • Polygons: Up to 471 MB/s (10 million textured polygons/sec with Gouraud shading and modifier volumes, 48 bytes per polygon), 224 MB/s (7 million textured polygons/sec with Gouraud shading, 32 bytes per polygon), 160 MB/s (5 million textured polygons/sec with Gouraud shading, 32 bytes per polygon)
  • Textures: Up to 800 MB/s (effectively up to 6.3 GB/s with texture compression), average 200–600 MB/s (effectively 2–3 GB/s with texture compression), 376 MB/s (7 million textured polygons/sec with Gouraud shading, 100–3200 MPixels/s, effectively 1–2.9 GB/s with texture compression), 440 MB/s (5 million textured polygons/sec with Gouraud shading, 100–3200 MPixels/s, effectively 1.1–3.4 GB/s with texture compression)
• Full Motion Video: MPEG decoding, video compression, 320×240 to 640×320 and 320×480 video resolutions, 3D polygons can be superimposed over FMV video

Sound

• Sound Card: Super Intelligent (Yamaha) Sound Processor with 47 MHz 32‑Bit RISC ARM7 CPU core built‑in (64 channel PCM/ADPCM)
  • Sound engine: Yamaha AICA Super Intelligent Sound Processor @ 67 MHz
  • Internal CPU: 32‑bit ARM7 RISC CPU @ 45 MHz
  • CPU performance: 40 MIPS
  • Features: DSP, sound synthesizer, MIDI, PCM sampling, ADPCM
• PCM/ADPCM: 16‑bit depth, 48 kHz sampling rate (DVD quality), 64 channels
• Middleware: Audio compression, voice recognition

Memory

• System RAM: 26.125 MB
  • Main RAM: 16 MB SDRAM (Hyundai HY57V161610D)
    • Can be used for storing textures and polygon display lists, accessible by SH4 and PowerVR2 (via SH4 DMA)
  • VRAM: 8 MB SDRAM (unified framebuffer and texture memory)
    • Accessible by Power VR2 and SH4 (via DMA and store queues)
  • Sound RAM: 2 MB SDRAM
  • GD-ROM buffer RAM: 128 KB
• System ROM: 2 MB
• Flash Memory: 128 KB
• Internal Processor Memory: 150,216 bytes (147 KB)
  • SH4: 26,178 bytes (8 KB instruction cache, 16 KB data cache, 64 bytes store queue cache, 1538 bytes registers)
  • PowerVR2: 91,258 bytes (128 bytes ISP cache, 1 KB texture cache, 509 bytes fog table, 4093 bytes palette RAM, 8.25 KB registers, 256 bytes FIFO buffer, 75 KB tile buffer)
  • AICA: 32,780 bytes (32 KB sound registers, 8 bytes RTC registers, 4 bytes FIFO buffer)
• GD-ROM Drive: 12× maximum speed (when running in Constant Angular Velocity mode)
  • Disc formats: GD‑ROM, CD‑ROM, CD‑DA, , Photo CD, Video CD, CD Extra, CD+G, CD+EG
  • Storage capacity: 1 GB per GD‑ROM, 656 MB per CD‑ROM

Bandwidth

• System RAM Bandwidth: 1.75 GB/s (4 buses, 160-bit bus width)
  • SH4, PVR2 <‑> Main RAM — 800 MB/s (64‑bit, 100 MHz)
  • PVR2 <‑> VRAM — 800 MB/s (64‑bit, 100 MHz, 7 ns, 2x 32-bit buses)
  • AICA <‑> Sound RAM — 132 MB/s (16‑bit, 66 MHz)
  • SH4 <‑> GD‑ROM buffer — 13.3 MB/s (16‑bit)
• System ROM Bandwidth: 20 MB/s (16‑bit, 10 MHz)
• Transmission Bandwidth: 1.4 GB/s
  • SH4 <‑> PVR2 — 800 MB/s (64‑bit, 100 MHz)
  • SH4IF <-> PVRIF — 400 MB/s (32‑bit, 100 MHz)
  • SH4 <-> Root Bus — 200 MB/s (32‑bit, 50 MHz)
• Internal Processor Memory Bandwidth: 3.06 GB/s
  • SH4: 1.6 GB/s (64‑bit, 200 MHz)
  • PowerVR2: 1.2 GB/s (96‑bit, 100 MHz)
  • AICA: 256 MB/s (32‑bit, 67 MHz)
• GD‑ROM Drive: 1.8 MB/s transfer rate, 250 milliseconds access time

BIOS

BIOS Revisions

BIOS Version	Machine	Download
1.004	Sega Dreamcast (Commercial-Early)	1.004 (Japan) (info) ()
1.01d	Sega Dreamcast (Commercial)	1.01d (North America) (info) ()
		1.01d (Europe) (info) ()
		1.01d (Japan) (info) ()
1.011	Sega Dreamcast (HKT-0120 Devbox)	1.011 (HKT-0120 Devbox) (info) ()

Other specifications

• Operating Systems:
  • Sega native operating system
  • Custom Windows CE, with DirectX 6.0, Direct3D and OpenGL support
• Inputs: Four ports that can support a digital and analog controller, steering wheel, joystick, keyboard, mouse, and more
• Dimensions: 189mm x 195mm x 76mm (7 7/16" x 7 11/16" x 3")
• Weight: 1.9kg (4.4lbs)
• Modem: Removable; Original Asia/Japan model had a 33.6 Kbytes/s; models released after 9 September 1999 had a 56 Kbytes/s modem
• Sega Dreamcast Broadband Adapter: these adapters are available separately and replace the removable modem
  • HIT-400: "Broadband Adapter", the more common model, this used a RealTek 8139 chip and supported 10/100mbit
• HIT-300: "Lan Adapter", this version used a Fujitsu MB86967 chip and supported only 10mbit
• Storage: "Visual Memory Unit" (VMU) 128 Kb removable storage device
• Input devices: (4 custom controller ports)
  • Standard Dreamcast gamepad with two add‑on ports
    • Add-ons: VMU, 4x Memory Card, Jump Pack
  • Sega Dreamcast Keyboard
  • Sega Dreamcast Mouse
  • Sega Dreamcast Fishing Controller
  • Sega Dreamcast Microphone (bundled with Seaman)
  • VMU MP3 Player (Unreleased)
  • Swatch Access for Dreamcast (Unreleased)
• Output devices:
  • Sega Dreamcast RF Unit
  • Sega Dreamcast AV cables (composite)
  • Sega Dreamcast VGA Adapter
• Add-ons:
  • Sega Dreamcast Karaoke System (Japan only)
  • Dreameye (Japan only)
  • Sega Dreamcast Zip Drive (Unreleased)

History

Main article: History of the Sega Dreamcast.

Games

List of games

Main article: List of Dreamcast games.

Launch titles

Japan

• Godzilla Generations
• July
• Pen Pen TriIcelon
• Virtua Fighter 3tb

North America

• Air Force Delta
• Blue Stinger
• Expendable
• Flag to Flag
• House of the Dead 2
• Hydro Thunder
• Monaco Grand Prix
• Mortal Kombat Gold
• NFL 2K
• NFL Blitz 2000
• PenPen TriIcelon
• Power Stone
• Ready 2 Rumble Boxing
• Sonic Adventure
• SoulCalibur
• TNN Motorsports Hardcore Heat
• Tokyo Xtreme Racer
• TrickStyle

Europe

• Blue Stinger
• Dynamite Cop
• Incoming
• Millennium Soldier: Expendable
• Monaco Grand Prix: Racing Simulation 2
• Power Stone
• Ready 2 Rumble Boxing
• Sega Rally 2
• Sonic Adventure
• Tokyo Highway Challenge
• Trick Style
• Virtua Fighter 3tb

Brazil

• Blue Stinger
• Flag to Flag
• House of the Dead 2
• Hydro Thunder
• Mortal Kombat Gold
• Ready 2 Rumble Boxing
• Sonic Adventure

Magazine articles

Main article: Sega Dreamcast/Magazine articles.

Promotional material

Print advertisements

• Dreamcast BR PrintAdvert.jpg

  BR (1)

• Dreamcast BR PrintAdvert2.jpg

  BR (2)

• Dreamcast BR PrintAdvert3.jpg

  BR (3)

• 

  UK (the British)

• 

  UK (the French)

• 

  UK (the Germans)

• 

  UK (the Spanish)

• DCInternet DC FR PrintAdvert British.jpg

  FR (the British)

• DCInternet DC FR PrintAdvert Germans.jpg

  FR (the Germans)

• DCInternet DC FR PrintAdvert Spanish.jpg

  FR (the Spanish)

Print advert in Official Dreamcast Magazine (US) #1: "September 1999" (1999-08-24)

Print advert in Official Dreamcast Magazine (US) #1: "September 1999" (1999-08-24)

Print advert in Official Dreamcast Magazine (US) #1: "September 1999" (1999-08-24)

Print advert in Official Dreamcast Magazine (US) #1: "September 1999" (1999-08-24)

Print advert in Arcade (UK) #10: "September 1999" (1999-07-27)

Print advert in DC-UK (UK) #1: "September 1999" (1999-09-02)

Print advert in Official Dreamcast Magazine (UK) #preview: "Taster" (1999-xx-xx)

Print advert in Consoles Max (FR) #2: "Juillet/Août 1999" (1999-0x-xx)

Print advert in Dreamcast: Das Offizielle Magazin (DE) #1: "Oktober 1999" (1999-10-14)

Print advert in Dreamcast: Das Offizielle Magazin (DE) #1: "Oktober 1999" (1999-10-14)

Print advert in MAN!AC (DE) #1999-11: "11/99" (1999-10-06)

Print advert in MAN!AC (DE) #1999-12: "12/99" (1999-11-03)

Retailers

Print advert in Arcade (UK) #10: "September 1999" (1999-07-27)

Television advertisements

• UK (launch)

• UK (the British)

• UK (the French)

• UK (the Germans)

• JP (Campaign)

Other advertisements

• 

Artwork

Hardware diagrams

• 
• 

Logos

• 

  Japanese/North American logo

• 

  European/Australian logo

References

Sega Home Video Game Systems
83	84	85	86	87	88	89	90	91	92	93	94	95	96	97	98	99	00	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11
SG-1000	SG-1000 II				Mega Drive					Mega Drive II
SC-3000								Mega-CD		Mega-CD II					Genesis 3
		Sega Mark III									32X				Dreamcast
			Master System				Master System II
			AI Computer				Game Gear
											Saturn
										Pico													Beena