The Petition for a Dreamcast 2 Has Reached Over 20,000 Signatures, Now Has Website

[Isiac DaGraca]

The Petition for a Dreamcast 2 Has Reached Over 20,000 Signatures, Now Has Website

In my casual internet browsing I came across a Japanese article on twitter accompanied by some strange console device with Sega on it. Turns out 2 years ago people started a petition to get a Dreamcast 2 made and released. Progress has been slow up until 3 weeks ago in which a post on a Shenmue fan site helped bump it to 10,000 signatures, then later in that same week another 10,000.

The petition is currently set to reach 25,000 signatures soon, prompting a website and facebook group to be made in the past week. Along with an accompanying video to promote it.

Clearly this is getting serious, and will only grow as the petition grows. The starters of this petition Ben Plato and Patrick Lawson are planning a pitch to Sega, and even if that fails he has a developer and other interested parties to help him. There is no actual name for the console currently.

The latest post on the petition describes the console as:

…intended to be a Hybrid PC Dreamcast system with updated specs and the ability to redraw games in High Definition.

Interested people can sign the petition, follow the Facebook or register on the official website for more updates. This is likely to gain more news and attention as various media sites have picked up on this since the recent boom in signings and the website being made. Expect updates if any major developments unfold from here on.

So, while I believe this will gain some sort of traction short of Sega shutting the whole thing down completely, what do you think? Discuss in the forum/comments below!

 
[See the full post at: The Petition for a Dreamcast 2 Has Reached Over 20,000 Signatures, Now Has Website]

[Ben Domino]

I can’t back this. It’s too unrealistic. Putting Dreamcast games up for sale on-line isn’t that simple. Sega controls its own assets, sure, but others? Not gonna happen. Plus you have licensing issues to consider, such as how Crazy Taxi’s original soundtrack and locations were removed from later releases of the game.

Likewise, what’s presented is a PC which reads Dreamcast games. That exists already, as I believe Linux can read GD-ROMs. Even then, emulators aren’t really viable yet from what I’ve seen. I doubt these guys can do what the larger community cannot.

I’m sure there’s a potential market for a Dreamcast with modern HDMI and upscaling support, but it’ll be confined to the retro enthusiast market which would likely prefer the original hardware anyway. There’s no real money to be made here, and I’d suspect the components (particularly the laser assembly) and work required would likely price it well beyond what anyone would be willing to pay. This will go the way of the Retro VGS and so many other failed attempts to tap into the market.

[Jacob Kellogg]

You summed this up perfectly, I would like an HD Dreamcast, that really just has an emulator and maybe some android features or something.

[Isiac DaGraca]

@mr-domino I agree overall.

I expect “something” to happen if enough interest is shown and if the media jumps on it like i expect them to it could get a huge bump warranting a response.

But I’d much more likely expect something that already has all the games on it, not a system with disks or downloads. I think that’d skip a lot of problems with this and give people a “legal” option.

It’s also something i kinda hope would happen in general, i mean think about it. 5 generations later we’re still rebuying games from our old consoles. Games that, in terms of file-size and other times content are barely a fraction of the size of games now. Games that are easily available through a simple download and emulator forever.

They keep coming up with new, imperfect, sometimes complicated (in technology or access), means of obtaining these games. And those methods are temporary, tied to an internet service that may not always be around.

It’s kind of a dream, but ultimately something like those little 100-in-1 game devices are ideal but with less flimsy tech and a better UI. And also for more modern games at hopefully ps2 era but at least ps1.

[Ben Domino]

There’s a Saturn project to get it to boot from an SD card. I believe someone has made one, but it’s not available as a consumer product. That’s what I really want, and the same for Dreamcast, but it runs into the legal issues you note which make it unlikely to see any kind of official release.

I already have a NES Everdrive and soon will get the others. I love it. I have all the games I want to play, and I’ll still play the ROM on my Everdrive because it’s just so easy. I want that for my disc systems. Besides, lasers fail and discs rot. I’d feel a whole lot better about the longevity of those consoles if I could bypass discs altogether.

Old games are escalating in price so quickly anyway. It’s just not feasible to support old media for new hardware. People are most likely gonna burn the discs as it is, so why not just skip discs and implement another storage solution such as SD cards or a HDD as it is? You won’t get Sega’s (or any console maker’s) backing on that project, but that’d absolutely would be something people would want.

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