Happy Birthday PAL Dreamcast - 25 Years Since Sega's European Launch.

[@RG7621]

I fired up my Xbox 360 today to play Sonic Adventure, Soul Calibur and Crazy Taxi. Happy 25th Anniversary.

[@jessicasretrolunacy]

The Dreamcast is now 25 worldwide! Cheers Dan and James, I always enjoy getting your perspectives and stories in these vids and seeing how Sega impacted the UK and Europe. Keep the Sega smiles coming!

[@BobDobbs-Woolhat1]

Headhunter is the best European exclusive.

[@TheBeird]

My memory of the launch involved a short promotional VHS - narrated by Tommy Boyd I think - showing off a tonne of games, and then buying it involved having to part exchange my N64 and all the games I had. Which I regret but the Dreamcast turned out to be a great time.

[@gameboy_colorful7078]

Great video guys. I always hear about the American launch so it’s cool to learn about the European launch.

[@dibbsgaming]

Fantastic episode guys! Loved listening to this, really took me back to a very exciting time, it was really awesome to have Sega back after their time away and I was super hyped about it all! No matter how things eventually ended up, things felt good with the launch and despite having a Japanese console already a few months before, I still had to save up and get the PAL version on launch day which felt like it had a real buzz in the air! An amazing time that I’ll cherish forever with some amazing memories. And yeah I’m totally with you on your rankings for Sonic Adventure and VF3, they were two of my pickups on launch day. Incredible titles! You did the whole thing justice and it was awesome to hear your experiences and memories - James story about the Sega Rally 2 competition was hilarious, amazing stuff! 😂

[@TheRetroMartin]

Took me a week to get it watched but I got there! Great stuff as always lads. I really enjoy Sonic Adventure and Virtua Fighter 3 TB from the launch lineup!

[@GeordiLaForgery]

Fantastic ep guys keep on dream castin.

[@retrogamingtechuk]

Excellent video. There’s used to be a KZbin video with TV footage of the Sega Rally 2 HMV tournament (I think it was for Rapture TV) but it appears to have been taken down

[@GeordiLaForgery]

"CVG Millennium Challenge on Rapture TV - Sega Rally 2 Dreamcast competition - 2 Oct 1999" It's on youtube. Looks like a young James the segaholic spotted? 😉

[@SEGAGuys]

@@GeordiLaForgeryJust checked and that’s the final! I wonder if the footage they recorded of the regional heats is uploaded anywhere, because I’ll definitely be on the Glasgow one with my tail between my legs moaning about 50Hz. 😂

[@GeordiLaForgery]

@@SEGAGuys CVG magazine 213 (segaretro) page 13 mentions the upcoming Glasgow HMV challenge on 31st July. Issue 214 might have some photos can't find a link for it though! 🙂

[@captainhawdon937]

The SegaGuys are busy!

[@IcePakOG]

Great video, guys, and excellent ranking, too. I'm in Australia, and our launch was completely botched, so I've ranked what I think are the Top 10 launch games across UK, US, and Japan: 1. Sonic Adventure 2. Soul Calibur 3. Powerstone 4. Virtua Fighter 3tb 5. Hydro Thunder 6. SEGA Rally Championship 2 7. House of the Dead 2 8. Dynamite Cop 9. Expendable 10. Blue Stinger

[@marklaskey7780]

Awesome video guys

[@captainhawdon937]

Thanks

[@RetroGamesBoy78]

James must be dishing out the hearts in the comment section, that's why I didn't get one on my Sega Rally 2 comment 😁👍

[@SEGAGuys]

@@RetroGamesBoy78 There you go mate 😂 If you enjoyed the game that’s all that matters.

[@RetroGamesBoy78]

@@SEGAGuys ❤

[@StiffPeak]

I quite liked their quirky adverts but you should only do things like that if your dominating the market, only then you can afford to have fun with it, it’s insane how good the launch lineup was, they also had a big premiere event almost a year later at the empire Leicester square, I managed to get my hands on some of the promo stuff for that

[@RetroGamesBoy78]

I just thought I'd add that I absolutely adored Sega Rally 2 on DC, I put hours and hours into that game, using the Dreamcast steering wheel in bonnet cam view, it felt so good, I could blast round those circuits just like in Saturn Sega Rally. Shenmue 2 is my favourite Dreamcast game, and I loved Ferrari 355 also but I never mastered it like I did Sega Rally 2 and I also never got into Daytona 2001 the same way as the Saturn original, so Sega Rally 2 is probably my favourite racer on DC, but it is hard to split from Ferrari 355 which I was very much addicted to playing online for a while (even though it wasn't real time racing) still fun though, but yeah, Sega Rally 2 was still awesome at the time.

[@shendruew]

A ton of bizarre stories about the Dreamcast launch around Europe. Digging deeper you really can see the cracks appearing behind the scenes. A lot of disorganised chaos particularly outside the main regions. - It does make you think if they had gone full uniform with the blue aesthetic all across the globe, instead of the mixed approach. The blue is linked with the SEGA brand and the boxes just look so much better, in my opinion.

[@SEGAGuys]

Have you seen our video from Saturday? The European Launch of the Sega Dreamcast (14/10/99) | The Forgotten Birthday. kzbin.info/www/bejne/r5e6fKxqh9l1hqs

[@MisterBigMack]

I like Dans opinion on sega rally, but I value James’ too I never played the SG2 arcade enough for me to make that comparison so I did have a great experience but my older brother who was the sega master to me, he knew that it didn’t feel right and knew it wasn’t a touch on SGC

[@powwow360]

Great episode guys. Would you know when Toy Commander was released? I thought that was a launch game

[@SEGAGuys]

@@powwow360 Cheers mate! Toy Commander hit shelves a week later, on 22/10/99.

[@powwow360]

@@SEGAGuys Ah gotcha! Got my console when Soulcalibur and Hotd 2 came out so before that is a blur. I was too mesmerised lol

[@RetroGamesBoy78]

I don't know why but unlike when I first got my Atari 2600, Spectrum 48k, Mega Drive, Saturn, PS3, I do not have any great memory of the day I purchased my Dreamcast, and it was the only console I've ever purchased on launch day so you think I would. Oh well, what I do remember is being glued to the thing for about 2 years, being at work and looking forward to playing Shenmue, and looking forward to the weekend so I could go online and play Quake 3 arena when it was 1p a minute instead of the £1 a minute during week days. 👌 Great days 😂 lol

[@RetroGamesBoy78]

Actually I think it might have been 60p a minute for week days but still a lot, and the worst thing was sometimes I couldn't wait for the weekend so I'd have half an hour here and there, a bit silly tbh, you live and you learn.

[@BobDobbs-Woolhat1]

Dreamcast Talk rocks

[@shendruew]

As a follow up, there were a ton of factors we can point at regarding the Dreamcast's downfall. But as pointed out, the whole SEGA Dreamcast branded in the US regions and just Dreamcast in Europe and Japan, is a part of it. And I think trying to sidestep around a failing brand was the best approach. True, some of the EU marketing is awful. A real lack of gameplay in the ads and a whole reliance in pushing online, still at its early stages. Also screw Anne Robinson 😂

[@SEGASaturnLad]

Man there is not more fun on DC than with an official arcade stick and Ready 2 Rumble, no.1 for me. Agree regarding SR2 was such a let down after after the Sat game.

[@thehumbleone1983]

👍 boys

[@MisterBigMack]

James - you fucking legend mate 😂😂😂 1:42:57

[@hornet4152]

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻❤👍🏻

[@CasperEgas]

The launch games with marks from me: Monaco GP 5/10 (it isn't a direct port from the N64 or PlayStation though and yes it has Monaco). Incoming 6/10 (just simple fun). Trickstyle 6/10 (hated it at first. Retried it last year or so and understood a little bit better why some like it). Blue Stinger 6/10 (it is just a bit strange and stilted. Awkward game). Expendable 7/10 (fun, especially with 2 players, but a bit old fashioned). Tokyo Highway Challenge 10/10 (absolutely amazing. Completed it loads of time. Great graphics and audio too). Dynamite Cop 2 6/10 (plays well, looks dated and is far too short). Ready to Rumble 8/10 (fun gameplay, looked great). Sega Rally 2 8/10 (lot more content, but not the best port and even the arcade game isn't as good as the original). Power Stone 8/10 (great concept! Sequel much better though). Sonic Adventure 9/10 (was soooo impressed by it at the time. It has some problems though, which I can see more clearly now). Virtua Fighter 3 8/10 (great fighting game, but it needed more content and was already a bit old at the time).

[@sammorrow7007]

Set phasers to Malky!

[@SEGAGuys]

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@CasperEgas]

How much the market meant to them? If I go by The Netherlands...a country were both the Master System and Mega Drive did well, it was total trash to them. The launch was almost non existent and delayed because of the internet infrastructure being late in other countries, as we did not get it at launch anyway. No promotion at all. Most stores did not carry any Dreamcast products either. I loved the console from day one, but the European launch and marketing really was a disaster. In my school people bought one more and more, because the games were great and the console was cheap. But that was all through word of mouth. People did see the football shirts, but football fans I knew, didn't even know what a Dreamcast was.

[@SEGAGuys]

If you’re referring to the line about Sega sending the Japanese hierarchy over for the UK launch, yeah it did show how much the “primary” markets meant to them. But as I alluded to in the video also, it would have been far more sensible to spend the money used on sponsoring 4 football teams getting the marketing right in ALL of Europe. It’s madness that major nations like Holland and Italy got no advertising, although ironically Italy did get more of the budget than the other “secondary” nations because of the £8m (approx) spent sponsoring Sampdoria! I think in hindsight, hiring Giles Thomas was a massive error. He didn’t know Sega, he didn’t know gaming, and it showed in his choice of advertising and how to spend the budget. Even the ads the primary European markets got were bereft of gameplay other than the final few seconds. Despite all that, the European launch brought in approximately £52m to Sega over the opening weekend, which using the £ to $ rate at the time, puts it not too far behind the day one total for 9/9/99. But having Okawa himself in London for the launch was a big deal, but how much was he aware of the way Europe was being segregated and in some ways neglected by SOE’s marketing decisions.

[@CasperEgas]

​@@SEGAGuys Yes I agree. I think in The Netherlands the launch sales would be below 1000. They basically gave up on over half of Europe before they even started. I read about the UK launch in the mags. So I was aware of the differences. And people in the letters sections were even complaining about the advertising in the UK, while I though...you don't know how bad it is elsewhere. We had a lively Sega Forum. There were even several unofficial Sega events organised. So we as fans made the most out of it.

[@sammorrow7007]

50hz Fatality....😂

[@SEGAGuys]

Mate there’s a video of the final of that CVG/HMV event on here, little did we know at the time, the young lad hosting it (and the regional heats) was Jake Humphrey 😂. No footage of the Glasgow event has popped up, but it was filmed for Rapture TV.

[@sammorrow7007]

@@SEGAGuys jesus....i couldnt have picked him out of a line up 😂

[@MisterBigMack]

Because im a cool person im going to say: First

[@MisterBigMack]

I like Dans opinion on sega rally, but I value James’ too I never played the SG2 arcade enough for me to make that comparison so I did have a great experience but my older brother who was the sega master to me, he knew that it didn’t feel right and knew it wasn’t a touch on SGC