Dreamcast

[rustyuk]

The fact it had zero copy protection killed it off really. Fantastic system and easily my favourite console of all time.

[nebpor]

Lucas Ayde said:

I agree on the 'look' of DC games vs PS2 - I always thought that most PS2 games had a smeary,washed out look about them whereas the DC had bright and sharp gfx. I guess down to Sega's arcade DNA.

All in all a great system that never had a fair crack of the whip.

It wasn't Sega's arcade DNA per-se, it was the fact the Dreamcast WAS an arcade board - I think they just used two of them in the arcade machines, but one in the console!

Nothing had looked this close to arcade before ... nothing!!

[Wadeski]

nebpor said:

Lucas Ayde said:

I agree on the 'look' of DC games vs PS2 - I always thought that most PS2 games had a smeary,washed out look about them whereas the DC had bright and sharp gfx. I guess down to Sega's arcade DNA.

All in all a great system that never had a fair crack of the whip.

It wasn't Sega's arcade DNA per-se, it was the fact the Dreamcast WAS an arcade board - I think they just used two of them in the arcade machines, but one in the console!

Nothing had looked this close to arcade before ... nothing!!

Yeah, the Dreamcast was the base for both Sega NAOMI and Sammy Atomiswave arcade boards. NAOMI was a Dreamcast with a slightly newer version of the GPU and twice the RAM, so NAOMI ports are nearly perfect to DC. It also doesn't run games directly from disc, it dumps them to massive ROM chips on the board each time the system boots (since arcades are rarely turned off). As you say, they can also be stacked together, but that is to drive multiple monitors (like the multiplayer racing arcade units).

Basically Sega realized the Model 3 board (which predated Dreamcast) was just far too high end for 99% of arcade, so launched a more cost effective board based on their home hardware.

Atomiswave came after the Dreamcast was discontinued as a low-cost arcade board, but is again similar hardware.