http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1924475-dreamcast-2-reportedly-under-development-to-be-pc-console-hybrid/
There’s been excitement over a possible sequel to the SEGA Dreamcast, dubbed the “Dreamcast 2,” 17 years after the console made its debut. The project seeks to bring a PC-style Dreamcast 2 console to the market.
Patrick Lawsen, a member of the SEGA Dreamcast 2 group that aims to revive the brand, said there’s been some progress in the project. He said there’s a group has the help from some “SEGA of Japan interns and independent OEM designers,” CinemaBlend reported.
The plan is to bring a PC rig to the market that can run SEGA’s old and new games, and it would be a competitor to Steam Machines or even Alienware and Cyberpower, the report said. The shell of the new device will look similar to the old Dreamcast but will be modified and updated. A mock-up was being shared on Twitter and Facebook:
He wrote about the progress on Dec. 21, according to the Gaming Ground website:
“I’m truly excited about the Crowdfunded prospect for SEGA RingEdge Zero/RingWide Elite. There’s virtually no competition in the PC rig business and most PC gamers are left having to spend heavy budgets on building the perfect rig as Alienware is both expensive and just doesn’t offer Quality for its less expensive rigs. The design and spec build we’ve chosen has Intel Core i5 Haswell, the most popular and strongest quality performing CPU among PC gaming enthusiasts.
“Quality” and “Quality Control” is something missing in-game hardware brands now in days. And is something SEGA had with all of its consoles.
If we can get just a million backers worldwide, our upcoming KS could be funded in record time and with SEGA licensing it could have it out on the market in less than a year!”
Lawsen and the other group working to resurrect the Dreamcast said that SEGA officials in Japan are in involved. And they are now planning to host the Kickstarter to get the hardware and designs finalized, CinemaBlend reported, which said that the “idea that a new console could be out by the end of 2016 almost sends chills down my spine.”
For those unfamiliar, the Dreamcast was SEGA’s final home console and was a fan favorite , but it couldn’t compete with the likes of the Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft Xbox, and the Nintendo Gamecube, which all came out after the Dreamcast was released. As a result, the console became a commercial failure and crushed SEGA as a maker of consoles. Many of the games on the Dreamcast were considered quite innovative and received critical acclaim, including Grandia II, Skies of Arcadia, Shenmue, and Jet Set Radio. Many also praised the Dreamcast controller, while some reviled it as being bulky and ugly.
The Project Dream website has a countdown timer that could lead to a revelation about when the Dreamcast 2 may be released, as Tweaktown notes. The site speculates that the system may be a PC-console hybrid, and it might use x86 architecture while sporting a NVIDIA GTX 740 GPU, an Intel i5 4460 at 3.4GHz, and 8GB of DDR3 RAM. The new system will have WiFi controllers. Tweaktown adds that the Project Dream website is more of a “what if” scenario.
SEGA has not officially said anything about the Dreamcast 2 hardware.
The author of the Gaming Ground article, Robin Elk, stated, “I got blown away by the fact that our Dreamcast 2 article had become a huge hit (it was the first thing that I saw when I checked my phone), and the SEGA community seems to be really excited and thrilled about” Project Dream. Elk was the one who obtained Lawsen’s statement and organized them.