Hi all,

The past week has been one filled with several title delays and other little happenings regarding the DC. First off, Sega head Shoichiro Irimajiri spoke a little on the DC's future. He believes that within five years the Dreamcast will have about a 50% share in the home console market. This size of market share was last reached back when the Sega Genesis' peak when the 16-bit console controlled 60% of the market in the US. He also continued to say that they believe the production problems that have limited availability will be worked out soon. On the hardware side, the VGA box came out last week in Japan. The VGA box allows the Dreamcast to connect to any standard VGA multi-scanning monitor. Output will then be in 640x480. The difference is quite dramatic as games will not only appear much sharper, but colours will also be more vibrant on a decent monitor. The box has a switch feature that allows one to move between another video source and the Dreamcast. It retails for ¥7000 or about $60. This week, we'll see the release of Sega's steering wheel for ¥5800 or about $50.

Sengoku Turb came out for the Dreamcast last week as well. The game is an action/adventure title from NEC. I haven't read any reviews on it so far so I can't say much to the quality of the title. Coming this week is ESP's RPG Evolution. The game received high marks in Famitsu Weekly, earning an 8/10 from each of the reviewers. The game was also the highest rated of all titles reviewed in the Famitsu last week. The reviewers also commented on the title showing off the Dreamcast's visual power as well. The game is quite impressive, and puts the N64's Zelda to shame. I will get some images online soon. I also have a few extra shots of Shenmue that didn't make it online last week like I'd said I would. They will go online as well (I'm still working on the web storage issue).

Lots of release dates have been moved around this week. Sega Rally is still on for a release on the 28th but several other games have been pushed back some. Hudson's RPG White Illumination moved from February to March 18th, while the arcade shooter Psychic Force 2012 has been pushed back to a release 'sometime this year.' House of the Dead 2 has been moved back one week to March 25th. That day, Capcom will be giving gamers something special as well as they've confirmed the fighter Marvel vs. Capcom for release on the Dreamcast that day. Sorry Saturn fans, no MvC on the Saturn. Though, Capcom has also set a date for the Dungeons & Dragons collection: March 4th. See the release dates area for complete info.

Offline I have begun tracking extended info on Dreamcast items including release dates, costs, and product numbers. I have done this because I feel that the information may be not currently useful, will useful be at some time in the future. I've found in launching the Genesis area, information on old games is tough to come by. Some of the information has come online already and more will come soon, ultimately I want to include full interactivity allowing for searching and sorting of game listings.

One new code if you can call it that has made its way out. In the racer, Pen Pen Tricelon, one can reveal an additional character, Hanamuizu, by beating all of the races with a gold medal twice.

Dreamcast pricing has remained fairly stable in the US. However, UK importer Computer Exchange has recently dropped the console price down to £329 (~544US) from £375. US import prices are expected to drop in February, while Sega of Japan has no plans to drop the price in Japan. Sega also last week announced that they had shipped 500,000 consoles in Japan thus far.

That's about all this week. Keep checking the site for the latest news, see you in seven days!

-Greg