Hello all,

The past week has been one long anticipated. Both Sega America and Sega Europe announced basic details on the Dreamcast launch in their areas. Most of the info is pretty much the same as the rumors that have been circulating for a while. SoA will set a price point of $199US, and the console will be released on Sept 9th. Over in Europe, the price is higher at �199, and has a later launch date of Sept. 23rd. US launch titles included only one title that was not previously known to be a launch title: Castlevania. No information is available about the game aside from the fact that its on the official lists. There are a total of eleven titles set for release with the console. Thus far around 30,000 preorders have been taken, and Sega hopes to sell one million units by April 2000.

For Europeans, the launch list is of similar size, with ten titles. Notably, Metropolis Street Racer is the racing title for release in Europe over the bland Super Speed Racing that the Americans get. Hopefully this will change as SSR doesn't do much with the DC's abilities. Around 20 titles are due to be available by Christmas '99 in Europe including HotD2, Sega Rally 2, and Cool Boarders.

Also take note that both companies remain mum about the DC modem. They have yet to explicitly say, "the console will come with a modem at launch." Both SoA, and SoE have a total of $100 million (£62 million) allocated for launch marketing. In related news, there has been a report in yesterday's Multimedia Wire that two SoA VPs are leaving the company while Sega has hired a new PR chief. At this time I have not read any other reports so I cannot confirm that this has happened. There has been no official PR today or any information otherwise so I do not know who is leaving. I will keep you updated on this.

Last week, two new titles were released. Both are board games, Morita's Strongest Reversi, and the second is Morita's Strongest Chess. I've little info on them so I can't say how they've rated as titles.

In the coming weeks there are only two releases, Web Mystery and Redline Racer. The latter title is a port of the PC version and is looking pretty good. I can't say how much enhanced it will be over the original, but thus far it is the same or better. Redline Racer is a straight forward arcade style motorcycle racer, which is quite fun. I'm not sure how the Dreamcast's abilities will be integrated into the game, but when I do, I will write about them. After these two titles, there is a lull in DC releases until late May where four titles are set for release: Dynamite Deka 2, Elemental Gimmick Gear, King of Fighters Dream Match, and Shutoku Battle.

One reader suggested having a best games poll for various systems including the Genesis/Megadrive and the Saturn. How would you feel about this? If you are interested let me know, if I get enough interest, I'll set one up (its been forever since dEX had a poll). Well, that's all for this week, cya!

-Greg