The 'Dreamcast 2' Is Just a Dream

You could call me a "Sega fan" in the same way you'd call someone who dressed up as Boba Fett and camped in line all day before the premiere of The Force Awakens a "Star Wars fan." I'm a pretty dyed-blue-in-the-wool supporter of the company from their 16-bit days, following them faithfully through their darkest days with the underloved Sega Saturn and their brief, beautiful, but ultimately failed attempt to return to console-making glory with the Dreamcast. I've gone to some pretty absurd lengths in my love for some of Sega's product offerings.

But when I read headlines yesterday saying that a "Dreamcast 2" was in the works, my reaction was the furthest possible thing from excitement: "Christ, not this rumor-mongering bullshit again."

So the "Dreamcast 2" that was supposedly announced? Well, it's a fan pipe-dream that only exists on paper. Basically, a bunch of Sega fans got together and cooked up a half-baked pitch for a PC-hardware based Dreamcast successor they want to sell Sega on. Their genius plan goes like this:

• They want to convince Sega to make a hybrid PC box system with support to play Dreamcast games in HD.

• They plan to do this by having some unnamed "Sega of Japan interns" approach the heads of a million-dollar company and convince them that this is a good idea using an online petition anyone with a pulse and an input device can sign.

• There's also going to be a million-dollar-goal Kickstarter in case Sega doesn't accept the pitch, which isn't a hornet's nest of legal bullshit waiting to happen at all!

• They've got support already because Sonic co-creator Yuji Naka friended them on Facebook! Nevermind the fact that he works independent from Sega now and has 5000 other Facebook friends.

As for why this is a terrible idea that will never work, well, re-read everything above, read some of the statements the group has made, think about how congested and difficult the current console market is, and then try to stop yourself from facepalming.

Done? Good, let's move on.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened, either—Sega fans are used to constant pleas, rumormongering, and abortive fan attempts to convince Sega to re-enter the console business. There is a small but vocal subset of "truthers" amongst the longtime Sega faithful: people who sincerely, believe that the only way for Sega to ever be truly successful is as a console manufacturer. They've been arguing that Sega needs to get back into making consoles for years. The most devoted of these gaming conspiracy theorists, few though they may be, are convinced that Sega will eventually release a new console, they're just waiting for the right time. They're fervent in their belief and will take any news about the company, good or bad, as a sign that they need to start making consoles again. If Sega's doing well, they have the money in their coffers to support engineering and launching another console. If they're having a bad year, Sega is clearly doomed and the only thing that can bring them back to profitability is a new console.

So no, this isn't the first "We'll convince Sega to make a new console!" effort to exist. Many have come and gone, vanishing into the internet ether with nary a trace. It is the first to actually get spread fairly widely through social media, however, thanks to a few sites opting to run with it for whatever bizarre reason. Thankfully, most people seem to be taking it for the utter nonsense that it is.

Amongst it all, though, there are some genuine sentiments from people truly wishing they could own another Sega console. I understand that appeal to nostalgia, but the reality is that the industry of today is very, very different from that of 15 years ago, when the Dreamcast was beginning to buckle under pressure from the PlayStation 2. There's simply not a place for the Sega we loved as a console maker in the modern market. It's difficult to accept, but we need to move on rather than clinging to a pipe dream that a quasi-PC will bring it back.

What's that song all the kids today like? Something about "If you love it, let it go." Yeah, that sounds about right.