I can’t stop hoping for a Dreamcast 2 and I know how Sega could do it

A reader is given hope that a Dreamcast 2 console might finally be a possibility, if Sega takes up his suggestion for promoting its new games.

No matter how many great games and amazing consoles get released, we gamers can’t help but think about the one that got away. The sequel that didn’t get made, the remaster that never happened (hello Bloodborne!) or the console they never had as a kid. For me that console is the Dreamcast 2 and the reason I never got is… it doesn’t exist.

It came as a huge blow to me at the time, but the Dreamcast was Sega’s last ever home console. Cut short in its prime by poor sales and outmanoeuvred by the PlayStation 2, the Dreamcast was underfunded and doomed from the start. It’s still my favourite console of all time though and while, yes, I admit a lot of that is due to nostalgia I do contend that it was the perfect blend of Sega’s arcade heritage with modern home console gaming.

The Dreamcast was innovative too, with the first proper online service and games like Phantasy Star Online that were years ahead of their time. Nowadays though Sega is a shell of its former self, better known for stuffy PC strategy games than any of the classic franchises I associate it with.

I’d come to terms with the new Sega though, accepting that they’re just not the company I remember and hoping instead for the odd indie style sequel, like the excellent Streets Of Rage 4. Then, out of the blue, they announced they were making a bunch of new games based on classic franchises like Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi, Golden Axe, Streets Of Rage, and Shinobi.

Well, to be honest, they didn’t so much announce them, as show some random looking footage, leave, and explain nothing. There’s been rumours they’re reboots, remakes, free-to-play live service games, maybe all of the above… nobody seems to know. There might even be two Jet Set Radio games, according to the latest rumours, so who knowns what’s going on.

Whatever it is, there’s rumours of a dozen or more other games getting revived, including OutRun, Altered Beast, After Burner, and Virtua Fighter, although I imagine that’s dependent on how this first batch does.

Their plans seem much bigger than you’d expect of modern Sega and there’s also talk of some kind of hub, maybe something like Assassin’s Creed Infinity is supposed to be, where you can access all the games and do achievements and the like. But, and here’s my big idea… what if that hub was actually a piece of hardware? The fabled Dreamcast 2.

Obviously, you wouldn’t want to force people to have to buy the console to play the new games, but I would love it if Sega made an official Dreamcast 2, with a new controller, especially to run these games. You could even add one or two extra ones, as a bonus for buying the console.

The problem is it would probably be quite expensive, but my hope is they can make streaming versions of the games and that the console would be playing them via the cloud, so it wouldn’t have to be powerful or expensive. Although Sega can probably get away with charging a fair bit to eager fans.

That’s my idea anyway. It probably won’t happen but at the very least maybe we’ll get a controller. They can put a Dreamcast 2 logo on that at least, or call the hub Dreamcast 2, and then my dreams will at least partially come true.

By reader Franky

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