Dreamcast & Rare Treamcast System Review - Gamester81 

I was wincing at that CD abuse at 3:12!

Couple corrections to make: - The dics used by the Dreamcast were not CD-ROMs; they were GD-ROMs, short for Gigabyte Discs. Unlike standard CDs which only held around 700 megabytes, GDs could store up to 1.2 gigabyte. - The memory cards with embedded screens were indeed called VMUs, but that stands for Visual Memory Unit (Visual Memory System in Japan), not Virtual Memory Unit. Screen-less memory cards were also available, but VMUs were more standard and offered more features. - The high pitched sound you hear when starting the system is actually emitted by a VMU and signifies that its battery is dead. That sound doesn't occur if all VMUs hooked up still hold a battery charge. Additionally, a Jump Pack (Puru Puru Pack in Japan) could be inserted into a memory card slot to add rumble feedback to the controller. It had pretty wide support, and I'm fairly confident that most if not all first-party SEGA games supported it.

dreamcast had a broadband adapter too. it ran off GD-ROM's not CD's

Dreamcast was a great system for it's time, they made the mistake of not being backwards compatible, but it was a good system.

@10disks Hey thanks for the catch and for letting me know.

I would love to own a Treamcast someday, so rare and expensive now though. Great review!

Did not run on CD's. It ran on GD's which were a proprietary format just for the DC.

I loved my dreamcast. The graphics were out of this world at the time, but what made me love it so much was... i do feel slightly bad about this, but there was virtually no copy protection for games. It was insanely easy to rent and copy games for this guy. I had almost every dreamcast game the local video store had, burnt onto cdr's.

Still have my Dreamcast in box and about 30 games and a couple of VMU's.

OMG I just did a vlog about VMU's and now you're doing a review on the Dreamcast! Yay! I wish I still had one, they are so much fun! I had never heard of the Treamcast so thanks for the educational review!

It's hard to believe dreamcast came out in 1999 time goes to fast

Great review John. There are a surprisingly high number of different Dreamcast models out there. I have a bunch, including almost all the accessories, and literally every game (legitimate copies). I've made videos on the systems and most of the accessories. Check them out if you're bored enough. Actually a bunch of them show up down in the recommended videos section of this video. Anyway, good job dude.

Gamester81, I have to say you are the best at reviewing systems. This Dreamcast one was on point. I am a big fan of Dreamcast and considered the greatest system after PS2. Especially when u said 90-99 was an important era. It was because they were such big leaps in a short amount of years. I have a Dreamcast at my house. I got it at a store called Digital Press. I wonder where I can get games for cheap online. Anyway I had to comment on this. Keep up the great work my man!

Your rare system reviews are awesome. Great job!

I'm really liking the new editing, man. Looks great. Oh the Dreamcast. How I love thee and your silly noises.

@HappyConsoleGamer LOL dude pure coincidence that we both did a review over the DC. It's nice that we both have different review styles and discuss different things. =)

Love the Dreamcast. Still play it all the time. Your reviews are great. Thanks.

Great review John! A little info about the discs. The discs were actually GD-ROMs, where they can hold up to 1 (or is it 1.2?) gig, which is more than a cd. For copy protection, there was dead space on the disc between the first data track and the game itself, so you can't read the game on PCs. But people got past that by streaming the data from the Dreamcast through a cable. A boneheaded move on Sega's part to do software copy protection instead of hardware copy protection.

Long time, no speak my friend. Great reviews and retrospectives as always :)

@AtariMaxx The phone jack was part of the modem that came with it. As far as I know, all North American systems came with it standard. I'm not sure how rare the "0" serial number is to be honest.

@Darro85 I believe I paid around $200 for the Treamcast when it came out. Now however it's selling for much more than that.

The high pitched noise that sounds when you power up the system is an alarm that lets you know that your VMU has low battery.

I love my Dreamcast alot. While at my cousins i was digging around in his cabinet below his TV, and the Dreamcast slid out when a pile of coards fell down. Then i eventually found its power and video cables, no controller. I asked if he wanted it, he said i could just have it, i was really excited. Now i have 4 controllers, several VMUs and tons of games for it... and i love it. I love my PS2 as well, i will not hate on PlayStation as I have all the PlayStation systems as well...

@mrmusito You're right. Thanks for pointing that out.

The Dreamcast. one of my favorite systems, a lot of arcade, fighting games, plasma sword, king of fighters, soul calibur, it ROCKS, nice review btw, keep up the good work.

The blue swirl truly did make the system beautiful to look at here in the UK. The modem was 28 .8 Kbps on both the machines I had!

Dreamcast was the ultimate and perfect Arcade to Console translation. Sadly, it was also it's gravestone. Arcades died and so did the Dreamcast in such close proximity. But for a time, it was awesome coming across a Capcom game in an arcade and knowing you were getting that exact version with it's Dreamcast release.

That startup screen was so nostalgic. I'm in love with it.

As always, great and fair review. Keep em coming.

This is so cool. I really wish I snagged one while they were still available!

@Vysethedetermined2 Hey thanks dude for watching.

@haventgotacam He mentioned it didn't have it's own battery, but did originally include a power cord for a car. I gotta say, I'm a Dreamcast fan but mostly only paid attention to the US launches and hardware, so I never got clued in on this one, so thanks a ton, Gamester81. You just earned yourself a subscriber. Moreover, the one thing that did seem to get a bit monotonous with the Dreamcast was the laser inside as it was scanning discs. If they'd improve that, I'd hunt a Treamcast down today!

Just a FYI: It's actually a GD-ROM. Around 1.2Gb. Same discs are used in the Sega Naomi Arcade cabinets. The copy protection was basically a second table-of-contents in a different location. Once that was found, piracy ran wild. If you look at the underside of a original disc, you'll see the physical break between the CD-Rom data and the GD-Rom data. You also get a audio warning if you put the GD-disc in a music-CD player, just like the Xbox1 gave you a video warning in a DVD-player.

FYI. I've taken my Treamcast to replace it's faulty clock battery. The Treamcast actually uses dreamcast motherboards and Drives. A mod chip is wired in to make it region free and the internal power suppy was removed and rewired to work with an external PSU.

Great review John, I wish I had more games for this system which I'm working on at the moment.

Don't know if this was said, but the high-pitched noise was the VMU on the controller, its the start up sound and doesn't play when the battery isn't dead.

I saw this explained on, I believe, G4 icons Dreamcast. A lot of the engineers behind the Dreamcast left for Microsoft after the Dreamcast went down. So the fact that the controller looks similar was planned, it was designed by a lot of the same people.

That Treamcast looks Fun awesome! I'd like one of those

Shame this system was so short lived. By the time I bought mine and started getting into it, it was done. The Treamcast system is very cool. I had never seen that console before.

@gamster81 FYI: An Ethernet Attachment was made for the dreamcast, but only a very small run were made and because they came out torwards the end of the life of the console they are very rare

Big fan of your reviews. Latest one I seen was the Treamcast/Dreamcast and it's pretty awesome. I'd been wondering when are you gonna do some new reviews? Because of you I picked up the Mega Ever Drive and the CMVS Analogue Interactive, now looking into the Retrode. I'd hoped you would have reviewed the RGB Nintendo from Analogue Interactive as well. If you're afraid RU-vid will flag you just make a video on your website and I'll watch it there. Modest, friendly gamers are hard to come by these days, glad that you're one of them.

There's a rare version of the dreamcast made for the sonic 10th anniversary. It's blue and had sonic printed on it. There's also the most rare version of a mainstream console I've heard of, Sega made the last dreamcast off the production line in a gold color (the only one made like this) and has kept it to showcase their last console ever produced.

The 1998 launch in Japan was a disaster as well with a massive shortage of consoles. The biggest issue was how easily their proprietary GD-ROM format was rendered defenseless against pirating so quickly. A lot of the hit games were massively popular, only more people were pirating them instead of buying them. Couple that with a weak advertising budget and emerging pressure from the DVD Drive-quipped PS2 and bullying tactics against retailers by Sony and it was only a matter of time.

awsome review man, that treamcast is sweet i would love to have one. great review again and take care man.

Dreamcast gave me such good memories, Shenmue, Skies of Arcadia, Grandia 2, Power Stone, Jet Grind Radio, Soul Caliber, I love this system and would buy a dreamcast 2 just for Shenmue 3 if they ever made it. :(

Sorry for my ignorance, I somehow missed the word LAUNCH. Yeah, the Dreamcast did impress with its first next gen titles, I remember being impressed with Sonic Adventure the most. I just saw Library and I remember that when Sega discontinued it they ported most of their good games to the PS2 and Xbox.

He's actually pretty much right. That's why lots of dreamcast games are being re-released on XBLA, Jet Grind Radio, Sonic Adventure and Crazy Taxi just to name a few.

some trivia, retailed Dreamcast games are actually formatted on GD-Roms. GD-Roms are 1.2GB in size. Regular CD-roms are 700MB. also the high pitched sound goes off to tell you the vmu batteries are dead

Nice review. I only recently picked up a Dreamcast and am trying to repair the drive on it. They sell for just $15 around here but it's always fun to tinker.

This just makes me cry on how short its life span was. It felt like I was in a dream..the games had a dreamy feel to it which made it so great :,D you will always live on in our gaming hearts dream cast...Dream on.

i always thought it was called a VMU because it stood for Visual Memory Unit, so named because of the display screen on the memory card. also, wasn't it a proprietary cd format, capable of holding slightly more info than a normal cd's 700+ Mb of data, up to 1Gb of information, and Sega called it the "gigadisc" or GD Roms, as a result. also, that loud, annoying beep on startup is an indicator that the battery in the VMU is dead. those batteries were shit and would die super fast, but if you put a good battery in it, you don't get that annoying beep on startup.

@thatguyontheright1 lol pure coincidence! But the machine deserves that much love! So hell yeah!

I was thinking that as well and while we are pointing that out may as well clarify that the G was in reference to the discs Gigabyte data capacity while cds of the time maxed out at 750 MB. Also worth pointing out is that while the modem was removable there was a broadband adapter sold for the system as well and a "rumblepack" similar to th N64.

The arcade ports released for this system were ace. I would like to play House of the Dead 2 and Die Hard on the Dreamcast. I might pick up a Dreamcast for those two games and the Sonic game you showcased in your video. I have played House of the Dead 2 and HOTD 3 on the Wii with guns. Thank you for sharing this information about the Dream Cast and Treamcast John. Good job with the video! Keep the vids coming.

That high pitched noise when it boots up only activates when a VMU (Visual Memory Unit) is plugged into an active controller.

The dreamcast didn't get discontinued in japan until 2006 and they still made games for it in japan up until then.

That's pretty cool. I've never heard of a treamcast before today. Been thinking about getting a Dreamcast though. Found a place that is selling new systems still so it's tempting.

It was an awesome system back in the day. Underrated.

Awesome video, always wanted to see a treamcast, dreamcast is still my favorite system

@virusalert996 You're correct, thanks for the catch. I do this without a script and based on memory which sometimes I mess up. =)

Also note that HK uses a 240v power supply unlike the US which uses 100 or 110 volts (can't remember which). The fact that you can play yours fine means that the adapter Play Asia has provided is compatible with the US power grid. Consumers who purchase their Treamcast elsewhere should double check that this is the case for their units. Anyway enough from me. Great vid!

Too bad the Dreamcast is not backwards compatible with Sega Saturn game. :(

Love the Dreamcast..... Loveit so much i have 2 of them!! Great review as always my friend.

lol. i love this channel. Games nowadays arent even worth touching.

Yep great system, bought it shortly after launch and still have it. Lost count of how many people asking what it was and was it a PS2 even thought the PS2 wasn't out yet.

wow this review blew me away, NICE.

Dreamcast has one of the coolest sounding system startups it sounds like a dream no pun intended.

its funny that happy console gamer just uploaded a dreamcast review like ten mins ago

I'm sure someone mentioned it in the comments and I'm sure you already know this, man. But anyway lol the Dreamcast used GD's not CD's, they were around a gig or so in size making it so the pirated games often had to be ripped or some movies had to be downsampled, some games had to be split on two discs like SoA and Grandia 2 so they'd fit on regular CDs. Sorry about this, just a piece of info I'm sure you already knew but didn't mention in the review. Awesome review btw :)

I always wanted a Sega Dreamcast, and I even started saving up my allowance money and mowed lawns to buy one back when I was ten. But by the time I had enough saved up to buy a Dreamcast, Sega had quit making the consoles. And ever since then, they've become rare around the parts I live. I've seen Dreamcast games, controllers, memory cards, but never no consoles. It's my most sought after game system, right up with there with the Sega Genesis, Turbo Duo (my aunt has one that I've been trying to

Love the Dreamcast. I have over 60 games for it. My favorites are Shenmue, KOF Dream Match '99, Quake 3, Code Veronica, and Jet Grind Radio. PSO took a huge chunk of my life, too. lol My system had gone kaput around 2005, but I bought another DC at Vintage Stock a few years ago. Dreamcast is still my favorite system.

awesome review, Dreamcast is one of my favorites. good stuff as always

The PAL modem was 33.6k & the Japanese modem was 28k. They were all removable as shown in the video. Treamcasts were made from new old stock Dreamcast parts. This is the first Treamcast I've seen in black, & the shape is a bit different from the others I've seen.

The PS2's hype and its status as a relatively cheap DVD player did hurt the Dreamcast (I worked in retail at that time), but ironically what hurt Sega most was SOA's success in America and the subsequent animosity it created within SOJ. Then came bad decision after bad decision. Bernie Stolar came in, announced that they were abandoning the Saturn, and focused on Dreamcast. Then SOJ did the same thing a few years later to the DC. It died because Sega abandoned it, not because it failed.

The main reason for the downfall was that it used CDs instead of DVDs. Most oft the Games released on PS2 and XBox would have required several discs, what not every Publisher was psyched about. The PS2 was brought to the public as a DVD player, so many people bought the PS2 especially for that reason and no one wanted to buy a system that hadn't that feature. I loved the Dreamcast, but they shot them self in the foot when they decided to stay with the CDs.

noticed also that the treamcast it makes the same sound as the normal dreamcast

that high pitched noise is actually the vmu starting up if the battery is dead

you really need your own show on G4 i would seriously live on it for real man

Always love the boot up screen. I remember my father playing tomb raider when i was real lil on the dreamcast. good memories on the dreamcast console.

i believe the high pitched noise you get when you turn on the dreamcast is to alert you that your VMU batteries are low,

in which the Saturn excelled most.* Bernie Stolar's infamous declaration that "the Saturn is not our future" (as well as his policy of ignoring RPGs and many other genres) burned all those Sega loyalists who had chosen the Saturn over the Playstation, expecting the 32-bit successor of the Genesis. This was the single greatest blow to Sega's reputation in the States and probably what made waiting for the PS2 rather than getting a Dreamcast right now seem like a good idea to most gamers..

I love the dreamcast and was happy when i saw you and HappyConsoleGamer made vids about it.

it made a loud beep on startup because if you insert a vmu without any working batteries, it beeps when the console powers on.

omg the sound of that treamcast booting up brought back memories for my dreamcast. ;~;

Very cool review. Also the Treamcast is awesome! I couldn't imagine playing crazy taxi on a 5" tft LOL

Great review John, I'm sad that Sega fell off after the Dreamcast, which was such a great system... I think it may have had something to do with the fact it came out as a standalone system, 3 years behind the N64/psone :(

IGN Presents The History of Sega is a great read. It talks about how Sega came to prominence during the 16-bit era, the problems with Saturn, and the rise and fall of Dreamcast. There's also a great interview with Tom Kalinske (the man that put Sega on the map in the Genesis days). Both these articles are linked on Kalinske's Wikipedia page.

I've been looking for one of these since this video. Still nothing haha

Aw, the Dreamcast. Seeing it again always brings a tear to my eye. Sega FTW!

that was an amazing review! sure i remember the tamagoshi (digital pets) crazyness,omg i miss the 90's.

one of the best consoles ever, the best control ever, and the best and original memory card ever, great revew Gamester81

i miss my dreamcast so damn much.... but after weeks without turning it off, well, you get the picture...

I have a speculation on why the VMS was changed to VMU in the US. You see there was a Unix based OS called OpenVMS or Open Virtual Memory System. Since that was obviously copyrighted by either DEC or HP at the time so they have to change it to the VMU. So they won't have any lawsuits to DEC or HP.

Ah the DC is one my favorite consoles, and still runs like a champ. That treamcast thing is awesome tho, region free and mini screen! Really nice man

Great review. I always wanted a dreamcast

I remember when the original xbox was discontinued in 2007, and in 2008 I was in a store, and they had a bunch of 360 games, and Madden 09 for the original xbox was sitting alone. It was pretty sad looking.

@Jollysepp yes, the reason for that was the sega dumped the normal CD-ROM CRC information to do that, as far as I know to pitch size on the disc was the same as on a normal CD

If 56k meant 56 kilobytes, I'd still be using NetZero. Come on Gamester, do you ever remember getting speeds of 56 kilobytes/sec on dialup?

I lucked out and bought the broadband adapter for the Dreamcast. I think there was a limited run on the adapters. I remember following the release of the adapter very close and after lots of calls to Sega finally landed one. Also the VMU was wonderful for football. Also BTW, the system took "GD-Roms". I think it was supposed to hold up to one gig of data instead of 650MB.

For anyone who want to support Shenmue 3 and Mr. Suzuki-San: www.kickstarter.com/projects/ysnet/shenmue-3 I also invite you to join our awesome community that kept fighting all those years to see this moment finally happen: facebook.com/groups/Shenmue500K/ Love and peace to all Shenmue fans across the world. :)