May 21, 1998
On May 21 at
midnight PST,
a press conference was held at the Akasaka Hotel New Otani to promote
Sega
Enterprise latest
game console,
Dreamcast.
In attendance was Sega's President Shoichiro Irimajiri, who officially
released the machine's specs.
Its here, its
white, it looks
just like the Saturn, but this time it brought its friends Dreamcast,
the
mould-breaking new 128-bit
console produced
by Sega,
Videologic, Yamaha, Hitachi and Microsoft has broken its cover and gone
public. Designed for network
connectivity and
multiplayer
gaming, the Dreamcast has four controller ports, an integral 33.6 Kbps
modem, and an innovative visual
memory PDA card
(seen that
somewhere before, eh?) that slots neatly into the top of the controller
and presents the user with
various
interesting gaming
functions. The machine will shift 3 million polygons per second,
features
a 64-channel Super Intelligent
sound system and
rocks along
with an SH-4 CPU, Power VR2 graphics engine and a customized version of
Windows CE under the
hood. There’s no
price or
hard-and-fast release date yet, but the press pack tentatively suggests
November 98. Available separately,
the PDA cum memory
card
looks uncannily similar to Sony’s efforts, but instead of attaching to
the controller port, the visual memory
inserts into the
controller
itself, a bit like the planned N64-Game Boy Pocket Monster converter
and
is configured for super high-speed
data transfer. A
scenario
envisaged by Sega’s PR department involves using the modem to hook your
Dreamcast up with a friends
machine somewhere
far away,
thrash the friend at a game, then gloat over your victory by means of a
chat session conducted afterwards
using the console.
And if
that wasn’t enough, you are then supposed to download the data to your
visual memory card, hang it round
your neck on a
chain, and
walk around town looking very smug. If you chance to meet your hapless
opponent during your trip, you can
connect the visual
memory
card directly to his (or hers) and swap game data, including team
formations
for sports games, radar and
maps for action
titles and
special moves and rankings for fighters. For the future, Sega even
expect
you to be able to hook the visual
memory card up
with your
mobile phone for, they say, a whole slew of new gaming experiences.
Hmmm.
On a more mundane level,
the visual memory
is also
a basic PDA, featuring a calendar, clock and planner function.
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CPU: Hitachi
128
bit graphics engine with an
on-board RISC
processor
SH4 (operating
frequency of
200MHz 360
MIPS/1.4FLOPS)
Graphics
Chip: NEC
PowerVR2 (rendering
capacity: over 3
million
polygons per second)
Sound
Processor: Yamaha
Super Intelligent Sound Processor (simultaneously
articulates 64
sounds)
Operating
System:
Customized OS using Windows CE as its base (Supports
Direct X)
Main Memory:
16MByte
(64Mbit SD-RAM x 2)
CD-ROM Drive:
12-speed
( Maximum )
On-board
Modem: 33.6Kbps
modem
Controllers:
Red,
Yellow, Blue, and Grey
Visual
Memory (sold separately):
A
liquid-crystal display PDA for game data
backup and data
exchange.
Console
Dimensions: 7
7/16" X 7 11/16" X 3"
Weight: 4.4#
Release Date:
September
9, 1999
Price:
$199.99
Data save
method on PDA
Dimensions 190 mm
(W) x
195 mm (H) x 78 mm (D)
Weight 2.0 kg
PDA specs:
CPU 8-bit
Memory 128 KB
Display 48 dot (W)
x 32
dot (H) Monochrome
Display size 37 mm
(W) x
26 mm (H)
Case dimensions 47
mm (W)
x 80 mm (H) x 16 mm (D)
Power source 2 x
button
batteries, w. auto-off function
Sound 1-channel
PWM sound
source
Weight 45g
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