Moore: Dreamcast paved way for Live, PSN
Plus thoughts on EA, console's downfall.
EA Sports boss Peter Moore has said he reckons the Dreamcast - 10 years old in the US today - paved the way for modern console internet services.
Writing in a blog looking back on his time at SEGA ("I trust my employers here at EA will allow me the indulgence of reminiscence and nostalgia"), Moore talked about the famously-lovely dead console's strengths and its demise from his perspective as boss of SEGA of America in 1999.
"I don't think it is an overstatement to say that the Dreamcast and its online network laid the ground for what we all take for granted today - online gameplay, linking innumerable gamers from around the world to play, compete and collaborate, as well as enabling new content to be delivered in addition to that which was delivered on the disc," he wrote, as a group of PC gamers chewing terrain and hitpoints suddenly froze mid-mouthful and gazed in his direction.
Moore also addressed the issue of EA's culpability in the console's demise. "Over the years," he noted, "I have been asked many times whether EA's decision not to develop and publish games for the Dreamcast was a major contributing factor in its early demise.
"That we will never know. But it is hard to argue with EA's rationale at the time and the ultimate outcome - get in position for the impending arrival of the PlayStation 2, deploying all resources against the newest version of Sony's already wildly successful video game platform. You can't argue with the results."
Moore also said that the console's 18 launch titles on 9th September 1999 was "probably three or four too many" and finished by clarifying that the decision to cease Dreamcast manufacture was taken by SEGA of Japan, not SEGA of America. He just had the unenviable job of announcing it.
The poor old Dreamcast. On the other hand, hurrah for the Dreamcast! Best eBay purchase you'll ever make, and you can read why in our Dreamcast forensic retrospective, top 12 Dreamcast games and Dreamcast Cult Classics features from last year's 10th anniversary of the Japanese launch.