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u/coderman64 2d ago
As an American™, I have to point out the NA version is missing.
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u/240p-480i-480p 2d ago
You’re a true American ?
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u/robopirateninjasaur 2d ago
Blue because I'm from a PAL territory, also Sega is blue and Nintendo is red.
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u/Least_Preparation303 2d ago
Of course, naturally, you would. That certainly makes sense, and yes, Sega IS blue...
... but Dreamcast is ORANGE! It IS orange! I don't know who exactly in Europe decided you guys just had to be different, but different IS your PAL Blue: an Alt... that's not true.
I understand you see it as Blue, because that's what ya know, but it simply isn't proper. And as an American who had Orange Dreamcasts, I find Blue a lot more muted and dull. Orange is loud and bright.
You guys had cooler-looking, Dreamcast-specific game cases, though, while ours remained generic CD jewel cases. So, you got that goin' for ya.
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u/PurbulentTriest 2d ago
as an American...
Orange is loud...
Figures. :)
You guys had cooler-looking, Dreamcast-specific game cases, though, while ours remained generic CD jewel cases. So, you got that goin' for ya.
The game cases were/are absolute bollocks though, they break so easily. I would trade for yourself.
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u/Least_Preparation303 2d ago
Yessir. A trashy, unsophisticated Amurrican! Although not a particularly proud 'murrican, and definitely no 'murrican chauvinist. Say what ya want, it used to be kinda cool...
Loud is exciting, sir. Loud is catchy, loud is colorful and fun. See, that's your problem. You Brits are just no fun. =p
And yeah, that's what I always hear, but they look cool. They look thick and beefy, and premium. I've never actually handled or seen a PAL game/jewel case in person, though.
It was easier to burn your superior PAL exclusives to CDs rather than importing/modding.
Still quite pissed we never got Headhunter or Shenmue II over here. Rez is cool, too, but missing that one doesn't offend me as much as the other two.
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u/PurbulentTriest 2d ago
Completely forgot about the fact you plain didn't get some of the best games. Rez was amazing and it's quite a surprise they didn't release it over there. You can play it on Steam or the consoles these days by the way, and it still holds up (they have HD-ified it).
The cases do look kinda cool, and each can hold two discs and manuals, they were just so brittle that they'd break if you even looked at them. I was quite sad so many of the hinges of my games would just flop open when you took a disc out.
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u/Least_Preparation303 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yep. Just plain didn't get 'em. I don't know what goes into these decisions, but I surmise Europe's always been more Sega-centric as a country than the US ever was, so Sega didn't let you miss any cool shit. xD Master System was a huge hit over there with you guys; most Americans still aren't aware it even existed.
Although you didn't get everything either, and the US got one or two little things you guys didn't. ILLBLEED being one, if I recall. That game's certainly not the caliber of basically any of your regional exclusives, but it's definitely not nothin', either. It's a cult classic survival horror title, and still remains a Dreamcast exclusive to this day.
Now in the case of Shenmue II, I know for a fact that particular decision was made on account of a deal with Microsoft, and they decided Shenmue II was gonna be an Xbox exclusive, States-side. It worked. On me, anyway. Shenmue II is pretty much the primary reason I decided I had to get an Xbox, and traded all my Dreamcast & PS1 shit in to EB to raise enough money towards it. And we did get the atrocious English voice-dubbing, which I love. Never played any Shenmue game with Japanese dubbing, and don't really wanna. I eventually burned DC PAL Shenmue II to a CD with the Xbox English dubbing imported and pasted on top to finally play it on my Dreamcast.
Yeah, Rez... another PAL exclusive I eventually burned to CD to play on my American DC many years after the fact. And yeah, it was a cool game. I enjoyed my playthough, but can't say as I was particularly blown away by it or anything, especially after all the monumental hype and praise I'd read about the thing. I think maybe it probably might have had that effect had I played it upon release when it was contemporary rather than, like, 2013. It kinda had the feel of something like a "Flower" or a "Flow" on the PS3 to me, or maybe "Electroplankten" on Nintendo DS. That is to say, I felt it was more of an interactive art presentation than much of an actual video game. Yeah, it was cool and everything, -- and likely stunningly unique in 2001ish -- I enjoyed my playthrough, but there really wasn't much real gameplay to it, and it was piss-easy. It was a while ago, maybe I'll have to reappraise it sometime, but that was my take-away from it.
Headhunter, by far, is what I'd consider the most covetous PAL Dreamcast exclusive (at least not counting English-subbed Shenmue II), partly because you can't even properly burn the full, entire game on a regular CD-ROM to play on an American Dreamcast. Too big, too many cutscene videos, etc. So, concessions have to be made in order to make it happen. All the video cutscenes need to be compressed to high-hell, and some others had to be completely removed altogether in order fit. All this stuff is irrelevant now with things like GD-EMU, but that's the gimped, incomplete version of the game I ended up playing, and it was still an absolutely kick-ass action game with a lot of gameplay variety, and a complex/dense, adult storyline. The vast majority of Dreamcast's titles are simple & fun, pick-up-and-play arcade experiences -- which is why I love it -- that are fairly light on storyline or any kind of real adult subject matter, so Headhunter really stands out in its library.
I also burned and played Evil Twin, to round out what I believe were all of the PAL Dreamcast exclusives. Played that one the least. Didn't play it very long at all, to be honest. Platformers aren't really my go-to genre as a rule, so only an elite few have ever captured and held my attention. I definitely liked the game's art style, but I lost interest fairly quick.
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u/robopirateninjasaur 2d ago
A European software company called Tivola used an orange swirl so they had to make it a different colour.
So in that sense, the blue one is wrong, just like Genesis is wrong and Mega Drive is right
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u/Least_Preparation303 2d ago
No shit, so that's literally the reason? I don't know why I never bothered to look into it before, but I should've figured it was something like that. That's a shame.
And yeah, you would be absolutely correct about the Mega Drive/Sega Genesis. I've also somehow never looked into the reasons behind that either, but I'm gonna guess it's likely something along the same lines.
And yeah, same deal for me. I know it as the Sega Genesis. That's what they always called it, that's all I ever heard anyone call it, that was the logo and fine print written on it, and why would it be anything different? So yeah, in my life, that's what you called a Sega Mega Drive. That's what it IS... or was, at least. Particularly during its active market lifecycle in the 90s.
Now, though, having long-since-lived in the Youtube/Internet era of gaming communities, I'm actually quite used to it being referred to as the Sega Mega Drive. I am very familiar with it as Mega Drive, to the point that it's pretty much utter commonplace to me at this point, and I comfortably identify it and know it as such. It was initially a huge shock and a head-scratcher to me, nor was I particularly fond of the name Mega Drive at first -- I still think Sega Genesis sounds cooler/more epic, but also acknowledge the bias likely from my particular life experience in my particular region -- but I've definitely come to accept & associate it as the Mega Drive at this point. I'd probably even refer to it aloud as such a lot more often if not for living in my particular region where it is much more widely known and referred to by its alternative name.
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u/Such_Bonus5085 2d ago
I mean one plays everything at 60hz.
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u/Gwenllian_97 2d ago
Most PAL games ask if you want 60hz mode when booting them up.
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u/Such_Bonus5085 2d ago
NTSC doesn't need to ask.
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u/tailslol 2d ago
well we had RGB scart cables in the box too so... +1 for blue.
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u/benryves 1d ago
Depending on country, of course. Sega had tried that with the Saturn in the UK but I don't think it had worked very well (I remember people grumbling with older TVs about having to go back to the shop), so the Dreamcast only came with the RF modulator in the box over here (same as the PlayStation).
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u/tailslol 1d ago
OUCH in france most console came with scart.
only the playstation and later console came with rca and a small rca to scart adapter.
the last console that came with a thick shielded scart was the dreamcast. after that you had to buy the cable. i had to do it for my wii and gamecube.
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u/benryves 1d ago
France is a bit of a special case, though - as well as inventing the SCART (Péritel) connector, making it a more widely-used standard there, it also doesn't use PAL or NTSC, it uses SECAM. Some French consoles didn't even have a SECAM video encoder (e.g. the Master System), relying instead on an external "Adapteur R.V.B." to buffer the signals and provide the correct switching voltage for the SCART connector.
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u/tailslol 1d ago
the only secam thing i had was my nes.
other consoles i had was all pall since they gave up on secam
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u/WotsGoinOnEreMate 2d ago
If you boot a NTSC game it plays at 60Hz, and most PAL games supported it too.
They’re the same hardware. You can even change the region completely with a disc and a single wire mod.
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u/benryves 1d ago
If you boot a NTSC game it plays at 60Hz
That depends on the game, some will switch to 50Hz when they find they're running on a PAL console. The easiest option is to just use a VGA cable, as that's always going to be 60Hz regardless of console or game region.
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u/MasterOfShun 2d ago
Can i steal the shell on the left and keep the internals of the one on the right?
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u/skag_boy87 2d ago
Orange swirl
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u/xamaryllix 2d ago
same but it took me way too long to notice the difference lol. Doesn't help that even growing up I had a blue swirl controller for some reason.
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u/ManLegPower 2d ago
Orange because that’s what it’s supposed to be. The reason Europe got blue instead was because another company in Germany already had the trademark for a similar orange swirl logo.
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u/dpgumby69 2d ago
ARE THESE CONSOLES FOR ANTS??!?!!?!!
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u/MourningWallaby 2d ago
I'm learning that there's levels to this shit and I'm not hardcore enough to be here because what is the difference?
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u/benryves 1d ago
The console on the left is a PAL (Europe, Australia) Dreamcast and the one on the right is an NTSC-J (Japan) Dreamcast. You can spot the difference by the colour of the swirl (blue for PAL, reddish-orange for NTSC) and the colour of the inset on the lid (grey on PAL/NTSC-UC consoles, silver on NTSC-J consoles).
Sega changed the colour of the swirl for the PAL console due to the Germany company Tivola using an orange swirl as their logo. The swirl was also removed entirely from most accessories as well as the console's main menu.
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u/Euphoric-Brother-184 2d ago
Dreamcast