Dreamcast Beta Confirm / Debunk List

[pcwzrd13]

Currently looking into Midtown Madness which was reported in the first issue of ODCM as being one of the games Konami was looking at porting to the Dreamcast, along with Age of Empires II and Combat Flight Simulator. I spoke with the game's designer but he wasn't aware of the port. He did say he loves the Dreamcast though.

[Dirge Of Ram]

Another shout out to what truly happened with Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

I'll point towards X-Cult listing down the likes of the The Mummy, Peacemakers, Gorkamorka, Legends Of The Blade Masters.....Some had preview cards afterall. Maybe you already on to them but at least bring them up here today.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160721150 ... /Dreamcast

[pcwzrd13]

Added one to the debunked category: Invictus: In the Shadow of Olympus. Talked with the president of QuickSilver Software who told me there were never any plans for a Dreamcast version. Not sure how this one got on the SegaRetro list but there ya go. They did have a Dreamcast in the breakroom though.

[pcwzrd13]

Bit of an update on Star Wars: Super Bombad Racing. I originally had it on the list as a "YES" because the dev I spoke with said he thought there was a "rough playable build" but now I've received a conflicting report from another dev who said they only did some low-level controller and file access tests on Dreamcast. I won't rule it out completely but I changed it to a "MAYBE".

Edit: Well I've gone ahead and ruled this one out. I talked with the first dev again and he said this was likely the case. The second person I spoke with was the lead programmer as well so he would likely be the best person to ask.

[pcwzrd13]

Ok, so I've just hit on something pretty big. Some of you may be familiar with Sega's multiplatform soccer game called Sega Soccer Slam. Well, as it turns out, this was originally a Dreamcast game... sort of. I've been speaking with one of the founders of the dev studio, Black Box Games, and he told me the game was originally a full-on soccer sim for Dreamcast. Think "FIFA 2K". When Sega failed to get the FIFA license and left the console business, it completely changed directions and became a multiplatform game.


Here's his exact quote:

we started it with Sega on dreamcast. Sega had planned on getting a fifa license and we were making a full on soccer sim, but when the license was a no-go and Sega were getting out of hardware we switched to the crazy 3 on 3 format and ps2 became lead platform. I think dev started in 2000

Almost a thing...

I'm currently trying to find out if they ever had anything running on Dreamcast hardware. Will update when I know more.

[pcwzrd13]

Sorry for the information overload but I've been getting a lot of responses lately.

I've just been informed by the founder of Bungie that Halo was never a Dreamcast game. Just another false rumor that got spread around. Sorry guys.

That does not ring a bell. My memory ain't perfect, but that would have been pre-Microsoft and I definitely would've been involved in that convo. I don't think that's true

[pcwzrd13]

Got more info on FIFA 2K2 / Sega Soccer Slam and added it to the list! It was only an early proof-of-concept on Dreamcast which used the NHL 2K engine but it was running on Dreamcast hardware.

We started it from the NHL2K engine. I had totally forgotten about the original 11 a side plans until one the other devs reminded me. We pulled out the ice stadium, dropped in a field, added a few more players and there it was in the most basic form.
Didn't last too long like that.

It was never a complete game in any form. Just a work in progress. The engine already worked on ps2 and Xbox so there was no conversion required. We just drop a bunch of players and kept going

[pcwzrd13]

Another one from the Sega Retro list has been debunked. The quote below is from the technical director of Drakan.

I don't remember it ever coming up in our discussions. The game was always a PC game when Psygnosis published it. Later Psygnosis was bought by Sony Europe and the Drakan sequel was published exclusively on PS2.

Bottom line is that Drakan was never planned to be release on any game console.

[pcwzrd13]

Got some info from the developer on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Despite being announced for Dreamcast by the publisher (Fox Interactive), it was never really headed to the platform. This is another case where the publisher and the developer weren't exactly in sync. lol

there was no real offical plans to do them on Dreamcast. I don’t think Dreamcast could have handled the SlayEd engine… at the very beginnings of Buffy it was meant to be a PlayStation game… but we knew that platform could never handle it pretty early in development.

It just made us look better to physical retailers to put more platforms… I’m sure the intent was there, it always is, but no real attention to practicality when your announcing a product initially…

[pcwzrd13]

Got a bit of info on Soul Reaver 2 from the lead programmer. Not really anything new but pretty much confirms the info that's already out there.

Was a long time ago so I can’t say for certain [how far along it was]. We usually kept all platforms running pretty close to parity. Since we shipped Soul Reaver on Dreamcast I would say SR2 Dreamcast was probably close to parity with the other SR2 SKUs up until the time it was dropped then the other SKUs moved forward. I can’t remember when in the product lifecycle it was dropped.