The Link Between Xbox & Dreamcast

[Shibiryo]

There have been rumors for years that Microsoft planned to buy Japanese game maker SEGA. But did you guys even know SEGA hoped to make the original Xbox compatible with Dreamcast games?

The SEGA Dreamcast was launched in late 1998 to great fanfare. The console — featuring dial- up online — was years ahead of its time. Then the Sony’s PlayStation 2 launched, and the SEGA console never recovered. SEGA Chairman Isao Okawa was not willing to go down without a fight. “Before Mr. Okawa passed away,” tweets former Microsoft exec Sam Furukawa, “he visited Gates several times, to see if it would be possible to add Dreamcast compatibility into the Xbox.” According to Furukawa, Okawa was offering the SEGA assets to Xbox, it seems, which would create a path for Dreamcast customers to migrate to the Xbox. Even if the Dreamcast was dying, this move would keep the platform alive and maybe even give it a second wind. Okawa insisted that internet was indispensable for the Dreamcast games, it seems,

Microsoft didn’t want an internet connection for the Dreamcast titles and negotiations fell apart. (Of course, Microsoft pushed online gaming for its own Xbox titles; however, one has to wonder what expenses it would incur by not only making its Xbox play DC games, but play them online.) Furukawa says that Okawa negotiated with Gates himself, but he was unable to work out a deal to pass on the Dreamcast customers.

Before Okawa, Furukawa adds, he gave over
roughly US$ 900 million from his personal
fortune to SEGA in order to keep the company afloat. Okawa passed away in Tokyo on March 16,
2001 due to heart failure. He was 74.

The Dreamcast went out of production later that
year. The chairman who followed Okawa decided that SEGA should focus on software production. SEGA of America exec Peter Moore, the man who has admitted to making the decision to stop producing the Dreamcast, joined Microsoft in 2003. CSK Holdings, the company Okawa created, owned the major stock share in SEGA until 2004 when CSK’s shares were bought by Sammy, a pachinko company. And Microsoft continues to struggle in the Japanese market. Furukawa is currently a professor at Japan’s Keio University.

The Games: Though the Dreamcast died in 2001, many of its biggest and best games lived on courtesy of the Xbox. Our Beloved, Sprawling RPG epic Shenmue saw its sequel find a home on not just the Dreamcast but the Xbox as well, while Jet
Set Radio and RPG Rent-A-Hero No. 1 were remade and/or retooled for Microsoft's console. Perhaps most important for the fortunes of the
Xbox, though, was the transition made when
Dreamcast title Metropolis Street Racer saw its
spiritual successor arrive with Microsoft in the
form of Project Gotham Racing.

The Legacy: It's come to light in recent years that the transition between Dreamcast and Xbox was so close that at one stage Sega wanted Microsoft to make the Xbox backwards compatible with Dreamcast games. While the plan ultimately failed over internet connectivity issues with Dreamcast games, the fact it was up for discussion at all shows how close the two systems were, and how close the Dreamcast came to literally living on inside the Xbox.

The Controller: Unlike its competition at the time, Microsoft had no previous controller design to build upon when coming up with the Xbox, so the company had to look elsewhere for inspiration. It looked to the Dreamcast, where it got the A, B, X & Y buttons, their colours (though their placement was swapped), two true analog triggers and even expansion slots. What's cool about this is that because the Xbox 360's pad is so similar to the Xbox's S controller, the Dreamcast inspiration lives on to this day in Microsoft's machine.

So there we go! The Xbox was hardly a proper
defence, I know, but it was more of a swansong than most other dead machines could have hoped for. So for nostalgic Sega fans, there's at least that to be...thankful for? At least, as thankful as bitter old Sega fans can get, anyway.