alla faccia di chi dice "dc non ce l'ha nessuno", ma soprattutto "all'online DC non ci giocava nes
"There were many pre-orders taken leading up to
its release in Japan, which would seem like a good thing for Sega,
but they could not fill these orders (both because they could not
make that many consoles in such a short time and also because of a
lack of parts) and so they asked for orders to be halted.
The release date was re-scheduled a number of times because of these
problems, but the Dreamcast was finally released on November 25th
1998 in Japan. All 150 000 consoles that Sega had managed to produce
by this time were sold out on the first day. They remained sold out until the next shipment arrived in mid December.
By 16th July 1999, the Dreamcast was outselling the Nintendo 64 by a 3 to 1 ratio. Meanwhile in America, advertising for the Dreamcast
was taking place and by August 1999 it had broken the advanced sales
record of the PlayStation with 200 000 pre-orders placed. The
official North American release was September 9th 1999 at a cost of
US$199.99.
The European release (14th October 1999) was also quite successful,
but the Australian/New Zealand release (30th November 1999) was a
failure with shortage of consoles and games. Because of this, no
further interest was taken in the console and stores quickly stopped
supporting the Dreamcast in Australia as it was just not worth it.
Only a few shops that specialised in selling games continued to sell
Dreamcasts and games.
By October 1999, Sega of America announced that it had sold 518 000
consoles in 1 month in the US. By the beginning of November, this
had increased to 750 000 and by the end of the year, 1 million had
been sold. At that rate, Sega expected to break 2 million by March
2000.
Sega had promised that the Dreamcast would be both expandable and
upgradeable. By the end of the year, they had announcements of a DC
Zip Drive and cable modem compatibility.
After delays, SegaNet finally began, allowing Dreamcast users to
play games over the Internet. In January 2000, 30% of Japanese Dreamcast owners were using Dricas and by 17th February this had
risen to almost 50%. In the US over 300 000 people were using DC's
Internet and in Europe over 200 000. Then came the announcement of a
free Dreamcast given to anyone who signed up for Dreamcast Internet
for a minimum of 2 years."
in una parte di articolo che non ho riportato, l'autore dice che l'online DC non era nemmeno cominciato, il supporto 33k/56k era solo un assaggio, ma tutto fu interrotto dall'annuncio della fine di produzione. Infatti dal 2001 DC avrebbe dovuto supportare la banda larga (e Propeller era parte di quel progetto), ma dato che il progetto non andò in porto, i broadband adapters in giro sono veramente pochi, per questo costano così tanto.