Had a pretty vague story yesterday about the Dreamcast PC card that would allow people to play Dreamcast games on their PCs. Well here is a bit more detail on what this whole thing and a few other interesting bits:

... heard a few specifics regarding Sega's plans to shrink Dreamcast technology enough so that cell phones and PDAs can play Online Dreamcast games. Sega hopes to place the entire Dreamcast format onto a single chip, and is examining the possibility of using 0.15 and 0.13 micron fabrication processes in order to do so.

Woah, it looks like Sega really is looking at all kinds of new business ideas. At a recent Japanese briefing the console company showed off a PCI card for PCs that allowed people to play Dreamcast games on their computers. Thanks Stomped. Oh and here's the kicker:

... early designs were being demoed to interested second parties. It was indicated that there may be a release by the end of this year.

We don't follow all the console news but since it's safe to say a lot of you own a Playstation(2)/Dreamcast I think it should be alright. DC.IGN is reporting that Sega will be rolling out broadband support for the DC January 2, 2001. The adapter will cost $59.99. Sounds pretty good, hopefully the European rollout won't be too far behind. Sega has also announced it will be shifting its focus to games, instead of hardware, by investing more in their game developers as well as licensing their technology to others.

According to a news update on Nintendojo the rumors of a Sega and Nintendo partnership (story) have turned out to be false (not too surprising). Sega is working with someone who is connected with Nintendo, there are no direct relations between the two companies and there will be no collaboration.

The real story behind this lies within Sega's future networking plans. In effort to strengthen Sega's japanese networks the gaming firm hired Satoshi Kayama, director at Marigul Management to head up as an advisor for Sega Corp. Previously, Mr. Kayama had collaborated with Mr. Komoru on projects that dealt with Nintendo software. <snip>

Mr. Satoshi Kayama's company, Marigul Management was created by Recruiting Co. and Nintendo Corp. in an effort to help minor companies which lacked proper funds, to properly equip them so that they can start making games.

For all those horrible people who don't visit us during the weekend, here is what happened the past few days since it was so incredibly exciting

- Pigs are flying, Nintendo and Sega are partnering
- A new version of the Q3F mod for Quake3. This 1F version is being described as being "packed with new features and gameplay adjustments".
- Oh no, AOL is evil!
- Steve played some No One Lives Forever, and is actually digging it. Monolith and a cool game, woah.

Woah! Afternoon Reading? During the afternoon? How does that happen? Is that legal? Is she legal? Did you meet her parents yet? Does Wieder know? Ok here's the goods:

- Hrm.. this seems to be a recurring problem in the US. It must be the water or something. Thanks sweat.
- Oh what a surprise, a Sega fan page is calling the Playstation2 a dissapointment. At least the guy has half a clue to back his claims though.
- Here is a cute toy to play with to check out your reflex times. Thanks Ant
- Those presidential candidate dudes are wrapping up their campaigns.

Lastly, according to this report on Joystick.fr (You need to translate it) Ion Storm is currently testing a multiplayer mode for Deus Ex. Thanks Stomped

4pm update: We are in the throws of the final debugging of the DTHREAD code. If you are using IE5.0 or IE5.5 check out this link and click on some of the threaded replies. Please post if you get any errors and the exact error you get. (Double click on the error box at the bottom of your browser to see it)

7pm update: Ok we are aware of the 'access denied' bug, seems to affect about 2-5% of the IE users. Anyone run into any other problems?

Ok, superfreaky console news of the day. According to a Japanese newspaper, Nintendo and Sega are teaming up to form a joint company. This seems to be a follow-up to that earlier story about Sega getting into the business of putting out games for other console systems.

The story at Asahi first describes Sega's recently announced losses, stating that Sega revealed to investors in September that its results for the half-year ending September 30th would be less than expected. And that's what happened, with the company announcing a loss of 29.2 billion yen today, down from an expected profit of 600 million yen. Poor Dreamcast performance was stated as the cause for the loss.

Woah, according to this article (Thanks Stomped) Sega is actually going to start selling games for rival console machines. Apparently those Dreamcast sales havent gotten Sega into the profit margin. They forecast a fourth straight net loss and unveiled the plans to shift into software provision to move back into profit

Well in case you didnt notice, Microsoft hasnt made any big X-Box announcements after all. Several websites were claiming that Microsoft planned to put a little rain on the Playstation2 parade by making some big announcements. You can however read this article over on CNN which discusses how all the other console makers are handling the Playstation2 release. Sega is pretty happy about the shortage obviously :) Thanks MSXBox

Nintendo of America Inc. is hosting events in Los Angeles, California, and Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday, hoping to relieve the stress of shoppers who won't be able to purchase a PS2.  [...] Microsoft is generally paying less attention to the PS2 launch since they don't have an immediate stake in the console market. [...] At the end of the day, nobody cares about what the specs are. They care about what games there are and how fun they are to play," Gilbert said. (Sega)

A follow-up to a follow-up to the original story about Dreamcast Quake3 for you guys. Todd Hollenshead from id Software again with a bit more clarification on exactly what the plans are for the Dreamcast Quake3 content being given to PC players:

First Q3A DC will be released (in process now).   Once we've finished up Team Arena and finalized the 1.25 patch for Q3A, then we'll work on creating the DC map pack for PC users.  Exclusive DC content will not be included in the PC map pack (that's part of our deal with Sega).  What WILL be included in the PC map pack are the DC versions of the Q3A levels that are in the PC version.  This includes the DC textures, etc., so that PC players and DC players will be able to play one another. The PC map pack will probably come out some time after the first of next year.

Just got an update from Todd Hollenshead of id Software about the Dreamcast version (mentioned earlier) of Quake3 maps. It looks like good news, they will be made available for download for PC players after all. Thanks Ryan Stotts for the forward. Here is the short and sweet quote:

Q: About that map pack for the PC. Is it going to be on the CD or will Sega post it on their site for us to download?
A: That will be something that will be downloadable for PC users.

The Dreamcast version of Quake3 has just been announced as released by Sega. You can check out the release here if you're all hot and bothered by the idea. Looks pretty cool, interested in seeing those new levels... I got this quick quote from Carmack about the levels for PC players: "Last I heard (a while ago), they are on the dreamcast CD to be read by a PC, but they won't be freely available". John Carmack Thanks Ryan Stotts

For novelty sake, Here is the Sega website for the upcoming Quake3 Dreamcast port that should be showing up very soon on shelves. Thanks SlimJim

Hey the Playstation2 is coming! Sony just finished up their little pre-release party with 3,000 or so people. Of course they arent gonna have as may units available as they need though.

The best-looking PS2 games at the party had to be the two EA Sports games, Madden NFL 2001 and FIFA 2001. Madden looks as good or better than Sega's acclaimed NFL 2K1. [...]  Another sharp-looking game is Eidos's sci-fi first-person shooter TimeSplitters, which had some pretty cool graphics and lighting effects.

They are shooting for 26 titles for the launch later this year. These are the only Playstation2 screenshots I could dig up.

Looks like Sega's efforts to crack down ISO sites posting news about Dreamcast warez might not be totally kosher. Recently a site called Isonews hired a lawyer after they got a cease-and-desist letter from Sega, and she has found out that Sega doesn't have that much ground to stand on.

"Really this is a wholesale attack on the concept of unmoderated forums because they theoretically allow people to post information about copyrighted material," Granick said. "By that logic, you could shut down Usenet newsgroups. You could shut down AOL's forums."

Sega so far has demanded that the entire Dreamcast section is to be taken down, but the Isonews people are calling on their right to free speech. They have taken their Dreamcast forums down for now, but they do continue to supply reviews and information. So far Sega is not threatening with a lawsuit yet. Thanks dognose.

The latest John Dvorak column on ZDNet has the writer talking about our need for speed, as well as the X-Box (thanks Thresher). Dvorak mentions that for the past decade or so people have been wondering if we really constantly need faster processors..and we still do right now in 2000 so apparently we really do need faster processors, seeing how our 500mhz machine bogs down from time to time. He also laughs at people who think Sony and Sega will steal away a big chunk of the market when it comes to online gaming, although not really giving a reason as to why he thinks so. There's also three paragraphs on the X-Box, which he thinks will probably die an early death.

Stomped has news that the new Half-Life mission that will be included with the Dreamcast version of Half-Life MIGHT appear on the PC. The additional levels, mission Blue Shift, are being created by Gearbox - the guys who did the Half-Life Opposing Force addon. From Gearbox Software's Randy Pitchford

The plan right now is for Blue Shift to be exclusive to the Sega Dreamcast. If that goes well, we'll consider ports to other platforms (like the PC).

After TEN and WON (for the most part), Heat.net is the latest online gaming service to shut down. Looks like there really is no money in this. Heat itself will be transitioning to SegaNet, the new online service for the Sega Dreamcast. Thanks VE.

A story on ZDNet shows that everyone's favorite memory maker Rambus is continuing to seek royalties from its patents, this time suing Infineon Technologies. Rambus wants Infineon (formerly Siemens) to pay for their SDRAM memory - Infineon is one of the bigger companies out there so it would mean a lot of money. Rambus recently also sued Sega and has reached settlements with Hitachi and Toshiba. Just this weekend an Intel roadmap reveiled the company was scaling back it's Rambus plans by supporting SDRAM for the mainstream market instead.

Stomped's JCal got to talk to Sega's Scott Hawkins at QuakeCon recently, asking him about the Dreamcast port of Quake3 Arena.