PlanetDreamcast | Community | Mailbag | 02/22/02

Community - Mailbag 02/22/02 - The Future of PDC, SegaNet Servers, Quake 3: Arena, and more! - by Celeryface Hey Dreamcast fans, Celeryface here to answer your questions and concerns about our site, the Dreamcast community, and whatever else you need to know about our favorite little white box, in the latest edition of the PlanetDreamcast Mailbag. In our latest mailbag we answer your questions on the future of PlanetDreamcast, why no new DC games are being released, PSO V.2 servers, and more! Let's get things started! From: tooyou Subject: PSO V.2 Servers Hi!I was wondering sinse the dreamcast will be officially unsupported in march and the new versions of Pso coming out for the x-box and gamecube how long will the servers be up for the dreamcast version? At the moment Sega hasn't announced any plans of closing down the PSO servers, and seeing that PSO will be released on other systems, there has always been talk about cross-platform gaming. So I'm sure that you will not be seeing the PSO servers closing anytime soon. From: SeanGuyNJ Subject: Why did they stop making DC games? I always hear stuff from my friends... like "nintendo bought sega", "sony bought sega", and other stuff... could u tell me why they stopped making dc games? because i bought it for $200 when it came out... and now they dropped out and it looks like a total waste of money... pisses me off hehe.... well tell me what happend plz... thnx Well what happend was that the rats in the DC factory got into the wires and... ;)(Well not really). What really happend was that Sega was losing a ton of money on each system that they sold, and that they were not selling enough games to help gain that money back. Not to say that Dreamcast games weren't selling, they were just not selling enough to make up for the large amount of cash Sega was losing. So in order for Sega to stay in business, they dropped the Dreamcast hardware and went to become a 3rd party developer. Hope this gives you a better understanding of the situation. From: Simoyd Subject: Quake 3 For Dreamcast I was wondering if you know if the map pack for quake 3 finally come out so that i can play pc users with my dc or if it never did and also where I can download it if it did! Yes the map pack that allowed PC gamers to play Dreamcast owners in Quake 3: Arena was released! If you head over to the Quake 3-Dreamcast homepage, you can download the map pack. It's a 50 meg ZIP file. Have fun! From: _Fredmann_ Subject: The Future of PDC Now that the DC is no longer being supported,(read=>not dead<=) what will become of PDC? Will you guys continue to show some love and keep it going? I was jazzed about all the underground dev. stuff happening I read about in your feature. How about becoming a site to support those other DC projects? And finally, how long will SegaNet function and support those DC games for free? I for one like Bomberman Online, yet find it becoming increasingly difficult to find others to play with. Any light you folks can shine this way would be great. I have gotten a lot of emails about this topic and all I can say is that PlanetDreamcast is here to stay. We are still going strong, and there are some very interesting things coming up in the community like DC emulation, home brew games, and much more. SegaNet has been charging to play certain DC games online, more specifically the Sega first party titles and Visual Concepts sports titles. There are a few DC games that you can still play online for free, but Sega hasn't announced anything about when, or if they will be closing down the servers. Keep your eyes on PlanetDreamcast if Sega makes any announcements concerning the SegaNet online game servers. From: Elvin Subject: Alone in the Dark 4 This game seems to only be playable on later versions of Dreamcast console. I bought four different copies of the same game and none would work on my first generation Dreamcast. If anyone could help me or give me any input on how or what I should do to upgrade or fix my Dreamcast I would really appreciate it...... When I wrote the review for Alone In The Dark 4 back in October I was using my personal Dreamcast, which was made in August 1999, and it worked great. Seeing that you bought 4 different copies of the game, and they all didn't work properly, there could be something wrong with your Dreamcast hardware. You can contact Sega at 1-800-USA-SEGA, or [email protected], and they should be able to help you out if there is something wrong with your hardware. Good luck. That concludes another great edition of the PlanetDreamcast Mailbag. Stay tuned as we will be back with more answers to your letters. Be sure to keep sending them. As always, you can send your letters to this address. Maybe you will see your letter in the next edition of the PlanetDreamcast Mailbag. Have fun! :)