Dreamcast 2 Project Getting “Inviting Response” From SEGA

I have many fond memories of SEGA consoles, having owned the original SEGA Master System, the Master System II, Megadrive I and II, SEGA CD, 32X, Saturn, Dreamcast, Game Gear and finally, I was hoping to get my hands on the Dreamcast 2, but that plan never really saw the light of day. Some of you may know that when SEGA threw in the hardware towel, the Xbox from Microsoft was the next thing on the horizon and was released as a spiritual successor to the Dreamcast, which is why we saw games like Shenmue released on the system.

Project Dream have been working hard to revive SEGA consoles for real, not just in spirit, pitching the idea of a new Dreamcast and they’ve even gathered over 27 thousand petition signatures. Now they’re getting some more important names to support them; people who work at SEGA.

Two of Project Dream’s leaders, Bertie Wiseman and Joanne Freeman, spoke with Twinfinite about their involvement with SEGA, saying interactions so far have been fairly inviting. “It went from me ringing up to pester them for not replying to our mail and the receptionist asking for a full lowdown on what we wanted to talk to people about,” said Joanne. After multiple pitches, contacts and phone calls, the team says they have made contact with multiple SEGA names, including a senior member of SEGA Sammy.

“It all kind of happened quite quickly, and by the end of it, he finished chatting with me on the phone and sent one of our team members a message to say ‘send what you got through when you’re ready, and I’ll make sure it gets to the right people.’”

“We’ve been messaging a few other people. Some have gotten back to us and some haven’t,” Joanne continued, “but we haven’t had a negative response from SEGA, I can 100% say that. It’s been a mildly inviting response.”

“We don’t know what’s going to happen, but hope it’s a situation where it all goes well and they say ‘yep, great, we love the idea we’ll run with it.’” Should SEGA decide not to associate with the project, the team “would like to carry on with a spiritual successor to the console.”

Project Dream are getting ready to present their ideas to SEGA and see if they can get a real product and a real business idea together. The fact SEGA isn’t shutting them down at the first hurdle is promising, but there’s still a few major hurdles to cross.