Dreamcast Zip Drive Found!

@darcagn
Do you have any pictures from when it was planned? I never head about any annoucement, I didn't even knew something like that might exist till that auction.

 

The DVD drive and the MP3 VMU may be worth 10k, but a ZIP drive? no way...

 

An earlier post brought up the quality of the prototype's construction. As far as construction is concerned, putting the unit together wouldn't have been a problem since it's based off of the then readily available karaoke attachment chassis: link. The only major difference I see is the front bezel.

To stack them, it looks like the karaoke unit would have to be in the middle since the ZIP drive doesn't have the AV attachment the karaoke unit has.

Is it just me, or is the ZIP attachment lighting up in this picture? link. Not sure if it's the orange disc reflecting the light in the room or a light in the unit. The seller's doesn't seem to do that when the unit is on.

 

New pics!

 

well the Zip drive can be in the middle, although it wont look good. If you look, there's a modem occupying its expansion bay.

Also, the Zip drive carries a USB port on the left, not found in the Karaoke

 

http://devcast.dcemulation.com/other/prototype/prototype.php

 

Since we're talking about the lost addons, I would like to say a couple of things about the DVD and the MP3.

First I doubt the DVD was meant as an addon at all since if you look at the DVD tray the thing is pretty big, big enough in fact to have a DC built inside. Since SEGA had really poor sales with their addons (MCD, 32X) and with the PS2 having DVD built-in, the most logical choice to get future PS2 buyers interested on the DC would be selling a bigger unit with a DVD/GDROM player built in. But if the buyer already has a DVD they could get the normal DC instead for less money, which would've increased the possible market share for the console. Games on DVD would just be as bad as X360 games in HDDVD today, since in both cases such a move would make early adopters/basic SKU buyers angry with SEGA, again...

About the MP3-VMU, I remember hearing it was going to use Smartmedia cards, and since RIO (even with a RIAA lawsuit) managed to create a legal download service with songs from the 5 major labels, I dont see why SEGA couldnt've struck a similar deal. Obviously is more probable that people would've used this VMU to play illegal songs, like most of them do today with iPods. But hell, as long as it sells...

 

The only DVD player I ve seen with the DC is the one they intended to bundle, a big silverish one. It was a stand-alone player.

I can't see how they d make a DVD drive for the DC as an add-on however. Especially back then, a console with an add-on that game it a second media-drive would be expensive and would look odd too - no one that I know likes the HD-DVD add on for the 360 for example, it looks weird.

What I m most interested in, is the set-top box, presented in England some time back, fully functional etc. There were quite a lot of pictures of the demonstration.

 

One from Pace Microsystems? Because in this case I know there're units . The question is... Where? :/

 

You got it all wrong barc0de: my theory is that the DVD was not a standalone DVD player, but a DC+DVD, like the Wondermega which was a Genesis+SCD all-in-one.

If you ask me is a wise idea to sell two SKUs in this case, instead of an addon like in the X360.

 

According to the information of that years, the DVD unit was only that, a DVD unit, nothing else. I never heard about something like a hybrid Dreamcast... That idea only came up when SEGA ceased its console and decided to share its technology with other partners (the case of PACE in the UK).

 

Is just a theory I have, since by looking at that DVD it looks like the tray is too small, maybe becos theres a DC inside that thing.

Plus it would make more sense cost-wise to sell an all-in-one SKU that a DC with a generic rebranded DVD.

But well, is just a theory, if it isnt true then it isnt true...

 

The hell's a 'SKU' anyway?

 

Sexy Kinky Underwear

 

Shadowlayer: I agree with you about what idea is better. I also believe that releasing a standalone DVD unit branded by SEGA had been nosense. But in fact, I think that's one of the main reasons because that project was canned, because it was doomed to fail (apart of the Dreamcast sales, future plans, etc.).

About its history, I remember some media asking SEGA about its connectivity with Dreamcast, if it was going to add some kind of function to the console. They never clarified it, and that makes me think it was only a crazy strategy to fight against the DVD battle which PS2 was starting.

 

From what I recall, the stand-alone player was cleared stated to be only a seperate player, a deal by Sega of Europe actually.

 

Barcode: Do you mean the standalone player or the PACE system? Because I would assign them to SEGA of America and SEGA of Europe respectively.

 

I recall to have read in a greek gaming magazine at the time that SEGA of Europe was thinking of offering a stand alone DVD player with the DC as a budle, as a response to all those consumers who want a console+dvd player (Ps2)

 

Stock Keeping Unit

Now thats a quick&dirty solution...

Weird since at the time (E32000) the DC was in its biggest point ever...

But yeah I agree that it must be the common sense of some execs what prevented the release of such a dumb idea.

 

Barcode: You're right, but that was only a bundle of a Dreamcast plus a third party DVD player... If my memory doesn't fail .

Shadowlayer: Yes, it was announced in 2000, but the plan to cancel it came later, when things started not to work so well.