Dreamcast's left.....

I'm full of Dreamcast questions recently,

Here's my next question.
If Wikipedia is to be believed, there were 10.6 million Dreamcast consoles sold - how many of these do we think are left?

I reckon maybe 4 million? Maybe less without disc read errors?

 

Enough so I can piles of it being sold for nickels here.

 

Where abouts are you from? They can get quite costly in the UK for a decent one, I personally have about 20 PAL units - picking them up everytime there's a joblot on eBay.

 

I'm from Brazil.

I just know a few places here where the shop owner gets tons of garbage.
Both have a pile of dreamcasts. I got mine there for R$20.

 

Is that the Tec Toy Dreamcast consoles?

 

Yeap, tons of it here.

 

I don't suppose there's any boxed ones over there? Brazil got the coolest Sega stuff.

 

I believe in own somewhere around 20+ Dreamcast units.

The real question worth asking (at least from my POV), is how many of those awfully designed Rev 2 units came out of the assemblyline? those units are not very durable...

 

Rev 2, is that the 3030 model?

 

Idunno . I'm talking about that final revision the Dreamcast underwent. The one with the newly designed GDrom drive with no Daughterboard.

Those units are SO terribly built. I only own 2 of such and don't plan on ever getting anymore of those.

 

OH! I think over here we only got them up to model 3030 which had the same innards I've never seen a model without a daughterboard... Did the Regulation 7 machine have that? If so I'll take a peek.

 

It's just awful. The only minor benefit of such a design change is that those consoles produced feel much lighter as a result. Other than that, the Drive on those things are doubious at best.
You tell me. I don't own an R7. But I hear the JPN Hello Kitty units are Rev 2 and I know for sure that all US Sega Smashpack edition console bundles are Rev2's.

 

I bet there are a lot more than half of the total amount of consoles that are still working. For one thing, I would think the vast majority of those 10+M consoles haven't seen heavy usage since maybe 2003/2004. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that the majority of all consoles sold have been used less than 20 times since 2004. I don't know how many times I hear that someone has a DC in their basement or in a closet, and they haven't touched it since they got the original Xbox. Even though the laser can be knocked out of calibration without usage, the light usage that many of these consoles saw (~ 1-3 years equivalent normal usage, many with GDroms only) probably leaves many of them in fine working order at the moment.

Of the ones that are broken, I would hazard that many of them can be repaired via pot adjustment or another simple fix, and that would keep them running for another few years. I've picked up broken DCs before, from friends or via ebay, and even when the issue is that "the disc isn't able to be read" - I've found plenty of other ridiculously simple causes for that than a problem with the laser/pot. For example, lid sensor malfunctions, and disc spindle being pushed down too low for disc to be read, are common issues.

 

i have both Hello Kitty ones and they aren't any lighter, plus they are from 1999 whereas the R7 and Smash Pack are 2001 so I'd assume the HK ones are still the older GD-Rom.

I hope there are still around 5 million Dreamcast consoles left, although the mind boggles at the prospect of 5 million going to scrap!

 

Why assume when you can simply check if those Hello Kitty DC consoles you own house a GD drive designed without a daughterboard and remove all doubt? I have Rev2 units and they def feel a lighter than a rev1 or 0 unit. Not by much mind you but its def noticable if you compare with former DC revisions.

In any event, I'm with dark on this one. Besides, for whatever issues the console goes thru over time, repair is very easy when many of its common problems are concerned. Furthermore, a few of those DC's that may have died out during its initial run could have been repaired by SEGA's own repair services in their respetive territories (I recently purchased CIB official SEGA refurbished US Dreamcast console). How long was SEGA offering repair services for the console in Japan???

 

Do you know the model numbers? Is there anyway to check without opening them?

 

Hell If I know. I don't own a HK DC.

As a matter of fact, Aren't those silly units built with a transparent Blue and/or Pink top shell!? Can't you just see the insides by simply opening the Disc Lid? LOL!

 

Silly units? oO

 

Regarding revision 2s, is it just the disc drive that goes on them? Is it a simple pot adjustment, or something more sinister? I've never owned or seen a rev 2 outside of the internet.

 

I'm hanging still, the Dreamcast's left what?