HK Dreamcast - good serial no.?

I've had this Dreamcast in my cupboard for years and during a clearout recently came across it again and thought I do some investigating.
Back in the day I was friendly with a game supplier who had a close friend that apparently worked for a major airline based in HK. He apparenty had a close friend that worked at Sega there..and to cut a long story short I bought this Dreamcast off the supplier (minus the box ) The interesting thing may well be the serial number. I've tried t search for serial number sequences etc but never found anything definitive.
Perhaps one of the resident experts on here could throw some light on it

 

Do all HK systems say have "NTSC-J" printed on them? Also I could be wrong (as I don't have a system handy at the moment) but most Dreamcasts don't have that little curve in the lower left, do they?

 

Hi mate
As far as I remember all HK machines had NTSC-J on them as they and I'm looking at PAL DC as we speak and it does have the curve lower left

 

H-KT 3010 is the Asian / Hong Kong version of the Dreamcast (while H-KT 3000 is the domestic Japanese equivalent). As far as the hardware is concerned, it's absolutely identical to the Japan-only Dreamcast but it lacks a 56k modem. Take a closer look and you will notice that it's just a dummy without a LAN-plug on the back.

The box looks like the later Japanese ones (i.e. the refurbished units) and it was white with orange sides. Here's a picture of my unit:

The right and left sides are orange. The manual was in English as well as all the writing on the box if I remember correctly.

HKT-3010's were all marked NTSC-J and accordingly are only compatible with NTSC-J coded games (+codefree of course).

 

All my dreamcasts have the curve lower left 5 usa consoles and my brothers pal console and my other boxed pal dreamcast.

 

If i am not mistaken this should be the first ever produced retail Dreamcast for the Asian market. You've a matching serial for console and box?

 

Very interesting... (for me at least )

I have an Asian one which begins with 0190012...

If we can apply the "rules" for Japanese Dreamcasts, where the first 2 digits were for the manufacturer, and the 3rd digit for the manufacturing year, that would give us:
- your DC: built by SEIYO D. (02) in 1998 (8)
- my DC:built by ASAHI Electron (01) in 1999 (9)

The strange thing is that for Japanese Dreamcasts, the model nr also contained a reference to the manufacturer (the 'A' in 670-13624A for example), and the name of the manufacturer was also written there where you have the big "SEGA" on the back of the DC.
My Dreamcast has also the same model nr (670-13624A), and also has "SEGA" written on it, so I'd guess that the serial nr is the only way to guess the manufacturer of the Asian DCs...

If that's true, and the manufacturers were the same, you probably have the first or second Asian DC manufactured by SEIYO D. in 1998

670-13624A was the first Asian model (with metallic fan/heatpipe), I've seen pics of another asian one, 670-14146A, serial nr 010015... (ASAHI Electron 2000 ?), which would probably be the model with the plastic fan.

As a side node, I've gathered some info about Jap. DC models, I'll probably make a post in the DC forum one of the following weeks if anybody's interested...

To give an example, I have 2 DC of 98, one of SEIYO D. (model 670-13748A, 028000019***), and one of ASAHI Electron (model 670-13748C, 018006059***).

 

I never got the box

 

Thanks for the info mate I guess that means it's a nice DC to have

 

A shame that you didn't have the original box.
This would be a collectors piece with a really good value.

 

I'm sure the boxes are not serial numbered anyway so maybe I'll track down an asian box

 

He is right. I only know about the NR Readers with matching numbers on device and box.

 

Have both of you looked at asian dreamcast boxes to be so certain ?
Because the european & japanese boxes did contain the serial number... (eg http://www.flickr.com/photos/paperghost/2495653990/in/set-72157606921580510/)

I can't speak for the US & Asian boxes though...

 

H-KT3010 boxes have serial numbers too. I would have to take a look, but I'm pretty sure my Hong Kong DC & box (of which I posted a picture above) have matching serials.

As for the matching serials thing... not only NR Readers, pretty much every Japanese console has the serials printed on the box as well. For instance Sega Saturn, Neo Geo,...

 

I just bought a Dreamcast on Ebay that the seller marked as NTSC-J but has the exact same sticker at the one on the OP's Dreamcast. The model number is HKT-3010 and the serial number is 670-13624A. The number below the barcode is 019009071938.

So it seems I got a Hong Kong model, not a true Japanese model, but its one of the first models ever made back in 1998? That's pretty darn neat.

I thought there was something strange about it since the sticker had no Japanese lettering at all unlike true Japanese Dreamcast stickers and even has "Warning: Shock Hazard" written in French, even though the sticker designates it as an NTSC-J model!

I never knew the HK models were also listed as NTSC-J. Very interesting!

 

670-13624A is the part number (for the sticker I believe).

019009071938 is the actual S/N.

 

x

 

I just checked what I thought was my Japanese Dreamcast but is actually the Asian version. It has the same sticker as the first post and also doesn't have a modem.

Unfortunately it originally had a yellowed top casing so I switched it out with a non-yellowed top case from a US DC. Then I swapped the little clear triangle piece onto it. I didn't realize the original casing had a slightly different "Compatible with Windows CE" wording. I should have kept the original yellowed case on

At least I got it very cheap. It was advertised as non-working, but in fact works perfectly fine.

 

Finally decided to put this up for sale on ebay
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140889749148

 

I wonder what that French text is doing there lol. Sure there are many French in Hong Kong but hmmm what the hell?