Would donniek or any other member on the forum who worked at sega would like to shed some light on this?
Nope, they also have the "sticker". For the one with a little motherboard sticking out of the dreamcast, it exits the case at the left bottom in the middle, so it doesn't overlap with the place of the "sticker"
BTW the WinCE txt on that mock up is also different. The PAL mock up Dreamcast says 'Designed for Microsoft Windows CE'. All of 4 my retail PAL Dreamcasts say 'Compatible with Microsoft Windows CE'. My Japanse Dreamcast says 'designed' though. Also my Japanse Dramcast has a clear lid jwel with shiny reflctiv surface underneath but my US and 4 PAL DC's all have the shitty grey insert. I'm still going to bet money on something gripping the unit whilst it was still hot or cooling. It could also be from the gripper installing to top to the bottom half of the shell whilst it is still warm - if you look inside the case there are no markings, it is smooth. Assume the Dreamcast lid was gripped from the sides and plonked down onto the base whilst it was still slightly warm - it would explain the markings on the sides. To account for the large marking on the back, it would needd to be guided to front and the back to to make sure it is in the correct position. Why then is there no mark for alignment on the front you may ask? Because the front is different plastic - the controller port shroud which was is likely to have been made in advance hence it was already cool enough to not warp slightly. Now how do we test this theory? If owners of LE Dreamcasts could check the sides and back of theirs (if they arn't too afraid of opening the box like a wuss) we would know if all shells had these marks regardlss of colour - it would make no snse to cnc and fill out a clar shell but it would make sense if the clear shells got grippd (or odd moulded) too.
I dont think so, he mentioned that all DC R&D was made entirely in japan IIRC, and when he first saw a DC it was close to the production version.
I've done a lot of looking around and am starting to think it was probably intended to have extra vents. If you think about the moulding process, the mould for the top case of the Dreamcast can't be a two part piece. The part of the mould that forms the vent holes would cause the case to become locked into the mould. An extra removable piece has to be designed into the mould, so that it can slide away from the main parts to allow the plastic to be released. The marks are from the seams of these inserts. The insert on the right forms the vent holes, the insert at the back forms the raised lip around the power connector, and the one on the left has been replaced with a blank. It's possible Sega were unsure of just how effective the cooling would be, so made the possibility of extra vents being easily added by replacing a slide.
Another company had the orange spiral trademarked, forcing Sega to change to blue in Europe. I like the blue better.
A German publisher for family media (logo back from 1999). You should look at their current logo... total rip-off! http://www.tivola.de/
