In a recent interview with Sega’s new Corporate Chief Operating Officer Mr. Testu Kayama. We find that he has some interesting things to say about the future of the Dreamcast, especially from a developers stance. Most interesting is hints that Sega will be releasing DC libraries to the public.
“Our overall goal is to set up a PC-like environment for game publishing, as well as change our software development system itself”
Their is a bit of a debate on whether or not a more PC like environment would be a good thing for DC developers. For one I think this is the best possible move Sega can make. When the Dreamcast does “die” years from now, such an environment for developers will really keep the Dreamcast following strong. The only downside is that the scene may become saturated with similar software, much like the current state of amateur PC development.
“What I mean is that we should really break up the current rigid system, involving game proposals and their progress reviews, to capture the flexibility that was present during Saturn’s final stages – a time that was really similar to PC publishing. If young or garage developers start popping up and creating new games for Dreamcast as a result of our new flexibility, measures like making Sega’s development library public, we might even be able to push the number of Dreamcast users up”
I’ve reported on a Sega endorsed development kits already, and this appears to be proof that Next-Gen was barking up the right tree. Sega’s Dreamcast libraries made public will really give the community a boost.
“we are going to have the same flexible outlook regarding technical issues and the disclosure of Dreamcast’s architecture. Projects like making expansion cards for PC’s or building it into network terminals only help the Dreamcast family to grow. Then, Sega, as well as the third party developers, will be able to create more and more software.”
This could be interesting to those working on some hardware related modifications to the Dreamcast. Though I doubt this information will filter down into the “hobby” scene for quite a while, if infact ever. It might make for some interesting 3rd party hardware. The prospects of expansion cards for PC are really interesting. It’s been reported that Sega would be releasing something like this on their own, however after the initial announcement Sega has been pretty quite on this issue. The interview has given the PC card more validity, and it might be the case that a 3rd part hardware company releases such a device. I don’t have to tell most of you what this could mean for the development community. An onboard PC card could really cut down current development times, not that the public Sega libraries won’t hurt things.