In a year featuring pop culture hysteria over Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, The Blair Witch Project and Ricky Martin, the launch of the Sega Dreamcast is escalating the entertainment frenzy.
Considering how badly Sega fumbled with the Saturn console, the company has done a Clinton-esque job of turning around its name and fortunes to build hype for the Dreamcast. It all culminated on Wednesday evening, as the clocks ticked toward 9/9/99, with launch parties across the United States.
See also: NFL 2K Kicks Off Sega's Season- - - - - -
Sega of America hosted launch parties at mall-based retailers in San Jose, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Toronto.
One of the biggest took place at Software Etc. in San Jose, which stayed open all night Wednesday to accommodate the expected 12:01 a.m. Thursday rush. The store, housed in a Barnes & Noble bookstore, featured appearances by actors Verne "Mini-Me" Troyer and Baywatch babe Donna D'Errico.
The San Jose store had the most Dreamcast pre-orders of any in the chain, with around 800 consoles on order. Many of those customers showed up overnight and brought a few friends.
The presence of celebrities and a local radio station only added to the hype, resulting in a turnout of almost 1,500 people, according to David Giannini, a Software Etc. sales associate.
"I’ve never seen this much hoopla over a video game system before, especially since Sega hasn’t had a system out for a while," he said.
"People weren’t willing to go out on a limb for it at first, but once they saw what it could do, and Sega has done a good job publicizing it, people went nuts over it."
About 30 additional units were available beyond those reserved for pre-order customers, and they sold out during the first few hours. Giannini said the store was expecting more consoles to be delivered during the day. The launch mania had Giannini working a 30-hour shift. Starting his day at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, he worked through the evening and launch party, which ran until 2 a.m. After that, it was just product sales until 4:30 a.m. The store closed for post-party clean up and re-opened at 8:30, where Giannini worked until 5:00 that night.
Giannini said the long hours were no big deal since the surrounding furor kept him alert.
It seems Giannini is more durable than Sega’s Web site, which was unreachable for a good part of Thursday as traffic increased ten-fold over normal, according to the company. By the end of the day, Sega’s home page was accessible again, but still very slow.
While most of the news surrounding Dreamcast has been available for some time, Planetweb, a developer of software for consumer electronic devices, announced its Web browser would be bundled with the Dreamcast console.
Dreamcast comes with a built-in 56 Kbps modem and access to the Internet via AT&T’s WorldNet service.
The Internet access will provide Dreamcast users access to the Sega Dreamcast Network, where users will receive email updates on new and existing games, hints, cheats, chat rooms, multiplayer games, and information on upcoming games.
As if the successful launch wasn’t enough, Sega also got a gift from its competitors at Sony. The planned launch of the PlayStation II in January may be delayed because Sony’s semiconductor partner, Toshiba, is having trouble producing sufficient quantities of chips for the console. Sony will have to decide soon if it will delay the launch until March, or go ahead with a smaller volume of consoles.
Sony, which announced the machine in March, plans to disclose details on pricing, availability, software titles, and the name of the new system at a big Tokyo gaming show on 13 September.
Reuters contributed to this report.
