I’ve been around since the release of the Coleco Telstar Colortron, but did not get into playing video games until the VCS or better known as the Atari 2600, to most people. As far back as I can remember I’ve always been into video game from a very young age playing that crappy Pac-Man on the VCS. Though as I was just looking around the internet tonight I started thinking, “what is my most fond memory when it comes to video game consoles?”

I went all the way back to the past and then into the present. I can remember so much like having fun with friends playing games when I was younger or even to just last week sitting around with a buddy of mine from the frozen North who came down to Texas to basically just sit around and play video games. The time that really sticks out in my mind most would be 1999. Not only a good year because that was the year I married my girlfriend but because it was also a super year for video game fans all over the world.

You may have already guessed it by the year. If you guessed Dreamcast you would be correct!

So many memories revolve around the Dreamcast it’s not even funny. The launch of the Dreamcast was simply amazing, though it was riddled with problems because of shortage of consoles; it was just executed so well. September 9th 1999 or 9.9.99 a date that will always remain in my mind forever. From the very start the Sega of America President (Peter Moore)really headed an ad campaign that was so crucial to the Dreamcast. Not only did they have the Official Dreamcast magazine to drum up hype but they had free GDROM demos with each magazine.

The games they had at launch were just icing on the cake:

• Blue Stinger

• Expendable

• Flag to Flag

• House of the Dead 2

• Hydro Thunder

• Monaco Grand Prix

• Mortal Kombat Gold

• NFL 2K

• NFL Blitz 2000

• PenPen

• Power Stone

• Ready 2 Rumble Boxing

• Sonic Adventure

• Soulcalibur

• TNN Motorsports Hardcore Heat

• Tokyo Xtreme Racer

• TrickStyle

Ok sure not all of these games were killer apps but several of them were so amazing that the Dreamcast was hard to ignore.

Now I’m a huge Final Fantasy fan and this day 9.9.99 was also the release of Final Fantasy 8 I remember not even blinking an eye at the fact that I was not getting FF8. I spent way too much money on my Dreamcast to even worry about it.

One of the real big memories of the Dreamcast was Phantasy Star Online. Man that game was so addicting, I still play this one today (Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst). There were times that I would play this game into the wee hours of the night. I had a friend over and were playing it at about 3am when my Dreamcast stopped working. So what did we do? Drove over to Wal-Mart to buy a new on to continue playing.

The life span for the Dreamcast only last until 2001 for most people, but for people like me it lasted much longer than that. I kept supporting the system past that as long as people kept making games for it I kept getting them. Even if they were just homebrew games that were offered for download.

I don’t think there will ever be another launch that will excite me quite as much as Sega did on that day. I don’t think any other video game company will be able to bring as much joy to me as Sega did back then either. And for those of you who know me; know that I’m a hardcore Nintendo fan, but even Nintendo couldn’t take the crown as Sega did on that fateful day.