(Note from the author: the reasonably wealthy and/or patient may ignore this sermon.)

The Sega Dreamcast.

You've gotta have it. You've scoured the sites for months, and have seem every development picture of every game on the net and in magazines. You've written long, rambling posts to every web forum, bulletin board, and newsgroup you can find, extolling the merits of Sega's next-generation system to anyone who will lend an ear (and to those who won't, as well). Your notebooks are filled with swirls and stylized renditions of Sonic. You've memorized the exact technical specifications of the Dreamcast/Naomi hardware and, when engaged in that rare conversation with another human being, the phrase "three million polygons per second" often tumbles out mid-sentence. There's only one thing left for a Dreamcast fanatic like you to do.

Import the darn thing. No way you're gonna be waiting for what will be the greatest moment of your life (since losing your virginity is, at best, an event of the far, far future and getting a personal invitation from Yu Suzuki to develop games for AM2 is a downright impossibility), especially since you consider Sega of America to be the devil's own for killing the Saturn and alienating Working Designs.

Unfortunately for you, it's gonna cost you. In fact, it's REALLY gonna cost you. You see, events have not conspired in your favor.

Thanks to manufacturing difficulties, the 1998 run of Dreamcasts is going to be rather low. Well, really low, actually; if even 500K Dreamcast units make it to store shelves this year, I'll be mightily surprised. The really bad news is that importers will have very few machines to sell to Americans like you or I, despite the obscenely high demand. According to several online import specialists, waiting lists for import Dreamcasts closed within weeks, and many have preorders booked well into March of next year. Sega, of course, would much rather see their Japanese Dreamcasts go to the domestic market there in Japan, and will definitely place import distribution houses low on their shipping lists. Taken altogether, the demand for import Dreamcasts far outstrips the limited supply.

I'm sure you feel a bit faint. Quick, head over to the fridge and pour yourself a stiff, er, Mountain Dew. Why? Because it gets even worse.

"How can it be worse," you moan. "I've been on a waiting list for two months now, and I may not even get a Dreamcast!"

Because even if you are fortunate enough to get a Dreamcast unit allocated to you, it's gonna cost you. A lot. Far more than the $400 anticipated, and you can quote me on that. It's not your importers fault, no sir; he probably won't make of a profit, if any, on the unit. No, the fault lies with the distributors, the middlemen between Sega and the import retailers. You see, they KNOW the demand is huge. The importers are practically begging them for allocation. Already, numbers like $600 per unit are being faxed to your favorite importer. In fact, I'd venture to say that by the end of November, $600 US will seem like a bloody steal. I have several friends already quoted prices in excess of $1,000 US - ouch, baby! Ouch!

And it gets even *worse*. Some houses may charge a little less than what they paid the distributor for the unit, but, in the interest of profiteering, will require that you buy a couple games and an extra controller at inflated prices, so they can not only recoup the loss but snag a chunk of cash in the process. Be sure to read the fine print before ordering - that Dreamcast unit going for $585 at Bob Fanboy's Import-O-Rama may sound like a mega-bargain, but it won't when the owner casually asks you to buy three $80 games and a $50 extra controller in the process. You can almost hear the devilish chuckles of your credit card company as they calculate how long it's gonna take you to pay that bad boy off with your college job.

Hey, buck up. Wipe the tears from your eyes and take a deep breath. It's time to be a man (or woman, for those few females who condescend to sink into the fetid pits of extreme videogame fandom). It's time to learn to wait.

Don't look so surprised. It's really not such a bad idea.

First of all, as of today (11/3/98), a couple of release titles, such as Sega Rally 2, have been delayed. Up until the US release of the Dreamcast, the library available for the Dreamcast will be rather thin. Virtua Fighter 3: Team Battle aside, there isn't gonna be much worth getting until 12/23, the new release date for Sonic Adventure. After that, we'll have Blue Stinger and Sega Rally 2 on January 14th of next year, with a Climax Landers, RE: Code Veronica, and Power Stone potentially coming out at intervals until the US release date. Between them, there will be a few RPGs and Japanese-specific titles, which really can't be enjoyed fully unless one has a solid command of the Japanese language. At this point, you'll be paying over $600 US just for the novelty of seeing the finest graphics in a home console to date earlier than most, and, while that has an allure, come February or March, you may be rather less enthralled by that idea, 'specially when nothing new worth importing has been released. In fact, just to justify your purchase, you may wind up blowing money on games that are either too Japanese or too mediocre for you to enjoy, and that you wouldn't have purchased were the library a little more fleshed out.

Secondly, there's no guarantee that a consistent method of defeating the language lock-out will be available, since Sega, by using an upgradable OS, can have different methods of lock-out on each and every game released, if they so choose. At best, a consistent method of defeating the lock-out may not be available for some time after the US launch, and/or may involve nasty solderwork on your $600-plus investment. If you want to play English titles, waiting for the US release is the best option. If Japanese games are more your yen (ha, ha), then you should at LEAST wait until summer before buying an import DC, when the balance of supply/demand has levelled out and prices have become reasonable.

Last of all, the DC is gonna be FAR cheaper when it hits these shores. In fact, I'll venture to say that it'll be in the $200 US price range. With the money you save, you can buy a 27" TV to play it on and a couple of keen games. You'll be able to play Enligh titles without hassle, and, if you want to import, you can wait at leisure until a workable method of bypassing the lock-out is developed.

Let's face it. Waiting really sucks, 'specially when you're a creature of immediate self-gratification as most of us Americans are. However, massive credit card bills and money spent lining the coffers of greedy distributors sucks even more. The former, especially if you are a college student with a mediocre paycheck, can cause you even more grief down the road (take this from a guy who, during his college career, racked up over $4000 in credit card bills just for gaming alone).