Anyone who bothers to enter a Sega chat site or visit a Sega related forum these days will definitely come away with one impression; the Sega community is desperate for info on the Dreamcast. Gamers everywhere are furious that Sega seems to be ignoring them. We hear about amazing demos from E3 but we can't see them. Rumors are rampant about which companies are producing which titles, but there are no screenshots. With only three months left before the official Japanese launch we still don't know what the launch titles will be. It's driving us all crazy!!! Why all the secrecy? Shouldn't Sega be doing something to build hype? Shouldn't they be leaking pics or at least confirming titles to get us all psyched about sequels of our favorite games? To answer that matter-of-factly, I don't think so. I think they are doing the right thing here and I'll tell you why.

Before I go any further I should say that I do empathize with all the Sega fans out there. I'm a die-hard Saturn fan myself and I would like nothing better than to get my hands on a whack of Dreamcast info. We've put up with a lot of abuse from Playstation and N64 owners about our under-powered hardware and it would be nice to have something to throw back at them. We all know that the Dreamcast is going to be awesome and it's going to blow away anything currently on the market, now all we need is some proof. Unfortunately, Sega is not cooperating with us. You can leaf through every mag on the newsstand or search the web to it's furthest corners, but you won't find much relating to Dreamcast. Sega has all their developers muzzled and a big lock on the development labs. They are determined to keep everything secret until they are damned well good and ready to release it. It's frustrating, to say the least, but it's also a smart thing to do.

Try to think of it from a business standpoint. Sega got creamed in the last round of competition and their name has been dragged through the mud. The media has slammed them, the developers all jumped ship and the gaming public has lost its faith in the Sega brand name. What they are trying to do with the Dreamcast is no easy task. Sony now has a choke hold on the industry and the public is strongly behind them. For every person out there who is waiting impatiently for Dreamcast there are about three more who either don't care or don't believe that it will succeed. The Saturn was a disaster and by association they think the Dreamcast will fall flat on its face. If the new console is to sell than Sega need to change people's perceptions in a big way. They need to do something spectacular, something that will offer a clear demonstration of the Dreamcast's power in a way that no one can question. Such is the reasoning behind the Aug 22nd unveiling of Sonic Adventure.

On Aug 22nd 10,000+ people will cram themselves into a cavernous room in Tokyo and get their first real demonstration of the most powerful video game system in the world. There will be no fuzzy screen shots of half completed levels; there will be no tiny quick-time movies that you can barely see; nor will it be running on a under-powered demo unit like at E3. No, the public's introduction to Sonic Adventure will be a 100% completed game running on the finalized Dreamcast hardware. To put it bluntly, this is going to knock their socks off. These are the types of media spectacles that Sega needs in order to win back the gaming spotlight. If they release development photos the naysayers will simply point out all the flaws (those pics from NEC did not impress anyone). I've also heard it said that still photos and tiny movies simply couldn't do justice to the Dreamcast. No, Sega is doing things right. They want us to see Sonic Adventure running at full speed on a big screen so that there can be no doubt as to the power of the little machine underneath. Many people will walk into that room as critics and walk out as believers. In today's market it's come big or stay at home, and on Aug 22nd Sega is going to come big, really big.