Don’t worry, chums. I know that the only thing in the universe more tedious than an ECTS show report is an ECTS show preview, so I won’t make you sit through one.

But what else is there to talk about? 

PAGE 2

Oh, wait, I know. There’s this whole ridiculous Dreamcast fiasco.

It doesn’t make me happy to have to confirm Sega’s status as World King Of Mess-Ups, but it’s true all the same. The last console to suffer this kind of launch "hiccup" was the Atari Jaguar (which, believe it or not, was incredibly keenly-awaited at the time.)

But while it’s not a surprise that Sega have screwed up, it IS a puzzle. Because if you think about it, what does the modem problem matter anyway?

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While email access and Net surfing and everything is all very nice, it’s not the reason 95% of people will be buying a Dreamcast.

The people who care about it having online abilities (and the people all Sega’s advertising is concentrating on) are the people who want to play games over the Net.

But how many Net-playable games are due to be released in the UK at the time of the Dreamcast’s launch? It’s this many: None at all.

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So it seems a pretty odd reason to pull out of an entire, hugely expensive, massively-advertised launch at the last possible minute, wouldn’t you say?

Do Sega expect everyone to believe that the only reason they’ve delayed this much-trumpeted machine, screwing up all the carefully-timed hype and making their own official magazine (just out, and rammed full of "SEPTEMBER 23 – THAT’S THE DATE, OH YES"-type stuff) look completely stupid, is that they were worried people wouldn’t be able to send email for a couple of weeks?

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It just doesn’t wash. The only UK games that are due to be playable online from the first batch of releases are Sonic Adventure and Sega Rally 2. But the network that will actually enable you to play them online isn’t due to be in place until next April, seven months away. A three-week delay isn’t going to make any difference to that.

It seems clear that there has to be a much more serious reason behind the Dreamcast’s delay, and that’s got to be worrying news for anyone who doesn’t want to see another awful Sega flop.

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And there’s another thing that’s a bit odd about Dreamcast’s online abilities.

The adverts blare that you’ll have "UP TO 6 BILLION PLAYERS", ie the entire population of the world. But the truth is rather different. The UK Dreamcast will only be able to play online with other European Dreamcasts – Japanese and American machines are totally incompatible with it, online-wise.

(And isn’t the whole point of the Internet, anyway, supposed to be its world-wide-ness? Mess-up? I’ll say.)

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It looks, chums, a lot like Sega (after creating a brief illusion of competence to the gullible) are falling right back into their old ways.

A botched-up DC launch was the last thing in the world they needed, and they’ve had a year to sort things out properly since the machine came out in Japan. But botch it up they have.

I won’t say I told you so. But I did.