Our late-'90s SEGA arcade podcast doubles as a Dreamcast tribute
It's always 9/9/99 in our hearts, baby.
This episode was meant to have run about a month ago, but sometimes Fate demands you rearrange your publishing schedule to better line up with meaningful events. In this case, it only seemed fitting to post a show about SEGA's late-’90s arcade output right around the anniversary of one of gaming's most memorable dates. Yesterday marked 19 years since 9/9/99 and the Dreamcast's American launch—and here we have the podcast to match.
No, this isn't a Dreamcast episode, but it's close. This brings a close to our long-running SEGA arcade history series, and as it happens, it also intersects considerably with the Dreamcast. Many of the games we talk about this week ended up on Dreamcast, and for good reason: SEGA's Naomi arcade board was basically a souped-up Dreamcast CPU, which made coin-op-to-console conversions of the likes of Virtua Fighter 3, Crazy Taxi, and Samba de Amigo pretty much painless. And these arcade releases, much like the bulk of the Dreamcast library, shared a common spirit of positive energy. SEGA may have been a company on the ropes in those days, but you'd never know if from the sheer exhuberance of their output. What a great company.
As with our previous SEGA arcade episodes, Ben Elgin and Benj Edwards are on-hand to share their thoughts on these classics. And in case you've somehow missed them, you can catch up with our SEGA arcade retrospectives here:
Retronauts Episode 168
SEGA's Arcade History: The Finale
MP3, 57.6 MB | 1:52:45
Direct download | Retronauts on iTunes | Retronauts at PodcastOne
Episode description: The end is nigh! Sort of. Jeremy, Ben, and Benj return to look one last time at SEGA's classic arcade legacy, exploring their coin-on megabits of the late ’90s. From Virtua Fighter 3 to Crazy Taxi, it's like crib notes for the Dreamcast era...
