It seems Redspot Games are stuck in a time warp, as they are hard at work on ‘Rush Rush Rally Racing’ for the Sega Dreamcast despite the fact the system is long gone.  You can pre-order the game directly from their website for $15, which will work on all Dreamcast’s as it is region free.

Set for an October release, the game itself is describerd as a 4 player old-school, 2D, top-down, arcade-racing game which boasts “No realistic backgrounds. No sponsored cars. Only fun, retro gameplay”, sounds interesting.

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If you spent the better part of your youth hanging around in dank arcades then you may already be familiar with Virtual On and its crazy twin stick controls. That arcade feeling wasn’t quite re-created when the updated version was released for the Dreamcast in 2002 titled Virtual-on Oratorio Tangram, whilst it was a quality port, it lacked the magical feeling you got from duking it out in the arcades, and it is this port that Sega have brought to XBLA.

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Quake Live, id’s browser based online reimagining of Quake 3 Arena is set for a major update in the coming weeks with a new map set for release every Monday for the next 6 weeks.

The first of these will be a remake of ‘Hidden Fronts’ from the Dreamcast version of Q3 Arena, and id have promised that there will be more classic maps in the weeks to come in addition to some completely new ones.

Quake Live is still in open beta and is free to play, so why not check it out?

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It’s been rumored, hinted at and demanded by fans for a very long time now, but finally today Capcom have cracked and announced that arguably the pinnacle of 2d fighting games, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, will be released on XBLA and PSN this summer at a cost of 1200 on the 360 or $14.99 on the PS3.

The code has been lifted straight from the Dreamcast version of the game with no SSF2THDR graphical makeover unfortunately.  There is however 2 optional filters designed to improve the graphical output of the game, crisp and smooth, which frankly sound more like peanut butter varieties than game options.  All of the games 56 characters will be available from the get-go, so no need to play it through again and again to try and unlock the likes of Ken and Akuma.

If you live in the US and own a PS3 then you won’t have to wait until summer to get your eye back in on MvC2, as a demo will be released on the US PSN on the 30th April, with a PAL demo following shortly after.

So, who do we listen to, Wii Fanboy or Xbox 360 Fanboy? (PS3 Fanboy haven’t reported on this yet, but I’m pretty sure they will). Essentially, word on the street is that SEGA re-registered their trademark for the awesome Dreamcast puzzler ChuChu Rocket on December 22nd, and everyone seems to think that it’s an indication of an impending release on one (or all) of the console download services.

I guess it’s a fairly safe bet… Perhaps the social nature of the Wii would suit the game better, although SEGA do know their way around the 360, and the pads are ideal for the game’s controls. Here’s hoping for a multiplatform release in the not-so-distant future so everyone can share the ChuChu love!

It has been claimed that many different things were responsible for the ultimate demise of the Sega Dreamcast, ranging from the complexity of developing software for the Windows CE based console to just plain bad sales figures.  But in an recent interview with The Guardian the head of EA Sports, ex-Reebok, Microsoft and Sega man Peter Moore, set the record straight…  He was the man that had to make the final call, he was the man that killed the Dreamcast…

“We had a tremendous 18 months. Dreamcast was on fire – we really thought that we could do it. But then we had a target from Japan that said – and I can’t remember the exact figures – but we had to make hundreds of millions of dollars by the holiday season and shift millions of units of hardware, otherwise we just couldn’t sustain the business.”

“Somehow I got to make that call, not the Japanese,” Moore revealed. I had to fire a lot of people, it was not a pleasant day.”

“We were selling 50,000 units a day, then 60,000, then 100,000, but it was just not going to be enough to get the critical mass to take on the launch of PS2. It was a big stakes game. Sega had the option of pouring in more money and going bankrupt and they decided they wanted to live to fight another day. So we licked our wounds, ate some humble pie and went to Sony and Nintendo to ask for dev kits.”

“It was tough,” said Moore, “but those were great days and I’ve never met anybody who regretted buying a Dreamcast.”

More articles from our ‘Dreamcast Week’

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In honour of the Dreamcast’s ninth birthday last week we are going to take a look at a game that time didn’t really forget, but a game that has quite wrongly been left to live out its days in that great game shop in the sky, Sega’s excellent Chu Chu Rocket.

Created and developed by Sega’s legendary Sonic Team, Chu Chu Rocket is probably most famous for being the first online game widely available for games console users, that and for being given away free to promote the Dreamcast’s online service.  Despite its price tag Chu Chu Rocket stills stands as one of the top titles the Dreamcast had to offer, its blend of simplicity and a perfectly judged difficulty curve added to the crazy multiplayer experience made it a game not to miss.

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My posts about MAME and the old Atari ST have made me come over all nostalgic. They, and the fact that it would’ve been the ill-fated Dreamcast’s 9th birthday this week, got me thinking about the glorious machine that was to mark Sega’s last foray into the home console hardware market. What this little white box couldn’t do wasn’t worth doing, in my opinion – unless you were one of the millions of people who had a broken one, in which case, what it didn’t do definitely was worth doing, and you should have got it exchanged.

Three or four times.

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‘Nuff Said.

Eagle-eyed internet users have spotted a stirring coming from Sega’s direction, a stirring that’s got some of them, ahem, a-stirring. Sega have filed for some patents relating to the Dreamcast brand, specifically relating to “home video game machines; floor pads or mats” and “flash memory cards.” If your ears didn’t prick up when you read “home video game machines” then you’re either a Playstation fanboy, or you’re a bit slow. Or quite possibly both.

Think of it this way: the original patent on the Dreamcast is still valid, so why would they update it now?

I’ll tell you why, but you might want to sit down first.

Obviously it’s because Sega are going to be doing something new with the Dreamcast brand. While it could just be downloadable Dreamcast games for XBLA (I’ll take Power Stone, please), there’s a teeny-tiny chance that it could be due to a new iteration of the console on the horizon – a “Dreamcast 2″, if you will. We could be looking at a new version of the best console ever made, and no matter how small the chance, I’m going to take that chance and hope and hold onto it forever.

Crowded console market or not, this thing would sell like hotcakes – hotcakes with smack in them. Hotcakes with smack in them near Pete Doherty’s house, in fact.

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[Update!] (via Gamedaily.com)

Aww, boo hiss. Sega have come out and said that they’re not returning to the console business after all:

“Sega of America PR Director Charlie Scibetta is currently looking into the trademark issue and why it was updated. In the meantime he told us that Sega “has no plans to get back into the console business,” adding, “We’re very happy being a platform agnostic company and have moved up the ranks the past three years from #11, to #9, and now stand at #6 in terms of our market share by units among third-party publishers. We like our current strategy and have no plans to change in the middle of this outstanding growth.”

Oh well, we can but dream.