Launching the Dreamcast on 9/9/99 - An Interview with Electronics Boutique's Alexander Danielian

Dreamcast launch night on 9/9/99 at Electronics Boutique, Las Vegas.
(Image credit: Next Gen Magazine, November 1999)

Serendipity is a thoroughly wondrous phenomenon. I'm happy and confident to make this statement, as the parameters which lead to the following could quite easily be laid firmly at the door of said concept. See, a couple of weeks ago, I happened upon a fabulous interview conducted by The Retro Hour with one Alexander Danielian. Alexander was the store manager of the Electronics Boutique store at Sunset Galleria, Henderson, Las Vegas - the store which was selected by Sega of America as the flagship location for the launch of the Dreamcast on 9/9/99.

In that interview, Alexander explained how he was a pivotal cog in the Sega machine unleashing the Dreamcast on the expectant American public, and it was a truly fascinating glimpse behind the scenes. A few days after hearing the episode, a mutual friend, Jordan Freeman of Zoom Platform fame, reached out to me and asked if we here at the Junkyard would also like to speak to Alexander...and naturally I enthusiastically accepted.

Who even are you if you don't listen to The Retro Hour?

I want to make it clear that you should absolutley also listen to or watch The Retro Hour's fantastic interview with Alexander (think of this interview as a supplementary piece), but I simply couldn't pass up the opportunity to really drill down into some specific Dreamcast-related insider info on that hallowed launch night, and pick Alexander's brain about some of the more esoteric aspects of the Dreamcast's brief tenure as the hottest new games console around.

Alexander was featured in Business Week for his outstanding Dreamcast sales performance.

The following interview is pretty in-depth and therefore quite lengthy, but naturally all of it is exquistely interesting, so I encourage you to read every word. You might even learn something about one of the enduring urban legends about special edition Dreamcast consoles and Electronics Boutique...

DCJY: Hi Alexander. It’s a pleasure to be able to speak with you. Could you give a brief introduction as to who you are and how you are linked to the story of the Dreamcast?

Alexander Danielian: Sure, it’s great to speak to you Tom. My name is Alexander Danielian, and I was the district trainer and store manager at Electronics Boutique at Sunset Galleria, Henderson, a suburb of Las Levas, Nevada - which was the flagship location for the official North American launch of Sega's Dreamcast console, back on 9/9/99.

It's a really unique and interesting insight that you have when it comes to the launch of the Dreamcast in 1999. Before we get to that though, can you give us a bit of information on your background as a gamer up until that point?

Well, like many kids in the early 1980s, I started with Atari, which was super fascinating to me. It was like something new that I'd never experienced and, I was really, really intrigued by it. Early in my childhood, I went to an arcade for the first time and I saw a game which captivated me, it was called Turbo, and it was developed by Sega. I just loved the graphics and the sound effects. Ironically, if I'm not mistaken, it was a precursor to Pole Position and really impressed me.

So anyway, I had a cousin who had an Intellivision, and in the early 1980s when I was playing Atari, I didn't know what console wars were. I just remember seeing the Intellivision at his house and I was impressed at how much better the games looked over the Atari, which I had. It offered a different perspective, which I didn’t know was there. So that’s really where the fascination started I suppose; I was intrigued by gaming, seeing the games on the TV. Obviously the market crashed in the US but I was too young to really take much notice of that. I just kept playing games…and then the Nintendo Entertainment System came out.

Atari vs Intellivision ad. (Source: Eurogamer)

When the Nintendo came out, the first time I saw Super Mario Brothers, it wowed me because I'm going from Atari and Intellivision, to Nintendo graphics where you could see the characters were brighter, more detailed, more colourful…and I was just in awe of it and over time, I got into the games: The Legend of Zelda, Excitebike, Castlevania, Rygar…everything. So at an early age, I realised I just liked everything.

So, in the United States, I remember everyone and every kid had a Nintendo. One time I went into a Toys 'R Us, and I was actually looking for a Nintendo game, but I saw something called the Sega Master System, which I know was very popular with you guys in the UK, but in America, it was pretty much non-existent. Once I saw that kid with the SegaScope 3-D Glasses, holding that Light Phaser, and I saw the games, I was really, very impressed. I saw Nintendo, and then I saw the Master System, and I felt like the Master System was, to me at least, like the Intellivision to the Atari. That’s how I felt.

Alongside this, in the mid-1980s, I started to go to arcades more. The atmosphere...it just made me super excited. I loved hearing the coins going in, all the background music, the noise, the sound effects - It was like euphoria. I saw so many arcade games that were mesmerising, but Hang-On, Space Harrier, Outrun, After Burner. The Super Scaler technology at the time, I didn't know what Super Scaler technology was, obviously, but that technology that Yu Suzuki used to develop those games, it really captivated me, took me to a different dimension…and I didn’t really see any of that, anything comparable on Nintendo’s platform.

The SegaScope 3-D Glasses convinced Alex that the Master System was king.
(Source: Rediscover the '80s)

So that’s what really got me into the Master System. The graphics were not as good, obviously, but it was Sega. And I remember asking the kids in school: “have you played the Master System?” and everyone’s like: “what’s that?!” I felt like the outcast kid and they weren't even interested! You know, I really loved Zelda on the Nintendo but Phantasy Star on the Master System, that was the jewel of the Master System to me. It blew me to a different galaxy, it was like the science fiction version of Zelda, and every night when I went to bed, I would re-read the instruction manual and I would be fascinated, engrossed. So yeah, I was engrossed by Sega, it was like euphoria and I remember just thinking at the time: I really, really like Sega.

I like the other systems too, but the Master System is the one that made me feel like I had to root for Sega because nobody had it, and in a way I sort of felt sorry for them as nobody really had it here - you could say I was starting to root for the underdog.

It seems to me that yeah, you were already rooting for Sega at that early point in your gaming career, if you can call it that. And it all started with the Master System so many years before the Dreamcast was even a twinkle in the eye.

Yeah, totally. It's different for you guys in United Kingdom and Europe because you were exposed to the Master System. My brother-in-law lives in the UK and he found it shocking that nobody had it here. And here's what's fascinating, Tom. If you ask most people here: “do you remember Sega’s first console?” I’ll guarantee you, they’ll go: “yeah, I remember the Genesis.” You will hear that from so many ‘casual’ gamers, that they think the Genesis - or the Mega Drive - was the first console from Sega. They didn’t even know the Master System existed. 

Once the Genesis came out, which ironically I found out later they wanted to also call the Mega Drive here in the US but couldn’t because of licensing issues, I remember telling every kid I could in high school, friends, anybody who would listen: “you’ve gotta buy this console!”

The famous 'Genesis does what Nintendon't' ad. (Source: SEGA Wiki)

I’m telling them Revenge of Shinobi looks amazing, Altered Beast looks amazing. I mean, this is before Sonic came out, right? So I was pushing the Genesis before Sonic even came out. I'm constantly going: “you’ve gotta get E-SWAT! You’ve gotta get Golden Axe! You’ve gotta get Phantasy Star 2!” I told so many kids to convince their parents go buy them the console, and then afterwards I remember going to those friends’ houses and they had gotten the Genesis and they loved it. I just felt good that I was introducing people to this system.

So that's how I felt because I wanted to share that love and passion to experience and talk games with kids and, you know, your early teen years. So that's how it came about, you know - my deep passion for gaming, and my love for Sega. I would say later on the PlayStation and the Saturn and the N64 took it to the next level, obviously, but growing up, those were the most special moments in my early and young teen years. Those were the experiences that had the most impact on me.

I mean, it sounds like from a very young age then, that you got the Sega bug and you were going to somehow end up - almost destined - to be involved in some way with this manufacturer, this organisation called Sega. If we skip forward a little bit, can you talk about how you got into the world of video games retail? How did that come about?

Well, I was working at a general retailer called Target, and I would always shop at Electronics Boutique. I moved to Las Vegas in 1993, and I just remember shopping there all the time. I bought my 3DO there, I bought my Atari Jaguar there - I bought pretty much all of my games there. One day, I went to the area manager, who was also the store manager of that location, and I said to him: “hey, I shop here. I’m a regular. I love games, I’m passionate about them and I would love to work here.” 

He looked at me and just said he didn’t have any positions available. But, he said, if you want I can bring you on as a seasonal. He told me the hours would be minimal, and once the Christmas period was over he’d probably have to let me go. But I didn’t have to think twice - I jumped at it. I got my foot in the door. 

Electronics Boutique was one of the biggest names in
games retail for most of the 90s and 2000s.

So I started working there at Electronics Boutique right before the Nintendo 64 came out, I was selling games and I loved the job. I loved everything about it. I talked to the customers about what games they were into, what they liked, finding out their needs because that’s what I liked. And so, I sold many extra controllers, extras like memory cards and so on. 

I remember one day the store manager said to me that I was blowing away his supervisors on sales, that I was blowing away his assistant manager! I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was a good promoter - I guess my enthusiasm just shone through, you know? It was just natural, this was my thing. So six months goes by and suddenly my store manager tells me he’s going to leave, and when he told me that I was super sad. I felt dejected, gutted. But he says: “look, you’ve shown me what you can do, what you’re capable of.” So right before he leaves, he tells me he’s going to promote me to a supervisor position, but it’s going to be at another store - the Galleria mall at Sunset in Henderson, a different suburb of Las Vegas.

The Galleria at Sunset as it existed in 1999.

I was happy that I’d been promoted, but I was also sad as I looked up to him. So I moved on to the Electronics Boutique at Sunset. One of the cool things I remember was that the developers from Westwood Studios, the guys who made Command & Conquer, they would come into the store. That was really cool - they were like gaming royalty and I didn’t realise it at the time but their studio was right by where we were. So anyway I worked my way up, I became assistant manager and then I became store manager. I remember my dad came to the store on time and he saw me there and he smiled, and I felt so proud. I won’t go into too much detail but my dad came to the United States from Europe after WWII and I looked up to him - he gave me the drive to succeed. But in August 1998 he passed away.

Two weeks later, it was the Electronics Boutique conference in Nashville, Tennessee, and I was 50-50 whether I was going to go. The company understood that I was grieving for my dad and they said I didn’t have to go, but I said: “no, I’m coming.” So the conference was in a massive ballroom with an evening dinner and speeches from people from the industry, and this was in September 1998. That’s when Bernie Stolar comes to our evening dinner at the ballroom. He’s on the stage at the front, and he shows us, all the managers and executives from Electronics Boutique, he shows us the brand new Sega Dreamcast.

Oh wow. Can you describe the setting in more detail and recall some memories of what that moment was like seeing the Dreamcast up there on the stage?

Sure. We were having an evening dinner, with between five hundred and a thousand people sat at tables, and there was a stage at the front of the room with huge movie screens behind. He was standing behind a podium and he was showing us the the Dreamcast, and the games were playing on the screens. I think it was almost the final version of the console at the time - I couldn’t see it very clearly because I was sitting on the conference floor at a table, but I think it was the almost finished version of the system. I was just blown away by the sheer spectacle of it all. I was super excited. It captivated me and I felt like in that moment, you know, my girlfriend is back - she's back! Sega’s back.

No doubt. It sounds awesome from your description! I’m guessing you were aware of the Dreamcast prior to seeing it up on that stage, though?

I was, I was. I was reading gaming magazines like we all were, right? Super analysing every pixel, every little detail, every screenshot, reading every word that got printed. But to see it at that time, pre-internet era, you know, how social media and everything is now, I felt special. I was behind the scenes, like, actual Bernie Stolar is showing me this thing, showing it to our entire company…I was like: “oh my God!” right? And without even thinking, everyone started clapping. But I stood up, clapping like a possessed person! I was the only one who stood up, and everyone is going: “go Alex!”

I turned around and nobody else was standing up, but everyone’s clapping - I stood out like a sore thumb! I remember Bernie literally looking at me and he’s probably thinking: “who the hell is this kid?!” and I’m just standing there clapping, but I didn’t care. You know, my dad had just passed away and I was a bit emotional, and I told the table: “this is mine.” They’re all like: “what do you mean, this is mine?” They still didn’t get it. I just thought of my dad, I saw Sega coming back, I saw Bernie Stolar with the Dreamcast. I just stood up, I wasn’t fearful, nothing was holding me back. This is mine, no-one’s stopping me. Destiny was calling, I think.

Bernie Stolar at GDC 1999. I imagine it would have been similar to this.

Even secondhand, the description gives me goosebumps because I feel like, if I’d have been in your position, I would have been exactly the same. Probably less composed and running up to Bernie Stolar to ask for an autograph perhaps, but that’s a reflection on me. Can you remember the first time you actually got hands on with the Dreamcast then?

They had some stuff at the conference, but it wasn’t too much. They were showing us mostly Japanese games if I recall. We saw Sonic Adventure, Pen Pen TriIcelon, July, Godzilla. I was hoping Godzilla would come to the US, actually. The Saturn was pretty much dead at that time, but Bernie saved the main thing for the presentation. We didn’t get to play all the games he was showing, but we got a little hands on, mainly with Sonic Adventure. Everyone was glued to Sonic Adventure. It was like Super Mario 64 but faster, it looked beautiful, like the old term ‘Sega blue skies’ had come back from Outrun.

Absolutely. So you saw the Dreamcast at the Electronics Boutique conference, and it was just mind blowing. What happened next? I mean, obviously that was quite a way before the actual launch of the system in the US. Sega was ramping up the hype machine, if you want to call it that. But how did you go from that point all the way up to your store being chosen as the flagship for the 9/9/99 launch? What’s the sequence of events there?

So, after the conference, I went back to the store. I was super pumped, excited. I had all this wind in my sails with excitement for what I’d seen. Truth be told, my store was filled with Nintendo 64 and PlayStation fans. I had one Sega guy, so the resistance was immense. They had been Genesis fans, but after the 32X, the Sega CD, the Saturn, everyone had a bad taste in their mouth for Sega…which I totally understood. But I still had that love for Sega. So I had to have a strategy, I had to get in their ear and think of a way to get them to sell the Dreamcast, even if they’re into PlayStation or Nintendo 64. 

Dreamcast launch night at Super Software. (Credit: SegaWeb)

So I used analogies. I knew they were into PlayStation, and so was I to be truthful - I think it’s a great product, so I agreed with them. But I asked them to do it for me. I would ask them: “you like Tekken, right?” and so I’m going: "well, Virtua Fighter 3 is like Tekken. And you like Namco right? Well, Soul Calibur is coming to the Dreamcast…and it’s even better than the arcade version.” So I used that kind of example to get my team to push the Dreamcast. And I thought, as long as I get momentum behind me, just a little bit of buy in I can exponentially grow this. Once we get going, with my love, passion, energy, they’re not holding me back. They’re just accelerating a bit - there’s nobody stopping us. But even still, I got a lot of rejection.

By rejection, do you mean when customers were coming to the point of sale? Were you trying to convince them to pre-order a Dreamcast, and they were pushing back?

Yes, yes. We had started pre-orders. This was you know, around a year before the US launch. We had just come back from the conference I mentioned in September 1998. So I got a lot of rejection. But I didn’t quit, I just felt like I had to keep trying to convince people to pre-order this console. And lo and behold, I learned from some of the rejections I got and I tweaked my approach a bit. One by one, I persuaded them. I was opening magazines and used the early magazine articles to show customers the graphics, showed them the new Sonic game, the football game, all these new games. I was saying: “trust me. You’ve gotta get this. It’s amazing. You will not be disappointed.”

I had to convince people that Sega was back. This isn’t the Saturn, this isn’t the 32X, this is not the Sega CD. So that’s the approach I took. So a few months go by, and then the Dreamcast comes out in Japan, so here’s what I did. Dreamcast came out in November of '98, and I remember I went to Michigan to see family. One of my family friends had a video game store, like a little mom and pop shop, and I asked if he could get me a Dreamcast. This wasn’t like now where you just click a button, you buy it. He says yeah, he can get one and I say I’ll pay whatever it costs. So I managed to get a Japanese Dreamcast imported in January of '99, and I asked my district manager: “would it be OK if I brought my Dreamcast into the store, to show off the games and help pre-orders?”

An award presented to Alex and his team for
the highest sales day in EB history on 9/9/99.

At that time, we had some pre-orders, but it wasn’t at the level I wanted. My district manager was cautious because you weren’t really supposed to do that, it wasn’t something passed down from corporate. Electronics Boutique wasn’t a mom and pop store, it was a huge operation, there were guidelines and stuff like that, but back then it was a little bit more liberal in some ways. So she was like: “yeah, that’s fine.” I took it and ran with it, took the Dreamcast to the store, set it up, set the controllers up, let people play it. And people were amazed by it, and I go: “you should pre-order this thing, let me get you in.”

I think that's a stroke of genius, to be honest. Getting the actual system in before launch, so people can see it with their own eyes rather than have to look in a magazine or just go off word of mouth. You were inviting them to actually see the thing physically in the store. It’s gold dust when it comes to getting the customers to appreciate what you’re selling them on, from a marketing standpoint.

Absolutely. Getting that system in and selling it with the visual while it’s live. It was perfect. I had to think outside the box. I was doing OK with pre-orders up until that point, but it was nowhere near how much I accelerated after I got that Japanese unit in to showcase the graphics, the games. It literally was a game changing decision.

Was Sega giving you targets to hit for pre-orders at that point?

No, nothing. This was just me, my initiative - I’m throwing a dart and I don’t know where it’s landing. I’m just going to do it.

So what happened next with the pre-orders and the build up to the approaching US launch of the Dreamcast?

So, in May of 1999 I went to my second conference. We used to have two a year, and this next one was in Phoenix, Arizona. At that point I was between 300 and 400 pre-orders. And that’s when I realised I had achieved something special.

Electronics Boutique was also pushing the Dreamcast pre-orders hard in the gaming press at the time.

Did they announce some kind of leaderboard of who had the most pre-orders? How did you know you were basically head and shoulders above everybody else in the company?

My district manager told me. There were rumblings. I was hearing some things from other regular managers, like: “dude, I heard from my regional manager…your numbers are off the charts!” I’m like: “really?!” because, as far as I’m concerned I’m just doing whatever, right? I’m competitive, but I’m happy go lucky. Whoever my opponent is, good luck to them, right? 

But I heard the rumours and then my regional vice president says to me: “Alex, look, I don’t know if you’ve heard but your pre-order numbers are through the roof. We're going to have you sit down with Sega’s corporate executive team and we’re going to discuss some things. I think you’re going to be very happy.”

So anyway, Mr Firestone, our president, he goes: “Alex, your enthusiasm is amazing. I need you to get the company on board. Whatever you’re doing, they’re not doing that. I want them to take your best practises. I want you to talk to everybody.”

It was one thing to talk to and excite customers, but to get in front of tons of people and try to train them on how to get customers on board and pre-order a Dreamcast? Let’s just say I was nervous! So I get up and do this speech in front of all these people at the conference, I’m finding ways to motivate people and I could see the energy in the room start to shift. I explained how to get buy in from members of staff to back them up, show magazines to customers. I basically had to wing this speech that I had no time to prepare for. It went well though, Mr Firestone (the president of Electronics Boutique, I loved that guy, I used to call him JJ), he thanked me and then Bernie Stolar comes in afterwards.

Berine Stolar delivering a keynote at E3 1999.

Bernie goes: “were you the guy standing?” I didn’t know what he was talking about, but he goes: “there was one guy standing, clapping. At the last conference. That was you, wasn’t it?” I agreed that it was me, and he says: “I don’t remember your face, but I remember that moment because you’re the one who stood up.” It was sort of embarrassing, but it was endearing. Then Bernie goes: “Look, I’ll be honest with you. You weren’t even on our radar, but I’m impressed with your sales ability, your enthusiasm, how you delivered. I’m really impressed with your determination. You’re going to be our national launch store.” I got goosebumps, because I felt my dad. I spoke with Bernie privately afterwards and told him about my dad and I developed a bit of a bond with him.

Later on Bernie said to me that after the launch of the Dreamcast, he wanted me to go and work for him at Sega in San Francisco. I didn’t really tell anyone, just close friends, family and my mom. It was a dream of mine. But then in August Bernie got fired and I never ended up working for Sega. Obviously Peter Moore came in and everything changed - I couldn’t just call up Sega and say: “hey, Bernie offered me to come work for Sega,” you know? I didn’t have numbers, no way to contact them, but I wouldn’t have done that anyway. It was just a private conversation, and working for Sega never happened, but it’s nice to have a connection to it. I was happy to have been recognised by Bernie and that he saw potential in me.

That’s a true sliding doors moment. I imagine if Bernie had continued at Sega then he would have made good with his offer. Thanks for sharing that. So, you’re told that your Electronics Boutique store is going to be the flagship launch location by the head of Sega of America…what happened next? I’d imagine a lot of preparation for the big day on 9/9/99?

Yeah, for the preparation I had to coordinate. Because we were in a mall location, that would affect the mall itself as well. Luckily, I personally knew the mall operations manager and that helped a lot because it gave me a little leeway and he kinda turned a blind eye to some things. He actually helped support me with some things that I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. For example, we had to close off the entire food court to use it for Dreamcast promotion, and if I hadn’t know him, there would have been no way. Knowing him helped, he helped with logistics. 

I reached out to the local casino companies, the concierges to help with little things like advertising the event to tourists, their high rollers or whatever, to come and attend the launch event. I also had to leverage the Electronics Boutique call centre which was located in Las Vegas. I had like 5 or 6 employees, which wasn’t going to be enough to handle the tsunami of people we were expecting, no way in hell. We had three other stores in town, but they had their own employees to handle their 50, 75 pre-orders, but they still needed their own staff - I couldn’t take away their employees and shut down their stores as they had to run their businesses too. So I leveraged the call centre employees and they helped tremendously.

The actual flyer from the build up to the Dreamcast launch
at Sunset Galleria on 9/9/99.

We got good at setting things up. We did marketing campaigns with Sega were we had a little flyer which showed Ready 2 Rumble, Power Stone and Soul Calibur and we had them all over the food court tables for a month leading up to launch. I went into all the stores in the mall, they were probably so annoyed, I was asking if they had any gamers, anyone who likes video games, telling them they’ve got to pre-order a console. They were looking at me like ‘who the hell are you?! Get out!’

So I went into overdrive, flyers out everywhere. We had these little cardboard teepees we put everywhere, I had customers that had never shopped with us coming up and asking: “what? Is Sega coming back?” They used to have a Genesis, they didn’t even know about the Saturn.

The upper level floorplan of the Galleria mall. The red circles show
the locations of Alex's Electronics Boutique store and the food court.

That’s so cool that you were reintroducing people to Sega. For the record I had a Saturn, but I digress. So, how much freedom did you have with the promotional campaign? Was Sega heavily involved or was it all just left to you?

It was a little bit of all of us, really. Sega helped support us with promotional items. They sent us boxes for games, console boxes which I used to set up displays. The ‘It’s Thinking’ banner, which I still have. They sent the Dreamcast kiosks, one of which I still have. A bunch of promotional shirts and all the usual stuff.

Yes, you kindly shared some photos with us of the promotional items Sega provided, very cool memorabilia. One thing I have to ask at this point though, is about one of those persistent urban legends that continually swirls around the internet, and it does come up every now and then. The thing I'm talking about is the fabled blue Electronics Boutique Dreamcast console that was allegedly only given to store managers. Now, from your laughter, I'm guessing there's no truth in it, but are you familiar with this internet rumour? If so, what do you think about it?

Yes, I’ve heard of it and I'm not gonna say 100% no, as James Bond would say, never say never right? But I’ll say this. If it did exist, I would be extremely disappointed. If Sega, and Electronics Boutique didn't let the man know who put their company on their back and tried to save them…if they didn’t give me one…I don’t know. So I guess it's possible…I’m not going to say it doesn't exist, but I've never seen it.

Debunked. Once and for all. Maybe...?

So that puts that particular urban legend to bed I guess! So, it gets to launch night and if I’m not mistaken you open the store at midnight, well, 00:01 on 9/9/99 and that’s when people can actually physically come in and start collecting their pre-orders or buying systems, games, peripherals?

Yes, that’s right. It was chaos. Fun chaos. But I’d do it again. I had some friends there and we were giving out the 9/9/99 shirts, and they were folding them and hanging them upside down so it said ‘666.’ They were rallying with the customers and I’m looking out the window seeing ‘666.’ My employees were laughing, I’m stressed! But I wasn’t running the register, you gotta be the general right? We had so many Dreamcast units in there. We had the fighting game tournament, people playing, yelling, screaming, excitement. It felt like a massive arcade. We had those black and orange Dreamcast kiosks for people to play on, they still look cool to this day. They’re like the Honda S2000 of kiosks - it’s old but it’s a timeless design, it still looks beautiful.

One of the actual Dreamcast kiosks from the launch night,
now owned by Alex.

But yeah, it was loud, rambunctious, rowdy. There was food everywhere, everyone was having a good time. And right before the store doors open at midnight, it was almost like those crazy Black Friday sales where you see the videos. I thought somebody was going to get trampled, there was this huge rush. As soon as the doors opened, these people were being pressured, like funnelled in. Finally it died down, and we had to get security in. Eventually it was more relaxed, but it was chaotic.

I’ve seen the images from the launch night. There’s one in issue 59 of Next Gen magazine, November 1999. There’s this sort of aerial shot of the inside of the store. It looks like an amazing snapshot of the event.

I wish there were more shots of it, to be honest. Here’s something interesting. I ran out of space for Dreamcasts in the back, in our store room. The back room at the Galleria store was maybe five times bigger than the back room at the Meadows Mall store where I started out, but even with that back room, I had no room. 

If you look at that picture, if you look at the ceiling there’s a sea of Dreamcasts. Above all the kids, above the top shelves. I had tons and tons of Dreamcasts on the shop floor, all around the entire store, because I no more room in the back! You couldn’t even walk back there, so I had to take all the Dreamcasts and put them all around the four corners and four walls up above, multiple deep. They were so heavy, sometimes it looked like the shelves were gonna fall off!

Note the Dreamcast boxes around the top of the shelves,
and Ken in the hat front and centre.

I can totally see what you mean from the image, there are Dreamcast boxes going all the way up to the ceiling above the shelves full of games. Are you in the photo?

I’m not, no. My first customer is in there though. His name was Ken, and you can see the back of his head. He’s wearing a baseball cap. He was my first customer. He came to the store at 10 in the morning on the 8th of September.

In that particular feature for Next Gen magazine, you also touched on a story which you spoke about on The Retro Hour interview, and that was the whole issue with the faulty Sonic Adventure discs. Can you go into a little bit about that?

Oh man. Yeah. So my last customer left the store at around 6:15 am, when the sun came up, which is insane. I think it was around 7:30 am, we’re finishing up tallying up the numbers from the sales, and my employees are like: “Alex, you’ve gotta go home.” I refused to go as I wanted to be like the captain going down with the ship or whatever, but they insisted that I go home to get some sleep. Just to rest and then come back in the afternoon. So finally I agree and I leave and go home.

My drive home was about 25 minutes, so within about 45 minutes of leaving the store I’m back at home. And I get a call from the store: “Alex, we have problems.” I’m like: “what are you talking about, dude?” My employee on the phone was saying that right after I left, the store started getting a lot of calls from customers saying their copies of Sonic Adventure weren’t working. My employee said there were a lot of pissed off customers, and I was thinking: we’ve just had this massive launch, how is this happening? Is it a nightmare or something? So I had to drive back, super stressed, tired. I didn’t want to be there, but I had to be, and my poor employees - they’re having to deal with this too. I got to the store and there were over a hundred people in there. I don’t remember the exact number but there were over a hundred. Some stores didn’t even have a hundred people for their midnight launch, but I’ve got more than that with returns.

The Sonic Adventure issue was featured in magazines of the time.
(Source: Next Gen magazine, November 1999)

They weren’t just copies of Sonic Adventure, either. It was Midway games too. I had to summon some kind of magical force out of myself to sort this. I thought of my dad again because he was a kind person, I thought about what other people are thinking, put myself in their shoes. They were at the midnight launch, they’re frustrated, tired, they were just coming for a good time. I’d be upset too, if I were in their situation, right? So I go: “I’m sorry everyone, sorry you’re going through this.” 

So we set up maybe four or five Dreamcasts in the back, we got them out of their boxes brand new. Set them up with TVs and we went through each game return and we were opening copies of new games, every single one to see if they worked before issuing it to the customer. And every game I’m opening, I’m just seeing $50 going down the tubes. Finally, I got through it all. I didn’t want to be there, my poor employees are out on the floor getting stressed, I’m in the back stressed. But one by one, methodically, we’re getting customers their working copies of the games and they’re going home. The team rose to the challenge though, and somehow I didn’t collapse! I worked 55 hours straight, I was pretty much like a zombie. So yeah, that was just a fiasco that we controlled to the best of our ability. It turned out that there were numerous batches of Dreamcast games that had this pressing error, and that’s what caused it.

What a crazy story. But as you say, you and your team rose to the challenge. That would have been something of a PR nightmare these days with social media. It was reported in the gaming press at the time…but I imagine the work of teams like yours on the front line managed to do a lot of damage limitation. So after all that, how did the Dreamcast fare in the weeks following the launch?

For my store personally, we sold so many Dreamcasts. Sales were strong for a while after the launch. That initial hurrah was massive, but I think we sold beyond steady. I would say for around a year sales were very strong. Up until the PlayStation 2 came out we were doing exceptionally, the best sales across the whole of Electronics Boutique’s stores. 

A poignant scene showing unplugged Dreamcast kiosks at
Software Etc., San Jose on the night of the PS2 launch (Source: IGN)

But once the PlayStation 2 came out, I remember it was October 26th of 2000. Sony sold out of consoles, I remember there were shortages. And even though we were still selling Dreamcasts in our store, I noticed in other stores that people were not buying the Dreamcast when the PlayStation 2 was sold out, which I was hoping would be these case. Customers were waiting for more PS2 stock rather than buy a Dreamcast. That’s when I thought: “uh-oh.” And I think that was really the beginning of the end for the Dreamcast.

Do you have any memories of the very late stages of the Dreamcast as a contemporary system and how it felt, to be a massive fan and to have literally launched the thing, only to see it come to its premature end?

Yeah. I felt like I got stabbed in the heart. I couldn’t understand what happened, how could this happen? I put my heart and soul into this thing. It really hurt me. Still, to this day it pains me that this console deserved to succeed, but didn’t. The frustrating thing, is that Sega did everything right. Learned from their mistakes by making the console easy to develop for, it had the greatest launch line-up, amazing games for everybody in every genre. 

PS2 launch night at Software Etc., San Jose (Source: IGN)

For it to fail because of the PlayStation 2 and the people who drank the Kool-Aid or swallowed the pill. But that’s the power of marketing. It’s frustrating, but Sony played it well. I think once the Dreamcast left, it hurt me because the passion I had, part of my soul just died.

Powerful stuff, and I’m sure many people reading this feel the same way. One last question I suppose. Can you remember the last time you actually sold a Dreamcast at your store?

Yes I can. I bought it. I bought a brand new one in either 2002 or 2003. We were still getting the consoles because we did so well even after Sega stopped manufacturing them and because other stores had them sitting. So they would transfer them to us because we were like the last garage sale, I guess you could say. Send it to Alex’s store. 

So yeah, the last console, I was at the store and I bought it. It was 100% brand new, but it was marked as pre-owned just to get it out of the system. And it’s still brand new and sealed to this day. I never opened that one and I kept it brand new, sealed mint condition in the box, stored away as a beautiful, loving, painful reminder.

It’s an incredible story, Alex. One that needs to be recorded as part of the history of the Dreamcast. The passion, the love, the chaos! So tell me, what are you doing now? Are you still involved in the gaming industry?

Yes, I run an online eBay video game collectibles shop under Ultimate Gamers Vault. I mainly deal in rare gaming artefacts I’ve preserved working in the industry, things most collectors probably thought were lost to history - stuff spanning from the 1980s to the present. I also have an Ultimate Gamers Vault Instagram page in parallel where I share images of some of my rare items (including a lot of Dreamcast merchandise), and I’d love to connect with fellow gamers there.

***

So there we have it. Straight from the horse's mouth. Not that I'm referring to Alex as a horse...but you get the idea. What an amazing insight into the chaos of launch night for the Dreamcast, from the man who was at the epicentre of it all.

If you'd like to see more from Alex, check out his Instagram and also have a look at some of his super-rare merch on eBay. Once again, thanks go to Alex for taking the time out of his day to speak to me, to Jordan Freeman for putting us in touch, and to The Retro Hour for actually alerting me to Alex's story. Please go and subscribe to their podcast because it really is one of the best out there if you're a fan of retro gaming.

Let us know if you read the entire thing, your thoughts, if you were one of those people at Sunset Galleria that night so many years ago, in the comments.

Related interviews:

If you enjoyed this trip down Dreamcast memory lane, you might also enjoy the following interviews here at the Junkyard: 

• Bernie Stolar (needs no introduction)
• Peter Moore (likewise)
• Brian Bacino (creator of the 'It's Thinking' US Dreamcast campaign)
• Giles Thomas (Head of Marketing at Sega Europe)

Oh, and for the record, I bought my very first Dreamcast from the Electronics Boutique located inside Manchester's Debenhams store about two weeks after launch. Serendipity? You decide!