These AI-generated Dreamcast posters are comedy gold

Not too long ago, our friends over at Time Extension looked at the spate of AI-generated 'historic' posters for games and consoles of yesteryear - essentially nostalgia soaked, but totally fake pseudo period-correct gaming advertisements which never actually existed during the epoch they're meant to have come from. It sounds weird, and that's because it is. 

As mentioned in Time Extension's article, it seems that many people have been duped by these images, and have been left lamenting, nay pining, for the sunlit uplands of a late 90s or early 2000s that never really happened. I believe the term 'hauntology' could fit in somewhere here, but I may be barking entirely up the wrong tree.

Were you fooled...? (Credit: Time Extension)

Anyway, while perusing eBay recently, I started to see Dreamcast-flavoured variations of these 'authentic' 1990s advertisements and magazine covers pop up for sale, and I thought it would be fun to take a quick look at some of them, point out their errors and laugh at the utter slurry the model that shat them out thinks Dreamcast screenshots look like.

Exhibit A

Click to embiggen (if you dare).

First up we have this specimen. A dashing hunk of a bloke in a Dreamcast-branded leather jacket thrusts forth a Dreamcast controller with the familiar swagger and confidence of a late '90s Sega. The poster, described as 'Dreamcast 9.9.99 US Launch Retro Gaming Console A3 Artwork Poster Art Print' proudly boasts that the Dreamcast is the ultimate gaming system; and that the next generation has begun. Not much wrong there, to be honest. But look closer. What's going on with that keyboard in the bottom left? I don't recall any variant of the Dreamcast keyboard coming with its own plinth. Also, what's up with that SegaNet logo?

Free display stand with every keyboard!

The latest Genesis album was poorly received.

We already know this is a fake poster which never existed in 1999, but the dead giveaway (apart from the hallucinations already described, and the spurious taglines) is the game 'screens.' The Shenmue one appears to feature a Temu Ryo Hazuki flanked by a melting waxwork, Sonic is tripping over his own feet, NFL 2K features matches between three different teams, and Crazy Taxi seems to be a game more about buying a used sedan than making crazy money. Elsewhere, the hardware looks fairly accurate on first glance, but on closer inspection the console has two 'B' ports, a built-in high heel and the 'Compatible with Microsoft Windows CE' logo is reduced to a blurred line; while the controller has three 'B' buttons and the D-pad has divots that don't exist on actual hardware.

Exhibit B

Click to embiggen.

This one is advertised as 'Dreamcast Japan 1998 Launch Retro Console Japanese A3 Artwork Poster Art Print,' and is similar to the previous example in that it purports to be a contemporary advertisement for the impending launch of the Dreamcast, albeit this time in its native Japan. If you just glance at it, it looks fairly authentic and could quite easily be the sort of thing you might have seen slapped up in the window of a shop in Akihabara in the weeks and months leading up to November 1998. But it's when you start to scrutinise it, that the slop mask falls. This time, the Dreamcast console features not two but four 'B' controller ports, while the 'Designed for Windows CE' marking is reduced to an illegible smear. The plastic continuation of the LED lens on the disc lid is solid gray and not the variant-correct NTSC-J clear plastic lozenge. The controller also has three 'B' buttons, the Start button has something engraved on it, and the familiar divots appear on the D-pad.

"Kill...me..."

The Muskehounds were always ready.

I used Google Translate's camera function to check what the Japanese text says, and it's all fairly standard stuff, so no real issues there, but that VMU in the bottom left is beyond funky, and the SegaNet stuff in the middle is just plain wrong - the Japanese service was Dricas. But let's have a gander at those 'screenshots.' Oh boy. First up, Sonic (sorry, 'Soniic') Adventure features a version of the titular hedgehog whose body has succumbed to the forces of non-euclidean geometry and collapsed in on itself, transforming our favourite blue rodent into something that looks like it crawled out of Seth Brundle's teleporter.

Next, Virtua Fighter 3tb's Akira has grown an extra finger (useful for all those 'B' buttons on the controller). Shenmue's Temu Ryo Hazuki returns, and is once again joined by an unfortunate soul who has become one with the very fabric of reality; and Ulala looks like she's just got off the night bus after a particularly heavy session on the tequila. The real star of the show here though, is Power Stone. I'm guessing what used to be Falcon/Fokker has transmogrified into an armless Ghibli character being chased by the bastard offspring of Dogtanian, all three Muskehounds and Garfield. I mean, I wouldn't mind playing that version of Power Stone, truth be told.

Exhibit C

Embiggeny-click!

Not really sure where to even start with this one. It's different from the other two as it purports to be a reproduction of the cover of a contemporary Dreamcast-centric magazine titled 'DC Zone' and is advertised as 'Sega Dreamcast 1999 Retro Gaming Magazine Cover A3 Poster Classic Games Art,' and once again it looks quite authentic if you only look at it for about three seconds. Through a telescope. During a blizzard. But the devil is in the detail, and that's what AI always fucks up. So, the first thing is that the magazine cover states that it's issue 17, from September 1999. That means that issue 1 of DC Zone would have launched in April 1998 - seven months before the Dreamcast launched in Japan. That's keen. The orange swirl points to it being an NTSC-centric publication, but the lead price is £2.50 sterling, and if you want to get really nit-picky, £2.50 was actually $4.05 in September 1999, not $4.95...but historically accurate exchange rates are the least of the problems here.

I can't wait to play Academy of Champions.

The Dreamcast hardware featured in the centre of the image seems quite faithful, apart from the weird shoulder buttons on the controller, but otherwise there's just so much wrong with this. Games that weren't even released at the supposed time of this faux magazine are apparently reviewed inside, with Daytona USA 2001, Illbleed and Skies of Arcadia achieving not only great scores and nonsensical imagery, but also the power of time travel. Temu Ryo Hazuki is back, this time sporting Robbie Rotten's arse-chin, while Jet Grind Radio's Beat has had an unfortunate accident with a tin opener. Oh, and Virtua Fighter has apparently totally skipped the third installment of the franchise and gone straight to Virtua Fighter 4. There's just so much to see, that it just gets better (worse) the longer you gaze upon it. I think the best bit though, is the promised review of Academy of Champions - a Dreamcast launch title that apparently garnered a review score of 87%, but also has the added characteristic of having never existed on this plane of reality. There's more to see, but I'll let you discover the rest of the cock-ups for yourself.

There's a joke here about Jensen Huang, leather jackets and DLSS 5.

Beat has five kids to feed. 

There are plenty more of these laughable retro-inspired posters on eBay and elsewhere, and I'm not singling any one seller out...but we now live in an era where nostalgia is easily harnessed to rage bait scam people out of a their hard earned cash. The moral of the story is to look twice before parting with cash for stuff like this...but if you can get a laugh out of these products along the way, then it's all good.

Have you been on eBay/Etsy et al and actually bought any of this guff? Admit it in the comments below!