Showing posts with label Dreamcast Trademark. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dreamcast Trademark. Show all posts

Previously unseen prototype Dreamcast logo discovered

We do love a bit of internet archaeology here at the Junkyard, and this little snippet of news has 'digital Lara Croft' written all over it. Reddit user u/LeFaggo recently posted the image above to the r/Dreamcast thread, along with a link to the original source - the Japanese Patent Office.

Could this be a hitherto unknown prototype of the Dreamcast swirl we all know and love? The discussion in the thread points out that this mysterious trademark was actually filed after the familiar Dreamcast swirl that made its way onto the final console design; but it is also noted that sometimes trademarks are filed weeks or months after their creation just to keep them in the system, so to speak.

Either way, it is an interesting glimpse at what could have been. Rather surprisingly, this image doesn't appear anywhere in the excellent Sega Dreamcast: Collected Works by Read-Only Memories. Surprising because the authors had full access to Sega's own internal archive; and the book features many concept images for the Dreamcast's shell design. Perhaps this prototype trademark was filed way back in 1998 and simply forgotten about, hidden in plain sight for over 20 years.

Thanks go to Rich from Dreamcast Years, who then alerted my my colleague Andrew Dickinson to this, who in turn WhatsApped me while I was trying to light a bonfire. Oh, and thanks of course to the ever alert r/Dreamcast community for another excellent and intriguing discovery.

Back and forth! The New Dreamcast trademark! What does it all mean? Nothing?!!?!?!

From: GameDaily

"SEGA has no plans to get back into the hardware business, but we also want to protect our past and current brands. The trademark application was filed to protect our current and potential future use of the word DREAMCAST and to prevent other parties from using it in a way that could be confused or linked with SEGA," Sega of America PR Director Charlie Scibetta.

Hmm. Well I have personally seen a bunch variations of "Dream Gear" plug and play games on the market in the past and recently that look a hell of a lot like Dreamcast controllers. So I guess protecting the good Sega Hardware name makes sense.

And I suppose if Sega is going to release more Dreamcast titles on the current gen consoles via digital distribution it might spark another round of CYA (cover your assets). It might be cool to have "Dreamcast Brand" digital downloadable games.

...if I had a newer console anyways.

I feel bad that I will not be able to own a Dreamcast 2. Ah well, my North America Dreamcast game collection is not complete yet. And maybe one day I will be able to download some games on another console.