Rare Dreamcast Premiere Posters Surface On eBay

The UK launch party for the Dreamcast is the stuff of legend. I've heard many a recounted tale of booze and debauchery from industry types who were lucky enough to be invited, in some cases (rather interestingly) by means of a VMU with a 'golden ticket' attached:

Look who it is!

The event took place during the annual European Computer Trade Show (ECTS) in September 1999, where a private party was held at the Empire Theatre in Leicester Square, London. The thing that makes this private launch party so interesting is that a lot of fairly (now) extremely rare merchandise was handed out to revellers. How rare? How about 'I bet you've never, ever seen these' rare? Here you go:

A Tribute To Pen Pen - The Dreamcast's Forgotten Launch Title

Pen Pen TriIcelon is a divisive game if ever there was one. The blend of colourful graphics, quirky controls and sickly sweet character designs is something of an acquired taste...but if you're anything like me, it's this weirdness that actually makes it all the more endearing. Pen Pen was actually one of the first games I played on the Dreamcast back in 1999; I have vivid memories of renting it from Blockbuster, and also of my brother loudly enquiring "what's this shit?" as he swaggered into the room with ridiculous bleach-blond Nick Carter hair, while I sat there frantically bashing (heh) the A button to make my penguin-esque mutant swim faster through the acid-trip water of a post-apocalyptic candy-land nightmare. Sorry, slipped into a Galadriel-type daydream/monologue there.

Just an average Saturday night in the Pen Pen house

In case you can't tell, I quite like Pen Pen (although the shockingly offensive design of Unga Pogo, the Jungle boss does sour the experience mildly) and going back to it with 2015-flavoured eyes hasn't really taken the polish off the visuals or the highly surreal content; indeed, I'm happy to admit that I own both PAL and NTSC versions of the game. It seems that popular YouTube conduit Sega Channel agree with me, as they've followed their brilliant Dreamcast Kiosk reveal with another DC-centric video...and here it is for your delectation:

There are some really interesting points in the video (I didn't know that Pen Pen developer General Entertainment was also responsible for the Sonic animated movie, for example), and it's an interesting and humorous look at a game that is largely overlooked whenever anyone mentions the Dreamcast's launch lineup. Sure, there was Ready 2 Rumble, Sega Rally and Sonic Adventure...but did any of those games let you put a top hat on a mutated shark-penguin? The answer my friends, is no.

As ever, be sure to check out Sega Channel's other Sega-related videos on YouTube.

Why Don't We Play Together?

The American Dreamcast launch has gained something of a mythical status in this zeitgeist period of celebratory retro-overindulgence. The whole 9.9.99 campaign was a major success as far as console launches went up until that point, and the advertising slogan (It's Thinking) was a fairly interesting tagline that implied that the system was so advanced that it could become self aware at any moment, unhook itself from the TV and bludgeon you to death with an iron while you slept soundly in your cosy warm bed. Happily, reports of this type of occurence were swept under the rug by Sega of America's black ops dept and so life just went on as normal for the vast majority of us. The UK release of the Dreamcast was intended for the first half of September 1999, but due to British Telecom's testing of the Dreamcast network running over deadline, the system didn't launch until October. That's not really relevant here though - what I want to look at in this post is the marketing stategy Sega Europe employed in place of the mighty 'It's Thinking' campaign waged by their US colleagues. The story behind the Dreamcast's various UK and EU advertising campaigns is a muddled one, and involves a plethora of different agencies fighting for a slice of Sega's reported £60m marketing war chest.

This man will happily eat your soul. With Cianti.