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[VGEsoterica]

Yes we all know...Dreamcast 2 never existed, but considering Dreamcast and NAOMI were in the same family and all the ports we got from NAOMI to Dreamcast were pretty legit (not you Sega Rally 2...go sit down)...its easy to say that NAOMI really was at home as Dreamcast.

But Sega had NAOMI 2 as well, an expanded spec from NAOMI proper and Dreamcast, which was fully backwards compatible with original NAOMI games whether they came on ROM carts or GD-Rom discs...which clearly wasn't just Sega trying to save arcade operators money by selling less motherboards. Why else would Sega make sure their arcade hardware was backwards compatible....unless there was some intent for a Dreamcast 2 that had similar power levels to NAOMI 2...say around 2004/2005 or so.

It's still impressive to this day that you can plug basically anything into a NAOMI 2 and it will run the game; NAOMI 2 stuff, OG NAOMI games, Atomiswave games...you name it, it plays is.

Because NAOMI 2 could 100% stand toe to toe with PS2 and considering it had support through 2006 the library of games it could have had would have been relatively deep of a roster to bring home; Virtua Fighter 4, Virtua Striker, Wild Riders, The King of Route 66, Soul Surfer, Initial D...all great potential launch games. Throw in the NAOMI library that hadn't yet gotten a home port and maybe a few Atomiswave games...and you have a hell of a collection of games...all while maintaining perfect backwards compatibility to your already existing Dreamcast line up

Add in the fact that Sega devs for the home console space knew how to program easily for their own hardware...and you have a road map to another Dreamcast era console.

I mean look at Wild Riders...its pure Sega. It's like Jet Grind Radio (or Jet Set Radio to the rest of the world outside of the US) and Crazy Taxi had a baby and its name was "Wild Riders'. Amazing graphics, awesome gameplay...just pure Sega goodness. Id have def bought a Dreamcast 2 for it!

But GAF...what do you think? Am I just crazy thinking Sega had plans for a successor console to Dreamcast and its NAOMI 2?

 

[Kindjal]

I love your videos, man!
I always learn about some arcade game that eluded me during its golden age.
Keep them coming!

 

[64bitmodels]

looks like Jet Set but with motorcycles. not very representative of the original cool riders and i kinda perfer how that one looked, all the scaling was so cool

 

[VGEsoterica]

looks like Jet Set but with motorcycles. not very representative of the original cool riders and i kinda perfer how that one looked, all the scaling was so cool

outside of the Cool Riders / Wild Riders name connection I have never really viewed them as the same series myself

 

[acm2000]

was never a fan of this game personally

 

[VGEsoterica]

was never a fan of this game personally

Interesting. I’d be curious as to why?

 

[acm2000]

Interesting. I’d be curious as to why?

tbh, i think its an age thing, by this point in time i was 20 years old and moving on from arcade games as i wanted more depth to my gaming experiences and maybe coincidentally, had also totally gone off Japanese games as a whole

 

[Tarin02543]

thanks for the post.

 

[Alexios]

Your video is for some reason full speed yet ~half framerate (like some of your other Naomi videos like DOA2 & Project Justice), you may need to disable/change vsync/freesync depending on your system for some RetroArch cores, unless you have a different issue here. This is full 60fps Wild Riders:


Naomi 2 games don't appear far enough beyond Naomi & Dreamcast because it mostly pushes more polygons, not that much higher res textures or many new effects. It's absurd to claim it's Dreamcast 2 so soon after Dreamcast and upgraded so little. It's just a new beefed up arcade board just as Namco were enhancing their PlayStation derived boards until they could no longer port games like Soulcalibur to the console but they weren't anywhere near next gen systems like Dreamcast (Idk if they also upgraded their PS2 based boards but probably). Or basically just like Sega's own Model 3 Step # improvements, each with more grunt but still not Model 4. The best looking games on it that resemble Naomi or Dreamcast the least (but still not in some jaw dropping way like Model 3 vs Saturn, it's clearly similar tech with less restrictions) are probably Virtua Fighter 4, Initial D and Virtua Striker 3 and they're nowhere near next gen enough even if they'd be impossible to port without big downgrades (like VF4 on PS2 halved the polygons bringing it down to DOA2 levels with great results). The visuals in Wild Riders are busy but assets are low poly and there's next to no lighting, though it's certainly very charming & stylish. Gameplay wise it's even simpler and is one of the many arcade games that weren't brought home with good reason (regardless of the system specs) as it doesn't have nearly as much depth as fighting games, other racing games, or Crazy Taxi etc.

 

[Killer8]

Under-rated game with an excellent OST.

 

[RAIDEN1]

I thought the original Xbox was the Dreamcast 2 in all but name?

 

[Quasicat]

I read an interview in an old SEGA Visions magazine that spoke with the Saturn hardware manager about releasing new consoles. The interview coincided with the summer release of the Saturn. He said that the hardware team got a few weeks off to relax and then it was right back to work, researching the next generation.
I hope that someday information comes out talking about what SEGA had planned next. I imagine that they were deep into planning their next console when the whole department was let go in 2001.

 

[VGEsoterica]

I read an interview in an old SEGA Visions magazine that spoke with the Saturn hardware manager about releasing new consoles. The interview coincided with the summer release of the Saturn. He said that the hardware team got a few weeks off to relax and then it was right back to work, researching the next generation.
I hope that someday information comes out talking about what SEGA had planned next. I imagine that they were deep into planning their next console when the whole department was let go in 2001.

Oh I’m sure they were. Planning basically starts the minute the current console design is locked in