Sega to license Dreamcast out?

[eduardo]

Some very interesting plans may be in the works at Sega. Including Dreamcast 2. The Asian Wall Street Journal is reporting that Sega is in talks to license Dreamcast technology to other companies. Also, Sega is negotiating with various semiconductor companies to to form a joint venture that would build an advanced chip to power the next incarnation of the Dreamcast, as well as other devices. The JV could open as soon as October of this year.

"The future game box will be an all-in-one, set-top box," Sega Vice Chairman Shoichiro Irimajiri said in a telephone interview. "In that case, Sega's role is one part of many functions, so we cannot do it alone. We need very good alliances or a joint venture."

Apparently, Sega is already talking to potential licensees, including automobile companies, hardware makers, and satellite-television and cable-TV providers. These talks have been confirmed by Mr. Irimajiri.

The AWSJ reports that Mr. Irimajiri traveled last week to the U.S. and this week to Europe, to meet with up to 15 companies to discuss Sega's plan. He emphasized that the discussions are preliminary and he declined to identify the companies involved. "Everything is still unclear," he said. It looks like Sega is approaching NEC Corp., Hitachi Ltd., Philips Electronics NV; chip maker STMicroelectronics NV, who is making their own next generation graphics chip based on the PowerVR technology that powers the Dreamcast, and Imagination Technologies, the Company behind the PowerVR technology itself.

According to the AWSJ, officials at NEC, Hitachi and Imagination Technologies declined to comment. A spokesman at Philips said the executives he contacted were unaware of any talks with Sega. Officials at STMicroelectronics couldn't be reached for comment.

Chip makers are the likely partners because Sega hopes to build a complex processor for use in Internet appliances, the people familiar with the plans said. Sega appears to be looking to put many functions of a game machine onto one piece of silicon, making it easy to integrate advanced computer graphics into other products.

Also, in reference to the free Dreamcast plan "If our intuition is right Sega will be the dominant force in the narrowband Internet world," Mr. Irimajiri said in the report. It was also stated that he believes broadband won't be widely available until 2005.

http://www.gaming-age.com/news/2000/6/12-69

Reporter
Michael Custer

Date
6/12/2000

[Gary_b]

i don't understand why you are posting this old article. the date that you posted was from 2000, it just doesn't seem relevant to me in anyway.

[craziestrufis]

i don't understand why you are posting this old article. the date that you posted was from 2000, it just doesn't seem relevant to me in anyway.

how do u star a new blog on this web site

[pcwzrd13]

Gosh darn it! Here I was thinking it was 2011 when it's still only 2000. Wait...maybe it is 2011 and I'm typing this from the future...or maybe eduardo built a time machine and traveled back to the past where they wiped his memory of the future and sent him back... I'M SO CONFUSED!

[SegaNews]

Lol pcwzrd
This means nothing... thats my opinion... to old!