I didn't even grow up with this, why am I so obsessed with it now?

[BaffleBlend]

I'm going to be blunt. The Dreamcast was ever so slightly before my time. I never owned one, and I never knew anyone who owned one. I was too late to experience it.
But, I was early enough to see remnants of it still floating around. It was mentioned in an old multiplatform codebook I had*, that's where I'd first heard of it. Later on, I heard talk about its great status yet extremely bad luck. All in all, there was a certain air of mystery to it that's kept it at the back of my mind for all this time.

A couple of things have piqued my interest all over again lately. Mostly having to do with the controller of all things, if you can believe it.
When the DC theme for 3DS was released, I bought it. Looking at the image of the controller in the background, it occurred to me how similar the button layout of the 3DS and DC were, the major difference being that the 3DS was paper-thin, and the DC controller... wasn't. I have gigantic hands. I need bulk in order to play comfortably, so the thought stuck in my mind, and I began looking into it.
Then came the Sonic Humble Bundle a couple months ago, which offered Sonic Adventure DX and SA2 Battle for cheap. Thinking about that, I bought an XBox "Duke" controller and PC adapter to play those with, having learned how similar it was to the DC controller. I didn't regret it.
And now that I have a gaming PC that can run emulators smoothly, I'm in deep.

Overall, I'm a sucker for the past, but I'm not a serious collector. I'm fine with my RetroN 5 rather than a Genesis, for example, and I'll pick up things used, leaving the mint condition stuff for people that know how to appreciate it.

I don't have a real Dreamcast yet. But I have it and a bunch of stuff for it ready in my Amazon shopping cart, ready to purchase the moment I have the cash for it, which won't be too much longer.

*(EDIT: I found out the exact one after a little searching. It was the Tips & Tricks Feb. 2001 Codebook.)

[The-Amazing-Mr_V]

It is worth every penny. No matter what system I'm playing on, my dreamcast always provides the most fun for me.

I'm glad you enjoy it as much. Even on emulators.

[Dacenguy]

I'm in a similar boat. When I first heard the word "PlayStation" in 1997, I was a first-grader living on a sailboat. I didn't have a TV, so I didn't know what a PlayStation was. I thought it was some kind of playset like those Playmobil castles. So of course by extension, I didn't know what a Dreamcast was!

My first game system was the Nintendo GameCube. By the time I had gotten my Legend of Zelda Collector's Edition bundle, the Dreamcast was a distant memory, the first casualty of the console wars.

Years later, I was browsing /v/ on 8chan and stumbled onto some piracy threads. There I learned that if you had a working Dreamcast and a CD-burner (or just an emulator) you could theoretically play the system's entire library for pennies on the dollar.

This year, a close friend and roommate of mine moved out of state and randomly left me a dusty, old, scuffed-up Dreamcast sans cables, controllers, and a VMU.

I ordered myself a refurbished controller, a new VMU, and some cables, along with some blank CD-Rs. After a few tries, vigorous searching of in-tact ISO databases, and a few coasters, I finally get to play Resident Evil: Code Veronica and man it takes me back to when I used to receive NextGen Magazine.

So, I'm not quite buying up secondary merch that references the Dreamcast, and I'm not scouting up original, complete multi-disc games, and I'm not emulating it either. But I am pretty happy to have found this little forum.

[BaffleBlend]

Thanks for the welcome, you two.

What's the first thing I should do when I get it?
It'll be a console, cables, two controllers (one standard, one Madcatz Dream Pad), 2 VMUs, a jump pack, and a 100-CDR spindle.
I doubt I'll be getting a broadband adapter or a DreamPi, because I'm not much of an online gamer, period. I prefer to go solo even on modern games that practically require online co-op. But, of course, I could potentially change my mind later.

Just for the record, I've long been into the SoulCalibur series (my first being II on the GameCube), and I grew up with the N64 version of Gauntlet Legends. So of course I'm going to burn those two. Along with an assortment of other stuff.