Dreamcast-Talk.com

So what is the difference between the white spine and black spine games?

I now its not related to date of release or publishers.

I have Shadowman and Loony Tunes Space Race, both were ports from previous generation systems and one has white and one has black spine?

Sonic Adventure 1 has white, 2 has black?

I thought at first maybe it was related to year of release, like 1999 titles where white and later were black, but MvC2 is a late 2000 release and is white...

I don't think its related to how the cover art would look in contrast...

I never got that either, but then again I'm in europe

also I've seen US games that have both white and black spines (like Qbert)

Beats me too

I'm fairly sure Looney Tunes:Space Race wasn't a port. Obviously there were versions of Shadowman on N64 and PC before DC. Not convinced it has anything to do with the spines anyway !

Ooops it might be the ps2 port of the game I was thinking.

I've also wondered why the coloring is different.

Sort by release date (gamefaqs):

09/09/99 - Sonic Adventure (white label)
11/30/99 - Shadow Man (white label)
06/29/00 - Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (white label)

08/22/00 - D2 (black label)
09/07/00 - Shenmue (black label)
09/27/00 - Looney Tunes: Space Race (black label)
09/30/00 - Q-Bert (black label)
06/18/01 - Sonic Adventure 2 (black label)

The change was around Juli '00.

Hmmm.. what was the release date of the black sports edition?

according to segaretro.org and collectorsedition.org: 09/13/00

They just changed up their design is all. I had a discussion about this before with some other members and it was noted that it is nothing more than a superficial change to the colors. Many people prefer the white spines, but I quite love the black ones better, even though it is a white system.

I believe the simple design change. But I had always assumed it was direct market vs. mass market, ie EBGames vs. Kmart. One got black, one got white. Like comics with the upc differences. Hardcore comic stores got the spider man face, Waldenbooks got the bar codes.