Would a “Sega Channel” work on the Wii?
Posted by Graham. Filed under G, News, Nintendo Wii, Retro, Virtual Console. Tagged with Dreamcast, Saturn, Sega Channel.
I’m sure many of us here can agree that Sega has a great selection of games on the Wii’s Virtual Console, I believe they have released the most games on the download service. But would some of you say to having a special “Sega Channel” for the Wii?
According to Sephen Munn, over at Aeropause, it is a much needed addition to the download service. But before you all start with your “Yays” and “Nays” over the matter, let me explain Mr. Munn’s concept.
The idea is not to be like the Sega Channel of yesteryear - which acted much like the Virtual Console - allowing gamers to download a choice of up to 50 Genesis games (which was updated monthly), for a monthly fee.Â
Instead, Stephen, is suggesting that Sega create a channel which will have Saturn and Dreamcast emulators. Rather than downloading games, Wii owners will download the software, enabling them to play Saturn and Dreamcast games off the original discs.
Quite frankly, I love the concept. However, there are certainly some pretty big flaws in the idea.
The first, and possibly most glaring, flaw is that the Wii physically cannot play Dreamcast discs. As far as I am aware the Wii’s DVD ROM drive is not capable of playing the Dreamcast’s GD-ROM format. Which means that Sega (or Nintendo) would need to release an external drive for this to work, raising the cost, and no doubt putting off many potential buyers.
The second flaw I can see is that despite the Saturn and Dreamcast both having having some of the greatest games ever made, they are also two of the least successful of all the major consoles, and both came last in their respective console wars.
My point? Well quite frankly because of the low sales, it means that the games are becoming harder and harder to buy in stores, and eBay prices can be pretty ridiculous. Essentially it would be hard to consumers to actually buy the physical copies of games, which would mean that the emulators would be pretty pointless for most.
The only other way would be for gamers to download and burn the games to discs. Sega could try and setup some online store, which allows people to download the game files, so they can burn them to disc themselves. But I highly doubt that Sega would consider this, and also I think that more people would be inclined to venture down the piracy route, and get the games for free.
But all said and done, there are still several million gamers out there that own Dreamcasts and Saturns. Perhaps it would be a nice gesture for Sega to release the emulators, for all their loyal fans to download, and make some good use of their Wii’s.
It will never happen, but it’s a pretty cool thought. What do you guys think? Let us know.
[Source: Aeropause]
[Image from Wikipedia]
Comments on this article
There have been 26 responses to this article.
Heh its not a bad thought THOUGH one way to fight that piracy issue for the idea of downloading the ISO and burning it to disk, is digital signing.
Remember, the GD-ROM is actually just a CD-ROM with an extra session of music in the middle of the disk, but none of the games (not even Sonic Adventure 2) took complete advantage of this and even Nero could fake that extra session.
So to prevent simply giving someone a copy of the disk, have the ISO digitally signed, probably via friend code (cause theyre unique enough anyways) or unique Wii identification number. So that that particular ISO could only be played via that persons Wii, and simply giving someone the disk would result in errors and legal action from SEGA would be called.
“But the hacker would just find the signature and put in a fake one” not if you encrypt each and every file with it in unique ways. Layers of protection im talking about here.
Of course, never underestimate the power behind a hacker, they’ll always find a way, but you can certainly keep the amount of piracy on the down low by discouraging the vast amount of run-of-the-mill hackers. (about 98% of them)
just a thought :)
Kyle
Posted July 30th, 2008 at 10:25 am.
A sega channel for the Wii? Impossible.
For the xbox 360 and the ps3, very possible.
chris
Posted July 30th, 2008 at 10:26 am.
of course, then the Wii would need CD-ROM playback for the idea to work at all, which already completely devalidates everything i said, but if Nintendo would frigging get with the times and at least include a cd-player in their damn consoles :p
Kyle
Posted July 30th, 2008 at 10:27 am.
Sega has tried this in Japan several times… and it has largely failed. They hemorrhaged cash on buying up emulators for their old consoles… and barely recouped costs.
This article is closer, but still far off. A more homogenous solution is needed.
And yes, that’s all I will say for now. Want to know more? Make a better solution and we’ll talk.
Christopher Price
Posted July 30th, 2008 at 10:31 am.
im sorry, who are you? o_o “Make a better solution, and well talk” sounded pretty snobby if you ask me.
Do YOU have any solutions? :p
Kyle
Posted July 30th, 2008 at 11:12 am.
See above comment. That’s all I will say for now.
Christopher Price
Posted July 30th, 2008 at 11:19 am.
@Kyle
The GD-ROM isn’t a standard CD, which is why dreamcast discs can’t be read in a standard CD player outside of the audio. The format can handle up to 1.2GB, or almost double a 700MB CD-R. This is also why you can’t rip dreamcast games without a BBA/serial adapter. I don’t believe the Wii could read original DC discs, so it could all be a moot point.
I digress.
What could be cool, if it’s possible, is to just release ‘Sega Classics’ packs of a bunch of games with the emulator built in for these current gen consoles. Kind of like what they’ve already been doing with genesis games and Sega Ages (I don’t know if those games are emulated or re-written).
But, as Mr. Price alluded to, this kind of thing isn’t worth the effort - the people who are most likely to buy these are the same who probably already have the original and the console. Sega did some things with a number of their IPs which is handicapping them now, more or less. I appreciate that they’re trying to rebuild their franchises, and this might be a viable solution in a few years, but definitely not now.
psv
Posted July 30th, 2008 at 11:21 am.
I append what I said. It looks like there’s a driver for linux and BSD for reading GD-Roms. Has anyone tried it?
http://lwn.net/Articles/263284/
psv
Posted July 30th, 2008 at 11:25 am.
Reading GD-ROMs is trivial today. Yes, the BSD driver is simply the latest evolution… but we’ve been able to rip GDs since the early 2000s. Every GD-ROM has been ripped several times over and is online for download, even for Naomi games.
But, for a business model, it would be near-impossible to allow people to rip their own games and play them on an official emulator.
Christopher Price
Posted July 30th, 2008 at 11:29 am.
We need a new console. Sega Universe xD It would play MasterSystem to Dreamcast games.
A single cart port for both MS and MD games, and a CD loader for SAT and DC.
The hardware would be pratically inexpensive for today’s standards…
crackdude
Posted July 30th, 2008 at 4:08 pm.
Very stupid, just download the games in a capable system AND give to the owners of the original games codes to download them!!!
landman
Posted July 30th, 2008 at 5:35 pm.
Landman, how in the world is Sega supposed to give the owners of original games, codes to re-download them?
Where is the magical serial number inside of each game box that would enable this mystical technology?
If it were that simple, it would have been done already.
Christopher Price
Posted July 30th, 2008 at 6:10 pm.
Emulator’s just aren’t a viable option here.
Sega would be better served to just recode the games for a specific platform.
Either way, I’d be more interested in the Saturn side, since many of the best Dreamcast games have already seen releases on other systems (Crazy Taxi, Shenmue 2, Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, Ecco, Space Channel 5, Code Veronica, REZ). I really only hang onto my Dreamcast for Jet Set Radio and Daytona these days.
Resident nEvil
Posted July 30th, 2008 at 7:58 pm.
As far as the Wii drive being able to read a GD-ROM, I believe it could. The GD-ROM’s “high density” region just has the tracks closer together so it takes a narrower laser to read them accurately. It’s extremely similar to the DVD in that regard. The Wii would only need to know HOW to read them, and that would be by a firmware update to the optical drive. (And obviously a Dreamcast hardware emulator) BUT I do think it’s kind of a pointless idea unless they also did downloadable releases as well and did this as an added bonus.
As far as piracy goes, the GD-ROM itself was a great form of copy protection, the problem was that they included the Mil-CD support on all but the late Dreamcasts, and the Mil-CD option was what was used for piracy. For the Saturn, if they could get the Wii to read the “Saturn Ring,†that would work for the copy protection as well.
There will always be piracy, there is no stopping it, but I think the age old copy protection would still work.
Either way, I highly doubt this would happen. But I can dream…
Volvagia
Posted July 30th, 2008 at 11:13 pm.
I remember calling this idea before the Wii was called the Wii.
The Wii could read GD-Roms. It’s really just a matter of software. There’s even a “swap trick” that you can perform on a computer to make it read the high density region on the Dreamcast disc. Basically, they’d have to force the Wii to read beyond what a normal CD player would (the break in the data between the low and high density region), and they could do that by emulating the Dreamcast. The Dreamcast would just check the inner region, go to the outer region, then play. It’s not hard.
Just like Volvagia said, if they got the Wii to read the Saturn ring, then Saturn piracy on the Wii would be as circumvented as it is on the Saturn.
Gamerschoice
Posted July 30th, 2008 at 11:40 pm.
Funny bit of trivia here, but the Wii is not at all capable of reading CD-Rom discs.
Consumer DVD-roms usualy include an extra laser or the required adjustments to switch to CD mode.
The Wii however doesn’t have this to cut back on costs by a small bit.
Most gaming companies like Sega for instance always kept the CD bits but Nintendo has always opted out. Kinda like the gamecube had, though it was less likely to need it anyway in its design.
So the number one flaw is that the Wii can’t read saturn discs no matter what.
GD-roms are right out.
DVDs are the only real way.
So ports and downloadable games are the only methods for the Wii.
Or rather a port of an emulator on a game disc.
I’d love to see old Saturn and DC games make a good return but I don’t think Sega sees a good enough market for it.
Maybe if Nintendo fixs the harddrive issue there wont be such a problem with VC limitations.
On the other hand, a Sega Channel would be cool.
Though it’s hard to see what it would do to make it worth having for non fans.
Maybe have a monthly service to play old Saturn and DC games in pieces.
Or perhaps just lots of fan content with old commercials and sonic cartoons all over.
shadow1w2
Posted July 31st, 2008 at 2:07 am.
small correction, Sega never made DVD anything. But ya get the point.
Only nintendo decided to chuck the CD-rom support.
Some info may be off, but Im pretty sure the Wii is incapable of cd-rom support. Infact its not so well suited for DVD movies either I’ve heard. Certain reading speeds or something like that it just wasnt made for. Not to say it isnt possible, but they say it could ruin your Wii’s drive eventually.
shadow1w2
Posted July 31st, 2008 at 2:12 am.
“”Landman, how in the world is Sega supposed to give the owners of original games, codes to re-download them?
Where is the magical serial number inside of each game box that would enable this mystical technology?
If it were that simple, it would have been done already.”"
Serial Numbers in the Disc (more than one), serial numbers in the instructions book and serial numbers in he box, have you never called sega because “MY PSO DISC DOESN’T WORK ONLINE IN MY NEW DREAMCAST!!!”, they also asked me for the Sonic Adventure demo disc serial number lol
landman
Posted July 31st, 2008 at 2:24 am.
The serial numbers on the discs are generic. The vast majority of Sega games do not have unique serial numbers on the instructions, box, or disc. Sorry, but you’re not correct on that.
GD-ROM would have been a great protection scheme, much like UMD on the PSP. However, both Dreamcast and PSP suffer from the same problem, people found a way around it. On Dreamcast, Sega stupidly allowed CD-ROMs to work.
On PSP, Sony had the advantage of time and the ability to firmware update (and enforce it via new games requiring new(er) firmware). However, both have been hacked to pieces. You have to accept that hacking will happen, the point is, to make it as hard and pointless as possible.
Christopher Price
Posted July 31st, 2008 at 3:03 am.
A codebar reader. Like the new Viva Pinata game.
crackdude
Posted July 31st, 2008 at 5:11 am.
Do want!
Matthew290
Posted July 31st, 2008 at 10:32 am.
@shadow1w2
I’m not so sure the Wii couldn’t read CD-ROMs. Would you mind citing a reference?
As far as the Wii being able to read a DVD video, it has the capability. It only needs a 1X DVD data transfer rate. The Wii laser does apparently have problems with reading dual layer discs, however I believe it’s a small number of Wii’s that have the problem. My Two Wiis and all my friends Wiis have yet to have a problem.
Also, I do not see how reading a DVD Video would ruin the Wii’s laser since the structure of a Wii disc and a DVD video disc is nearly identical.
Volvagia
Posted July 31st, 2008 at 12:47 pm.
Wii DVD playback was canned when Nintendo couldn’t negotiate royalties low enough per console. There was a plan to offer it as a standalone download… but the developer backed out due to fear of low interest.
Christopher Price
Posted July 31st, 2008 at 4:57 pm.
DVD video playback is not possible on a stock Wii, that is true, as Christopher Price said the software is not provided for licensing reasons. However, the game discs, as I understand them, are DVD-ROM discs. There is a hardware hack out there that lets you enable playback of DVD movies on Wii.
I honestly believe that reading the GD-ROM discs on a Wii (or any of the other consoles) wouldn’t be impossible without a software solution.
Stephen Munn
Posted August 1st, 2008 at 4:19 pm.
Apart from fan service, can anyone think of one good reason that sega would spend the time, effort and money installing a system like this, by which people use games they already own or will buy second hand, when they could simply re-release the games for Wii with slightly shiner grapics and added waggle and charge full price per unit?
In fact, arnt they already doing this with titles like Nights and House of the Dead?
mrmat
Posted August 7th, 2008 at 3:35 am.
Sega is trying to be all things to all people on this front.
Some games are getting straight ports. Sonic The Hedgehog for iPod and cell phones.
Some games are being digitally remastered. Nights for PS2, and HoTD 2 & 3 for Wii.
Some games are being continued, Nights for Wii would be a good example of this. Golden Axe is another.
The type of remixed “Sega channel for classics” is old news in Japan, but was never brought out of Japan for U.S./Europe.
Christopher Price
Posted August 7th, 2008 at 3:48 am.