If you’re a serious gamer then I’m sure you own a Dreamcast. The Dreamcast is widely known to be the best console ever created with a games library that has never quite been matched. So perfect was this little box of joy that Sega decided to bow out of the console making business. The reason they did this was twofold. One: they knew they were never going to better the perfection they had already given to the world. Another console, a Dreamcast 2 if you will, would have been but a pale imitation and a waste of money for the billions of people that would have snapped it up on launch day. Two: no other company would have been able to successfully exist if the Dreamcast continued to dominate the market. Faced with either easy cash or stagnated social growth Sega chose the noble choice for the good of the gamers. They even insisted to help failing companies like Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo with third party support (though not Panasonic, because sod Panasonic, that’s why!) I know it still hurts but maybe one day, far in the future, a console will come close to that beloved paragon of flawlessness.

 

So ladies and gentlemen I bring you the 6.1 reasons why the Wii U is like the Dreamcast.

 

 

Might seem obvious, but the Dreamcast was white. It represented purity, a clean stale from the horrendous failures of the past. I’m not going to sugar coat it, or gloss over the negatives, the Sega Saturn and the 32X where quite possibility, maybe, not as good as they should have been. Brilliant yes, but could they have been better? Well of course, as the Dreamcast shows with its brilliant blemish free skin. It has a little triangular light on the front too, almost winking at us. It says “I’m in on the joke too; we’re in this together and so let’s have some fun”. So perfect was the Dreamcast’s colour that over time it slightly greyed indicating maturing and aging with its owner, which Microsoft later copied with the Xbox 360, but I’m here to focus on the Wii U.

 

 

This certainty isn’t the first time Nintendo have taken influence from the big DC. Starting with the Wii they have decided to go on a manipulative subconscious campaign to make us think of the Dreamcast whenever we look at their consoles. They have tried vainly to disguise this fact by offering different colours but come launch day it’s only the white ones that are in stock. Also note how the Wii U only has two visible buttons on the front, a power button and an eject button just like, you guessed it, the Dreamcast. This facade is not perfect however as Nintendo have used a glossy effect rather than the tactile matt effect of Sega’s famous white box. Is the reflective gloss purely there on the off chance that a Dreamcast might appear in the reflection; I can’t say, but I can heavily infer.

 

 

 

 

The second most obvious thing about the Dreamcast is the fantastic VMU. This primary worked as a memory storage unit, easy to remove and take with you. So you can take all your saved games and use in on any of your friends Dreamcasts, which of course they owned. The icing of the cake however was that this device also allowed you to play games on the go, this tiny cassette like device rivalled even the mighty Game Gear or Watara Supervision in terms accessibility and the amount of hours of fun it provided. You could also connect with other VMU’s on the go, to play with friends. I could again go on about how Nintendo have stolen a lot of these ideas to use with the GBA, DS and 3DS coupled the desperately rushed connectivity between those and the GameCube and Wii, but today let’s just focus on the Wii U.

 

Aside from memory storage, portable gaming and creating a happier world where people solved their differences with a quick Chao battle; the VMU also had pride of place in the centre of the controller. This gave you additional information which was always vital, also it allowed for you to keep information away from your opponents while playing multiplayer games. In truth I think we can all agree this is why games with multiplayer aspects took off on consoles in the first place. This also was the perfect place to store small amounts of food to keep the hardcore gamer at peak physical condition.

 

 

The Wii U then follows suit with a massive screen in the centre of the main controller, which shows some information, which I guess could be useful. Also they followed up on displaying information on the screen to keep such knowledge from your multiplayer opponents. Seems that Nintendo wrongly thought that bigger is better, I mean really look at the size of that thing! Then they have completely forgotten about using it to store information or use it outside of the home. To cap it all there is only one of these controllers, everybody else has to make do with Wii controllers which are only half as good as a DC controller without a Nunchuk. The Nunchuk by the way follows a similar curved design of the Dreamcast controller and is almost exactly the same dimensions as the one of the wings on the side.