Sega creates new company, Sega.com

[04.03.00] » "Free" Dreamcasts and online Bomberman--a winning strategy if we've ever heard one.

   Sega of America today announced the formation of a new company, Sega.com. Sega.com's CEO, Brad Huang, has several years experience with Sega Enterprises chairman. The mission statement of Sega.com is twofold. First, Sega.com will change from being an corporate information site to an online gaming destination. Second, sega.com will act as a nexus for Sega's new Sega-branded ISP, SegaNet.

   This is where the "free" Dreamcast comes in. Dreamcast owners who subscribe to two years of the SegaNet ISP will receive a $200 rebate check and a free Dreamcast keyboard, effectively giving the console away for "free." Of course, you have to buy 24 months of SegaNet at $21.95 a month, which is $526.80. But since SegaNet is a full featured ISP, using it in place of your current ISP could make the extra cost "transparent."

   Sega.com will launch in May 2000 at the E3 Expo, while SegaNet will launch in August 2000. In addition to the already available Chu Chu Rocket, over a dozen titles should be available for online play by the holiday season, including Quake III, Half Life, Phantasy Star Online, and Dreamcast Bomberman. Sega will partner with a major Internet backbone (TBA) to provide SegaNet's infrastructure.

   Hold on a minute -- Dreamcast Bomberman? Where'd this game come from! Hooray for online Dreamcast Bomberman! Hopefully Hudson will make a title worthy of its predecessor that plays great either locally or online. We now return you to your regularly scheduled news story.

   Also, in September, Sega will introduce a portable MP3 player that fits into a VMU slot. The device will let you download up to 128 megs onto two 64MB cards.