Ten years ago, on 9-9-99, I was 22. I was finishing my last year of college. I was working a shitty university job and living with some friends in a crappy house close to campus. I had a PlayStation, a Nintendo 64 and no money. But I bought a Dreamcast anyway.

Maybe it was the hype that did it. All the signs, slogans and commercials were hypnotic. The idea of being there at launch was kind of intoxicating. It also helped that the machine was so slick and so different from previous Sega systems. White, not black. The orange swirl. The line up of release day games. It was all so drool worthy.

I remember reading all those EGMs back then. Pictures of every conceivable peripheral scattered about New York, posing like supermodels. A fishing rod. A microphone. The VMUs. All of these flashy, clean, new pieces of tech. It was too much.

My little geek heart cried out for it all and my first credit card was there to pay for it all.

Though, I didn’t get it on release day. No, I waited. I waited and drooled. One friend had it and each time I would visit his place, it was sitting there below his old school low-fi TV, taunting me, whispering, “Hey, buy one yourself.”

Finally, Christmas rolled around. My 64 and PlayStation were no longer doing it for me, sitting there under the TV, collecting dust. My eyes were on games like Crazy Taxi and Sonic and not on whatever the 64 had to offer. These consoles has lost my interest. They knew the Dreamcast was out there. They knew they’d lost me to Dreamcast and I didn’t even have one. Yet. They knew they were soon to be replaced with rumors of a second PlayStation and Project called Dolphin.

And I knew it too. They were as good as dead.

Like most years since I’d turned 10, I was able to choose what I wanted for Christmas. It was how I’d gotten an NES, a 64, a VCR, a TV, a computer. And now how I was going to get my Dreamcast. And just to make sure of it, I did the buying. I struck a deal with my parents to give me the money and let me buy my gift. They were only half sold on this. It was easier for me to choose, but I had to promise to wait for Christmas to open it.

Deal.

I ordered it. It arrived. I wrapped it. Put it under the tree. Spent my winter break at my parent’s house NOT thinking of it. And waited. Sure, I had other things to do during all of this time. I had drinking to do. and drinking to do. And some school at times. But when it came to my gaming habits, I was on hiatus, waiting for the next big thing.

And that’s how it was sold. The next big thing. On Christmas, when I finally did open that box along with Sonic and Soul Calibur, it was well worth it. Hours of Crazy Taxi, Code Veronica and Sonic. For one, bright shiny year, Dreamcast was my go to system. And then it died.

Sega pulled the plug far too soon, but that first year or two of the system was golden. Just think of how legendary that game line up was. Ready to Rumble, Seaman, Shenmue, Power Stone.

I don’t know how it all went so wrong. But for a brief period of time, gamers were lucky. No other first year or console launch has felt the same. The Gamecube? Luigi’s Mansion. PlayStation 3? Genji. XBOX 360? Perfect Dark Zero.

The Dreamcast was the first and only Sega system I’ve ever owned. And though it didn’t last long, it was worth it.