I love the fact that the Dreamcast is finally getting its time in the sun. 9 million sales compared to the 21 and 24 million for the GameCube and Xbox respectively is a bit of a disappointment, even more so compared to the PS2's 160 million sales. But sales figures aside, not enough people have spent time with this console and really gotten to know it, and I'm glad that modders are finally porting games to the system and discovering just how powerful it is, as well as what it can do.
It's weird to pick up the Dreamcast controller and only feel one analogue stick. If you think back to the previous generation, the N64 controller had an analog stick, and the PS1 had two. The Sega Saturn, however, still relied on a D-pad. When we arrived at the Sixth Generation of consoles, Sony had already made two sticks the norm. The Xbox and the GameCube followed suit, and that format has become what we're most used to today - Sony sticking with the symmetrical layout, and Xbox and Nintendo falling into the asymmetrical layout.
The Dreamcast is the first and only Sega console with an analog stick. When you look at it like that, the Dreamcast was both ahead of its time and behind the times at the same time (that's a confusing sentence to write, never mind take in!). Yes, the VMU was futuristic and cool, and the shape of the controller was intriguing, but one analog stick made the console seem a little archaic before it had even had a chance to prove itself.
Would having two sticks have made a difference to its sales? Well, while we won't know that for sure, we can experience it ourselves thanks to this Dream Color Plus Mod, a method of updating your Dreamcast controller without any pesky soldering. It makes the controller wireless and displays images on the VMU in colour.
According to our friends over at The Dreamcast Junkyard, the designer of the PCB that is the beating heart of the Dream Color Plus mod, Angelo Pontes, revealed a new PCB and 3D printed controller shell that accounted for a second analog stick. The printing files will be made public for people to make their own shell, but there will also be a chance to ask for a dual-stick controller as well as the standard controller design when the Dream Color Plus starts its funding campaign.
The Dream Color Plus will allow for button mapping from the VMU display, meaning you can quickly move buttons that might have been used for looking around to the second stick. There are also games that were designed to be used with a peripheral that looked like two flight sim joysticks on a piece of plastic, the Dreamcast Twin Stick, which would work very well with the Cream Color Plus.
Crowdfunding for the Dream Color Plus is expected to begin in a couple of weeks, so make sure to check back here for a link when it goes live!
