Sega: 'We're not beaten yet'

In the run-up weeks to its November 27 launch in Japan, Sega President Shoichiro Irimajiri is keen to deflate pessimistic analysts. "I'm personally not used to losing fights," he told Reuters.

Sega hopes the new Dreamcast player will open a new front in the lucrative home video games market. In the sport of numbers, Dreamcast can display three million polygons per second, compared with PlayStation's 150,000 and Nintendo N64's 300,000.

Sega's current offering, the 32-bit Saturn console has widely failed to recapture an entertainments market that was once Sega's alone.

Also hoping for success is Microsoft. Based on the hand-held operating system Windows CE, Dreamcast could gain Microsoft many new creatives. Gerry Kaufhold, principal analyst for technology watcher In-Stat pointed out: "The Sega machine will get developers creating content for Microsoft's OS."

Dreamcast's 128-bit graphics and 64-channel sound system are based on PowerVR technology from NEC and Videologic.