Sega: 'We're not beaten... but we're stumbling'

Yesterday's Sega story seems to have been a pre-emptive strike in advance of poor production figures. Now, president Shoichiro Irimajiri is warning that there may not be enough Dreamcast chips to go around.

Dreamcast is Sega's prodigal child, the three-million-polygons-a-second, 128-bit graphics, 64-audio-channel games console that will show Sony, Nintendo and the rest of the world that Sega is still a major contender capable of regaining its lost crown.

But Irimajiri has now told the Financial Times that NEC's production of the all-important Dreamcast chip is fluctuating between 20 and 40 per cent of what was projected for the Christmas release. NEC is making the PowerVR chips, designed in conjunction with Videologic.

Full production will not be attainable until February, he said. Irimajiri had hoped to get 10 million boxes sold within three years of the Japan launch this November 27. The company would break even on three million sales.