On September 9th, the Sega Dreamcast celebrated the 17th anniversary of its release in the United States. The console is best known for being one of the first video game consoles to integrate online play and its wide array of exclusive titles. Among these titles were the adventure game Shenmue (whose third installment was successfully Kickstarted last year), the console MMORPG Phantasy Star Online, the Sonic Adventure series, and the virtual pet game Seaman (yes, it's actually called that).

Another interesting feature of the console was the memory cards it used called VMUs, short for Visual Memory Units. On the units were little screens that, when plugged into a controller port, would show information based on what game you were playing. For the NFL 2K series, the screen would show you the play you selected, and in Ready 2 Rumble Boxing, it would show dynamic stats about your boxer as the match went on. Another cool thing about these is that they had a separate battery in them, meaning there was a portable element to the VMUs. One notable example of this being implemented into games is being able to use them as a portable pet raiser for your Chao in Sonic Adventure.

While the console enjoyed a successful launch in the United States, the popularity of the console started to dwindle as Sony's Playstation 2 came closer to its U.S. release, with Sega ending support for the console in 2001. To this day, however, the Dreamcast receives love from Retro enthusiasts and Homebrew Game Developers and is generally regarded as one of the best classic systems ever made. If you get the chance, I would recommend playing a Dreamcast just to see what that thing was capable of for something released in the late 90's.