>The system did have its fair share of drawbacks and design flaws, however. Probably the most egregious was Sega's decision to give it online capability via a built-in 28.8K modem; this was at a time when 56K was industry standard, with ISDN and Broadband beginning to emerge. This severely handicapped the console's growth as a potential online platform. However, this only applied to European and early Japanese Dreamcasts; American ones got 56K modems with their systems from day one.
>Yet the Dreamcast, if not commercially successful, became a legend, with its user and programmer friendly software, fun arcade style games, four control ports for local multiplayer, innovative features (the GD-Rom could be played on a standard CD-drive; the VMU is still unique in its design, being both a memory card and handheld player), and a reliability far superior to other consoles. It is recalled fondly by hardcore gamers and still has a large cult following, and even had new games coming out for years. Today it is still recognized as a console with one of the best game quality/price ratios. As it happens, the Dreamcast is/was a de facto open platform — long before its death, modders had hacked it wide open to the point of being able to run versions of Linux and Net BSD, as well as people writing their own games.
>Although the GD-ROM format was abandoned in 2007, indie developers continue to make Dreamcast games. Most recently, a complete first-person shooter called Paranoia was released in May 2010.
