The first of the sixth generation of video game consoles, it was released in Japan on November 27, 1998, in North America on September 9, 1999, and in Europe on October 14, 1999.
[6][7] Furthermore, an exploit in the console's copy protection system via its support for the little-used MIL-CD format effectively allowed users to play many games burned onto CD-Rs, without any hardware modifications.
[10] The North American debut featured 19 launch titles, which included highly anticipated ones such as Sonic Adventure, Soulcalibur, and NFL 2K.
[15] Plus, since the Dreamcast's hardware used parts similar to those found in personal computers (PCs) of the era, specifically ones with Pentium II and III processors, it also saw a handful of ports of PC games.
[18][d] Sega discontinued the Dreamcast's hardware in March 2001, and software support quickly dwindled as a result.