TGS Autumn 2002 | Dreamcast's Last Trade Show Appearance

Whilst we are all well aware of Dreamcast and it's demise in the west, the Dreamcast continued getting official support in Japan until 2007. However with the console ceasing production in March 2001 I was wondering; when was the last time the Dreamcast hardware was represented at a trade show? Information was quite hard to find on this but after trawling through a few sites, the Dreamcast's last physical appearance seems to be in September 2002. 

Up until then, the last appearance of Dreamcast seems to be E3 2001 with it all but disappearing afterwards. Looking past TGS 2002, there definitely wasn't any representation from 2004 up until the Dreamcast's full discontinuation in 2007 - evident by going through the archived TGS's reports. 

2003 is rather ambiguous, whilst Puyo Puyo was shown at TGS and listed for Dreamcast - along with the other ports of the game, there's no evidence I can find which suggests it was played on a Dreamcast on the show floor. After trawling through countless videos, show floor plans, even finding any videos of Puyo being displayed is something I can't find. The official TGS website will list it as being a Dreamcast title, though this will also list this under the other available platforms also. 

So what was shown? Well there were 2 games shown, both of which were visual novels. First off, there was Ever Seventeen ~The Out of Infinity and then also Me and Our Summer. I haven't played either of these titles simply due to them being visual novels and them not being playable in English. The games were not massively prominent in Sega's line-up at the time with them being relegated to the kid booth of TGS.

Until proven otherwise, 2002 TGS was the last time physical Dreamcast hardware was represented on the show floor at a major event. It's not a spectacular send off for the console, but it does make you wonder what Sega ever did with these final consoles...

References:

http://tgs.cesa.or.jp/2002/release/release20020830.html

http://tgs.cesa.or.jp/2002/booth/booth17.html

http://tgs.cesa.or.jp/2003/english/imgs/r3_7.pdf

http://tgs.cesa.or.jp/2004/list.htm

http://tgs.cesa.or.jp/2003/release8.html