TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24
The Little Fella in your CD-ROM Drive
The Little Fella in your CD-ROM Drive
Level 5
57%
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2025
- Messages
- 1,851
- Level up in
- 649 posts
- Reaction score
- 4,957
- Points
- 3,477
So, ever since learning that you could learn things about games from their RAL codes on the Famicom, I’ve been paying closer attention to the little serial numbers on games. And since I’m an insane SEGA fan, that naturally led me to SEGA.
Firstly, on all SEGA games starting halfway through the Mega Drive/Genesis’ lifespan, they designate games from first and third parties by putting a “T-“ in front of the number code. In Japan, they put a “GS-“ in front of first party published efforts on the Saturn, including titles developed by contracted companies as an exclusive such as Sonic R. I don’t know what “GS-“ could possibly mean, as “T-“ clearly means “Third” to designate third party efforts. Perhaps “Game System”? To delineate titles in SEGA’s internal inventory between their Arcade games and home console games? I don’t know.
As an aside, upon checking my Game Gear titles, their cartridge codes all share a “670-“ at the start. No clue what that’s about, and I’ll have to check if it’s something shared on the spines of game boxes or if it’s just on the carts themselves.
Regardless, the point of the thread is the Dreamcast. In North America, they continued to only add letters to the code to delineate third party games, keeping it as just a number for first party games. In Japan, not only did they change the first party code to be “HDR-“, which I have zero clue what THAT could mean, but they also seem to follow something that the PlayStation did: keeping track of titles internally using this code.
Here’s Virtua Fighter 3TB and Sonic Adventure. VF3 was a Japanese launch title for the Dreamcast. Meanwhile, Sonic Adventure was released hurriedly in the December of 1998, months after the system launched in Japan.
But look at their codes.
This could very much just be a coincidence, but could this possibly point to Sonic Adventure being the first game commissioned internally for the Dreamcast? Again, if any game should be counted as the “first Dreamcast game”, it should be Virtua Fighter 3TB. But it’s HDR-0002, whereas Sonic gets the code HDR-0001. Funky stuff, and definitely the nichest topic I’ve ever considered for a thread.
As a thank you for putting up with such a largely pointless thread, I want to share that before I got an actual copy, I initially got a… “dubious” copy of Chu Chu Rocket from a local. The name he kept calling the game was so funny that I just had to write it on the disc when I brought it home.
Firstly, on all SEGA games starting halfway through the Mega Drive/Genesis’ lifespan, they designate games from first and third parties by putting a “T-“ in front of the number code. In Japan, they put a “GS-“ in front of first party published efforts on the Saturn, including titles developed by contracted companies as an exclusive such as Sonic R. I don’t know what “GS-“ could possibly mean, as “T-“ clearly means “Third” to designate third party efforts. Perhaps “Game System”? To delineate titles in SEGA’s internal inventory between their Arcade games and home console games? I don’t know.
As an aside, upon checking my Game Gear titles, their cartridge codes all share a “670-“ at the start. No clue what that’s about, and I’ll have to check if it’s something shared on the spines of game boxes or if it’s just on the carts themselves.
Regardless, the point of the thread is the Dreamcast. In North America, they continued to only add letters to the code to delineate third party games, keeping it as just a number for first party games. In Japan, not only did they change the first party code to be “HDR-“, which I have zero clue what THAT could mean, but they also seem to follow something that the PlayStation did: keeping track of titles internally using this code.
Here’s Virtua Fighter 3TB and Sonic Adventure. VF3 was a Japanese launch title for the Dreamcast. Meanwhile, Sonic Adventure was released hurriedly in the December of 1998, months after the system launched in Japan.
But look at their codes.
This could very much just be a coincidence, but could this possibly point to Sonic Adventure being the first game commissioned internally for the Dreamcast? Again, if any game should be counted as the “first Dreamcast game”, it should be Virtua Fighter 3TB. But it’s HDR-0002, whereas Sonic gets the code HDR-0001. Funky stuff, and definitely the nichest topic I’ve ever considered for a thread.
As a thank you for putting up with such a largely pointless thread, I want to share that before I got an actual copy, I initially got a… “dubious” copy of Chu Chu Rocket from a local. The name he kept calling the game was so funny that I just had to write it on the disc when I brought it home.
