First of all, here are real life's system specs.
| Console | Saturn | N64 | Dreamcast | GameCube |
| Manufacturer | Sega | Nintendo | Sega | Nintendo |
| Year | 1994 | 1996 | 1998 | 2001 |
| Launch Price ($) | 300 | 200 | 200 | 200 |
| CPU (MHz) | 29 | 94 | 200 | 485 |
| GPU (MHz) | 29 | 63 | 100 | 162 |
| RAM (MB) | 5 | 4 | 26 | 43 |
| Format Memory (MB) | 560 | 64 | 1200 | 1400 |
The N64, GameCube, and possibly the Saturn will remain constant in my timeline, although as mentioned above, the rumor about Sega changing the Saturn in response to the PlayStation remains a possibility.
The easiest question to answer was "What should the new Dreamcast's specs look like?" The answer had to do with the Dreamcast's origins: NAOMI. Basically, the Dreamcast was the consolized version of an arcade system that has since become one of the most popular ever, housing games like Marvel vs Capcom 2, Dead or Alive 2, Crazy Taxi, Guilty Gear X, The House of the Dead 2, Power Stone, Samba de Amigo, and Virtua Tennis 1 and 2. My guess was that with an extra two years, Sega would pick hardware as similar as it as possible to create an army of easy ports. This would be especially important since arcades last longer in this timeline.
And so, the new Dreamcast's specs... are essentially the Vanila Dreamcast's specs with an extra 30 MB of RAM.
Crude, I know. But entirley possible IMO, especially since that would make the Dreamcast behind the GameCube in all areas but one, to match its coming out a year earlier.
Now, the strength of the 7th generation consoles! A lot of it was guesswork. Ultimately, I decided a couple of things.
1. They would be stronger than the Wii, since the Wii was made as a matter of last resort by a desperate company.
2. They would be weaker than the PS360, since neither company would be willing to release consoles that cost $800 to make.
3. They would likely aim for the middle ground of $300, the upper range of what consumers accept from a pure gaming machine. However, more expensive skus could exist.
4. Neither system would have a true DVD or Blue Ray player, since that sort of thing only happened after Sony entered the market. They would likely use DVD technology, so your typical disc would hold about 4.7 GB, maybe 8.5 GB if you splurged.
So, what we were looking for was a machine that, in 2006, could be sold for $300 with, say, 512 MB of internal memory and a controller. In other words, the cost of a Wii in 2006 plus $140, if you factor in the cost of a Wiimote/Nunchuck combo and Wii Sports versus that of a standard controler.
In other words, the system would have to be closer to a Wii than a PS360. So the next step was to look at real life data again.
RAM: Wii has 91 MB, the HD twins have 512ish. Therefore, let's try 256 MB of RAM.
CPU: Wii is at 729 MB, HD twins at 3200ish. Therefore, about 1800 to 2000. Incidentally, this is as much as the Vita has.
GPU: Wii has 243 MB, HD systems about 500. So anything in the 300 to 400 range is acceptable. Once again, the Vita falls in this range.
File sizes: As mentioned above, probably 4.7 GB for a standard disc, compared to the Vita's 4.
That's right. We're talking about home console versions of the Vita in 2006!
This is actually a neat piece of info, since we can look at Vita games to figure out what alternate timeline 7th generation games would have been like. For example, Assassin's Creed would have been a lot like Liberation for the Vita, Action Adventure shooters would be similar to Golden Abyss, 2D platformers would be like Rayman Origins, etc, etc.
Last off, an overview of this alternate universe's handhelds.
Love and tolerate.
