Middle-aged men dressed as blue hedgehogs

Nearly 100 blue people turned up outside Sega's US headquarters in San Francisco on August 23. Why? Because they wanted to get their hands on a Dreamcast before the September 9 release date.

The die-hard fans (aka spongers) were required to make themselves as blue as possible, and act as daft as possible, in order to win a Dreamcast and free first-party games for life. Great fun for the kids, eh? Sadly not - close inspection of the photos reveals a disturbing trend: most of the entrants appear to be blue-faced, beer-bellied thirtysomethings who should know better.

Okay, we're just bitter because we couldn't afford any face paints, let alone a flight to the US...