Irimajiri: "The Internet is not good enough."

Sega's keynote speech at Milia 2000 fitted perfectly into the show's program: games and broadband. For those of you who don't know, Milia is all about content, platforms, technologies and high speed networks. No wonder they asked Sega's President Irimajiri to deliver the keynote speech. Irimajiri envisions that Sega will deliver high-speed networks for gaming and business purposes. He called Dreamcast more than a console; he sees it as a gate to the future.

Irimaji-san said, "The Internet is not fast enough for the interactive content designed to take advantage of it. The Internet is not good enough." And what will be? Irimajiri goes further than broadband - instead of Megabits he talks about Gigabits. In his speech he detailed how Sega are planning to set up fibre optic networks connecting consoles and business, as well as providing interactive services.

They've already started putting these things into action. In January, Sega Japan announced several deals with Japanese cable companies. Among them were the nation's two largest cable companies, Jupiter Telecommunications Co and Titus Communications Corp. In all, the 30 companies reach 70 per cent of cable television viewers, or 7 million households.

This was just the beginning of Sega's aggressive stance towards this new medium. Irimajiri said, "We are determined to become the first company to tackle this new technology and seize the 21st century with a vengeance."

The speech then gave way to another video presentation, showcasing a nice gadget for Dreamcast, tentatively called the Dreamcast Camera. Via this camera and a microphone, Dreamcast users to will be able to interact with each other while playing games. That's not all: the camera also works as a stand-alone camera - snap it off the cradle, take it outside and shoot away.

Nice one, little fella. Roll on the 21st century...

Courtesy of IGN.com