We've never made a secret of the fact that Sega's final console, the Dreamcast, holds a very special place in our hearts here at Time Extension.
Home to some amazing titles and arcade-perfect conversions, the Dreamcast remains popular with many players – but its lifespan was cruelly cut short when Sega was forced to exit the hardware market due to mounting losses.
In the UK, Dreamcast was supported by a trio of print magazines, with the Sega-sanctioned offering, Official Dreamcast Magazine, being owned by Dennis Publishing (Dreamcast Magazine and DC-UK were the other two).
It lasted for 21 issues, with its final copy hitting newsstands in June of 2001 (by this point, it had already shifted to a bi-monthly release schedule). However, that issue of the magazine didn't mention anywhere that it would be the final one, and a 22nd edition was planned – and, thanks to The Dreamcast Junkyard, we now know why it never appeared.
The site has spoken to Ed Lomas, who served as Deputy Editor under Warren Christmas on Official Dreamcast Magazine. When Dennis Published decided to launch PlayNation magazine, Christmas was moved on, placing Lomas in the editor's chair for the ill-fated 22nd issue:
"[Warren] had moved off ODM to launch PlayNation magazine. I was Deputy Editor and it meant I got to be in charge finally! As I remember it, we'd got most of the magazine done when we were told it wouldn't be released — I was very proud to have put together a good magazine, and sad it never came out."
Lomas recalls that the issue would have had Phantasy Star Online Ver. 2 on its cover, and he even remembers interviewing Sonic Team's Yuji Naka about the game.
As for why the plug was pulled on the magazine, Lomas cites the lack of a cover-mounted demo disc as the reason. Around this time, it was normal for pretty much every UK single-format magazine to have a disc stuck to the front, packed with demos of upcoming titles.
As the Dreamcast release schedule began to dry up, this became harder and harder to achieve – and this is ultimately what killed Official Dreamcast Magazine, says Lomas:
"I remember the magazine going to every two months and I feel like there was some ongoing debate as to whether we'd be getting a demo from Sega or not. I think the news finally came that wasn't going to happen and [Dennis Publishing] decided it wasn't worth carrying on with the magazine. I got called into a meeting, told the magazine was ending and that I could join Warren on PlayNation or be given redundancy money. It was the start of the summer and more money than I'd ever had so I took the cash and ran!"
Ironically, Lomas reveals that the magazine was actually profitable, largely because it cost less to produce:
"Dennis were generally happy with the performance of ODM because they had originally budgeted for it to be much more expensive to produce than it ended up being. The first few issues had very expensive high-end fashion photography in them, but Warren and I weren't fans (neither were most readers!) and we were able to phase them out and use staff writer Dan Trent as our main photographer. As such, even though the magazine wasn't selling what they'd originally hoped for, it was turning out more profitable as it was cheaper to produce. But with PlayStation 2 clearly the more popular console and sales declining as game releases thinned out, Dennis deprioritised ODM and made a move for the PS2 market. The loss of the demo disc was the killing blow."
The whole feature, which goes into deep detail about the magazine and its "lost" final issue, is well worth a read.