The offbeat virtual pet/life sim hybrid Seaman was a hit in Japan, becoming one of the Dreamcast’s best-selling games in that region, and one closely associated with the console itself. It offered a remarkably different experience to the arcade conversions and beat’em ups the system was renowned for, while also riding the tailcoats of the Tamagotchi craze.
It seems SEGA was keen to capitalise on Seaman’s popularity in Japan, particularly around the festive season in 1999. This drive led to two promotional campaigns. Firstly, SEGA released a special Yuletide red Seaman Christmas Dreamcast bundle, available from branches of HMV Japan. As only 850 were produced, it can fetch over £2000 nowadays.
Intended to be evocative of Santa’s red coat, the Seaman Christmas Dreamcast featured a decal of Seaman wearing a Santa hat, along with a green power button and a yellow tray open button. It was bundled with a copy of Seaman, a red controller with a green analogue stick, and a red VMU with an image of Seaman. The certificate of authenticity also revealed the serial number (#000/850.)
Secondly, SEGA released a special Christmas version of the game, a la Christmas NiGHTS. Two discs were available, purchasable between December 16th-24th from SEGA directly.
The Message Disc (priced 2800 Yen) allowed a user to interact with a Seaman dressed in Christmas garb and record a message for another user. The idea was to give the recipient of the message a Present Disc (priced 980 Yen) so that they could boot the game up on Christmas Day and hear your touching musings. It also came with Christmas themed stickers to decorate the slipcase with.
This was wholeheartedly intended to be a romantic gesture – the game’s flyer, along with an illustration from Dreamcast Magazine (below), both show a lovestruck male surprising their love interest with the Present Disc. When it comes to romance, Seaman’s peculiar humanoid creature isn’t the first thing that comes to mind for delivering anything heartfelt.
Another flaw in this concept was that any potential partner would also have to own a Dreamcast. I’m not sure how many female Dreamcast owners there were in Japan at the time, but it seems reasonable to suggest the number was low. Perhaps SEGA hoped the message giver would also buy a Dreamcast for the person they were trying to woo. It’s the season of giving, after all.
It appears SEGA had high hopes for the campaign, going as far as to run a TV commercial:
What can we summarize from this? Well, not much apart from a number of Dreamcast owners doubtlessly turned their trusty consoles on during Christmas Day 1999, ready to hear a lovely message spouted from a grotesque man/fish hybrid dressed as Santa. Truly the spirit of the season embodied.
If this campaign did boost sales of Seaman and the Dreamcast, it likely means somebody, potentially, spent New Year’s Eve tending to Seaman too. What a way to see in the new millennium.
Images via SegaRetro.org.