Stracon Unveils Dreamcast

Stracon India Ltd today launched Dreamcast, an Internet-enabled gaming console, manufactured by the Japan-based, $2.5-billion Sega Corporation.

Stracon has exclusive rights to market Sega's products in Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bangladesh, apart from India. The company has tied up with Pizza Hut and Music World for setting up game stands in outlets of these companies. In Kolkata, Stracon is in talks with Nicco Park for a similar alliance.

Stracon hopes to sell one lakh Dreamcast units in the country and 50,000 units in the other three neighbouring countries. The company aims at sales of half-a-million units by 2004.

Surajit Sen, managing director, Stracon India, said: "Dreamcast is a 3-in-1 product, enabling Internet access with its 56k modem, a 128-bit game console and also functions as an audio CD player". The target group was households, especially those without computers, as Dreamcast would enable net access through TVs.

The company hopes to introduce other Sega products like cameras for video conferencing at the lower end. Plans are also afoot to launch the costlier Dreamcast version, with DVD and VCD players instead of the normal audio CD, soon.