Tom HappVerified account

Hell, we came VERY close to "Starcube." As in third parties had gotten notice that was the final name. And like @SolidRoar pointed out, the Ultra 64 labeling was there for all the arcade hardware (I've heard it argued ULTRA 64 is the arcade and N64 is the home, not true).

Dreamcast was probably the biggest fight in video game history over a name. It was like one of those old timey political conventions you read about where a name that was rejected out of hand, got no attention at all until 50 ballots later when they just essentially gave up.

Katana was the front runner for Dreamcast but it was a very polarizing name among retailers, who felt it was too "feminine", so they held a contest to name it, like you would a sports team. I've heard some of the names. Some were good, like Sega Nebula. Others like Sega Kujira..

Kujira is "Whale." Yeah. But my understanding is Dreamcast wasn't the first choice, or second choice, or 10th choice. It was sort of a compromise.

Dad: "They should have called it the Sega Exodus if they knew they planned to leave console making. Why not? Genesis was their most successful console ever by far, and if you're going to invoke Biblical imagery plus try to appeal to fans that this is the last hurrah.."

More? Fine. The NES: Advanced Video System. As a fun aside, the "Entertainment" part was because home video companies were springing up and the term "Home Entertainment" was the buzz word the movie industry was using to sound more important than broadcast Atari Lynx: Handy Game

The Atari 7800 was almost just the Atari Pro, and the final product was "Atari 7800 Pro System" The first Sega project to use the "planet" codename was Game Gear, which nearly made it to market as the Sega Mercury (the smallest planet), while Nomad was codenamed "Venus."

However, Venus was never considered for the Nomad name, and Nomad was a last second choice that replaced.. nothing. They drew blanks and many fought against releasing it entirely. Saturn was also supposed to be only a code name, but it caught on. Black Belt was one alternative..