Perhaps great rock stars of the ’70s became so immortalized because their potential-filled lives were cut short. Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin – all of these musicians grew into legends when they died during their prime years, leaving an air of mystery and unfinished business behind them.

In the same way tribute bands strive to keep these artists alive, local video game enthusiast Jesse Thompson and a group of close friends seek to pay tribute to the Sega Dreamcast.

“We realized that a lot of us still have nostalgic memories and this weird fascination with the Dreamcast,” Thompson said. “Probably because of its short life.”

For those who are not so well versed in game system lingo or history, the Dreamcast was developed in 1998 as the last brainchild of Sega. Before the X-Box, the Wii and the PlayStation 2, there was the Dreamcast, an advanced and revolutionary sixth-generation console for its time.

Known as the pioneer of online gaming, Dreamcast was the first game system ever to include a console and modem to support Internet access. In March of 2001, just three years after its release, Dreamcast was pulled off the market after the introduction of even more innovative Sony products.

“Unfortunately, Sony was just more popular and Dreamcast couldn’t compete,” Thompson said. “PlayStation was pretty much the nail in the coffin.”

Although rival game systems quickly caught up to and surpassed its advanced Internet capabilities, Thompson found that the Internet is still what keeps Dreamcast alive in the hearts and digital screens of fans.

“Back in January we streamed a 24-hour Dreamcast marathon live on the Internet for the release of our new Web site, ihaveadreamcast.com,” Thompson said of he and his friends. “Although we were just trying to promote our Web site, we discovered this weird online community that we didn’t plan on and didn’t know existed.”

This online community consists of people much like Thompson and his friends who still cling to all that was great about retired game systems and want to keep the dream alive, so to speak.

Musician friends of Thompson wrote songs about Dreamcast and Sega during the 24-hour marathon and streamed them on the Internet, along with the video game feed. To Thompson’s surprise, everyone who joined in on the online marathon loved the songs so much that they requested an EP release and eventually sent it to Sega.

“All of this was just so unexpected,” Thompson said. “But we decided to go with it, so now we’re hosting a Dreamcast 10th anniversary party at GoBar.”

This celebration of the original release date – Sept. 9, 1999 – will include live performances of each song on the EP and live feed of the party for internet followers.

“We’re also going to have door prizes, a DJ friend of mine and of course Dreamcasts will be set up all over the place,” Thompson said. “We’ll have some on small TVs and some on projectors.”

As one of the only local vendors that still carry Dreamcast games, Play N Trade on Epps Bridge Road will sponsor the event and donate door prizes.

As far as these Dreamcast games go, they excite Thompson more than anything discussed thus far.

“Oh man, Shenmue has got to be my favorite, but Dreamcast has this version of Sonic that’s great, too,” he said. “Then there’s also House of the Dead. Really, they’re all great because they’re hard to come by and they’re classics.”