In February of 2022, Chris Daioglou of DeamMods.net began work on a brand-new, next-generation VMU for the SEGA Dreamcast, dubbed the “VM2”. On September 8th of that same year, the VM2 project officially went live on Indiegogo.
As of writing this post, exactly 1124 orders have been dispatched from Chris in Greece (many of which contain more than one unit). While shipping of these devices continues, I thought it may help others by putting together a quick 20-minute overview and review video on this fantastic device.
At a high level, the list below represents the current features touted by the VM2:
- New monochrome backlit LCD
- Higher screen resolution
- microSD storage
- Internal storage of 128KB (200 blocks)
- Embedded high-capacity battery
- USB-C port (for charging & connecting to a PC)
- Original mini-game support
- Original audio (beeping) support
- DreamEye camera images support
- Original language support (EN/JP)
- LCD game images streaming to PC
- Charging from both the controller, and the USB-C port
- Support of VM2-to-VM2 & VM2-to-VMU connection (with future firmware update)
Not mentioned in the video above, several people have asked about unique game IDs and the potential for automatic virtual VMU switching, similar to what’s offered by the MemCard PRO for the PS1. Presently, no Dreamcast ODE transmits game IDs from its selection menu in order to make such a feature viable. However, megavolt85 (of Atomiswave conversion fame) has stated that he’s working on adding game ID transmission to Hayden Kowalchuck‘s open source openMenu software for GDEMU. The VM2 would then also receive an update to support this highly sought-after feature.
Those interested in purchasing the VM2 can do so directly from the Indiegogo page. Software and user manual can be downloaded from DreamMods.net.