A fourth straight year of losses, mainly caused by Dreamcast, have forced the company into a radical rethink of its strategy. The machine will continue to be marketed throughout 2001, halting sales once the inventory is exhausted.

Software will continue to be developed for the machine by Sega in the mean time.

The future for Sega lies as a software company on other formats and it already has five PlayStation 2 titles in the pipeline and two for Nintendo's Game Boy Advance machine, due out in March.

Sega of America stated today that the company globally reaffirms its commitment to Dreamcast. In fact, Sega has more than 100 games worldwide coming out for the platform in the next year. It is not Sega's policy to comment on rumors and the company has not made any statement regarding ceasing manufacturing of Dreamcast or development for other videogame platforms