So who is getting this new PC Engine Flash Cart?

[Bonknuts]

The DC didn't need modded, which was a bizarre decision.

That's because the games were on a proprietary format - GD-ROM not CD-ROM. You can't copy/read a GD-ROM from a PC cd drive.

 The playstation always had the copyprotection system, but later decided to write additional logic into there games to detect if a system was operating with a mod chip or not.

 I don't think the adoption of the copyprotection scheme was in response to CD-Rs at the time, but to the pirate/bootleg companys passing games off as the real thing, as CD-R drives were extremely expensive in '94/95 - about $1500-2000 and the CD-R media was pretty horrible at the time. Bootleggers were the main focus.

[Spector]

The DC didn't need modded, which was a bizarre decision.

That's because the games were on a proprietary format - GD-ROM not CD-ROM. You can't copy/read a GD-ROM from a PC cd drive.

Yeah I know that, but what good is that when a few months after the console's release, there are CD-R bootlegs of all the main titles? The best one was "Half Life" - you could get that even though the game hadn't been finished. The GD-ROM format was a crazy idea. It only held 1GIG, it was hardly DVD in storage size, and since the games on it rarely filled the whole disc, bootleggers found a way to compress the data to fit it snugly on a 700MB CD-R. Also, by 1999, the internet was fully upon us and no longer just a geek's domain, and these rips were being sold openly on it if you knew where to look. Sadly for Sega, too many people did.

[nodtveidt]

That was a bad design on Sega's part. Not only that, but Sony's low-blow marketing techniques played a major role in the downfall of the DC...actually, most believe that it was the sole cause.