Best Buy’s Deceiving DC Deal?

If you looked at the flyer from major electronics chain Best Buy this past weekend, you might have noticed a deal involving the Sega Dreamcast, and the Microsoft Network.  In a nutshell, Best Buy was offering a free Dreamcast to those who signed up for two years of The Microsoft Network, at $21.95 per month.  This offer is exactly like that SegaNet is offering!  Dural of the DC Tech Pages think this could hurt SegaNet’s chances of suceeding:

I don’t like this at all for four reasons:

1) People who sign up for two years MSN access will not have the same online play satisfaction that a SEGANET user would, due to the MSN not being as fine tuned for network play, and ping times will be greater due to any information from SEGA servers having to make more hops.

2) Microsoft clearly sees SEGANET as a competitor and for each customer that Microsoft signs up, is one customer that SEGA will not get for two full years.

3) Microsoft can force what the user sees when they log onto the Microsoft network, and that will most likely be X-Box promotional material nearing the X-Box launch.

4) SEGA base of users will be smaller, so money will be lost due to lower advertising revenue.

I wish there was a way for SEGA to stop this. Maybe they should force you to use SEGANET if you want to play certain games online like Phantasy Star Online.

Other gamers seem to agree on this.  So, will Microsoft and the X-Box trounce SegaNet in its infancy?  We will just have to wait and see, SegaNet will start up in September.