Google killed support for the Dreamcast web browser after 25 years

I don't know anything about you, reader. You and I are perfect strangers. Except, I do know one thing about you: you did not get to this article from a Google search using the PlanetWeb 3.0 browser on a Sega Dreamcast, the greatest console ever manufactured, because that's no longer possible as of this week.

The browser, which launched in 2001 and came with the console as a pack-in, was probably not a popular way to browse Google. I assume it was mostly a novelty even when the Dreamcast launched, though it was the rare console with an official keyboard peripheral (how else are you going to play The Typing of the Dead?) and even a big MMORPG in its first-party software lineup.

While perhaps sad, this isn't the result of some anti-Dreamcast campaign within Google. As Tom's Hardware put it, "Google closed a PlanetWeb browser compatibility window that had somehow remained ajar for a quarter-century."

It's hard to pinpoint exactly what happened and when, though users online are stating it's been like this for a while, and that it's impacted similar console browsers (the New 3DS's, for example). In the end, that it worked for this long is more surprising than the news of it shutting down.

If you need to connect to the internet on a Dreamcast or play one of its online games today, none of the homebrew methods for doing so are impacted by this change. It's just a bit harder to surf the web using the console, but I don't see why you'd care about anything the internet has to offer you once games like Shenmue and Space Channel 5 are on the table.