Bleemcast

Bleem! (styled as bleem!) was a commercial PlayStation emulator released by the Bleem! Company in 1999 for IBM-compatible PCs and Dreamcast. It is notable for being one of the few commercial software emulators to be aggressively marketed during the emulated console's lifetime, and was the center of multiple controversial lawsuits.

History

Bleem! was a PlayStation emulator designed to allow people to play original PlayStation games on their PC or Dreamcast gaming consoles (the Dreamcast version was called Bleemcast!). It was released in March 1999. The company that developed and commercialized Bleem! initially consisted of just two people, David Herpolsheimer (president) and Randy Linden, but in the commercial phase included Will Kempe, Scott Karol, Sean Kauppinen, Bryan Stokes, James Sinclair, and Paul Chen, later of Rovio Entertainment.

Context

To allow for full-speed emulation on even lower-end computers of what was at the time a current generation console, the authors coded Bleem! in assembly. This allowed them to create precise optimizations. Unlike Connectix's commercial Virtual Game Station, it made use of a PC's 3D graphics hardware for rendering, allowing for enhanced resolutions and filtered textures not possible on real hardware.

Bleem! used low-level memory emulation and other real-mode technology. It did not function on operating systems using the Windows NT kernel, including Windows 2000. In fact, Bleem!'s statement at the time was that Bleem! would never support running on Windows NT-based systems, as Windows 98 was the dominant operating system at the time.

Sony, despite having lost its case with Connectix, continued to pursue legal action against Bleem!. Bleem!, financially unable to defend itself, was forced to go out of business.

As of 2005, two members of the team were working for Sony: Randy Linden was working for SCEA on porting titles and looking at the possibility of emulation of previous generation titles for the next PlayStation, and Sean Kauppinen was promoting ''EverQuest II'' and ''Star Wars Galaxies'' for Sony Online Entertainment.

Copy protection

To combat redistribution of the small downloadable emulator, the user had to buy the Bleem!-CD, containing about 35 MB of data: a DirectX distributable and the actual version of Bleem! available at the time of the CD's printing. The rest of the CD was only for copy protection and was impossible to copy by conventional means; nevertheless, the copy protection was cracked within two weeks of the release.

Further updates to the emulator were free until the company ceased operation several years later.

Bleemcast!

Bleemcast! is an independently developed commercial emulator by Bleem! that allows one to load and play PlayStation discs on the Sega Dreamcast. It is compatible with most Dreamcast controllers and steering wheels, and leverages the Dreamcast's superior processing power for enhanced graphics. It was created by using the MIL-CD security hole found in the Dreamcast BIOS.

History

Originally, Bleem! was planning to have the disc able to run any PlayStation game on the Dreamcast, but due to technical difficulties, they developed the concept of the "Bleempak", in which the software would boot only 100 specific games each. New Bleempaks would have to be purchased if one game was not available to boot in a Bleempak. Due to the Dreamcast controller's fewer buttons compared to the PlayStation, there were plans to release a Bleem! controller somewhat similarly designed to the PlayStation controller, and a PlayStation-to-Dreamcast controller adapter, which would allow one to use a PlayStation controller on the Dreamcast. As technical difficulties grew further, all these ideas were scrapped, with no "Bleempak" and no hardware releases.

However, they managed to release individual Bleemcast! bootdiscs for three popular games: ''Gran Turismo 2'', ''Tekken 3'', and ''Metal Gear Solid''. ''WWF SmackDown!'' was also being planned for a release, but was not completed, while a couple of screenshots of ''Final Fantasy IX'' were surfacing during this time, but was never announced as a planned release.digitaltaco. "Bleemcast Releases." PlanetDreamcast. Accessed May 29, 2017. http://planetdc.segaretro.org/features/previews/bleem/index.html. As promised from the beginning, the games ran in a 640×480 resolution, as opposed to the PS1's 320×240 resolution, and featured anti-aliasing and bilinear filtering. This drastically improved the games' graphics, but also brought out some graphical imperfections that were originally hidden in the lower resolution.

Sony lawsuit

Two days after Bleem! started taking preorders for their emulator, Sony filed suit over violations of copyright. Sony had accused Bleem! of engaging in unfair competition