It was only when Byrd removed the console's modem in a fit of frustration that he hit upon a vital hint – it caused the game to crash.īyrd knew that the modem was connected to the G2 bus – as was the Yamaha AICA sound chip. Ready 2 Rumble Boxing was one of the Midway titles which caused the Dreamcast to crash - Image: MidwayĪs Byrd recounts to the Retro Hour team, the millions being spent on the North American launch of the Dreamcast would be at risk if he didn't work with the Midway team to resolve the bug – which, it should be noted, was a true heisenbug in that it appeared to be totally random and impossible to properly debug and fix. Until the cause was discovered, there was always the looming risk of the Dreamcast being branded as buggy and faulty – something Sega naturally wanted to avoid with such a high-profile release. While only Midway's games were encountering the crash, if Byrd couldn't find out exactly what was causing it, there was the danger that it could potentially be present in other launch games – or future ones.

In his own words, he realised that if the bug went unsolved, the blame would fall solely on his shoulders.

Byrd was swiftly sent to Midway's San Diego office to find out what the issue was, and, because he suspected it had something to do with the 'Audio 64' driver developed specifically for the North American market and included in Midway's games, he took with him the developer of said driver – who, after a few days, decided to flee the scene and take a holiday, leaving Byrd to fix the issue alone.

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