UK graphics specialist Videologic has found itself at the centre of a spat between games console developer Sega and chip manufacturer NEC. Sega recently admitted it won't, after all, be able to ship one million of its new Windows CE-based DreamCast console by the end of the year, a prediction it made a little over a month ago. Sega blames NEC for the delay. The NEC connection arises because it's manufacturing the silicon that brings Videologic's PowerVR 2 technology to the DreamCast. According to the company, what has held it back is the "stringent" quality control checks its claims it's having to make on the NEC/Videologic graphics chips". Sega is now saying it will have shipped one million DreamCasts -- the general figure that's used to inficate widespread public acceptance of a games machine -- by next Spring. The console will be launched, in Japan, next month. For its part, Videologic is saying it has delivered everything that Sega demanded of it. That's a fair point -- the problem ultimately lies with Sega. Having been beaten badly by Sony, whose PlayStation snatched the market from Sega and Nintendo, once the only two serious players in the games console business (we said 'serious', 3DO fans). Of the two, Sega has had the worse time -- Nintendo took Sony's advent on the chin and quickly developed the superior Nintendo 64 console. Nintendo has at long last started to build up a major market share for the N64, but that just makes it harder for DreamCast to show it can offer something that neither the PlayStation, with its vast array of software, nor the N64, with its superior hardware technology, can offer. With so much to play for, it's no wonder Sega leaps on things like the 100,000 pre-orders Japanese retailers took in the first 48 hours of offering reservations on new machines. Sources suggest its factors like these that are now pushing an increasingly -- and, perhaps, understandably -- panicy Sega to expect more from its component suppliers than it originally contracted them for. Hence Videologic's comment on the matter. ® Click for more stories Click for story index