2005 or 2006.
I had played the Dreamcast just one time while it was still on store shelves. It was a demo at Toys r Us with either Crazy Taxi or Ecco the Dolphin to choose from. I was just blown away by Crazy Taxi. The music coming at you, the openness to the game and frantic gameplay, real world businesses being placed into a video game. I was only 9 years old at this time and had no ability to secure this new and exciting video game system, but the memories of Crazy Taxi would stick with me.
Flash forward 5 or 6 years to 2005 or 2006 and I spot a copy of Crazy Taxi at a pawn shop for $3. The memory of the one time I got to play it came flooding back, so I purchase the game with the intention of finding a Dreamcast later (found one for $20 with a controller and VMU a couple weeks later).
In the time between buying Crazy Taxi and actually getting a Dreamcast I was doing research to learn what other gems I had missed out on in the Dreamcast. I had never heard of Shenmue, but it consistently showed up on 'best of' lists for the Dreamcast, and came with the allure of the massive budget attached to the game. So once I was able to get a ride to the nearest second hand video game store (about 60 miles, a long ways for someone with no means of transportation) I picked up Shenmue, and NFL 2k2, to go with my copy of Crazy Taxi. Crazy Taxi was as incredible as I remembered it being years ago, but Shenmue quickly became my favorite. Straight away from that opening cutscene I was hooked. I had to avenge my father's death! My lust for blood would fall to the wayside as I became immersed in the world Shenmue provided though.
Needing to continue the series and living in the US, my options were to get an Xbox or find a copy of the European Dreamcast version online. The $40 I spent on the Dreamcast and few games was all I had money for, so the Xbox was out of the question. I found a torrent for Shenmue 2 online, but the 4 disc game had a file size of about 1.8 GB, and on my dialup connection I got download speeds of about 3 KB/s. Two agonizing months later my download completed and I had a whole new Shenmue experience to enjoy. A few years later I would purchase an Xbox 360 and the Xbox version of Shenmue 2.
So it's been about 11 years since I became a fan and 10 years since I began the wait for Shenmue 3. It's so surreal that a new chapter is looming on the horizon for this series that means so much to me.