Dreamcast was truly ahead of its time

>1998
>Sega of Japan's Katana for Dreamcast
>Hitachi SH4 chips
>PVR on Dreamcast was much better than PSX GPU
>Rarely-used volumetric per-pixel shadows and volumetric fog features
>Order Independent Transparency and is the only system to date that came with OIT at the hardware level
>SFD (Sofdec) video file format primarily used for in-game cutscenes (FMVs)
>16MB of RAM (8x the PS1/Saturn) and 8MB of VRAM
>Native VGA out support
>Plans for HDD support

Duh because it was the first 6th-gen console released

It wasn't competing against the PS1 and N64

It was competing against the PS2 and Gamecube.

Why did it fail so bad? I never got into Sega consoles, being an early zoomer blessed with the gift of separated parents, I grew up with PS2, Gamecube and Xbox all at the same time, but no Dreamcast - I only just recently picked up and repaired a broken Genesis/MD for $20

>>713055548
Starting with the two Genesis add-ons, SEGA got into the habit of releasing hardware with poor game support then abandoning it soon after. The CD, 32X, Game Gear, Nomad, and finally the Saturn. By the time the Dreamcast released potential buyers didn't want to risk getting burned again.

>>713055548
Bad marketing decisions between the Sega Genesis and the Saturn (CD and 32 addons for Genesis were both flops). There was also a planned standalone 32X called the Neptune planned to release before Saturn but was cancelled. Brand power was losing and Dreamcast being able to run backups just by burning images to cd also led to killed software sales.

>>713052243 (OP)
dreamcast was a cool looking console. i miss the era of a gaming machine looking like one and trying to look a little futuristic. with a fresh coat of paint this would probably look better than the switch xbox x and ps5. everything today is made to look like a router.

>>713055548
It all goes back to the Saturn. It was just like the Xbox One when Microsoft burned all bridges with consumers despite the X360 being a relative success.

People got burned out by SEGA's constant failures that the Playstation just looked like a total breath of fresh air. By the time the Dreamcast tried to correct those issues the PS2 was announced and just did everything better. SEGA was bankrupt in 2001 and couldn't afford to stay in consoles anymore so they split off and became a 3rd party.

>>713055548
I'm no expert on the matter, but there was a real lack of unified coordination and strategy. I look at the Saturn as something that did amazingly in Japan with so many games and support, and how it was practically nothing elsewhere. Why was the Saturn treated like a publicity stunt outside Japan? This was their PlayStation 1, it came out 12 days before it in Japan. It was out for 4 years before it was replaced by the Dreamcast, which itself was like a year and a half before the PS2. It felt like it was trying to both one-up the N64 (and 64DD) and pre-empt the PS2 and failed at both.

But it's easy to look at how consoles are handled now and use that as a point of reference of how to do things compared to the wild west days of pre-94 where Sega was making add-ons and dropping support for them and immediately moving to the hot new thing, it erodes consumer confidence.

I have Fur Fighters: Viggo's Revenge on the PS2, and it blows my mind that it was originally a Dreamcast game.

>>713055548

>>713056828
>>713057123
this plus the built in modem that had proper online

but people forget that DVD was just coming out and the PS2 was the one of the first available players/platforms coming out

>>713057634
>they split off
Where did the other half go since we know Sammy took the software half?

>>713055548
TL;DR version no dvd player
Sony was playing hardball and fucked them in their domestic market so hard they just gave up

>>713059552
Is Sony the Microsoft of Japan?