Dreamcast: The Little Engine That Couldn't

Wow, it has totally slipped my mind that today the Dreamcast turns 10. Doesn't seem like it, man does time fly by or what? I can't say that I really miss it though. I guess its because it only lasted barely 2 years. That's not to say that I didn't respect it or anything. Hell, the Dreamcast rocked. It should have totally ruled the world man. Well, actually this guy rules the world...

But the Dreamcast definitely came in at a close second. I mean, that console was the first to have many of the features that current consoles of today have. Let's not forget the excellent wave of games that was being released in 99 and 2000 for it. Skies of Arcadia, Grandia II, Sonic Adventure, Shenmue, Jet Grind Radio, Space Channel 5, the list goes on and on. This thing had no reason to fail and it definitely should have lasted longer than 2 fucking years. Of course it didn't as years of failed gimmicks, bad marketing and generally giving the finger to the fanbase caught up with them so much to the point that when a decent product finally was released most everyone else pretty much jumped on the Sony bandwagon by that point. Now I won't bother to get in depth as to why it failed and why it only lasted a meager two years because quite frankly it's already been discussed to the death and any further exploration of the topic would simply be kicking the dead horse at this point. However I will instead state that Microsoft is bearing some striking resemblances to Sega at this juncture with its constant useless add-ons of the 360, releasing the console way too early in an effort to get a jump on the competition and just generally angering some within it's fanbase for its unacceptable failure rate. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they're nearly as bad as Sega, hell the Saturn was the worst debacle in gaming history, but I'm simply saying that they're definitely traveling down an all too familiar road.