[atVelocet]

It was 4 consoles fighting for attention around that time: Sega Dreamcast Nintendo 64 Microsoft Xbox Sony PlayStation 2

The sales of the Xbox and Dreamcast never catched up to those of the N64 or the PS2. I would say the market was over saturated around that time with 4 stationary consoles.

[tom_]

The Xbox's more natural competitors were the PS2 (which had come out the year before) and the Gamecube (which came out about the same time).

Maybe the Dreamcast too, in theory, but I think it had long been obvious it was a goner. I think Sega might even have dropped it by the time the Xbox was released.

[jonhohle]

The N64 was 3 years old by the time the Dreamcast came out. The Dreamcast was killed before the Xbox was released. Also, the original Xbox sold 24 million units compared to the N64’s 30 million.

The GameCube and Xbox were fighting for second place that generation.

[perpetualpatzer]

>It was 4 consoles fighting for attention around that time: Sega Dreamcast Nintendo 64 Microsoft Xbox Sony PlayStation 2

Yes and no. N64 was 3 years earlier. PS2 was a full year later, Xbox/Gamecube were two years later.

I've always been confused how Dreamcast didn't win a that fight. The previous three rounds of console launches were heralded by improved graphics technology and immediately took over the market (1990 SNES/Genesis, 1994 Playstation/Saturn, 1996 N64). Dreamcast came out when nothing relevant had come out for 3 years, with a generation better graphics and a 1-2 year head start on competitors.

[jandrese]

If Sega hadn't burned so many bridges with the SegaCD and Saturn they probably would have been a strong competitor in that generation. But both developers and customers were wary of their shenanigans by that point.