[rodgerd]

Xbox also had Live, an easier dev story, and a willingness to persist - it's been around since 2001. And it took a long time losing money!

[Macha]

And Microsoft were already in the gaming space, both as a publisher and via PC technologies like DirectX.

[rodgerd]

Yes, and I imagine they learned from their involvement with the Dreamcast, as well.

[ThrowawayB7]

That's a persistent myth; the team that launched the Xbox was an entirely different set of people in a different division from the team that worked on the Dreamcast collaboration with Sega.