[grawprog]

I grew up in that time, I can at least say why we never had one which was mostly just because we had an n64 at the time.

The Dreamcast, at least from the commercials I remember, didn't really seem all that appealing by comparison and the games available for it never really stood out to me or anything, at least at thr time. I have played some Dreamcast games since and did enjoy them, it would have been cool if it hadn't died and things had gone differently for sega. I always did love the genesis I spent about as much time on that as I did the nes and snes as a kid.

I remember I didn't even hear about sonic adventure until I got the sequel on the gamecube years later. Both of which are actually pretty great games.

But we had a lot of choices on the n64 and most of the time my siblings and me or my cousins and all of us played together so we had a lot more choice of stuff we could all play together. There was tons of great 4-player games on the n64. Some i think are still the best 4 player games out there.

GoldenEye, perfect dark, the multiplayer on Conker's bad fur day, the mario party games(except the first one...that bastard killed all our control sticks...stupid weak n64 controllers and those devious stick spinning mini games designed to sell more controllers.), super smash brothers, mario kart, diddy kong racing, Iggy's wrecking ball, I dunno, I could just keep listing games all day.

The n64 still probably, gives hands down the most choice in and arguably some of the best local 4 player gaming experience out there.

It was the same reason why none of us had a playstation growing up and why we ended up with a GameCube for a ps2. Not as much opportunity for multiplayer.

[rm445]

Yeah the N64 was great, but in total worldwide console sales totals, PS2 = 155 million, N64 = 33 million, Dreamcast = 9 million. Partly the enormous total was because the PS2 stuck around for so long (and, cyclically, kept getting games for ages because of the installed base) but my point is, for most gamers, it's more like they didn't have a Dreamcast because they had a PS2.

That console generation had a clear winner, despite Nintendo doing its own wonderful thing as usual. Sega were out of the running, due to bad previous consoles, price, Sony's frankly dishonest publicity about what the PS2 would be able to do, some great hits coming to PS2 first, the DVD drive, and just the general network effect that means the winner of a format war sells many more units.

[zerocrates]

They're not perfectly aligned but the relevant competitor for the PS2 and Dreamcast would probably be the GameCube, not the N64. Though it's about the same story, just with slightly lower sales for Nintendo.

Or, for that matter, the same basic story as the prior generation as a whole: PS1 sold about 100 million, N64 33 million, Saturn 9 million. The Saturn got undercut by the Dreamcast but both were clear also-rans while Sony just ran away with the market.

Thinking about Sega kind of straddling the generations also just drives home how many moves in a row for them just didn't work: the 32X, the Sega CD, the Saturn, the Dreamcast.

[sixothree]

It really did seem like all of their (too many) consoles were a promise of the next gen but never quite living in the next gen.

[grawprog]

I know, there was a bunch of comments talking about that already, I just figured i'd throw in my own experience from the time rather than add to the echo chamber.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

> I remember I didn't even hear about sonic adventure until I got the sequel on the gamecube years later. Both of which are actually pretty great games.

Having played Sonic Adventure 2 about a year ago on the DC, I have to emphatically disagree. SA2 is hot garbage. Maybe the GC version was better, I don't know, but I really couldn't see what people liked about SA2.

I did really enjoy SA1, but since that is colored by nostalgia I can't say for certain it isn't exactly as bad (though I seriously doubt it).