The Sega Dreamcast's Ten Year Legacy Recap

So yesterday was the ten year anniversary of the North American launch of the Sega Dreamcast. For those of you who don't know (ie: those of you who aren't huge geeks), the Dreamcast was the final console put out by Sega, one of the two companies that really shaped the video game industry as we know it. Back in the 1990s the only "console war" was between Sega, with their Genesis system, and Nintendo, with their Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). They each had their flagship titles/mascots, Sonic and Mario respectively, and the competition between the two dominated, nay was the industry of the day.

As technology changed and games moved into three-dimensions these companies found increased competitions from the likes of former competitors like Sony, and the market began to expand. The former solitary giants found themselves with dangerous peers, and they experienced some awkward growing pains. Sega released the Saturn a console which did not fare well, and Nintendo made the mistake of utilizing cartridge technology over CDs for games on the Nintendo 64, a design choice that held the console back from achieving the promise its game developers displayed. It was in the successive generation that the industry finally began to change in ways that realized its own potential.

On 9/9/99 Sega launched the Dreamcast in North America. They utilized a highly successful marketing campaign that emphasized the power of the machine as intelligence, telling consumers "It's thinking," and that "You know it's alive. Worse, it knows it's alive." Their first day sales set records as being the "biggest 24 hours in retail entertainment history," giving the system a solid install base of customers and earning the company a cool $98 million.

All this success did not help Sega in the long run, however, as the PS2 launched about a year later and began its ascension to becoming one of the most profitable consoles in history. In 2001 Sega announced the end of their production and support for the Dreamcast, and became a third-party software developer.

So if this console was ultimately a failure, and one that put the final nail in the coffin for Sega's history as a console manufacturer, then why are we celebrating its ten year launch anniversary?