re: Why was the Dreamcast not successful?

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And you worked at it because you loved it and the challenge was fair.

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Sometimes. Games now days hold our hands far too much while games back then often told you nothing at best or inadvertently mislead you due to poor translations at worst.

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They just don't make games like that anymore because they don't have to.

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I think the unfortunate downside to the growth of the video game industry is that games have to appeal to a wider audience than they ever did in the past. Often the more mainstream you make something, the less interesting it becomes because it needs to serve so many different masters.

This is one reason why I keep an eye on the indie space. Interesting things outside the norm are more common there. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy a big AAA game at times, but those titles typically use well established gameplay mechanics. You won't find much deviation outside of whatever genre the game is supposed to fit.

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Games now days hold our hands far too much while games back then often told you nothing at best

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Back then, I you were lost without a strategy guide............oh well, figure the shite out or you have to stop playing .

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Nintendo had impossible puzzles so they opened a paid hotline to help you figure it ou

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I had to hit up the hotline for Legend of Zelda to find Death Mountain and enter the last dungeon

Zelda and Metroid I could just play and play and play. Get a hint here or there from friends or my older brothers but mostly just have fun playing until you figure it out. Get super excited and even brag when you find something. It's an extremely difficult balance to pull off for the game designers. But a game like Ultima: Exodus? frick that game. What the frick do i do. I went back and beat it with a guide as an adult just to get closure and it is more tedious and incomprehensible than you can imagine. No one could ever possibly guess these things or stumble upon them

Metroid and the Mega Man games were the only passwords I ever wrote down. Maybe I was lazy or maybe I just accepted that for a regular linear platformer you do it one sitting. Playing through the early stages was like a primer, idk. I didn't play a lot of other non-linear NES adventure games

What sucked for me was the seemingly (or actually) endless arcade-style games we had - Mario Bros, Donkey Kong, Dig Dug, Duck Hunt. The entire point is a high score, and they didn't save high scores

The Dreamcast actually sold well. The Saturn is the console no one owned.

I think if Sega included a DVD player with the Dreamcast, their fortunes would be much different.

Dat ps2

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Dat ps2

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True.
It's also weird for me to look at this. I consider the NES a bigger cultural touchstone than the PS2, but when you look at the raw sales numbers it's hard justify that stance.

After the great 9/9/99 launch, everyone focused on the PS2. There was also a rift between SoA and SoJ going back to the early Saturn days.

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It sold better, but not that much better

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To be fair, the Saturn had a longer lifespan. Dreamcast moved a lot of units early on but wasn't on the market long enough before the impending launch of the ps2.