The 16-Bit era was indeed my day of delight as the Mega Drive (Genesis) just edged out the SNES in the UK (however it (SNES) ceratinly took the biscuit in Japan) and titles appeared thick and fast. Though they were as much fun to play as the arcade originals, those arcade-to-console conversions just never looked right on the Mega Drive. Had the Mega-CD (Sega-CD) have been released a year earlier, maybe we would have seen arcade perfect versions of those games, and huge support for the ill-fated CD System.
When the Saturn was released in 1995 (in the UK) it was expected that its only real serious competition would be from previous bouts, Nintendo. However a new player was to enter the market, with a machine Nintendo had already turned down for its use of compact discs. Sony would take on the project that trusted magazine CVG described as "The sad lot of the bunch" In the end it would change the face of the games industry as we know it. The machine would become the Sony Playstation. Sega's machine started off the more popular of the two, but the Saturn's twin-processors proved difficult to work with, so developers swithced to the Sony machine and gamers followed suit. (Gamegear vs GameBoy All over again?)
When Sega launched its Dreamcast Console in 1999, Sega were expected again to take a firm grip on the console market, and storm to sucess with the first internet ready games console. Launched at £200, the Dreamcast was a baragin from launch. Several exciting peripherals were released such as a microphone, digital camera (Japan Only) and allsorts of other weird and wonderful stuff. Fantastic software graced the console from day one of its life, and mysteriously, was ignored by the general public. Games like Jet Set Radio, Sega Rally 2, Sonic Adventure, Dead Or Alive 2, 18 Wheeler: APT, Soul Calibur, MSR, Crazi Taxi & Space Channel 5 should have propelled the console to the lofty heights in the market. Also the strangest thing for DC was that some of the key developers chose to ignore the console such as Electronic Arts and Codemasters (who 99% completed a Colin McRae Rally 2 Conversion before abandoning it). In the end Dreamcast was caught up in the hype of Playstation 2, and all the hype surrounding it, and most took PS2 as the logical option as its backwards compatibility with PS1 meant that classics could still be played with out unpacking the dusty old machine.
Some say Sega's original software was the cause of its lack of sucess (to say the DC was a flop would be extremley unfair) as some experts believed tried and tested sequels were the way foward (note several PS1 owners were complaining about sequels), maga letters from DC owners were all filled with positve feedback in the majority.
Others blame the small amount of advertising on Sega's demise, the only visible advertising, the barber's competition, the MSR ads and the sponsorship of Arsenal (English Champions) Saint Etienne (FR - Relegated) and Sampdoria (ITA - Since Relegated also) Those who did own a DC will look back in years to come and laugh at those who missed the chance to own a machine with some of the best software ever made, and will rejoice and play those classics again and again. My bet, Sega will rejoin the console race by 2010.