Comment by Tiktaalik

Unpacking the software issues with the Dreamcast a bit more, while so many of the games on the Dreamcast were great, it is very clear looking at the lineup in retrospect in comparison with the games that would release on the PS2, the Dreamcast was dominated by a sort of short form arcade[1] type game that would swiftly go extinct.

Effectively the Dreamcast doubled down a genre right at the absolute peak of its success, or more troublingly, possibly after some peak, which may have been a reason why people passed the console by.

Would have been interesting if the Dreamcast would have been able to survive just a year or two longer to see whether they would have been able to pivot away from arcade style titles or not.

[1] And no real surprise since the dreamcast shared technology with the NAOMI arcade hardware which enabled swift, high quality ports.