The Dreamcast - the last of SEGA's home console hardware - is often talked about with misty-eyed fondness by certain gamers as being ahead of its time and gone too soon. Like the name of an ex-girlfriend, mention either SEGA or Dreamcast in conversation and people will sigh like jilted lovers, pouring out memories of good times, bad times, and why the Dreamcast was the one that got away - and took with it SEGA's console manufacturing days with it. The console's strengths were in its excellent arcade-based software library, its forward-thinking hardware - a built-in modem offered online gaming straight out of the box, and came with the promise that it was going to be the machine to right SEGA's wrongs following the Mega-CD, 32X and Saturn. Those prior consoles had been cut short against stiff competition and had dented both retailer and consumer confidence. The Dreamcast was SEGA's chance to support a next-gen machine over the medium and long-term. Come January 2001, however, just little over two years after the initial Japanese launch, (and a mere fourteen months after the US launch) SEGA announced the Dreamcast was to be discontinued and SEGA would instead focus on producing and publishing software for their former competitors. But sit down for a moment and consider the lessons learned from the failure of the Dreamcast and its online focus being ahead of its time. From its varied games library to hardware quirks and from online functionality to executive staff, wasn't the Xbox 360 really the Dreamcast 2 we all secretly wanted?
8. Peter Moore
Currently holding the titles of Chief Operating Officer, Executive Vice President and Chief Competition Officer at EA as he oversees forays into eSports, back in 2003, Peter Moore was hired by Microsoft to boost the Xbox brand against the might of the PlayStation 2. His tenure as Head of Xbox was notable for PR stunts including those tattoos to announce forthcoming games Halo 2 in 2004 and GTA IV in 2006, and at press events he often spoke passionately about games and brands he was promoting, becoming something of an evangelist for the company. He knew how to market to gamers. Moore makes this list not just because he was one of the biggest public faces of Xbox between 2003 and 2007, but because of his experience serving SEGA of America from 1999 to 2003. In just seven months from date of starting at SEGA in February 1999, Moore worked like a machine to regain retailer trust after the broken promises of the Saturn, marketing the Dreamcast to consumers ahead of its 9/9/1999 US launch. The early days were indeed spectacular for Dreamcast with sales figures breaking records, but the momentum simply didn't carry through. However, Moore did have iterate on a core idea from SEGA's Dreamcast on Microsoft's Xbox: get online gaming working on consoles. Gamespot, reporting on Moore's Twitter feed in September 2014, quoted some of his reminiscences of the Dreamcast: "It certainly doesn't feel like fifteen years have gone by since this innovative console ushered in the era of online gaming, albeit through a 56K modem, and thus changed the face of interactive entertainment forever." The Xbox 360 certainly didn't have a 56k modem, nor did the original Xbox, but the 360 did have the improved iteration of Xbox Live, delivered by ethernet and broadband, a service that now tops 48 million subscribers and fully capitalises on that original statement.
Bryan Langley’s first console was the Super Nintendo and he hasn’t stopped using his opposable thumbs since. He is based in Bristol, UK and is still searchin' for them glory days he never had.
