I was a Nintendo fanboy back in the day and had the Nintendo 64 for Christmas 97, when it launched in Europe.
Think about this :
N64 Japan launch date was June 1996 with almost no games aside Mario 64.
Dreamcast Japanese launched in November 1998 with Sonic and Soul Calibur, + Powerstone and Blue stinger 3 months after I think ?
Sure, the N64 had games for Christmas 1996 with Mario Kart 64.
But if you tell me I could have waited 2 years to have this power inside my N64, and have the legendary games like OoT, MM, Goldeneye, Banjo, Bomberman 64 (yes, so good), Jet Force Gemini, Dk64, Castlevania 64, Smash bros, Conker, Starfox, Ogre Battle 64, Body Harvest (without the technical constraints it could have been great), Duke Nukem Zero Hour, Extreme G, Goemon, F Zero, KI, Megaman 64, Paper Mario ?
Where do I sign ? I mean just for 2 years the gap was ridiculously high!
Imagine having OoT 3DS (basically, if not better) at launch in 1998… and maybe in 60 fps.
Or Killer Instinct with that Soulcalibur graphic quality ?
A lot of the mid games would be much better regarded today if they had Dreamcast graphics. Castlevania 64, Body Harvest, Bomberman 64 were so good to me, they just had poor presentation imo.
I’m still wanting a Jet Force Gemini Remake. Unfortunately it’s in the incompetent hands of Microsoft now.
But it would have gotten, like the Dreamcast, old really fast before the PS2 launch.
So yeah, Dreamcast was incredible in 1998, you had to be there from the eyes of a young boy.
But Sega themselves didn’t take full advantage of their console. No Shining Force 4 in beautiful 3D (for the time) is a real stinker. Same for Shinobi.
Sega is still struggling to make good 3D transition for their 2D franchise to this day, even with Sonic… it’s sad.
How the fuck did Streets of rage did not transitions into a DMC like ? Same for Shinobi ?
PSO was cool, but the classic franchise is still dead to this day, Shining is basically dead too. Panzer Dragoon Saga 2 ?
Sega has always been focused too much on arcade games, that’s their problem. They didn’t see the market was changing. At least we had good runs with Virtua Fighter.