Member-only story

Microsoft Stole The Dreamcast 2, Admit It

Whether you want to admit it or not, the Xbox was the Dreamcast 2

Cameron Eittreim
4 min readSep 6, 2022

2001 was a tough year for some gamers, including me. It was the year Sega announced an exit from the home console market. Which meant the Dreamcast was the last Sega console.

But 2001 also brought the birth of a new console, the Xbox. A console that had many similarities to the Dreamcast, and even utilized the same technology.

Where the Dreamcast failed, the Xbox did everything right, and it ended up being a success because Microsoft could afford to sell the console at a loss to make up for market share.

Sega punched their own ticket with the botch that was the 32X and the Saturn. By the time Dreamcast came around, the company had burned bridges with third party software developers and retailers.

Leave it to good old Bill Gates to pick up the pieces, right? And pick up the pieces he did. As the Xbox became a hit from the very first day. Of course, it helped that Microsoft paid for a huge marketing machine.

Create an account to read the full story.

The author made this story available to Medium members only.
If you’re new to Medium, create a new account to read this story on us.

Already have an account? Sign in

Cameron Eittreim
Cameron Eittreim

Written by Cameron Eittreim

Podcast host, traveler, published author. Editor of The Self Pivot. Contact at theselfpivot.com

Responses (1)

Write a response

Xbox got the most Sega franchises released for the system. I really wished that Microsoft bought Sega back then. I still hope they buy them out so that we may see dormant franchises come back like Panzer Dragoon and Jet Set Radio.