The Dreamcast was a pioneer for online console gaming and the small LCD screen on the controller was a innovative feature with practical use (for eg. I believe with the NFL 2K games you could construct your plays right on your controller so that your buddy playing against you wouldn't be able to see what play you are going to go with.)
The Dreamcast was doomed though. When it came out, most of the PS1 gamers thought, "hmm, I'll wait for the PS2." I had a few buddies in highschool that did pick up a Dreamcast because it was significantly cheaper than the PS2 at the time and had solid exclusives (the Canadian dollar was awful back then. $1 US = $1.50 Canadian back then. A PS2 was $450 Canadian at launch whereas a Dreamcast was no more than $300 Canadian at launch. Maybe less. And the Dreamcast had price cuts). And then those buddies got a PS2 afterwards. Sega was pretty much fucked. I don't know if there was anything they could do to survive as a platform maker. Maybe if they operated on a much smaller scale they would have generated a profit serving a niche. Much like Neo Geo did for so many years.
