To me, the answer is clear; the Dreamcast was unquestionably ahead of its time. It had a built-in modem for internet, graphics that could rival the PS2, and some totally awesome looking prototype controllers.

 

I’m not sure why people would ever say it was an in ''between console'' it could've been a Revolution in its time.

It was thinking.

 

So anyone else consider other systems that had unrealized potential?

I would say DreamCast but I'm going to have to go with GameCube. Nintendo realized its first party potential out of the gate. But it had so much potential that wasn't used like the internet add on which Nintendo could have used. The WaveBird was a use of potential and was ahead of its time. I think third parties were too quick to abandon GameCube had they been behind Nintendo the console would have killed the X-Box.

The Nintendo GameCube was a profitable machine for Nintendo and had alot of software selling potential if third parties had supported it. It was a great hardware platform that deserved more support then it got. The mini-Disk had a ton of potential too.

Nintendo's consoles always have alot of potential but I think GameCube was perhaps the biggest unused one. Good thing Nintendo fixed alot of these things with Wii and saught to ensure its potential was met with outstanding support.

While agree the GameCube was an excellent console; it simply didn't have enough built in hardware defining features to differentiate itself from the rest of the 6th gen consoles, aside from Nintendo's famous IPs of course.    

I thought the original Xbox was pretty good for it's time in regards to the Live integration, on board hard drive storage etc. But agreed Dreamcast was one of a kind, but didn't catch on, even worse so than the original xbox.

Yes, perhaps those two systems were simply too far ahead of their time.

this topic made me immediately think about the Shen Mue footage on Saturn

Looks quite incredible. Looks much better than most PSOne games.

I'm going to go with DC as well.  I would've loved to have seen what would have happen to that platform if it survived just a little longer

I agree with you. Dreamcast. It was way ahead of its time and failed miserably. Online gaming (you could play with pc players!!) plus screen on the controller. I have the feeling that if it launched today it would be a very successful console.

I agree. and I feel like the Xbox started to realize it's potential at the end of it's life. Live started becoming popular, and it came out with a few really impressive games, graphically. (I always think of trying Ninja Gaiden.. it looked so good. In fact it was practically comparable to a lot of PS3 launch titles)