A lot of factors - both internal and external - led to Sega quitting the hardware game so I can't really say. All I know is that I miss Sega and wish I had supported the company as a kid. An industry with Nintendo and Sega would be a lot better than the status quo.

Guess that was a Freudian slip

It was the disunity between SoA and SoJ. Sega only have themselves to blame. Saturn had the potential of selling 50 to 60 million units after Megadrive's 35 million. If they got Saturn's launch right, if the system was oriented for 3D graphics and not a pain in the ass to develop for, the console would have been getting all the PS1 3rd parties, all the big games like FF7, MGS etc. After all it was a CD based console like the PS1.

And Saturn being so awesome and stealing millions of Sony's fans would've also made Dreamcast's prospects better against the PS2, for one it wouldn't have launched so early, it likely also would have a DVD drive.

Saturn and abandoning the revenue from gen3 too early is what broke Sega's back.
32X was merely an ill omen. And the Sega CD was a relative success.

The CD and 32X might have been sub-par systems, but the Saturn is what really hurt Sega. It makes me wonder if a 3D Sonic game would have made the situation slightly different.

Sega CD was OK, I think the market would've let that one go.

But 32X was insanity, launching a 32X they then needed to support that for at least 2-3 years or not release it period.

And releasing a 32X like seven months before the Saturn was a catastrophic failure.

Also $399.99 for the Saturn, I don't think people realize that's like $600+ with inflation and this is 20 years ago when the industry was mostly just younger boys.

Good luck getting mom and pop to spend that kind of money on a game system.

Saturn is the most hilariously backwards launch ever, I remember (and I used to keep up to date on the industry by reading things like EGM and Next Generation magazine) going to a Blockbuster Video to rent a game in spring 1995 and lo and behold the Saturn was just sitting there on the store shelf for ... sale.

No one knew Sega had even launched the thing, lol, they "surprise" launched it. Imagine walking into a store tomorrow and just seeing an XBox Scorpio or Nintendo NX sitting there. That's what it was like, lol.

They *still* probably could've pulled that generation out if they could have convinced Squaresoft to make Final Fantasy VII for the Saturn instead of the Playstation, but they lost that bid too. 

Sega should have stayed with just Genesis and then listened to Tom Kalinske's team and gone with their plans. SOA wanted to use an entirely different version of Saturn that was developed in the US. It's specs were on par or better than what Sony was doing with PS1.

The problem with Sega was SOJ. At some point, they got greedy and insecure over the fact that SOA was taking over and decided to put an end to it during the whole 32X/Saturn debacle. That was the beginning of the end.

Sonic Adventure got 9's at the time. It was considered not only good, but great. Dreamcast broke launch records at the time of it's release and sold very well at the start. 

The Dreamcast had the best launch ever based on units sold.

The Saturn launched at an insane price at the time. I think above the fabled 600 dollars.

The addons weren't great decisions either though. Cost them consumer trust.

I liked how they innovated, but they should have presented only one and more affordable system.

But, it doesn't matter. We can't go back in time and that magical SEGA is gone forever.