Microsoft could afford to make mistakes, Sega couldn't.

No EA support, PS2 on the horizon, insane money loss every quarter, reputation for not supporting their console. That's all I can think of, right now.

Microsoft suceeded because Bill Gates would NOT accept losing. They threw a shit load of money into their console. They also had Halo.

Mega drive succeded because: it was on a similar graphics plane as the SNES/ sonic the hedgehog/golden axe/streets of rage/ecco/ altered beast.. and lots of 3rd party support

32X failed... poorly supported.. crap design: did anyone notice the amount of wires on that thing

Saturn... sudden launch. Lack of support from Square. High price. limited 3rd party support.PSone has better 3D graphics on most titles.

SEGA.. the management was CRAP. There were some links on the "videogame museum" website that give a detailed history on the Sega saturn and why it was such a fuck up.

The dreamcast was brilliant. Shame on all those of you who didnt buy one. Probably the best library ever in a 2 yrs launch period. Dreamcast was a lil ahead of its time. Sega should have probably dealyed it by a year and snuck in a DVD drive.. that would have made it a hit..

MS succeding has more to do with the following:

360 has bleeding edge graphics, sans KZ2 and uncharted ofcourse.
cheap
cheap
cheap
lots of 3rd party support.
money
money
money
and some more money

MS has been very good at building its brand image. Xbox was only loved in NA. 360 is cleaner smaller, xbox live and they advertise it brilliantly. The SKU's also tend to follow a similar pricing pattern in most markets. Plus SONY has destroyed its rep by bundling in blu ray and the uber high price. Oh the arrogance.

Pride cometh before the fall.. ask sega and sony.. they know..

^^^And Nintendo. They know, too.

Luckily, if I learned anything from Batman Begins, it was this: "We fall so we can get back up again."

Blu Ray is not a bad thing :(

Making it too expensive is a bad thing.

A combination of Money, Halo, and the void SEGA fans had with the Dreamcast's death.

Putting out a new console or add on every 5 minutes killed Sega.

MS lost like 6 Segas on the original X-Box alone but they can eat that kinda loss.

They succeded for these 3 reasons.

1. Money

2. Halo

3. Strong advertising

Sega, to be competitive with Nintendo, lived on razor thin profits, plowing their profits back into marketing. Microsoft never had this profitability issue overall. It also didn't face the divided management that Sega had. It also didn't have an excessively large range of products on the market at the same time, so its focus wasn't divided the way Sega had happen.

Money simply. If MS was that big as SEGA they would not survived last generation with that kind of loss.