That's a good point. The Gamecube was definitely underwhelming in it's library of games and frustrated a lot of consumers. I think the point I'm trying to make is that it was basically inevitable that there would be a new major console. The market was too big. I'm sure there was also a chance that this wouldn't happen, and Sega/Sony/Nintendo kept on ruling the market. But it just takes one misstep. And there were two (Dreamcast and Gamecube) right as gaming was really starting to explode into its present-day extent.

I'm not trying to argue about the specifics about what happened, but just in general terms, there was always going to be room for a competitor in a space that big, that was changing that rapidly. Imho.

Makes sense! Between chance of failure & rate of change, the odds looked pretty good.

I'm more flummoxed by the fact that a fundamentally social-native offering didn't disrupt the existing ecosystem, in the 2000 timeframe.

We had chat. We had basic web. Keyboards weren't that expensive, were they? Seems a killer feature for kids.

Not straight "the Web on your console", but something more like AOL, Prodigy, and the late 90s portals.

My only explanation is that the 3 big platform companies were still thinking in packaged software/games, sold retail, terms. Hence XBox Live, when it emerged, was essentially a way to get more value (multiplayer) out of the packaged software you bought.