Optics, price point, word of mouth. Coming from the SNES as a kid, I only wanted the N64 and that's what I got. Very quickly the PSX got popular and games were stocked everywhere. No one talked about the Saturn.

I did get to play it when it was new (the Saturn), and the catalog I encountered was shitty FMV games and a shmup. I was not enamored.

The Dreamcast though, I remember being very attractive. The demos of Sonic Adventure looked absolutely astounding to me. I was late hopping on to that gen of consoles (parents strapped for cash), and still given the choice I went for the PS2, because it had the more attractive catalog and a DVD player. Years went by and I borrowed a GC to play Prime, an XBOX to play Ninja Gaiden and Halo, but I was not that motivated to try the DC.

I played Soul Caliber on a friend's DC. There was also a great tennis game.

Not to be flippant, but so what?

I'd rather be the creator of the worst thing that people want to buy than the best thing that nobody's ever heard of.

Very few autuers agree with you. They make blockbuster movies to finance the goodwill and pocketbooks of the films they want to make. This is why the critically "best" movies every year always go under the radar with relatively few ticket sales.

This is all to say, your opinion clearly isn't the universal one.

That’s not really what I was getting at (although it is generally true, and it is the original meaning of the phrase “the customer is always right”). My point was that advertising steers people’s opinions all the time. Better advertising would have ensured that the kids wanted the games that Sega would actually have.

Although I will also say that they must have known that a lot of kids would already want another Sonic game, so not having one at launch was a mistake. No need to steer people’s opinions if they are already in a convenient place.

This is a bad take. Sega actually had incredible advertising campaigns in the 90s. That iconic "SEGA!" yell was addictive and memeable. Advertising/marketing was never a problem for Sega.

Sega also had tons of mindshare. They fumbled the ball and Sony ran with it for a touchdown. End of story.