PS2 was overhyped, but by the time it came out in usa a lot of the hype was gone or criticized due to the system underwhelming at launch in japan with rr v and tekken tag being jaggy and arguably not as imressive as soul calibur for dc in many ways, people’s expectations had largely been tempered by hearing fans of dreamcst/gamecube/xbox rightly criticize it (ign dc had a big article by brandon justice i think comparing it to the disappointing MI2 that came out summer 2000), also e3 was largely a big hit to the expectations as good as metal gear solid 2 the rest of the lineup wasnt too impressive, and mgs2 was still a year away from usa launch…also the overall launch lineup was not super thrilling, for example madden 2001 looked amazing but dc had nfl 2k1 which looked good too and played as good or better and did i mention online play? may have been 56k modem but playing nfl 2k1 was a blast as long as your opponent did not become a crybaby quitter haha..it want until 2001 where ps2 really hit its stride and had the great showing at e3 and then hit after hit (metal gear solid 2, devil may cry, silent hill 2, jak and daxter, tony hawk 3, final fantasy x, gran turismo 3, twisted metal black, a little surprise masterpiece called Ico!!, and biggest of all, GTA3!! Not to mention GTA3 and a year later GTA Vice City, were Ps2 exclusive until fall 2003. GTA3 was probably that gen’s Goldeneye, the game that seemingly came out of nowhere to all but the hardcore gamers and spread like wildfire thru word of mouth due to its excellence and addicting gameplay.
SEGA abandoned us January 2001. It really stung to me because I only got a dreamcast Christmas 2000 bc it was on sale for $100 ($150 with $50 rebate). So it sucked to get this nice new system, and find out one afternoon that Sega is abandoning it 16 months after launch and developing the new Virtua Fighter for PS2 instead of Dreamcast!!
Having said that, Dreamcast had an amazing lineup, the year 2000 releases constitute one of the best single year releases for a system ever. The other years had amazing games as well, and while true that many were arcade ports (especially fighters and racers), the system had plenty of non-arcade games, and was the first home console to come with a modem and have a dedicated online service that wasn’t even that expensive.
As mentioned above, the Dreamcast had tons of arcade games especially fighters. Soul Calibur was an amazing launch game, Dead or Alive 2 from tecmo was a great beginning of 2000 game, Virtua Fighter 3 tb finally gave us the long-awaited port of VF3 from the Model 3 arcade hardware that had sparked debate for basically the entire time between it came out and came to Dreamcast about which system it would arrive on, and some excellent non-fighter arcade ports included Crazy Taxi, Virtua Tennis, and the Dreamcast Daytona.
And I haven’t forgotten: the Dreamcast was chock full of amazing Capcom fighters!! Street Fighter 3 (1 and 2, then 3rd strike later), Street Fighter Alpha 3, Marvel vs Capcom 1 and 2, Capcom vs SNK, Tech Romancer, Power Stone 1 and 2, and some excellent non arcade games like Resident Evil Code Veronica.
Best of all…the best game on the system, the best game of the year 2000…Jet Set Radio. Omg what a game! (And Why oh why did they name it Jet Grind Radio stateside? lol). Jet Set Radio is the literal definition of killer app, and it’s crazy that Best Buy had it for $10 new the summer after it came out (came out fall 2000, best buy had it marked down to $10 summer 2001, just weeks before the good feelings and good times of the 1990s officially ended on 9/11).
Like many here, I too still have my Dreamcast and am very proud of the 40 or so game collection I have amassed over the years. Sega royally disappointed me and many others by pulling the plug on the system too soon, and it’s unfortunate that a few big name publishers either avoided the system altogether(looking at you, Electronic (F)arts! lol) or only published the D-tier games and saved the A and B tiers for PS2 and Xbox (Konami would be a good example here). My only regrets are that I sat on the fence for a while rather than buying a Dreamcast at launch, and rented most of the excellent Capcom fighters but did not buy most until years later. It’s hard to think about how 20 years ago, the fall of 2000, I could have walked into Target and bought Power Stone 2 and Marvel vs Capcom 2 and Street Fighter 3 brand new for $40-50 each, whereas now you have to hunt them down online and pay a pretty penny for a used copy of these games!
I ended up buying all 4 systems of that generation (Dreamcast, PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox) and have good memories of amazing games from each, and the Dreamcast lineup for the year and a half or so before Sega went third party was an amazing run that may never be fully duplicated again! Cheers to the Dreamcast and its excellent games.