I don't think you can pin the Dreamcast's failure entirely on Bernie Stolar's departure from the company. Sega had some serious problems in the years before the DC was released. Everyone wants to credit the PS2 (or rather the hype surrounding the PS2) for killing the DC, but in reality, I think Sega was it's own worst enemy. Sega had burned a lot of their fans over the years and lost most of their credibility with gamers. A lot of the reasons why this happened could probably be pinned on Stolar's predecessor, Tom Kalinske, but Stolar definitely felt the hangover from them.
Sega had a legitimate hit in the early 1990's with the Genesis, but then they flooded their market with expensive pseudo-system add ons that they barely supported. The Sega CD came first in 1992, the 32X followed in 1994, and in between those two you had redesigned versions of the Genesis and Sega CD and the combo CDX thing. They pushed all this junk out the door and at the same time told us that the Saturn was coming soon (at a whopping $399 price tag) as well something they called the Neptune (for $200) that was never released.
Look at this from a gamer's perspective, particularly a young gamer without a lot of disposable income: I already bought a Genesis a in 1990 for $159, a Sega CD in 1992 for $299, a 32X in 1994 for $159, and then a Saturn in 1995 for $399. Let's not forget the Game Gear I bought for $150 as well as the massive amount of money invested in games for these systems and useless peripherals (Activator or Menacer anyone?). The Sega Cd lasted until late 1995 with only a handful of games worth purchasing, the 32X died about the same time and really had nothing to offer at all. The Saturn stumbled out of the gate and hobbled along until 1998 though in reality, it died long before then. So then Sega comes along and says that their developing a new system that they'll actually support? Yeah right...but I was still there to pick up my DC on 9-9-99 and it barely lasted two years. They got another $199 from me for that system. You burned me Sega...again.
The saddest part of this all is that the DC was a good system, and the best Sega had put on the market since the Genesis. They just couldn't overcome Sony's hype machine and their own ruined reputation as a console maker.
I will be impressed if anyone gets it.halo3-player
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