The Sega Dreamcast was a system way, way, way ahead of its time. It was affordable arcade power, right in your home!

Sega desperately needed to hit the console market hard after the Saturn had lackluster performance against the Nintendo 64 and Sony PlayStation worldwide. This machine was definitely the one to do it, but alas... Sales fell flat, mostly due to the continued popularity and widespread support for those other two consoles and the birth of the almighty PlayStation 2. A few years into its life, it also had to fight against the Nintendo GameCube and Xbox - It just didn't have a chance. Sadly, this would be the beginning of the end for Sega's console efforts and even a partial bowing out of the diminishing arcade sector.

Sales be damned, though! The Dreamcast, as I said earlier, was ahead of its time - An extremely powerful machine. Its lean towards Sega exclusive properties, flawless arcade ports, and Japanese game studios made for a really unique, well-developed library and set of physical accessories. One of them, the "VMU," was a memory card with a built-in screen, d-pad, and buttons, which let you play minigames from your save files on the go. Not only that, but the screen could show important info during gameplay while plugged in! The Dreamcast was also the console of choice for 2D fighting game fanatics, featuring the most definitive home ports of such games, most notably Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. It's the little quirks and exclusive gems that really made the Dreamcast popular in niche circles, giving the console and its roster of unforgettable characters a cult status, even to this day.

I saw the future when Dreamcast was coming, and I ended up with a launch edition and every game released at the time. How was I able to afford that, being a broke kid in their first semester of college? Well... I was so broke that I qualified for the Pell Grant. And you can guess what I spent it on instead of food... and soap... and supplies... and bus passes... and clothes. With my horrible skills at math and not having enough money to survive, I had to fold any college aspirations and move back home. However, that year of my life was chock full of some of the best experiences I ever had in the 6th generation of videogames. Worth it!