My gaming system ownership has been pretty varied - Nintendo -> Super Nintendo -> Genesis -> PS1 -> PS2 -> PC.

In my opinion, the console lacked consumer confidence in the brand (Sega), because of the failure of the Saturn, actually had bad timing due to the imminent PS2 launch, lacked variety in games & popular titles, and failed to inform the market that they had a more powerful console.

Dreamcast had no hugely popular exclusives..

In contrast, there were some very popular exclusives on other consoles Like Final Fantasy & MGS franchises that were shipping tens of millions of copies.

The timing being what it was, just a few months before PS2 - I remember personally thinking "why would I get a Dreamcast? The PS2 is coming out in a few months, and will probably be better. Plus, it has the games I like on it, and I have a Playstation already, and it will play my PS1 games." I wasn't aware that the Dreamcast actually had superior processing power. I just learned that by googling it today.

They came out early, but not early enough that people couldn't wait for the PS2 to hit, especially given how massively popular MGS1 / FF7 were on PS1, causing sequels in the series to be very highly anticipated. I bought MGS2 and spent 3 days straight playing it when I bought my PS2. I wanted to see what the PS2 would be like before making my decision. If it hit the market a full 18 months or two years early, I think it might have been able to pick up more steam.

They were just badly positioned in many ways, and even the sonic game they came out with on Dreamcast wasn't very well received. It was a really rough time for Sega. I'm sad they're not still producing a console. I loved my Genesis and have liked many Sega games. I'm a long time fan of Shinobi. If They launched the Dreamcast with "Shinobi" instead of it being on PS2, that might have convinced me to pick up a Dreamcast.