The ten best consoles: our countdown of the greatest gameboxes of the last 20 years | Features | Edge Online
The short lifespan of Sega’s Dreamcast – all but dead within two years – is made all the more tragic by the company’s final console providing much of the blueprint for modern machines. It was the first with a built-in modem, for one thing, Sega putting its dwindling money where its mouth was with the likes of ChuChu Rocket!, Phantasy Star Online and thirdparty efforts such as Quake III Arena. In-game voice chat allowed Dreamcast owners to experience the same kind of online play as PC owners, and some games even offered DLC. The controller might have been an ugly evolution of Saturn’s 3D controller, but placing a VMU into one of its expansion slots provided a second-screen experience long before the idea became fashionable.
And still the gameplay holds up. One of the best ever.