> And awesome quirky stuff like > Crazy Taxi, Space Channel 5 and Jet Set Radio.
Which is the root of the problem. Sega gave gamers what the loud gamer voices on the Internet claimed to want: quirky, non-cookie-cutter games, often with big slices of "OMG Japan" fully intact. Even some of the third-party stuff was off the beaten path. But what gamer-nerds on the Internet want isn't what the mass audience wants, so none of those great games sold very well. Whereas Sony led with Madden and FIFA and Tekken Tag Tournament and the rest was history.