Again… OG sega tan here. And I’m not gonna take nothing away from sega if only out of sheer love for them. And yeah you could be right maybe if the DC was successful enough for them to keep the fight going they would have doubles down on their online efforts. But that never happens and Xbox was the one that brought it to its full potential.
I mean…. Apple never invented the MP3 player but people remember the iPod more than whatever was for what it achieved in fullness. Dreamcast was potential. The first and second Xbox was potential fulfilled in that sense. They were able to execute it all t he way. It’s unfortunate that sega couldn’t hang in there but even onsoecs they were outgunned by PS2, GC and Xbox so there’s other factors there too…… along with bad dev and publisher relations. EA thought they could strong arm sega into not making their own sports games ont he or own system, that’s how bad down sega was. Glad they told EA to shove it because rhe 2K NFL and NBA games were always better than fifa and NBA Live. Speaking of sports games, even those got their first real online player to serve to players on OG Xbox. The same 2K games at that…. Apronably also another real so many of us sega heads got the OG Xbox. It just seems like a place where degas online games would be, fully fleshed out online experiences…. And they were.
Believe it or not SegaNet was more popular than xbox live so it wasn't about popularity like the ipod. xbox live just had more time and more console releases to build itself up. Maybe it was because it was free online play on the Dreamcast but this is what it was like:
"Just over a month after launch, by October 27, 2000, SegaNet had 1.55 million Dreamcast consoles registered online, including 750,000 in Japan, 400,000 in North America, and 400,000 in Europe. In comparison, Xbox Live which later launched in 2002, took nearly two years to reach 1 million online users, in July 2004."
Dreamcast support unfortunately just died too soon for it to get anywhere and become more feature rich but they certainly introduced online play without the need for additional hardware. I don't think that can be taken away from them just because xbox live became more popular and Internet faster throughout the years.
If that's the case the same argument can be made for the OG Xbox and introducing the HDD. The original xbox introduced the built in HDD to consoles but it was hemorrhaging money for MS and they killed it fast partially due to that cost (& Nvidia screwing them) . For their HDD For 360 they went the same route as the earlier PS2 with an optional HDD for that reason. It would be like discrediting the OG xbox and saying that HDDs were in fact introduced to consoles by the PS3 because the OG xbox HDD was pitiful in that regard and the PS3 made HDDs in console much more popular with better support (much like xbox did with online play) . The OG xbox HDD was only 6gb and used for settings and save blocks mostly and the OG had poor sales. HDDs in consoles and disc/dvd game installs didn’t really become popular until the PS3, doesn't mean that OG xbox didn’t introduce the HDD though much like I wouldn't say Sega didn't introduce online play as standard.
Even if OG xbox was shortlived, had a measly capacity at the time and didn't have features like installing full blown games it introduced the HDD as standard. Even if Dreamcast was shortlived, had dialup speeds at the time and didn't have features like party chat it introduced online play as standard. That's how I see it.
Just a fun fact regarding sports games since you mentioned them. The most popular sports game at the time Madden didn't get online support on Xbox, it had it on PS2 exclusively since EA wanted to use their own servers.