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At the dawn of the new millennium,
PlayStation was sitting pretty

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Sony's first video game system surprised everyone in the 90s, leapfrogging
Nintendo and Sega to become the best-selling home console of the decade

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Feel a little like your days are numbered? By offering more
sophisticated 3D games with more mature imagery and themes

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PlayStation had changed the reputation of video games from what was mostly still
seen as a juvenile pastime into truly mainstream entertainment for all ages

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Sony was now ready to launch its successor, the PlayStation 2,
but there was no guarantee that lightning would strike twice

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I think the key word for the next generation PlayStation is emotion. Despite birthing
classics like Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time, and GoldenEye 007

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the four-year-old Nintendo 64 was in a
distant second place behind PlayStation

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Nintendo's decision to go with expensive cartridges
for the N64 instead of cheap discs like the competition

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had pushed away many third-party publishers, leading to software droughts. And
Nintendo's overall kid-friendly image was starting to feel quaint, next to the edgy

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cooler PlayStation and Sega brands. Would
you rather be at home shooting a bazooka

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Or watching a chick flick? Chick flick, bazooka. Chick flick, bazooka. But despite the struggle Nintendo did have complete dominance of the handheld market and had a plan to give its family image a
significant makeover Sega Dreamcast was only a few months old in the U and had an early hit with Soulcalibur but most of its best games had yet to arrive Over the next 12 months Sega would play its hand

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almost perfectly in its efforts to sell the
Dreamcast, but still failed to survive. So what

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went wrong? The year 2000 would see the launch
of the best-selling console ever and many of the

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highest-rated games ever. It was an exciting time
that felt like gaming was about to explode with

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new innovations, but some beloved companies
would struggle to adapt to the changing times

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This is why the year 2000 was one of the most
important years in the history of video games

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At the start of 2000, PlayStation devs were
starting to get nervous. The PlayStation 2 was

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just two months away from its release in Japan
and 10 months from its holiday release in North

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America, but North American developers
still couldn't get their hands on dev kits

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According to Next Gen Magazine sources, no US
studio had a full PS2 development kit going

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into the new year. One executive told the magazine,
I need a launch title, and if I don't get a dev kit

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soon, I'm screwed. Now we're thinking even more about doing
Dreamcast games, stating that if they couldn't get PS2

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software ready for launch they would throw their support behind Sega instead One of the few studios to have a PS2 dev kit
was Insomniac who are now known for their record Spider series but at the time was known as the Spyro the Dragon creators

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Alex Hastings, VP of software at Insomniac, told
NextGen, the raw horsepower is unbelievable

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even on these preliminary systems. Whenever you get a new console, you start thinking, okay,
how can I get the system to the absolute maximum that it can do? With a system this complex

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and powerful, it's an overwhelming task. People
like me have to change our perspective a little

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bit and not say, how can I get this to
run 100%, but how can we come close

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Sega, on the other hand, had decided to set the
Dreamcast apart from PlayStation and Nintendo

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with its online capabilities. To that end, Sega launched a new
company, SegaNet, which would be a full internet service provider

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And in a shocking move, it offered gamers
a free Dreamcast if they signed up for two

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years of the SegaNet service. This offer was even retroactive. If you
already owned a Dreamcast, Sega would mail you a check for 200 bucks

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Do you accept cash? Sega delivered the first must-have
Dreamcast game of the year on February 2nd, Crazy Taxi

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The arcade version of the frantic passenger
delivery game released the previous year was

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already a huge hit, and the Dreamcast port was even better. IGN called it the closest thing to a digital drug we ever seen Think of it as gaming
crack We gave it a 9 Not only was it addictive it was also a graphical showcase for the Dreamcast that ran at a smooth 60 frames per second

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As of January 11th, one and a half million
Dreamcasts had been sold in the United States

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but if any game was going to sell more Dreamcasts
this year, it was going to be Crazy Taxi

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Nintendo, hoping to give the now four-year-old N64 sales
a jolt, introduced six new color variations in February

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Alongside the original charcoal color, gamers could now
choose from smoke, grape, ice, jungle, fire, and watermelon

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Nintendo 64's six new colors are so amazing,
choosing a favorite might be somewhat of a struggle

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But new colors weren't enough to alleviate frustrated gamers who
were upset with the trickle of games being released for the platform

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In April, NextGen Magazine asked the
question, is Nintendo 64 doomed? Doomed

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Now today may seem like an odd question to ask, given the machine was about to
receive the gifts of Perfect Dark, The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask, and Banjo-Tooie

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But 1999 had been a lighter year for Nintendo, with perhaps less exciting
releases like Donkey Kong 64, Mario Golf, and a port of Resident Evil 2

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While first-party software usually sold well, third-party
publishers were reporting falling software sales on the platform

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Acclaim, publisher of games like
Turok and South Park, Chef's Lovecraft