Despite falling victim to the juggernaut PlayStation brand in 2001, Sega's Dreamcast is still revered amongst gamers for its groundbreaking achievements in gaming and technology.

One person who knows the ins and outs of the Dreamcast drama is Peter Moore, who before his stints at Microsoft and EA Sports was head of Sega of America.

In an interview with the Guardian's gaming blog, Moore said, "The Dreamcast was an interesting beast. Sega was so financially strapped, and it had already launched in Japan to a sort of tepid, luke-warm reaction. ...

"Europe was going to be launching but there wasn't enough there to salvage what was going to be a tough situation with the PS2 looming 12 months out … The U.S. was the last best chance of getting the Dreamcast up and running."

Moore said that the Dreamcast was "on fire" for the first 18 months, but after Sega's Japanese headquarters told SOA that how many millions of consoles it needed to sell by the holiday 2000 season (Moore couldn't remember the exact figure), he personally made the call that Sega would be leaving hardware. That annoucement was made January 31, 2001.

"We were selling 50,000 units a day, then 60,000, then 100,000, but it was just not going to be enough to get the critical mass to take on the launch of PS2," Moore added. "It was a big stakes game. Sega had the option of pouring in more money and going bankrupt and they decided they wanted to live to fight another day. So we licked our wounds, ate some humble pie and went to Sony and Nintendo to ask for dev kits."

Moore described the console's life as a period of "pain, heartache, euphoria."

But he still recalls the machine fondly. "In the end it didn't work out. It was tough, but those were great days and I've never met anybody who regretted buying a Dreamcast. Soul Calibur anyone?"