I think the key here is that it was available to everyone. Technically earlier things like the SatellaView existed on other consoles but just weren't as available (eg that was Japan only.) I hear BS Zelda was pretty fun to play though.
Ironically for me, by the time I got a Dreamcast I needed an ethernet adapter instead and couldn't use a modem. 😆 They really caught things kind of wrong timing-wise. I feel like that was perpetually what happened to Sega hardware-wise. Always caught in the middle, too early for the advanced tech that ultimately took over a generation, but too late to blow away the previous generation.
