[Reincarnate]

Sega has had a history of gunning things too early, pulling out too soon, and making really bad decisions in the heat of the moment. They're pretty much the equivalent of your average wannabe-frat boy eagerly desperate to get laid but unable to seal the deal properly. Over and over again, they try to jump first onto new technology without realizing that patience would allow them to better capitalize on such ventures. Sega went into things that wound up being quickly obsolete or far inferior to competitor releases.

Sega pulled the plug on the Genesis too early and released the Saturn which didn't even offer a solid Sonic title... which was key to the success of the Genesis to begin with. They also pulled a fast one on investors/retailers/consumers alike: "Surprise! We're not releasing the Saturn on September 2nd 4 months from now! It's actually already in stores!" That's how you piss everyone off in one elegant move. Devs had trouble meeting the new launch date, and retailers who weren't in on the trick were pissed off. Sony took advantage of this by polishing the PS1 and cutting the price so that it was more affordable than the Saturn. Angry retailers also sided with Sony and did Sega no favors.

Also, does anyone remember Bernie Stolar? He used to be president of SCEA but left because he wanted to keep out 2D games (including RPGs) since he felt they didn't take advantage of the hardware. So Sega snatched him up instead. And then Sony released FF7, LOL. Stolar continued to block "unworthy" titles from being developed on the Saturn, and so everyone again flocked to Sony. At E3 in 1997, Stolar said "The Saturn is not our future" and further managed to piss everyone off who had invested in Sega and the Saturn -- claiming that the Dreamcast was the next step forward. Unfortunately, the Dreamcast was, arguably, the sum of everything wrong with Sega. Stolar was fired right before the DC was launched.