Is there any retro consoles that you never lived up to their potential? where the games fell short of the hardware?.
Personally I feel that the NDS was under-utilized, as it was a fully 3d capable console, that was used mostly for 2d pixel art games, and platformers. When it was able to support full 3d platformers and even a fan remake of portal.
The Dreamcast never really got given a chance. They killed it so fast, and even in its short lifespan it had a great library. It might have even been able to keep up with the PS2, at least for the first year or two with what I’ve seen of porting projects where people got shit like GTA3 running on it.
For such a short lifespan the Dreamcast had an abundance of peripherals too which were underutilized. Some of them were ahead of its time but you have to admire the passion!