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The Japanese have a term for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gal%C3%A1pagos_syndrome

I assumed it was the lack of a homegrown OS? It seems OS's turned out to be a pretty big deal when device complexity moved beyond menu/+/- buttons on the side of the device.

The only one I could imagine having had a chance would be Sony. They had a rather well built out OS on the Playstation 3 with lots of modern online features.

I'd also suggest that the "bubble" era had a long tail in terms of innovation- the huge R&D investments that were made in the 80s and early 90s were still showing results into the early 2000s. Then we started to see the result of a recession that ended up spanning more than a decade.