Why the Sega Saturn Failed
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.ค. 2018
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You can't get away from it. If you're a Sega fan, you will constantly hear about the many opinions regarding their failed systems. In this video, you'll hear mine, and I only ask you keep an open mind while watching it.
NOTES:
*I used the 32X footage of Fahrenheit and Night Trap because it looked better during the presentation.
*Fantasia II is presented more as a joke than anything, mainly because it's so bad. Disney is actually quite protective of the license.
*Many of the games here were published by Sega of America and developed by another company. While SoA did have internal development teams, many of the Genesis titles from them were outside development.
*Both NBA Action and NFL 97 were released over a year after the Saturn's NA launch. NBA Action in June of 96, and NFL 97 in November of 96.
* I am not a fan of many of the Sega of America published Genesis titles. Chakan, Greendog, Batman Returns, and Fantasia used as examples of some of my most disliked among those games.
*NFL Gameday is absolutely awesome on the PS1. Play it.
*ESWAT may be funny to some of you when I mentioned it as a Genesis classic, but it actually is one of my favorites for the system.
Music used in this video in order.
Shienryu - Stage 5
Cosmic Carnage
ESWAT Stage 1
Sonic - Greenhill
Midnight Resistance - Stage 1
Road Rash Palm Desert
Daytona King of Speed
Virtua Fighter 2 Dural
Afterburner
Outrun Splashwave
Dragon Force - Battle
Sonic CD Palmtree Panic
Panzer Dragoon Ending
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SEGA never having a true Sonic game for the Saturn was a colossal disaster.
I disagree. Even if there was an original Sonic game for the Saturn that wasn't a port of an already existing Sonic game, it wouldn't be enough to save the console.
LeaveTheMark: Sonic single handily help millions of Genesis’s sell in the United States.
Saturn never have had a AAA IP when on release. Nights didn’t cut it.
@@stabinghobo57 It's wasn't the same target of consumers ..... there was sonic 3D games on Dreamcast it wasn't a big success .
@@bigmanliam lol right? It was one of the Dreamcasts best sellers. Ppl just throw random shit out. Bc it wasnt a massive success like say Xbox's Halo, doesnt mean it wasnt a success!
@@LeaveTheMark_YT no one is saying having a Sonic game would have saved the Saturn. Not having a good sonic game period was a big mistake. How would Nintendo be doing if they skipped almost entirely on Mario for a console? A regular console, not something unordinary like the Wii
Sonic being absent was a huge reason.
Sonic Jam
Sonic R
Sonic 3D blast
What the hell are you talking about??
Not to mention Nights and Christmas Nights
Obviously he was talking about a real Sonic game, numbnuts.
Sarah Connor you call that person above numbnuts yet you
can't say what is or would be your idea of a real Sonic game?
@@jasonlee7816 A 2D platformer like Sonic Mania. Now leave the one month comment alone.
I went PlayStation over Saturn (UK) for two main reasons. The systems at the time were both £199.99 The Saturn came with no demo or game, and required purchase of an rf adapter. I could only just afford the hardware at the time so for the same price I could take home a PlayStation the same day and have it hook up to my tv and play something that night.
What pack-in game did you get? I don't remember what mine was but I got in 1998 or '99, so it might've been around the same time as yours.
@@sheilaburrowes9081 Demo One disc probably. Better than nothing.
@@sheilaburrowes9081 IIRC when the Playstation first came out it didn't include a pack-in game, just a demo disc. That probably changed by 98/99 though, especially with them competing against the nascent Dreamcast.
You must of been quite late to the party if the saturn was $199 if i remember sega didn't lower the price much until the sat mrk 2 came out , the original uk price for the sat in 1995 was 399.99 i remember paying it too just to play virtua fighter, i went with saturn over PlayStation as it came with an rgb scart lead and virtua fighter pack in game, even the though the console was mega expensive it was worth it i loved the saturn, all my mates had ps1s so i didn't miss out on PlayStation and they didnt miss out of some of the good games for saturn
@@Megalocade Yeah, I just read the comment, and I was sure the Saturn was originally over 300, and totally out of my price range. Having had the Megadrive, and loving Daytona, I was convinced I wanted a Saturn, and desperate for games (and arcade ports) to be good. But a part of me also loved the idea of the Playstation and Ridge Racer. In the end I waited and waited, and ended up with an N64. I loved the Dreamcast, though, even with the magazines convinced it would fail (as I remember it, anyway).
It's an interesting point in the video about Sega placing emphasis on arcade games for their strategy, because I remember being confused why people weren't more enthusiastic about the Saturn. I guess it's because I expected everyone to love the arcade games.
Sera’s biggest mistake was failing to see that the arcade market was dying fast in NA. People wanted games that were lengthy, not 20 minute arcade ports.
The 32X killed SEGA more than anything else. It was a betrayal to their fans because the Saturn was right around the corner. The lack of good games just added salt on the wound.
I didnt even know the x32 existed till way after but I did consider buying the sega saturn
True . I was a huge Sega guy . I got hoodwinked with the 32x .
Nothing but a cash grab and as you said well it felt like a betrayal.
They gave up on the 32X way too soon. From what I understand the 32X was supposed to be a cheap upgrade for people who didn't want to spend the money for a Saturn. It was basically supposed to be a budget system. It could have saw some success imo if they wouldn't have abandoned it so early. It is like they wanted it to be a failure.
@@User_SR_2006 in hindsight it sure seems that way . I had an old generation 1 . I bought the 32x from toys r us , at launch only to get it home and think it was defective because it didnt include the special cord to link the gen and 32x together .
Later when the dust settles you feel like they crapped on their own fans . No sonic game ? ( I mean isn't that the easy 5 minute convo on day one of brain storming about the launch?)
Then ok, the Saturn became Sega's baby I get that but dont stop making games for the 32x so quickly.
I didnt have lot of money , all my gaming funds were allowance, x mas / birthday money and chores all saved up . The saturn , 3do , or jaguar were never going to be an option for me any time soon.
I spent my cash on trusty sega and they broke my heart .
There are a shit ton of great Saturn games. Panzer Dragoon Saga is arguably the greatest game of that generation, but SOA only printed 20,000 copies and SOE didn't even want to release it until one lone employee kept pushing for localization.
I never realized how most Genesis games never made it to long running sequel status. They never had a Mario Kart or Donkey Kong Country. It’s sonic and that’s it
I have to grugingly admit, Nintendo has done a better job of cultivating and managing its software IP. Their strong first party titles have helped sell all but Nintendo's very poorest hardware.
I was hoping for more Vectorman. Remember that? :3
@@SataniaMcDowel there was gonna be a new vectorman in 2004 but it got cancelled, you can watch the trailer on TH-cam
Echo
Shinobi, streets of rage, panzer dragoon, phantasy star, virtual fighter and more. Sega has plenty of franchises that made it past the first or second game. For some reason Sega just refuses to cash in on its properties.
Panzer Dragoon was simply amazing to me as a child. Great game.
Most definitely.
There was a Saturn demo station with Panzer Dragoon Zwei playing on it at a local Toys R Us back in 1996/1997 that led to a situation where my mom ended up beating my ass because I WOULD NOT PULL MYSELF AWAY FROM IT.
I remember the avalanche starting when people bought the 32x and Saturn being released 4 to 6 month later. After this and seeing Sega holding on with more expensive add ons I made the switch to pc in 95 and never looked back. I still miss Sega and I did get a hold of a dreamcast later, but knew it was over.. everyone was counting on sony. I still emulate the classics. Great memories
I bought the Master System, Genesis and Sega CD but passed on the Saturn for two reasons: 1)the high price tag, and 2)the lack of quality games in the west. I was very loyal to Sega, but I felt that they really dropped the ball in that era. The Dreamcast was a damn good system and an improvement in all respects, and it had a great batch of launch titles, but it was too late. The damage was done.
If the Dreamcast would’ve come out in like 96 or 97 it would’ve probably been a bigger seller, it just came out way too close to the PS2 which was by far a way more advance console
@@hankhill5622 the saturn came out in 95 if the dreamcast came out a year later it would've failed too for the same reason the 32x and the sega cd did
Couldn't agree more, if the Saturn did as good as the Genesis, then the Dreamcast would've been Sega's PlayStation 2.
@@doom5895 lmao no ppl would b amazed and get it or wait for it
Sega dropped the ball with the SegaCD
Not making a Sonic 4 for the Saturn was totally idiotic. But they seemed to have learned their mistake as a lot of 16 bit IP's were in development for the Dreamcast. Even if most of them were cancelled.
NiGHTS basically murdered Sega as a brand, lmao
True
Yeah.
Someone explain why, in the middle of retro console fever, Sega decided on keychain Game Gears rather than, say, the Sega version of a GBA?
@@meyes5671 no they could’ve done both
My grandma bought me my Saturn for my birthday in October... That same year, the Saturn sold, for Christmas, the console with 3 games - Daytona,VF 2, And VC 1... I got my console with VF 2, only... My initial move to the Saturn in turn caused three of my friends in my neighborhood get Saturn's as well since the N64 was sold out across the board... So four of us, in one neighborhood, had Saturn's.... Between us we had all the great titled... Dark Savior comes to mind...resident evil 1... Virtual On... And Duke 3d... I also had the netlink... A friend of mine once had Sega channel... So... Four kids bet it all on Saturn... We made the best if it. Those were the days...
Those ellipses make this comment very difficult to read c’mon bro.
Man, i always wanted a saturn for duke and netlink! Still wana pick a saturn up one day for sure.
Duke 3D was one of only 5 games to use sega netlink, amazing.
Me and the boys... 😁
I see what you are saying Saturn sucked
My Sega Saturn blew up in 1998, went bang then fire and smoke.
It broke my heart for about a month after that. Athlete kings was one of my favourite all time games.
Just a note: When showing gameplay footage, it wouldn't hurt to have a little box in a corner with the name of the game. Awsome video! Loved it bro.
Saturn Daytona 20-30 fps instead of 60 fps Arcade
Damn, I didn't even think about it. I'll work on that.
All good bro you put sooo much work in vids they are great
@@SegaLordX Yeah, what is the name of that jet fighter game? It looked amazing!
@@beefchampion2792 Afterburner
As a person that bought a 32X back in 1994 I can say that the 32X move killed SEGA. I had 150 bucks for the 32X but not more money for ANOTHER console, much less 400 bucks
ricardo rodriguez the Japanese sega did everything wrong, was to invest more in the sega cd and 32x, would be until 1997 and could launch the dreamcast quiet, more modern than it was. saturn was a rock in the shoe.
It's sad that the two main factions of SEGA couldn't agree on the same things which resulted in the 32X and the SEGA CD, which should have just been the SATURN. Both 32X and SEGA CD were poorly executed addons to extend the life of GENESIS and they failed to do that because of price and lack of great games. I passed on 32X and never have or ever will get one. SEGA CD I got much later when it was much cheaper along with a decent collection of games. SATURN was and still is an incredible system that should have been more successful if it wasn't tarnished by the bad reputation of the GENESIS addons and if SEGA had been more supportive of 3rd parties to help them make better games given that the hardware was a bitch to program for.
Yeah that happened a lot. The 32X killed all the hype the Mega Drive created for the next Sega system.
After that many Sega fans had to wait to save money again for the next system(still many were at young ages at the time), and Sega launched the Saturn unexpetly early(before anyone managed to save enough) and at a bigger price.
Then after a little saving you suddenly found yourself a little late with enough money to buy a PS1 that already seemed great but not enough to buy a Saturn and if you waited longer to buy the Saturn by then it seemed like the PS1 was the new king already and Saturn a failure.
By then no matter how much you liked SEGA it would be a stupid move to give more to buy a failure instead of less to buy a success.
Nah the 32x didn't kill SEGA, SEGA killed themselves with far too many mistakes. As much as I loved my Dreamcast SEGA didn't have the money to release it and give it proper support. while it got online gameplay in consoles a mainstay sooner I think SEGA shouldn't have released it until they could afford to truly give it the support it needed. I personally think SEGA should have just waited and supported nintendo with some of their IPs and recovered their value as a company.
@@p.henrique4142 In Japan people still loved 2D and arcades. In the west 2D was considered obsolete and everybody wanted 3D (even if it was awful). I was 15 and I can remember those years pretty well. The magazines (we still had games magazines back then!) made statements like "if this game was a 3D game it would have been better!" and so on...then, it was also hard to get imports. It's only with the 2D renessaince of indie games and Internet and the retro game craze that we started to know what we missed.
I wanted a Saturn based on looks alone. PlayStation looked cool and was ultimately a better choice in console but the Saturn coming off the Genesis could've been game over.
What's crazy, is that despite all the mistakes with the games, Sony had also asked Sega for a partnership, after Nintendo rejected their partnership, and Sega Japan refused.
I think there's one point missing in the picture: Sega not only failed to see how the market changed regarding genres, they also failed to see how the cultural trends were evolving. During the 16-bit era, Sega was the edgy cool kid. During the 32-bit era they were old school compared to what the PS1 had to release. Daytona and Sega Rally nearly had a "retro" feel to them when Ridge Racer and Wipeout were super-edgy with their electro music and whatnot. Suddenly, Sega became unfashionable for teens and young adults and unpalatable to mature audiences. The PS1 instantly became the console for cool kids, cool kids-wannabe, and no-longer-a-kids, because Sony and its third parties had a better grasp of what was cool at this moment, especially in the West.
Also, I believe doing 3D with quads just wasn't practical, it was a pain and a waste and not just a good way to try and make 3D, not to mention the other limitations of Sega's 3D architecture
The problem with Sega is they tended to offer the best of today's gaming, when Sony strove to offer the games of tomorrow.
I especially believe that Sega had nothing to do with the mainstream evolution of the market or want to be cool with one shot productions. It was not their way of seeing or making video games, and I personally think they were right. There was an audience for that, yet it would have been necessary in the west that marketing be directed with its clear message as it was in Japan.
This only holds somewhat true for Sega's console output, not their arcade output. Sega's arcade output was light-years ahead of what the consoles had in the '90s. In fact, Sony themselves said their vision of the future was directly inspired by Sega's arcade games, especially Virtua Fighter. The problem was that, while Sega's arcade division was ahead of the curve, their console division was still stuck in the past.
you can blame Bernard Stolar for that.
I agree with this to an extent. By 1996 kids wanted to move on from being kids with kid experiences to being adults with adult experiences. Nintendo knew they’d never be adult and so they stuck with their solid consistent “family themed” catalog. Sony on the other hand push for the “mature” look. Sega was sort of “in between” and couldn’t figure out what it wanted to be.
We got a genesis Christmas 93 for 1 reason and 1 reason alone....to play mortal kombat at home and boy we were not disappointed😂😂😂finding Sonic 2 in the box weeks later as a pack in game was just a bonus for me &my brother
ZionHillCalling lucky you lol
Sounds like a great Christmas.
@ZionHillCalling Keeping your PC up to date in the 90s was a hard thing to do. You'd have to upgrade atleast once a month!
We bought it cause my little brother wanted sonic in 1993 also
I'd already moved onto NeoGeo in 1993... lmao!
Sega May have taken a step back at sports games on the Saturn, but remember Sega was the company that started the 2K franchise on the Dreamcast. NBA and NFL 2K were ahead of its time when they came out.
They did so out of necessity, since EA didnt support Sega after how they handled the Saturn
But they had EA support on the Saturn.
Don’t forget about Sega’s World Series Baseball franchise. That baseball game is the reason I bought the Sega Genesis and made me fall in love with Sega. I continued to support Sega all the way to Dreamcast.
@@Sheepy007It was almost certainly because SEGA dropped the 3dfx after EA had invested millions into it.
SONY came out of nowhere and ate Sega’s lunch.
Due to Nintendo being a stupid-ass company. Reportedly, Square begged them to use a CD system. Had Nintendo listened, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, and a bunch of Sony's selling points might have been on the 64 instead.
299
@@rastas_4221 it was largely out of spite initially though. Nintendo didn't want to work with Sony to make a CD based system, so Sony developed one their self
That was because Sony had good marketing so consumers knew about it and Sony pleased devs and got good games. The Saturn flopped because it had hardly any marketing, most of the good games are Japan exclusive, the existence and failure of the 32x,the rushed launch of the Saturn when marketing and launch games aren't ready, Difficult hardware to program for because Sega anticipated gaming to still heavily focus on 2d with 3d being a novelty or to enhance 2d and panicking when Sega saw that gaming was going 3d late in development, price Saturn was 399, ps1 was 299 and the Playstaion had more games and a library of games seen as revolutionary instead of just fine like the Saturn.
@@peterlane1391 Except it came in second place and the library of games are considered legendary alogside the ps1 legendary library of games that aren't just Final Fantasy and Metal Gear vs a system that at the time noone knew existed and those that did thought the games sucked or were just fine. Only to find out later that the best games for the system came out in Japan and even then aren't revolutionary like the ps1 and n64 libraries.
I'm from South Africa, when I was very young my much older brother had the Sega Genesis with Sega cd included, in South Africa I believe it was called the Sega Megadrive or Megadrive 2. He also had the master system, but I never played that one. My favorite game was Bare Knucle, which is also referred to as Streets of Rage. A couple of years later I got my own console, the ps1 with Tekken 3 and Crash bandicoot 2. Never looked back. After that Sega was dead in South Africa, I only heard about the dreamcast from a single friend, never saw their games in any of the stores, didn't even know the saturn existed until I went to a pawn shop.
I remember going to Toys 'R Us to buy a second Saturn (after my Dad destroyed our first). The guy at the counter was all like, "Do you REEAAALLY wanna buy this? It's a dead console. I still convinced my Mom to buy it knowing of its very own impending doom.
Why did he destroy the first one ? A drunken rage ?
Thank you for making this documentary, you put a lot of hard work into this. I’m a diehard Sonic fan and fell in love with the franchise after playing it on my neighbor’s Sega Genesis. But the first console I had was a PS1 which was gifted to me for Christmas. I was born in 1992 but I wish that I was born a few years earlier so that I could have experienced Sonic and Sega during their glory days.😢
Nice video! I love getting a different perspective on these things as we all had different experiences no matter where we grew up. 💯
You have been one of the only people to take an honest and educated look at Sega as a company. Thanks for your dedication and hard work.
He fanboyed hard and then gave a good look really you can sum it up with a company doing everything wrong. Damn shame since the games are good better to be loved late then never.
I remember the mustique surrounding the Sega Saturn when it was first released. I was a young kid just mesmorized by the demo machine at a local Toys R Us. I never had owned the console, but that memory will die with me.
Yeah, new console releases back then were much more exotic, especially if you lived outside a major center. I never came across a Saturn in the wild but my local store did have a demo booths for the 3DO and Jaguar. Compared to my SNES, those units were crazy. I wanted to live in the store.
Thanks for all your Saturn coverage. I was working crazy hours back when Saturn launched.and had to spend money on computers for my business. So unfortunately I never go into Saturn. I recently got into Saturn thanks your videos and I'm glad I did. Keep up the good work.
A Phantasy Star on the Saturn would've been butter on my toast, man!
Thank you for putting an unique twist on a subject that has been done tons of times. I also respect the fact you debunk the lie that Sega added in the 3D graphic chip at the last minute in another video of yours. Too many gaming channels are just unoriginal and lazy with their research. Much props to you!
The Saturn may have failed in the NA video game market,but it triumphed in our hearts(and in Japan).
Japan got all the best games. American did not.
It was a shitty system which is why it failed. They did not make a proper console after genesis. Yes even dreamcast was crap which is why it also failed.
Kainthemain Your trolling sucks.What are you even doing here?
Saturn titles that still hold up:
Xmen vs street fighter(vs series games)
SF alpha games
Astal
Alber Odysse
Cyberbots
House of the Dead
Panzer Dragoon
Mega Man X3 and 4
MM8
Nights
SNK games
Awesome schmups
Tons of awesome arcade perfect fighters/shooters etc.
Dreamcast:
Again awesome arcade ports from SNK Sega and Capcom
Shenmue
Jet set Radio
Grandia 2
Skies of Arcadia
Egg Gimick Gear
Power Stone
Soul Calibur
Marvel vs Capcom 1 2
Etc.
Try again troll.
portalsofmadnes all these games can pretty much be found on other platforms, also the fact it failed is no mystery. D8kt get me wrong I have a dreamcast and i love collecting for it. Genesis was one of ly favourite consoles back in tjw day and in my opinion one of tjw best looking ones but facts are facts. Sega did not make proper consoles after genesis.
Had some cool games yeah but the consoles themselves were lacking compared to tyw competition. Dreamcast controller only had one analog and also wired inder the controller, also tje dreamcast was loud as hell qnd the wmd or whatever its called was cool but ik the end not very practical.
So Sega had to make some wome great consoles but they unfortunately were not able to do so after genesis, which is sad since Sega has a lot of history like Nintendo
Kainthemain "sega did not make a proper console after the genesis"...ok bud. Plus all those things you mentioned are pretty subjective like saying the dreamcast controller was bad,I always liked the controller and hell I even placed 7th place in a Marvel vs Capcom 2 tournament back in the day,using that controller which is pretty decent considering there were like 20 participants. To this day I still play games on my saturn like Panzer dragoon,Astal and Xmen vs SF (games that to this day are still exclusive to the Saturn). Same with Dreamcast,I still play BangaiO Skies of Arcadia,Shenmue,Grandia 2,Seaman,Power Stone 1 and 2,Jojos Bizarre Adventure,Egg Gimmick Gear.(which again,are still exclusive to the Dreamcast). Just because these consoles didn't live up to your personal specific expectations,or didn't reach the same sales of Sony,don't necessarily make them "bad" consoles. I own and have collected games for different consoles not just Sega,but to claim the Saturn and Dreamcast were trash for dubious reasons..sorry I just don't see it that way,Saturn and Dreamcast are legendary for a reason.
This is a great analysis. I don’t think Sega learned their lesson with arcade-style games by the time of Dreamcast.
More complex, story-driven games like Shenmue were rare exceptions. There were still a ton of shorter games with short timers and fast-paced gameplay that focused on scoring points and lacked a deeper story.
The industry was already moving partly toward narrative-driven games with Hollywood-esque production values and large explorable environments, and Sega was still largely focusing on more one-dimensional games with an emphasis on simplification.
Games where you just had to quickly shoot everything and had sixty seconds to reach a checkpoint weren't going to cut it with more games like Elder Scrolls, Metal Gear Solid, GTA, and Halo taking over.
True. Even games I love like Power Stone suffered from this. Literally all you can do in that game is Arcade mode by yourself and VS mode against another player. You can't even play VS Mode against the CPU, meaning you need a friend to play with to ever be able to choose the stage where you want to fight lol (in Arcade mode you never pick the stage).
Underrated comment.
Exactly. Gamers were looking for more immersive experiences. Those who weren't, like me, basically checked out.
Nintendo 64 and PS steamrolled the Saturn around here. I never knew anyone having the Saturn, I only got to know it trough gaming magazines and only ONCE did I spot a console IRL in a VHS/videogame store. For me, back then, this console was barely a myth. Nothing more than a curiosity that would stick with me for the next 25 years...This week I finally got my first Sega Saturn console! And I am stoked to explore the gaming library for the years to come!
I had a Saturn and a SNK Neo Geo.
The best things Sega could have done in this period is:
1. NOT release the 32X (pissed off developers and consumers and confused everyone)
2. Included backwards compatibility with the Genesis (a HUGE mistake not doing this).
3. A Sonic game as a launch game (re-release Sonic CD with loads of extras would have been ok or/and Knuckles Chaotix if 32X wasn't made)
4. Focus on being a great 2D arcade system instead of trying to copy Sony last minute and making a complete hash out of it, making the system hard to develop for with 3D graphics and frame rates which were worse.
5. Not rushed the release date!
6. Had the beautiful white model as the main one; It looked too much like the Genesis otherwise.
Agree with most of your points:
1. Yes, the 32X should have never seen the light of day.
2. I thought of this also, only made sense to considering how well Genesis did in the West.
3. Did not necessarily need to be a launch title, all they needed was one new Sonic game somewhere along the way.
4. The N64 was hard to develop for but Nintendo and Rareware made the most of it. Sega should have finished Sonic Adventure and Shenmue on Saturn and not kill off the console so early.
5. I don't think the early release date would've hurt too much in the long run had Sega not spent all of 1994 marketing the 32X for millions of dollars. Sales went up every year until they decided to pull the plug in order to focus on Dreamcast.
6. I prefer the blue and grey model. I have the white one and although I like it better than black I think it looks too much like a square wedding cake. And while I'm at it they should have launched with the original controller and gone with jewel cases for the games instead of those awful long boxes.
Focusing exclusively on 2D would have killed the system. When the PS1 had games like FFVII,MGS and Gran Turismo and the N64 had Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time the Saturn would have been seen as being outdated.
@@AxeCrazyAutobot as I recall it was an almost dedicated 2d system from conception with plans to port their 3d arcade games here and there. They weren't seeing the big transition which is weird from an arcade company. At 2d games it can run circles around the ps and with good programming match, possibly even surpass in 3d as well. I admit I never had one. I went from genesis to dreamcast, as I became a pc gamer instead. Then I played crazy taxi...that alone sold me on the dc!
@@AxeCrazyAutobot I could have said "(Sega) Should have done proper Market research on 3D graphics when developing the Saturn and try and understand what the PlayStation was planning, so there wouldn't have been 2 separate chips in the system making it hard to develop for and worse looking than the competition"
I completely agree that would have been smarter but they would have needed at least a year of planning for this. Also, I think the Saturn would have found its niche if it concentrated on delivering Arcade standard '2.5D' games as it would have cost them and consumers lot less, as well as being something different than a watered down Playstation. There was a real appetite for Arcade style games at home.
That's right, they lacked focus, and spread themselves to thinly over other projects that were not relevant to the Saturn's success.
And yet, here in North America, The Dreamcast was known as "The Sports Console." With the Dreamcast Sega regained its mantle of "the place to go for the best sports game experience." Bu, I guess, too little too late. The Dreamcast was the greatest of the Sega platforms, just released a few years too late. By then, the damage had been done. Even amazing properties born on the Saturn like Nights Into Dreams were tarnished....hell, even Sonic was. Such potential, such fantastic music (hell, I still look for the Nights Into Dreams soundtrack to this day, and remember being able to just play that off the game disc)...and well...
DC had potential but the PS2 was too much, It was by then more powerful AND a dvd player. This was HUGE. Sega didn't have the money Microsoft did to fight Sony like this.
@@mattm7798 aye, the DVD player may or may not have mattered in North America and Europe depending on who you ask, but strangely in Japan VHS was still going strong at that time. The PS2 was absolutely the reason for millions of Japanese customers to upgrade to DVD for the first time, and it set a precedent that still exists to this day for video game consoles to be multimedia machines. That reason alone didn't give PS2 the win, but it's one hell of an edge to start with.
+Herb Derbler what reasons gave PS2 the win?
@@jasonlee7816 Probably it's huge game library and the brand recognition (good reputation) from the previous Playstation console.
Honestly when I think of dreamcast, I think of interesting, unique, and weird games,. I Love it
This is a brilliant take on this subject that I've never really heard before. I’ve been watching a lot of Dreamcast retrospectives the last few days, and I’ve been struck by how many of the best games on the system - even in 1999 - were arcade-style. I’ve never been able to put my finger on why Sega consoles never seemed to appeal to me, but you made me realize that I’m just much more interested in progression based games than arcade-style titles.
Well Dreamcast is based off of the Naomi arcade platform, just adapted for home console format. I dunno if the Saturn was similar, but yeah many arcade titles that people don't really care for in the west.
I unapologetically still play my Saturn
I did buy one a month ago... My first sega console 2021 . Like it a lot
I wanted one just to play virtua cop
:( I miss mine so much- It was my first ever system, and I loved that thing to death, until my b!tch of an (ex)s-i-l stole it. T-T
Are you kidding me!?!?!?
Theres 3 good games on there go ahead
I'm a owner of a PS1 but I recognize that the Sega Saturn had a lot of potential. Damn, even the cancellation of Sonic X-treme makes me sad.
No, thanks. I live the 'Nostalgia Factor'.
I don't care the modern games.
I was glad Sonic X-treme got cancelled. The game looked like ass. The real tragedy was that Sonic Adventure was started on Saturn but was cancelled. Same with Shenmue. Sega should have kept the console going for at least another couple years.
I didn't even know that Sonic Adventure is was going to come out on Saturn. But the worst part in North America, a couple of years after the launch of the Saturn, Sega of America didn't give much opportunity to the console and Bernie Stolar is an asshole.
The Saturn had way more potential than the PS1 and most of it was achieved. Developers didn't tap into the 3D as much as they should have. Things like Tomb Raider and Virtua Fighter 2 were very promising.
On a more basic level, what happened to Sega is what happens to many companies that get too big too fast, they can't handle it, lose their innovative spark and start crashing.
Hmm... I guess you kind of said this in a way with your last line about Sega being David to Nintendo's Goliath in the 16-bit era.
Sharif Sourour no I don't think so. I mean I think you're right in a general sense. But I don't think that's what happened. In my opinion thanks to say that we have online and all this other stuff just because of Sega. Saturn started doing online or at least try to do online as well as Dreamcast. Sony and all these other systems never even had the initiative thing to do all that crap.. also I know that's off-topic what I'm saying. But I don't think that's what happened. Sega was just doing too many things and wasting money on too many ideas. They just didn't keep it simple. Your least halfway correct on this situation
When I say "handle it" here I don't mean resources, but exactly the opposite, I'm talking about the pressure of topping your success being even more challenging than obtaining success in the first place, it was a very general comment, and yes I am aware of all those other details, but just like the other video, focusing on an aspect that is not usually covered but still has grounds...
Sharif Sourour it's scary because I've reached the same conclusion where I work at
LOL yeah there's a lot more time, no rush.
You put in a massive effort to produce this video for us. I enjoyed watching it. Thank you.
just recently bought a Saturn and Genesis and now i got the Sega Bug lol, so this channel has been my new addiction and quite educational! I was always a Sony/Nintendo guy so i missed out on much of Sega before the Dreamcast so, im so excited to start collecting for Genesis, Saturn and i eventually want to get a GameGear and 32x and Model 1 Sega CD!
I added some notes to this episode in the description. Please take a look if you want to know a bit more about the episode. :)
Also, there are some that are coming away from this video with the impression that I'm saying the Saturn had no good games. The Saturn is absolutely loaded with fantastic, unforgettable games. This video wasn't an attack on the Sega Saturn for having no good games. It was an opinion that Sega failed to address the market properly. Popular Genesis IP's never were continued on Saturn. It's stranglehold on sports games was lost immediately. It's arcade games lacked additional modes to drum up interest. 2D games that were best on Saturn were never released in the West. Sega had 30+ million Mega Drive and Genesis fans waiting to buy a Saturn in 1994. Instead of doubling down on what made those fans buy their 16-bit machine to begin with, they went in a completely different direction. Sure, games like Panzer Dragoon, Dragon Force, Nights, Burning Rangers, Guardian Heroes, etc, were awesome games, but they were new IP's that Genesis fans knew absolutely nothing about. And with all the bad press surrounding the ports of early arcade and PS1 games on the system, those fans went straight to the competition.
In other words, the Sega that released the Saturn, was not the Sega that released the Genesis/Mega Drive for a lot of gamers. It was an easy move to change allegiance to Sony.
Great video
Could you 2 agree Arcade was on its last leg? Or heading towards that way soon...
The arcade scene was dead man. Only a handful of companies saw any success in the west at that time. Sega and Namco thanks to their polygon renaissance, Midway's Mortal Kombat and sports games, and Capcom thanks to their fighters. There was next to nothing left for most companies after that. There had been orders of magnitude more companies making arcade games in the 80's.
Tekken also actually supports my opinion. Namco had the where with all to give Tekken hidden characters, storylines, endings, and additional modes that Sega's arcade ports never received.
All good bro. I saw the repost. :)
Sega Lord X you are awesome thank you for your videos =)
To try to sum up this video in one sentence:
The Saturn had great games... but it didn't have the _right_ games.
what is the right games ? mainstream games with beautiful graphics and zero interest like Playstation has ?
Also inferior 3D hardware.
@@Clay3613 completely wrong ...
@@ciredecgellar8232 he's correct
@@popespalace823 take five minutes to take a look at the saturn's library in this case ...... and you will see he's wrong
I had this thing. IT came with a saturn sticker that was stuck to my wall for a solid decade.
You should do another video "Why Sega Dreamcast Failed". Would be fun to hear your opinions
Great video. I often wonder what had the 32 bit wars been like had Nintendo and Sony continue to work together and not fell apart, and Sega of America and Japan had actually worked together, sigh.
Great video. It really sucks that it ended up being like this because the Saturn is really such a good system. So many great games on it especially in Japan.
like the PCE, better Japanese library
I remember the year my brother got a Sega Saturn for Christmas.... He was not impressed but he loved his Dreamcast. Great video 🖤
I love my sega genesis and I enjoyed playing sega dreamcast as well. I missed out on the Saturn. I believe I was too young to comprehend how good of a system it was and what potential it had. Thanks for the informative review! I enjoyed this one!
how could he go an entire video without mentioning S E G A T A S A N S H I R O
Most of us in the West in the mid 90's had no clue he even existed. His popularity in NA and Europe didn't become widespread until the spread of services like TH-cam and retrogaming personalities began pimping him. Unless you had access to Japanese magazines, Segata was an unknown quantity.
The character was not a failure by any means, lol!
@@SegaLordX you speak strangely
@@SegaLordX I think you got it wrong. NOT introducing segata Sanshiro to the west, that was the mistake.
I think it is a combination of several factors:
1) Price. Come on, PlayStation was more powerful, had more appealing games and was cheaper. Who would buy a Saturn?
2) Marketing. In the US, they did that strange immediate launch, which was horrible. In Europe, which was Sega territory with their previous consoles (yes, Master System and MegaDrive sold more than NES and SNES), they presented horrible ads, horrible PAL conversions, no localization and even garbage CD boxes. However, Sony presented amazing advertising, decent PAL conversions, localization and even dub for several games and hard plastic boxes. Again, who would buy a Saturn?
3) Sega franchises. There were not. No Sonic, no Streets of Rage, Shinobi was waaaay worse, no Dynamite Headdy, Golden Axe switched to a mediocre fighting game, no Gunstar Heroes, no anything. Those great titles weren't there. They tried new franchises, which are quite good, like Daytona USA, House of the Dead, Virtua Cop and Virtua Fighter, but it is not what Sega players wanted.
4) 3D was not as good as expected in Saturn. Everybody knew Sonic wasn't there because Sega wasn't capable of doing it, whereas Nintendo and Sony developed/produced several amazing 3D platformers. Burning Rangers was not what the audience expected from Sonic Team. Okay, Panzer Dragoon was good, but come on... However, the other two consoles achieved magnificent 3D conversions of 2D formulas, such as Zelda and Metal Gear.
5) The market was changing. As the video suggests, arcade games were suffering, so they needed solo modes, unlockable content, secret characters, etc. Take a look to the original Smash Bros. or how SoulBlade created some interesting solo modes. Now take Daytona and Virtua Cop. Nope. Those didn't have much content. And home market didn't want that. And also, as the video suggests, JRPGs were not present in this console. Well, okay, they created many in Japan... but were obscure in the West. Take a look now to the PlayStation JRPG library...
6) Sega was obsessed with wining the war in Japan. They kinda did... I mean, they survived in Japan and had some relevant audience. However, that obsession led to lose power everywhere else. Not only in North America, which had a draw between MegaDrive and SNES, but also in Europe, India and South America, where they had been ruling.
7) MegaDrive add-ons. Yes, they sold the Mega CD as "you don't need a PlayStation to run CDs" and the 32X as "you don't need a new console to play 32 bits". Absurd. They even launched the 32X during the same window as the Saturn. Ridiculous.
you make valid points, but the Saturn had more raw power than the PS1. The main issue was devs had a very hard time utilizing that.
Regarding the price tho, if my memory serves right the Saturn came with a game, and it had internal memory. If you wanted to actually use your PS1 for gaming and save your progress, you'd have to buy one game and one memory card, ending up with the exact same cost as the basic Sega Saturn package.
Rat i was born in 74, but your views, and lords, are misplaced. Pretty soon im purchasing an odroid xu4 with a 45,000 game library. One of the main reasons? 300+ sega saturn games, 234 dreamcast, and 374 ps1 titles. Granted, i love the ps1, but sega made unforgettable games on both those systems. Games like astal, bug, panzer dragoon, dragon force, virtua cop, that list of 300 is rock solid. And were you blind? The saturn produced incredible 3d games, panzer was ok? A delusional opinion at best, even though your entitled to it. Bottom line is i cherish the past, whether it be from sony, or sega, nintendo, or nec turbo. Hell i have a modded super nes mini with 300 plus ps1 titles, handpicked by me. But im really looking forward to having sega saturn games to play yet again, and wished i had kept that system, instead of foolishly getting rid of it when i was younger. Hell i i had that ram cart that made arcade games wayyy better to play on saturn, never mind playing Japanese titles. Your not being fair, or objective my friend, not at all
2) It's rather impressive as an early 90's north Euro kid, to not even have heard of Sega home consoles until the early 2000's. We had NES, PS1, N64, PS2, Xbox, Gamecube, Xbox 360... but no one ever mentioned Sega home consoles. Think I was 11 or 12 when a PS2-owning friend mentioned something about Sega (not the Rally arcade cabinets) for the very first time.
4) Sonic X-treme was being developed already back in 1994, but again - internal Sega disputes forced several redesigns and finally seized the development in 1997.
sega made a new console in the time it took to write that
I liked it very much, that you explain everything very clear and slow, so I can understand you. Normally I dont understand well english, if I havent subtitles, but I understand everything what you said :)
Just discovered this channel, and I must say, I am looking at the Saturn in a brand new light. Thanks I am hooked!
Great channel! I didn't even grow up playing Sega, and I love it.
Although the Saturn is one of my most cherished consoles I can't deny that it had many failings.
As you mentioned Sega were heavily into making arcade games and this was always a strong point for the Mega Drive, yet even this form of game they couldn't carry over to the Saturn properly either, look at the mess that was VF1 and Daytona at launch. They were an embarrassment next to what the competition was offering. It also didn't end there with the lazy ass arcade ports either, remember Sega Touring cars? all they had to do was hand it over to AM3 to port it over using the Sega Rally engine but no Sega went with a newbie team that ported Virtual On and well you can see the result.
This is something that happened throughout its life on top of Sega's ignorance to its past strengths of the Mega Drive.
At least by the time the Dreamcast landed Sega seemed to have learnt what needed to be done and where its strengths were, but sadly by then the damage was done and Sega would forever be in last place.
I had Nights Into Dreams (brilliant game), Virtua Cop 2, Virtua Fighter 2, Cyberia. The good old days.
Japans library was excellent, and it’s such a shame we didn’t get most of them. Great video.
Agreed, lack of Japanese ports was a blunder. Lack of RPGs, Sports games at launch, and a Sonic game was a big mistake.
@@EricTheActor805 Yeah, SEGA was a huge company, but the Saturn seemed like another expensive 3DO. They lost over $100/console throughout the Saturn's life, but if you bought in, some of the great Sega franchises (Streets of Rage, Phantasy Star, etc) were either not there or only offered one game and way too late to make a difference.
The machine that needed an addon wasn't the Sega CD. It was the Saturn, to keep it going against N64 and the mid-life PS1 titles.
@@MaxAbramson3
I disagree that it was about hardware, I think an add on would have hurt more than helped, especially after the 32X and SegaCD add on blunders.
Infact I'd argue that the Saturn may have been better served with weaker hardware specs.
"Although the Saturn's design was largely finished before the end of 1993, reports in early 1994 of the technical capabilities of Sony's upcoming PlayStation console prompted Sega to include another video display processor (VDP) to improve 2D performance and 3D texture mapping."
Had Sega stayed with their original specs, it would have helped costs down and made the system easier to program games for. It may have also pushed forward the launch dates. Especially if the never made the 32X (lack of chips was a problem)
The horrible American launch, high initial launch price, lack of 3rd party support and general lack of games was the downfall of the Saturn.
Sega should have never made the 32X or the SegaCD and instead focused of prompting the Sega Channel and Sega Nomad as a way to keep the Genesis alive in North America.
@@EricTheActor805 No one seems to mention the wonky roadmap with Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto, and rumors that Saturn might get backward compatibility, etc. The 32X and CD addons were appropriate for adding two years of life, but the early Saturn launch is what killed the 32X and SEGA's credibility. Only 800,000 bought the 32X and felt screwed over, yet millions avoided SEGA after the nutty, changing road map.
@@MaxAbramson3
The Saturn didn't kill the 32X, the 32X killed the Saturn. The 32X and SegaCD were massive mistakes, they never should have been made, they ruined Sega. The Nomad and SegaChannel were much better options for extending the life of the Genesis.
"Because the Genesis' Motorola 68000 CPU was too slow to handle the Sega CD's new graphical capabilities, an additional 68000 CPU was incorporated. This second CPU has a clock speed of 12.5 MHz, faster than the 7.67 MHz CPU in the Genesis. Responding to rumors that NEC planned a memory upgrade to bring the TurboGrafx-CD RAM from 0.5 Mbit to between 2 and 4 Mbit, Sega increased the Sega CD's available RAM from 1 Mbit to 6 Mbit. This proved to be a technical challenge, since the Sega CD's RAM access speed was initially too slow to run programs effectively, and the developers had to focus on increasing the speed. The estimated cost of the device rose to US$370, but market research convinced Sega executives that consumers would be willing to pay more for a state-of-the-art machine. Sega partnered with JVC, which had been working with Warner New Media to develop a CD player under the CD+G standard."
If Sega was smarter, they would have never released the SegaCD and instead the R&D from the SegaCD should have been the birth of the Saturn. When they realized the Genesis CPU was too slow and the SegaCD would cost $370 per unit, they should have pivoted into creating their next generation system
Sega's biggest problem was they were reactionary instead of independently innovative. The SegaCD was a reaction to the TurboGrafx-CD. The Sega Virtua Processor or SVP chip was a reaction to Super NES enhancement chips, particularly the Super FX chip. The 32X was a reaction to the Jaguar. The VDP2 Chip in the Saturn was a reaction to the Playstation.
Had Sega just worried about Sega, they would have been much more successful. Imagine if the SegaCD and 32X were never made an instead their marketing dollars went towards the Sega Channel and Nomad. The mistake Sega made with the Nomad was the lack on a 2nd controller port. The Nomad should have been marketed as a home console that doubles as a handheld portable. If it had a 2nd controller port, it could have been this. Plug it into your TV at home and quickly unplug it and play on the road. The Nomad did come along too late to be the life extending product for the Genesis, but it could have come along sooner. The Nomad was released in October 1995 in North America but it was based on the Japanese MegaJet, which was released Japan Airline on July 1, 1993 and had a retail release on March 10, 1994. Had the Nomad had a 1993 or 1994 release, along with the December 1994 release of the Sega Channel, Sega would have had the Genesis life extension products that they were looking for.
Another mistake was releasing the Dreamcast in Japan first. Japan was Saturn's best market. Had they released the Dreamcast in North America and Europe in 1998 and then in Japan in 1999, it would have given the Saturn another year in Japan and the Dreamcast a jump start on the PS2 and XBox in NA and EU.
The biggest downfall was the lack of games. Lack of a Sonic game. Lack of Sports games at launch. Lack of Japanese RPG ports to NA and EU. Lack of Arcade and PC ports. Lack of 3rd party support.
It was such a competitive generation, with the PS1, N64, Jaguar and 3DO. You had to get everything right and Sega got everything wrong.
Timing. Genesis/Mega Drive had the benefit of good timing, being an alternative to the NES as it was starting the downside of its life cycle. All its other consoles all had bad timing. ESPECIALLY the Dreamcast, which is hands down its best console system. The Dreamcast was a year too late...tragic.
I was totally in the tank for Sony back then. My brother had gotten a Saturn when it launched and he Daytona USA and Panzer Dragoon. Two games that underwhelmed me at the time. Later throughout the years he had acquired games like Sega Rally, Virtua Cop, Gungriffon, Bug!, and Panzer Dragoon II. Well after the 5th generation ended I found myself wanting to play all of these games. I picked up a Saturn sometime between 2006-2007 and began collecting games for it way before the retro boom had hit. The Saturn is not my favorite console, but was my most coveted console. I just had to have certain games, and they were only on Saturn. It still angers me today that Sega has put all their resources into bringingGenesis and Dreamcast games out for modern platforms, but they completely ignore the great games on the Saturn to this day. There's no reason why there should not have been a Saturn compilation released by now.
Dreamcast games are a little easier to work with. We still get Saturn games from time to time, such as Virtua Fighter 2. There are tons of Dreamcast games we haven't gotten either.
I would love to see an official version of the Shining Force 3 trilogy released in English. They would have my money so fast my wallet would catch fire.
@@voteDC there's a translation for all scenario and you can buy a copy on Etsy for 20$ ..... enjoy
@@ciredecgellar8232 Why buy from pirates when I've already got it for free from them? I know about the translation project.
I want to give Sega my money for the Shining Force 3 trilogy. At the moment I can't.
Sega Lord X i just want you to know i really enjoy your material. It's all good. Keep up the good work.
Just imagine Nintendo not continuing their 16-bit IPs on the N64. Sega did make quite a few weird decisions.
Technically they did,because they spend to much Time on em and 64 lost too much momentum
$299, drops the mic.
Nutz4Gunz45 You're goddamn right, right there. That's literally what killed the Saturn. Well, actually it was consumer naivety. If you take into account that the Saturn had onboard memory and a pack in game, that's your extra $100. PlayStation had neither.
Sega REALLY should’ve got onboard with Sony when they pitched the PlayStation to them! I know Sega of America were onboard but Sega of Japan worked. If I were Sega of Japan, I would’ve:
1. Taken into account that Sony could mop the floor with the competition
2. Requested that the PlayStation be verified as capable of running Sega Rally, Virtua Fighter 2 and Panzer Dragoon (they were in development around this time, right?)
3. Request that Mega Drive & Mega CD backwards compatibility be added, and that the Mega Drive cartridge slot also be used for RAM expansion (cough X-Men vs Street Fighter cough)
Stupid disputes between Sega of America and Japan! Can’t believe I didn’t know about the Saturn’s “It’s Out There” fiasco OR 1997’s “The Saturn is not our future” statement until 2015! Sony pitching the PlayStation to Sega I didn’t know about til 2017 (before The Gaming Historian said so!)
Also, regarding X-Men vs Street Fighter being 1 on 1 on PlayStation due to limited RAM, Capcom should’ve (either):
- release a RAM expansion pack that could go into the parallel port on the PlayStation console. The extra RAM could also be built into the 9000/PSone model consoles
and/or
- release the game on Nintendo 64, which has more RAM than the PlayStation
What I understand Sega USA was forced to release the Saturn months earlier then expected and that they did not have it at all stores. And that Sony lowered the price was funny. Sega USA was not ready with games that made them come in second hand when Sony released the PlayStation. It was Sega Japan that did not believe Sony could the game business. The same was with Nintendo and Atari, Atari could have been the biggest of them all but...
Adultmoshifan87
First off, nobody knew if Sony could compete with Sega or Nintendo, and if Sega had there shit together at the time then this story could be very different.
Secondly, Saturns memory cart slot was actually made with RAM & ROM expansions in mind, you've either got no chance of getting a RAM expansion to work in a Ps1 memory slot or it would probably be tricky and as there was no attempt, probably not worth the effort.
Thirdly, i dont think the N64 could run Xmen vs Street Fighter, it could barely manage to run MK trilogy, it was never built with 2D games in mind.
the grandaddy of mic drop :))
This is a great video. When you said "imagine what Phatasy Star would look like on Saturn..." haha man i did that all the time back in the day! You totally have a point though, I mean just look at Nintendo. Recently Reggie said something along the lines of "we try to release at least one game of each IP each system". SEGA totally dropped the ball on that one. Granted there were plenty of great new games, but if only they backed it up with already accepted IP's. I will always love my Saturn but nothing will compare to trying to tell other people about this awesome experience you had on Saturn when the only thing anybody else cares about is PlayStation. Anyway, I subbed man, keep up the good work!
Excellent video. Some really great points made here. Great job! 👍🏻
thank you for crediting sports games for the rise of genesis and the lack of embracing it for the Saturn's success, a lot of gaming channels dismiss sports games out of personal taste, but whether or not you like them, you don't dismiss them and I appreciate that
Man Virtua Fighter was the bomb! Especially the 2nd game. A store had a Saturn in the vicinity and me and my best friend used to watch VF2 play itself from the window outside every single day after school.
That might have been the best explanation I've ever seen regarding why Saturn failed. As a huge Genesis fan--because of Sonic, mostly--I probably would have gotten a Saturn if I saw games that I was at least familiar with in name on the Genesis. I wanted Sega to give me a reason that a proper Sonic and other favorites were coming...but when I saw that they weren't, I moved on. I sometimes lament abandoning Sega during that generation. But I shouldn't. As a Genesis fan, they abandoned me. Thank you for your honest assessment. I love Sega, as well, and your channel is really well done.
Leaving behind the Genesis/Mega Drive faithful and giving them no reason to move on to the Saturn is the single biggest reason for Saturn's failure in NA and Europe in my view. High launch prices could be overcome. Development tools improved. Retailers came back. But that Saturn library never spoke to the majority of the people that purchased a Genesis or Mega Drive. As you say, it made it easy for gamers to move on to another platform.
As a kid/teen back in the 90s, I went from SNES to PS1 rather early, and I don't remember why exactly, but I really loved it. I had little direct contact with the Saturn, but I did enjoy Guardian Heroes, Panzer Dragoon, VF1 and 2, VC1 and 2, Daytona USA and Sega Rally. So much that when I was deeply into PS1 emulation years later, I sincerely missed a Saturn emulator. On recent years, though, once Saturn emulation became good, I noticed how little time I dedicated to it. Most of the stuff I missed from it already had better arcade version emulation elsewhere. And, with so many games accessible these days, I didn't find myself greatly motivated to explore more. On the Virtua Fighter series, I will make another comment, though: about an year ago I was experimenting with all the games in the series and found it astonishing how little it changed from version to version. Always better graphics, a couple of new characters and moves and that was it. And most games in the series had an incredibly stale arcade mode where you always fought the same characters in the same order. It's no wonder it died out. That said, I'm still butthurt that SEGA didn't bring the VF5 remake to PC. XD
having grown up owning a mega drive and then having just left school and gotten a job I was able to choose what console to buy next so naturally I went for a Saturn. As you point out it's lack of games was it's Achilles heel. Going to play on a friends ps1 I could see they had much more options of better quality than I could get hold of
Imagine Phantasy Star Online on the Saturn. They could use that 28.8k modem lol.
This dude was on his sport's games. Damn.
Sega's failure? Their biggest crime was it's ignorance and ego for not listening to their own gamers.
Sega flooding the market with seven different systems in a matter of 3 years and not gaining the concept of 3D games was it's downfall. Plus communication with Sega of the US and of Japan was horrendous they might as well have been rivals.
That and the fact that Sony was starting to use CD Discs for their games instead of cartridges
This was a terrific video, my friend. You hit the nail on the head better than anyone I have seen on TH-cam about why Sega failed. Very detailed and accurate. Despite all the negatives that people bring up about the console, I still have fond memories of playing it when it came out and playing it, rediscovering great games years later.
Reapertate728 the DidYouKnowGaming didn't do it yet, so I was kinda surprised. And mant if them who did do it, didn't really hit me as much as this video, so I appreciate hus work here more.
I know people will disagree, but you're spot on regarding the relevance of arcades in the mid to late '90s. Yeah, they existed, but mostly as drivers, light gun games, and perhaps most damning, redemption machines.
As consoles approached the same power as arcades, the wow factor was gone, and tastes began to shift toward a more western, PC oriented style, with the rise of RPGs, strategy games, flight sims, and first person shooters.
All of what Sega did best no longer resonated in the US. It was as simple as that. Not a marketing issue, not a lack of Kalinske influence, and not leaving cool arcade games in Japan. Sega just only knew how to make awesome games that only had a niche audience left to love them.
You said it better than me. Well done.
Bananonymous last name
You say this of Sega but what did Sony have to bring to the party? There whole ethos mainly centred around getting 3rd party developers on board and Their links with Namco was instrumental and helped massively in Ps1 sales. Even the Dreamcast still had great success while still partly relying on arcade ports, so while i agree up to a point, that certainly isn't the whole story.
RETRO GAMES BOY 78 The big difference with Sony was that Sony's business model wasn't as reliant on being a first-party publisher. Sega's entire approach with the Saturn was centered around selling the world on top notch arcade ports. Sony, on the other hand simply made a well-rounded machine and allowed the market to grow around it more naturally.
At the time if launch, the PlayStation didn't really push a hard image. There weren't a bunch of first year titles creating a massive buzz. Sony marketed their system as a high end technology brand, and with accessible third party features and practices, basically grew like a weed while Sega and Nintendo pressed with their more restricted visions and marketing.
Dreamcast's initial success was not about arcade ports. That's its legacy, not what it was in the moment. It was the 2K sports branding, the re-birth of Sonic, and a killer price point above all else.
I don't know if what you're saying is right but to me back then Sega had nothing no reason for me to purchase a Saturn everything in this video is true there wasn't even a Sonic game to look forward to I was saving my hard-earned dollars that I gained working for Target to purchase a PlayStation because what did Sega have out there for me to get excited about back then
Mo Go
Here in the UK the Sega Saturn had an official magazine and issue 1 Nov 95 came with a VHS attached which showcased around 30 titles already on or on its way to the Saturn so i was very exited and it gave me every confidence in purchasing the Machine, as soon as i saw games like Sega Rally, Virtua fighter 2, Virtua Cop And Panzer Dragoon i was sold and i definitely made the right choice and finally got mine 6 months later along with a copy of Sega Rally!
Some of my favorite childhood experiences came from my Sega Saturn. Rayman, Nights, Guardian Heroes, Streetfighter Alpha 2, Sega Megamix. Good times. 🤟
I remember the year N64 came out. My mom let us rent the N64 and the Sega Saturn from Blockbuster so we could see which one we wanted for Christmas. Mario 64 was amazing, but my brother and I were totally blown away by Nights into Dreams on the Saturn. We couldn't stop playing it... The music, the visuals... It was just magical. We ended up going with the N64, though. As much as I wanted a Saturn, my older brother assured me the N64 was gonna be the better system in the end. As much as I enjoyed my experience with Saturn, I would have been sad if we got it and then the system did poorly and there wasn't much to play.
I had a Saturn. I also got a 64 when Ocarina of Time hit. But my Saturn got a lot of play for me because I got it modded to play import games.
I played the First Command and Conquer on a Sega Saturn. Good times😊
Failure or not, the Sega Saturn had some pretty good games for it: Sega's fighting games, Capcom's fighting games, SNK's fighting games, Midway's Mortal Kombat series, Midway's WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game, Sonic Jam, Sonic 3D Blast/Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island, Sonic R, the Puyo Puyo series, what have you. I wish I still had a Saturn because today's game consoles suck.
Nice episode!
Personally, I really like prerendered games such as soul divide.
Off topic question:
Anyway to know how many Saturn's are still out in the wild and in use?
Impossible to know?
Really interesting point about the emphasis placed on arcade ports like Virtua Fighter at launch! I used to think back then, that the magazines were being overly negative about the Saturn, but now I see that they just wanted something beyond the arcade style. The same with the Dreamcast, I guess, although maybe those ports were better, and the diversity and originality (like Jet Set Radio) helped a little. I was loving Sega Rally, Crazy Taxi, F355 etc.
I love the Sega Genesis (Mega Drive), Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast, 32X, and Sega CD (Mega CD). ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜❤️🧡💛💚💙💜❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
Sega Master System and Game Gear: Am I a joke to you?
Sega nomad: looks from the distance
I truly believe Sega didn’t know their strengths. They barely tapped their own gold mine during the Saturn’s lifespan.
Knowing your areas of strength is as equally important as knowing your weaknesses. It is important because it helps you capitalize on those areas and produce great success stories.
That last line about them having hits you couldn't find anywhere else, too true. Although I was a Nintendo fan growing up, I was fortunate enough to have a friend who worked at Sega and he introduced me to the game DragonForce, I was hooked and bought a saturn solely to play that game, eventually I picked up other titles, but even if I hadn't I would have considered a good buy based on how great that game was.
Wonderful analysis. You get it. Thanks for your hard work, I hope to see more from you. Cheers.
Very difficult to argue with any of the points you made.
As someone in a very similar position to yours - SEGA fan since the Master System era, and still in love with the Saturn (but my favourite console remains the the Mega Drive) - I consider SEGA's 32bit system the perfect 'what if' land, when it comes to games that should have been, yet never came out.
David versus Goliath only Goliath won lol. Woof, you were brutally honest about the Saturn here. It's a bit painful to me, and there are some things I disagree with, but you're offering a perspective needed to help balance out the prevailing narratives of our current day concerning these topics. Good watch X.
It's crazy though, as Goliath should've been Sega/Nintendo, while Sony was David. Yes, Sony as a WHOLE was bigger, but they were the infant new comer to gaming. Many failed before them and couldn't crack the code, but Sony just didn't make a billion dumbass decisions, and made a cheaper, easier to develop for system.
Apple, Phillips, Panasonic, and many others tried their hand at home consoles. We had Intellivisions, ColecoVision's, Odyssey's, 3DO's, Amiga's, Neo Geo's, Turbo Grafx, Jaguar's, and tons more...all with varying degrees of success & failure. Sony wasn't even confident in themselves, trying to partner with Nintendo, then Sega, but after years of dismissal said "fuck it" & went solo. Smartest decision they ever made.
I think you hit the nail on the head with your hypothesis, SLX.
All the other drama could have been mitigated by quality software. I bought a Saturn at a discount very late in its shelf life, and the games I got were underwhelming. However, once I learned how to play import games, its true power was unlocked. Arcade-perfect ports of X-Men vs SF, MSH vs SF, Vampire Savior, and King of Fighters would have gone a long way if only they had been released in the US.
The Saturn was great if you were a big Capcom or Neo Geo fighting game fan, and bought one of those cartridges that let you play Japanese games. It was about all I used mine for, and a handful of domestic games.
Well put together video! I think you’re right about how it all played out for Sega. Game choice for consumers is it, and not really the console itself. Sega of America really started the downward spiral with their low quality releases.
A lot of the best Saturn games weren't released in North America for dumb reasons. Ontop of the bad launch. Japan Saturn suffered from neither of those problems.
Great video! You did bring out a subject that Ive never considered before and you are so right about it. Sega didn't try to "make happy" the older/historical customers which came right from Genesis... No one game had a new episode on This powerful machine.
That's what nitento do better.. keep working over and over on the same titles... Even if Im not a Nintendos fan, i must admit they kow how to keep reinventing the older ip games with sequels or remakes... something that sega FAILED when it was a huge nessecity to have more success.
Playstation was on another level Saturn couldn't compete
I really do like this video about the saturn and sega The saturn is such a underrated system it's a such a dam shame that it floped so hard at the time and sega has a whole in general but at least now it gets more recognition and respect now these days with a really unique game library you are really the best sega channel on youtube thank you very much for the really intresting awesome content for us to enjoy we really do appreciate it keep it up with the videos 🙂👍❤️
Another excellent video as usual, nice work. When it comes to the saturn's potential and where Sega dropped the ball with it, I blame it on a few major factors:
For me, the Saturn could have been a success. It would still have gotten beaten by the PS1 but it didnt have to lose by so much.
It may have lost badly in the US, but it was a massive success for Sega in Japan, the only console Sega had that was actually competative in the Japanese market, which was a good thing to have going for it. A big part of that came down to finally knowing how to market a console to the Japanese consumer. Sega Sanshiro was a stroke of genius and it helped move a lot of Saturns, and their marketing outside of Japan just in the years prior had helped out considerably with the global success of the MegaDrive. But when it came time to start marketing the Saturn outside Japan, they dropped the ball big time. They spent a shit load of money on an ad campaign that bombed hard by trying to be too... Idk, just weird and nonsensical. Marketing was something Sega had seemed to have down better than anyone prior to the N. American launch, why they didnt just go with a slightly tweaked and modernized approach of the one theyd used for the Genesis that also took competent shots at Sony is a mystery to me.
That damn 32x debacle I think hurt it by muddying the US market, gobbling up R&D/manufacturing/game development/advertising resources that could have been put into a much more efficient, dynamic and earlier US Saturn launch, as well as the add-on taking a sledgehammer to consumer confidence in Sega. I get why they did it, but it was unnecessary, the reasoning for the 32x was: the Genesis was massively successful in the Americas and Europe, so lets milk it some more. It makes sense in a way to do that, but they got greedy instead of quitting while they were ahead. Sure it was successful, and I get being leery of trying to move onto another console, but the fact that it was so successful meant they were in the perfect position to get behind pushing a new console in the US. They should have just brought the Saturn over in early 95. They didnt have to make any more money on the MegaDrive, it had already made you competative with the Nintendo juggernaut; just take the win and keep moving forward with the momentum it gave you.
And then when they do eventually bring it over, not only had Sega not done much to alleviate 3rd party developer issues with the console being... I'll say uniquely challenging to program for compared to other contemporary consoles of the time, when they could have easily sent out some support to show how their programmers were overcoming those challenges. Maybe the console would have had more exclusive and multi-plat games, especially the sports titles you mentioned that brought in older gamers in droves as well as the console with the most faithful and overall best arcade ports outside of the Neo Geo AES, and that could have helped convince more people to buy it.
That ban on certain genres of games to be brought to the US was also a big problem that makes no sense as to why it was done. They knew they had issues with getting games for the console and you need software to sell hardware (they learned that with the Genesis and bundling in Sonic), so why institute a policy thats going to further cut down on the number of titles you can play on the console in the US when you know its competition is still going to have more game options without the policy and the console NEEDS to succeed to some degree in the US market? That policy kept a lot of quality games Japan exclusive, games that when added to what the US Saturn did get couldve have possibly lured some more people away from the competition to Sega and given the console a chance to at least be profitable.
You also make a great point about Sega dropping the ball on continuing popular or quality 1st party games from the Genesis and early 90s arcade onto the Saturn. Streets of Rage, Phantasy Star, Ristar, Golden Axe, AfterBurner, Outrun, Space Harrier etc. - all should have gotten completely new installments on the Saturn that gave the players gameplay reminiscent of the games theyre sequels to as well as taking advantage of the Saturn's higher specs to offer new gameplay elements and bonuses (the latter of which was something you rightly pointed out as a major flaw with the 1st party arcade ports the Saturn did get and something that should have been remedied). If a lot of people played it and had fun on your previous console, you should give them more of a good product they'll recognize on the new console. Its common sense.
Speaking of games, not having SOME kind of Sonic title definitely hurt it a bit too. Sonic sold the Genesis in the US and was probably the biggest mover of the few MegaDrives they sold on Japan. As good as Nights is, Sonic should have been the number one priority out of the 1st party games in general, let alone within Sonic Team itself. It should have had a game at launch so that the game franchise that Sega was best known for then had a representative early on. Once youve actually gotten the Saturn into homes? THEN finish Nights and release it, maybe in like late 97/early 98.
And while consoles can overcome bad launches, the Saturn already had enough going against it in the US with the 299 PS1 news, the 32x debacle, the problem with a lack of games that was compounded by Sega USA's genre policy, etc, it didnt need to overcome a bad launch on top of it. Unless you have enouvh consoles ready so EVERY retail chain can stock some, just release the damn thing at the time that you originally said you would. Dont piss off multiple retail chains to the point they refuse to ever stock one of your consoles again; im not saying having KB Toys stocking Saturns would have saved Sega, but it definitely wouldnt have hurt to have the thing in more stores as well as the Dreamcast when that came out.
Lastly, Bernie Stoler just needed to keep his mouth shut. Dont torpedo one of your products while youre still trying to move it to mitogate your losses. Ill never understand why he thought that was a good idea.
So in short, I blame the failure of the Saturn in the US on a perfect storm of factors, but i think youre right that the games issue was probably the most important. Theyd already learned software moves hardware thanks to the North American success of the Genesis, if they hadnt forgotten that by 95/96, they could have possibly overcome the other mistakes they made with the console. They were never going to beat the PS1, but they could have easily made a net profit on the Saturn and bought more time for the Dreamcast to launch later with the higher spec parts it was intended to have and more consumer interest to make that console profitable. If that had happened as well, Sega might still be in the hardware game
Agree with a lot of what you wrote, some of Sega's WTF decisions were because some of these situations had not been encountered before. You say 'take the Genesis win and move on', but that's hindsight; it makes total sense to us looking back, while at the time this precedence had not been set in the industry yet. Sega missed that one completely, I recall at one point in 94-96 they were supporting 7 different gaming software platforms: SMS,GG,GEN,SCD,32X,32X-CD and SAT as well as the hardware to run those games on.
The Sega CD and 32X was another one of those never before encountered circumstances. At the time, the 32X was meant to extend the life of the Genesis, as was stated in this video, the Genesis/Megadrive was popular in the Americas and Europe, but titles were drying up, 32 bit was the buzz, and the home market couldn't wait to move to Saturn because the Megadrive was 3rd in Japan behind the Super Famicom and the PC-Engine. We know now that costly add-ons like those serve to split up the userbase; dev will make games for the largest userbase leaving the smaller userbases of the add ons to suffer ; this is shown by the Genesis naturally outlasting both of its add-ons.
I'm guessing letting Bernie Stolar do his thing was just Sega of Japan being out of touch with America/ the western market and thinking they needed an american CEO making decisions for it. CEOs, presidents etc like to make an impact when taking control... with Kalinske that thinking paid off. He made decisions which Sega of Japan did not agree with. It was responsible for the Genesis/Megadrive's success in the West. Stolar's decision was(likely) not met with agreement either (he was fired before the Dreamcast launched). Not defending Stolar's the decision, it made things bad for the Saturn, and hard for the DC too; several devs moved their wips from Sega consoles to the competition, while some abandoned Sega altogether (EA notably).
Lazarus Hernandez thanks for,the comment, you make some good points.
Still though, I really dont think it takes hindsight to know the 32x was a bad idea. They knew that it was badly bottlenecked by the Genesis's specs, they already had trouble developing games for the Saturn and getting 3rd parties for that even in Japan where it was selling so creating an add on that will further split up development teams onto different hardware was just going to make getting games for two platforms even harder (and again, Sega had already learned hardware in this industry is moved by software), plus it complicates manufacturing while just going with the saturn streamlines production of consoles (as well as game development, as I mentioned).
Plus, even by that point console generations were already a thing and had a rough pattern they followed. If any foresight had been used (a smart company would), it would be obvious that youd have to fully get behind the 32x as the american Sega console for that generation, otherwise you take years off the saturn's run outside Japan and hamstring your ability to turn a profit on it. Sega just didnt have the resources to market and push both at the same time either. And if you do go with it as a transitional device (as Sega did) I dont think you need hindsight as a Sega employee at the time just doing basic forethought to come to the realization consumers may feel tricked into wasting their money by buying something that became obsolete just a couple years later.
Like you said, all of the hype was about the 32bit consoles that were supposed to be coming down the line soon, releasing a 32bit add on that'll be bottlenecked and thus outperformed by more than twice the specs for half the price of a ps1 wasnt going to lure anyone in (it definitely wasnt going to convince anyone that didnt own a genesis to buy that just to get the 32x). Why not just go with the existing console that can live up to the 32bit hype better, thats also being made and sold in Japan, as well as having games developed for it, versus spending even more R&D, manufacturing, game development, and marketing resources on throwing an add-on together at the last minute, something thats going to always be disappointing to consumers when compared to the hyped up PS1 and rumored Super Nintendo successor at the time? Especially when it would cost lest money overall to just expand Saturn to the US?
I agree with a lot of what you say to an extent, and again I understand the logic at the time, it just seems like there were more very obvious counter arguments SOMEONE at Sega shpuld have brought up that dont require hindsight, arguments that should have immediatly shut down the 32x talk in the company. Most companies contemporary to the time of 94/95 would have loved the opportunity Sega had then: an immensely successful product that grew the company exponentially thanks to worldwide market growth that the product created thanks to expansion in foreign markets, and have that product continue to sell and prime those markets as a new successor product is being tested and released in the home market, a successor product that will be good to go for distribution to the foreign market hot on the heels of its predecessor.
I still say any other company's CEOs at the time would have just overridden Tom Kalinske (I still believe he was responsible for the 32x, there are too many holes in his "Sega of Japan forced it on me" story) and released the Saturn in the US less than a year later than it was in Japan without the 32x project ever getting a dime or more than a second of thought. It would have gotten a similar marketing and distribution strategy to the Genesis (good ceos dont fix what isnt broken) that wouldnt have aggravated retailers to the breaking point. The position Sega was in in the states in late 94/early 95 is the kind that companies before and after sega dream of when it comes to launching a new, tested product.
Also - "$299" was beatable. The second Sony does that, I would have asked myself (if I were in sega of japan's shoes) "how the hell are they managing to sell that for $299?"
After finding out what you were getting for 299, it becomes apparent how Sony is pulling off that price as well as what the ad campaign for the Saturn is; Saturn came with a pack in game and built in internal memory, PS1 came with neither (when you factor in the price of both a game and a memory stick at the time, the PS1 becomes like $380). The ad campaign writes itself: "The REAL price of the PS1 aka is saving $20 worth missing out on THIS?!?!?" *cue highlight reel of the best games Sega had to offer on the Saturn with X-TREME GUITAR SOLO background music*
That would have been a thousand times better than the LSD fueled headtrip of an ad campaign the Saturn did get in the US. Hell, just translating the Sega Sanshiro ads for the US would have been better than what we actually got.
After that, I'd do the first price cut 5-7 months after launch. It's a little early, but I'd introduce a tiered list of bundles, with the base model, with no pack in game Saturn being 299 followed by different tiers of increasing price and amount of bundled in stuff (first a pack in game, then an extra controller, then a second launch game, then a RAM/memory cart) at intervals of $25 until you get to the best bundle at $399. Yeah, you're giving away stuff early, but even after 6 months of Sega doing everything right to release the Saturn and it being much more competative inthis universe, I still think the PS1 does beastly numbers compared to it and a move like this would be necessary if they wanted to close more of the gap.
Also, when the price drop comes, the ads switch to basically, "Sony arent the only people saying $299." Again, these are just logical extensions of Sega's previous Genesis ad campaigns, its not inconcievable they couldnt have come up with this back then with someone more rational steering the ship in that division.
dmore454,
"They knew that it was badly bottlenecked by the Genesis's specs, they already had trouble developing games for the Saturn..."
Actually this is the wisdom of hindsight, at the time (94-95 when the 32X and Saturn launched) they did not know the Saturn was going to be hard to develop for, they didn't know the Genesis would be the bottleneck for the 32x; we know that now.
Back then Sega tried to get the most out of the Saturn, while 3rd parties tended to make do (especially on ports which ended up on the PSX as well; devs usually went with one processor on the Saturn instead). The 32X was a rush job and barely scratched the surface of what it was capable of; as with most consoles the programmers learn to get the best out of the hardware later in its life; the 32X didn't live long enough for that.
"good ceos dont fix what isnt broken" Good being the operative word there. :)
Sega launched their SG-1000 the same day as the Famicom in Japan, yet did not have near the success. They released several revisions until we got the Mark 3 aka Master System, which was successful in Europe and South America, but didn't do so hot in the U.S. or Japan.
The thing with Kalinske was he made the Genesis and by extension Sega of America a success when prior strategies did not work. He essentially 'fixed' what was broken for Sega. He did it by being unconventional at the time; the subject of the video states it all: games, and marketing. Packed in Sonic when Sega of Japan did like the strategy. He made Sega a household name. Someone like this was likely to be given ample leeway afterwards. Sega of Japan didn't go for all of his suggestions though; they didn't partner with Sony for a 32 bit console when the opportunity was there, and they didn't go for the SGI hardware that became the N64 either.
I don't think Kalinske said the 32X was forced on him, I didn't get that from his interview either. The 32X was SoAs solution to SoJs request (Hayao Nakayama specifically) for something to stave of the Atari Jaguar until the Saturn arrived (yes they were actually worried about the Jaguar). What was clear to me was that any decision made for the western market ultimately had/required approval from Sega of Japan even if they necessarily did not agree with it. The 32X was under Kalinske's watch so yeah, he takes the blame. Kalinske left Sega in 96 shortly before things went sour in the West.
Oddly enough Sega of Japan took the lessons to heart and the Saturn did much better in Japan than any previous Sega console; they had games, they had marketing and it lasted until 2000 when it had been discontinued everywhere else by 1998.
Stolar inherited something he felt wasn't working at SoA and did what he did ( and we know all the consequences it had for the Saturn in the U.S. and the Dreamcast) yet his resume states that he was responsible for the Dreamcast's launch which up to that point in time was the most successful video game launch ever (even if he left right before it launched). He was likely given a lot of clout because he was previously a VP at Sony (which was outselling the Saturn 3 to 1 by 1997). Coincidentally Hayao Nakayama also left the company in 1998 after serving as President and CEO of Sega enterprises since 1983 (ie he was the boss of all of the SoA CEOs for just about the entirety of Sega's console history); some of the blame for goings on at Sega should fall on him as well...
Sorry for the long post...
Lazarus Hernandez no problem, I appreciate the clarifications and the insight.
I still feel like some people at Sega would have known the 32x would have issues, specifically hardware devs, r&d, and game developers in the company. They're the ones with experience in understanding hardware architecture and programming for it, I think theyd know even before drawing up the first set of blueprints for the 32x that thered be issues trying to make a low cost add on that would turn a 16 bit console with late 80s architecture and parts that would remain static into a 32 bit console capable of competing with one that would be designed and built with then modern parts and architecture from the ground up. It may have initially been proposed as a jaguar fighter, but I think by early development it was clear that it would be going head to head with the PS1. The PS1 was getting pretty decent hype around late 93/early 94, the second they knew that that was what theyd be competing against in North America, it just seems like an obvious choice to nix the add on and go with the Saturn; even with what they knew at the time, going with the Saturn looks like a better competition strategy for the PS1 in every category. If I'm running Sega and the 32x and its purpose is being proposed, the first thing I'm doing is asking my hardware, games, and r and d devs if something like that is even realistic. I feel like those kinds of employees would have said no back then.
Id also heard some developers for Sega were already complaining from day 1 about the Saturn being a challenge to develop games for due to its unique architecture (specifically 3d). If those complaints really were coming in, id be hesitant to greenlight another complex console (it was, kinda) thats going to further split game development resources on top of other valuable resources.
Ive seen some videos where people talk about what went on during those years (and in doing this from memory, so I could easily be wrong here) but I remember in one video someone finding an interview with kalinske where he basically said he never wanted the 32x and he was talked into it/had it forced on him by Sega of Japan. I really doubt thats how it went down, its more likely he wanted it and like you said, Sega gave him leeway for it because of his previous success. I also vaguely remember several of the videos pointing out the decision on whether or not to go with the 32x involved some heated arguments between Sega of Japan and N. America and ultimately ot lead to some hurt feelings on both sides; to me this points to a good number of Sega of Japan executives already having their misgivings about the 32x and thinking it was a bad idea (probably for some of my reasons), so I think its possible they could have just as easily gone the other way thanks to those doubts. Either way, we'll never really know how things would have panned out if theyd just embraced the Saturn instead.
On a final note, I also have to agree that Stolar doesnt get the credit he deserves for at least making the Dreamcast launch as amazingly successful as it was in the US; he may have shot himself in the foot early on with his infamous interview, but he did make up quite a bit for it later. If only he'd just found a way to not kill Sega console sales in the US for 10 months with one line, he may have had an even bigger launch than the shockingly successful one we got. Again, we'll never know, but its fun to think about
My wish for Sega is to resurrect Saturn with their so many games just like they did with their Sega MD/Genesis Collection they released recently... C'mon Sega, don't let Saturn rot and decaying slowly in Console graveyard... Cherish it,please...
Saturn emulation is a pain so collections like that are unlikely.
If yabause dev, without any prior knowledge are able to make some of the game works, why not Sega themselves?Or just Employ the dev just like Sega did with mr Whitehead and share the code to the dev. Or just make the remaster version that works for todays platform and sell it on PSN,steam ,eshop, and XbL
Because it's modern Sega.
elin111 Yeah, pretty much can't argue with that... 😅
Unfortunately, SEGA seems to have lost the source code to a number of Saturn games, I know Panzer Dragoon Saga is among them.
This is... an incredible piece of original research and analysis. A totally different take on Sega’s failure. And what’s more, I think this might be a more realistic breakdown of the how and why.
As a person who owed a Saturn within 6 months of release there was still leaps and bounds made, but I had no problem paying $50 In 1997 for RE1
The Saturn did really well here in Japan. We had really good games here that were never released outside of Japan and i think that hurt it more in America. I've never been a fan of region exclusive games. The same with the super famicon theres so many games here that the world missed out on.
This was one of the major killers, along with the fact that US players stopped caring about fighting games. I imported X-men Vs Street Fighter and Vampire Savior... it was mind blowing - perfect arcade ports. But nobody knew about them, and most people weren’t playing in arcades anymore
I have to agree I had a Super Nintendo before the Sega Saturn and I absolutely loved Sega the games made me a fan however the market was changing rapidly and those Arcade to home conversions isn't what people cared about anymore.
People were looking for deeper gameplay experiences although not to say the Saturn didn't have any but I do consider the Sega Saturn to be a high quality Arcade in the home kinda system for the most part.
I also don't understand why Sega never added in game story to their games I had grown accustomed to some kind of story motivation in games ever since Shinobi, there was always some kind of story motivation.
As a Street Fighter fan I had grown accustomed to character endings as a reward but Sega often didn't have any story to their games.
I mean Tekken Vs Virtua Fighter I can see why people would prefer Tekken over VF considering the unlockables and story FMV it was amazing back then.
Same here. I loved Virtua Fighter, but Sega just left it as sterile as possible. You knew nothing about the characters or why they were there.
This video is gold. Pls do more for another systems
Something that would have added to the persuasion of your arguments would be sales numbers of the games you said sold poorly. Maybe a chart of prior generation game sales (madden previous version + madden new version) for contrast. Good video though.-