As a 50 year old collector since the 90's. I lived through this era. The 90's was a golden age of quickly evolving technology and ideas. The 32 X was not a bad idea but as with anything, if you do not support it, it will fail. I still have my surprise launch Saturn, I did not regret my purchase at the time. I will admit that when the ps1 came out and I got one, I was more impressed by the ps1's 3d. Today 2d is appreciated far more than back then. This was an exciting era of 3d, 2d seemed like a step backwards. 3d blew gamers socks off because it clearly was the future and animated so lifelike. My real love for the Saturn came in the modern era. The Saturn was no where near exploited here in the west. Today we can region unlock the Saturn, upscale it's impressive video, and play movies with the video card. These features were barely even addressed here in the west let alone utilized. So much potential lost in a series of mistakes. As you mentioned, it wasn't just one mistake Sega made, it was a series that doomed not only the Saturn but made the Dreamcast a still born when it launched. Sega was its own worst enemy, period. The best innovators at the time but a loose cannon constantly shooting itself.
The scary thing about the failure of Sega is actually the failure of the executives working in it. When a company die or fxxx up people only remember the company brand and name but not the people working in it that causes it. And these incompetent people merely move on and work elsewhere afterward. It happen all the time in the business world even to this day that's why people have to rely on themselves or pay heavily to headhunters to look for suitable candidates to enrich and contribute to the company. If you work in the corporate world you will know what I mean. The mistakes,egos and culture barriers when it come to collaboration and communication between branches as well as the incompetent and fawners in the way as well who made it in life due to pulling relationship card and apple polishing in life etc. What we know as Sega now might as well be two different companies back then both fighting against each other as well as having their own factions fighting in them as well. Messy.
Sega is not a dead company, it still exists, is still listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and employs more people than it did in the late 90s.... Moreover, all these stories of competition between subsidiaries or management problems have existed, as indeed in almost all companies, but that is not what is the reason for the abandonment of the home console market. by Sega, it's only a question of competitiveness. When a company like Sega which has to outsource everything is faced with a company like Sony which can produce everything themselves, no matter the quality of the product, they can only lose .
The Saturn playing arcade perfect CPS2 ports of X-Men vs Street Fighter, Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Darkstalkers 3 with mid nighties hardware ( yes even with ram cart) was sorcery at the time. It would be like playing a PS5 game on PS3 hardware. Still one of my favorite consoles ever. So many exclusives still stuck on it.
Saturn was already more powerful than a cps2 board, just that it focuses on different things. Cps2 is more like an upgraded neogeo AES- at most a half step between 16-bit and 32-bit consoles.
I think yes there was many mistakes being made by Sega during this time period but the Saturn is easily one of my favorite consoles ever and I still play mine to this day
I've always said, Sega of Japan is very prejudiced towards the west for its success that it could never replicate in its own country (until Saturn, though that was short-lived). Even to this day, Sega of Japan meddles with many western projects, more recently would be Sonic Origins. Can't forget Sonic Boom as well.
I've heard that Sega of Japan meddled alot with the sonic franchise over the years I wouldn't be surprised if the way 06 turnt out or even how frontiers is shaping up to be is the result of their bad judgement.
They should have had a tighter leash on SEGA NA when it came to hardware. Japan made the good hardware and the guys in the West knew how to market software for it and sell it. They should have maintained this kind of relationship and kept hardware decisions in Japan.
@@spencerstevens2175 Not necessarily, SOJ was in bed with NEC, while SoA was open to many chip manufacturers. Like 3DFX, which was a very popular chip manufacture at the time. SOA also had opportunities to work with Sony and Silicon Graphics well before Sony came out with their own console and Nintendo with the N64, but SOJ told them no.
As someone in the HPC industry and loved the Sega Saturn when it came out. I can tell you what happened, and its still happening today. Pretty much the tools were not there. The architecture was complex, yes. The achilies heel was the bus limitations with the chips. You needed to be a savvy assembly level programmer to really harness something like that. With 3D games everything went to C++ and C. OOP was pretty standard on the Unix workstations at the time (like from SGI, and the likes). It wasn't like Sega didn't know about this. I'm sure there were developers (in japan) using these workstations for pre-rendered graphics. They were pretty big in movie productions too for 3D graphics. More is not always better. Its always been less about compute, and more about bandwidth. Thats why graphics cards need the fastest memory on the market. We still see this today. HW Manufacturers always believe "If you build it, they will come" but if no one can write software for it- its a failure hands down. Not every game developer is a computer scientist, and not every computer scientist is an electronic engineer. They went the route of how their arcade boards were designed at the time, which was pretty standard- but those boards only served sega internally in their very advanced (and legendary) arcade divisions. The cool programmers from England who work on the genesis were not going to code like that. Hacking a platform is fine if your doing it for a hobby, not for making money. Time is money, time to market is key. They did blow it. The 2D games looked amazing yes. Especially the fighters. The saturn was literally a standard JAMMA arcade board, at the time, with less memory. So there you go.
The Sega CD caused people to lose a little faith in Sega but the 32X was when most people lost all faith in Sega and I owned both.I was one of the kids that didn't give up on Sega(I should have)and talked my mom into buying me a $400 Saturn the first Christmas it was out and to my surprise she actually spent that much on me.I thought surely they'll succeed with this,at the time in 1995 the Saturn's and PlayStations we're stacked next to each other.The PlayStation looked so awkward at the time,surely it would fail being a newcomer with it's funny looking controls and need for a memory card that wasn't included.By the time the Dreamcast came out even I had lost all faith in Sega and waited about a year to get one,to my surprise the Dreamcast was awesome and the only other system besides the genesis really worth owning,it had the power of a PS2 a little over a year before it even came out.
I know of a few other victims of the Sega of Japan versus Sega of America disconnect. One of them was Eternal Champions, a fighting game that tested well and played well and may have been the future direction of fighting games instead of Killer Instinct if Sega of Japan did not clog up the drain. Since Killer Instinct was the better selling system exclusive game now everyone seems to go for 100 hit combos in fighting games instead of a different more deliberate type of game that Eternal Champions was with radically different basic moves and a mechanism to prevent spamming specials. The other big victim of the fight between Sega of America and Japan was ambidexterity. Sega of America's prototype for Genesis controller, was kind of a two-piece device that could be held in both hands with action being on either one hand or the other and movement on the opposite. There are only four authorized ambidextrous joysticks since the crash of 1983, the Atari 7800 joystick, and 3 Supersticks by Beeshu, authorized for the turbo graphics 16 the Genesis under the name bishu Gizmo and for the NES despite a fight that Nintendo put up to prevent it for being authorized despite it following all the rules. Personally when I was looking for a right-handed fight stick Nintendo just said learn to play the regular way while Sega actually tried to do something about it by sending me to KY Enterprises. And then in 2009 I got kicked off sega's website because my thoughts were too American and too crazy. I was trying to suggest an item which I later figured out how to do which was netrogames, a way to turn old games into old online video games with a server that is not dependent on the individual game code. The secret is naturally beating the clock with cellular Direct Connect technology, AKA straight line push to talk.
Yeah. N64 have the best 3D platforms of that generation, but Saturn ROCKS in many other genres, and in 2D is the BEST machine of that era (without excluding its amazing 3D Sega Model 2 arcade conversions, the ST-V ports, and Fighters Megamix).
Sadly many of the Saturn gems weren’t released for the west, if the west got what the Saturn have in Japan and Asia region it might have been a different story
@@Oniontrololol Nah. I think this was more real in Mega/Sega CD era (more specially in Europe) than in the Saturn one. Don't think the failure of Saturn in the Western countries was for that. This was more the result of its failure in these markets after the first 2-3 years, not the cause. I mean... I do not remember many great Saturn titles during the first 2 years not appearing in the west, (excluding things considered very very japanese oriented games in the 90s, as Sakura Wars. But this also occurred to PSX and N64, so, no real difference). In fact, Saturn had a great collection of japanese RPGs in US and Europe, before PSX. This now seems incredible, but it is really true. And this did not change until the launch of FFVII in 1997. Now everybody remembers Playstation as an JRPG behemoth machine (specially compared to N64, a disastrous JRPG wasteland)... but this really started in 1997, not before.
@@shostako1284 According to GameFAQs, there were about 10 games released on the Saturn in North America before 1997 that I would qualify as RPGs. PS1 had about 7. So you're right, but there is not a big difference at all. N64 had more RPGs on it then most people realize (about 10.) Problem is that half of them were not good, 2 of them were those Pokemon Stadium games (more like expansions for the Game Boy titles and have very little to offer on their own), and 2 are Japanese exclusive. Whether one considers the Saturn better the N64 or not will depend greatly on what genres of games you enjoy. Back then it was all about platformers and fighting games. If you love both, then the consoles are probably pretty equal to you. Otherwise either the N64 (platformers) or Saturn (fighters) are going to win by a long shot.
It’s been getting the a lot of love from the retro community for at least a decade now. North American and pal game prices are pretty high but the Japanese versions of those games for the most part are pretty affordable. A good amount of the Japanese exclusive games are affordable as well except for really obscure games or very sought after games with limited supply like Shinrei Jusatsushi Tarōmaru, Radiant silver gun and astra superstars to name of few. The controller was the biggest highlight to me, that model 2 North America/ Japanese controller was just the perfect type of controller to play most genres of games in. I loved the fact that the Saturn had internal memory saves, sure the battery in the Saturn lasts about 2-3 years only but you can easily back those saves up on a memory cartridge or an action replay. The games speak for themselves, if you’re into shoot ‘em ups, fighting games, platformers and rpgs then the Saturn has you covered just know that a good amount of those games will be Japanese games but are still very playable. Saturn is a great console, top 5 favorite for me personally
also fan translations of many Sega Saturn games being made more frequent and are nowadays available to be played on real hardware making it much more accessible than it used to be years ago.
Bruh Segas home console division was just as good if not better. ( Panzer Dragoon 123, Nights, Astal, Jet Set Radio, Sonic Adventure, Skies of Arcadia, Shenmue etc ). That had nothing to do with Segas poor international inner bad management and strategy.
I was 12-years-old with a Saturn and played nearly arcade perfect Marvel vs. Street Fighter with the 4MB RAM cartridge which was literally unbelievable when I told other kids at school or the arcade. I had a Saturn before I could get a Playstation or N64 but I adored the system especially since I loved fighting games and it delivered an experience far better than anything else you could play at home. I have many wonderful memories playing so many unique games, especially the few JP imports I could get, and there was something special about the titles you could play on it even if the system itself looked inferior to other home consoles at the time. Still, fighting games and 2D-oriented games thrived on it as well as 3D titles like Nights, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Burning Rangers, and others you couldn't play on anything else.
Before its home console hay days, Sega's lifeblood was the arcade. The Genesis was marketed as a means to take arcade games to your living room, a trend that persisted through Sega's entire console line up. But this also meant Sega was banking on a dying medium as games built to end quickly fell out of fashion. Other factors to Sega's demise were their failure to make their non-Somic IPs household names. Check out Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing along with Transformed. Only diehards or gaming historians would recognize Vice, Amigo, Gilis, Shinobi, etc. It looks like Sonic is the one bearing Sega's weight while everyone else is trapped in nostalgia and rereleases. Granted, there's Miku, Persona, and Yakuza, but are those as impactful as even a handful of non-Mario Nintendo IP's? As much as I'm STOKED for Sonic Frontiers, years down the road, if Sega can't get their act together, they'll fall to the buyout bandwagon.
Funny to hear you say "Saturin", instead of Saturn! My little brothers, and cousins used to say it the same way... Also, I can see you've done your research... SALUTES 💪🏿
I gotta say this is certainly one of the best videos covering the Saturn and its demise, keep it up man. You've already managed to out do many far more established channels, I look forward to your future works
The Saturn is much more appreciated and respected these days. It and the Dreamcast are the white horses of retro consoles. I just wish they would've had the popularity back then that they do now
It's not really that the Saturn wasn't designed to do 3D...they did a terrible job at sending the developers any dev tools or documentation. So a powerful, but tricky to program machine with very little documentation from Sega to figure any of it out 🤷♂
16:40 : well , myself ,as someone who grew up with the SEGA MegaDrive/Genesis(i was big SEGA fan back then) my own opinion as SEGA's fan and customer(back then) is that although Tom Kalinsky must have been the main reason behind MegaDrive/Genesis success , he is also a big reason for Saturn's demise. And i say that from my experience back then as a customer. At the beginning ,i was so hyped with the advertisement of SEGA's new upcoming 32bit console ( Saturn ) , when i started to realise that SEGA was already releasing 32bit hardware add-on for the MegaDrive/Genesis ( 32X ). This heavily reduced my excitement for the new upcoming console ,since i was seeing reviews about 32X games and i realised that they weren't very different from the MegaDrive/Genesis titles. This destroyed the "magic" of the new upcoming console ,because i already had a glimpse about how 32bit games might look like ,based on the 32X games , and as a customer i wasn't impressed at all with what SEGA was releasing during the 32X-era , completely ruining my expectations for the Saturn. --P.S. All these MegaDrive/Genesis add-on ( Sega CD , 32X ) , not only they minimized my hype for the upcoming Saturn , but they also made me feel less happy for my MegaDrive as well , since i was feeling that the new games will focus towards these new add-on and less for the basic MegaDrive that i owned. These were more or less my thoughts back then .... a 15-16 year old kid who was a proud owner of a MegaDrive and was expecting SEGA's next big release. ( i ended up buying a Playstation instead , and judging from SEGA's tragic demise , i never regretted that decision)
Yeah but the prospect of the 32x existing was mainly sega of japan's executives fault as they wanted a cheaper alternative to the saturn for people who couldn't afford it minus the game library because most people didn't wanna developer software for a "filler peripheral" Its pretty ironic because Nintendo would later repeat this mistake with the gamecube which led to that console failing almost as bad as the saturn especially when compare to the sales of the ps2.
@@kaisarr7632 yeah i noticed that you said that ( though ... i had already made my comment before i listened you saying that ) , but i have to say , i believe that you are the 1st i hear saying something like that. I've watched a lot of Saturn's videos and i think all of them imply that the 32X was something promoted by SEGA of America. Check Kim Justice video """Sega's Awful 1995 Saturn Launch: What On Earth Happened? | Kim Justice (reup)"""" , *check what he says at **24:50* . So all this time i was under the impression that SEGA of America was behind the 32X. If that info is mistaken i can't tell , i was stunned when i heard you saying the SEGA of Japan was behind that project , are you sure of that ?
@@Sitharii Sega of Japan President at the time basically forced the development of the 32x because of the possible competition of the Atari Jaguar of all consoles, being one of the earliest 32 bit consoles releasing in that console generation. In hindsight it was poor judgement since the atari jaguar unperformed even worse than the 32x, The 32x was originally gonna be a brand new console but sega of America executives said to make it a peripheral instead. Since the japan division had final say on what goes everything that occurred the creation of the 32x and bad judgement of atari is all of there fault even if the America division had some hand in the development they were just following orders.
@@kaisarr7632 i see , well , as i said this is a new perspective regarding those events back then(at least among the videos i've seen so far) . Interesting ...
@@kaisarr7632 so SoA suggested an addon. Then SoJ ok’d it. The 32X pre sold 1.5mill but Hitachi couldn’t manufacture all the SH-2 chips in time. But what happened next was so stupid. SoJ axed the 32X just a few months after it released. So it ended up with like 30 games and they were all rushed and janky. It made Sega look completely incompetent. Games that got cancelled include, Rayman, Castlevania, Alien vs Predator arcade, AMOK. The FIFA game is a joke. If the 32X has lasted at least three years then it’s library would have been killer. Then if the Saturn supported 32X then people could upgrade over time. Then both consoles would have made money. It’s not dumb to have a cheap alternative to the main console. You do need to support it properly though. The Sega CD never got proper support. That’s why that one failed too. So much nonsense on the Sega CD.
Great analysis. There are a ton of issues why it did not sell as well as the PS1 during the time. One thing I would like to mention is the lack of a "Killer App". You can have a ton of solid games, but without that one iconic game (in this case no mainline sonic title), it becomes a hard sell.
My favorite console on the teen time. I wonder if it's still working... I've got ao many games for it, would be quite a nostalgic trip to see them after all these years🥰
As an Asian player I can briefly explain why the SEGA Saturn can still stand in Japan. It was the transition period of 2D to 3D games and a lot of great 2D fighting titles were available in arcade market. One of them is SNK's the King of Fighter Series. They were massively hit in arcade centres in Asia. To master the fighting skills, every frame counts. Besides expensive Neogeo AES cartridges and long loading time of the CD version, SEGA Saturn version of the KOFs and other SNK and Capcom 2D titles were the best choice of the time. Furthermore, a lot of Japanese titles were suiting tastes of Asian players, like Sakura Taisen, that the SEGA Lord X was mentioned; a lot of SEGA arcade ports so that you can play SEGA Model 2 titles at home, a lot of 2D games port better on Saturn than the PS1; Some publisher like Game Arts (Grandia and Gungriffon) and Treasure (Guardian Heroes) publish their title on SEGA Saturn only. Of course, Final Fantasy 7 and Dragon Quest 7 the most anticipated JRPG titles and bio hazard 1 and 2 were leading Playstation to win the console war, but in Japanese market, we wont say Saturn was a failure. From my point of view, if I want to buy (or collect) 2D games, I would buy the Saturn version, in fact those games are more expensive than the PS1 version in the 2nd hand market. For 3D games, I would choose Playstation version without doubt. Sometimes I just wonder what if SEGA adopt all-region policy (allowing JAP games run on US version of SEGA Saturns), would the situation of Saturn in western market a little bit better.
Sega Saturn is a fantastic console, I bought it in September 1995 for $499 Canadian and it is still one of my favourite consoles. The Horde is my favourite game on it, but there are so many great one's.
I really wanted a Saturn back in the day but alas I was just a poor kid. Must have been great to live in this era when you actually had the money to spend on all these systems and games.
Get one with a 3D controller, RGB cables and go nuts! they play backups now pretty easily. Best decision I made as a gamer who only got to play N64 and psx back in the day.
We were poor, too. I'd been wiped out by the cost of the Genesis, CD, and 32X, plus dozens of games. Now SEGA tossed it all out and expected us to cough up even more for a Neo Geo priced machine with launch titles that could've run fine on the 32X-CD!
This is some great content well put together its amazing how far council gaming has evolved compared to PC gaming even so a lot of 2D gaming had such a huge fun factor i still enjoy till this day
Bernie Stolar was the reason why Sega no longer makes consoles. I love the Dreamcast but the Saturn was such a loss that the company was dealt a deathblow.
Saying the PSX didn't need a ram expansion is inaccurate. PSX already lacked VRAM in comparison to Saturn. The RAM expansion(s) only widened the gap. The 32X was mandated by Sega Japan because they were afraid of the Jaguar at the time. (Go figure.) Nintendo didn't betray Sony so much as find out they had been had by them. (Sony told Nintendo, who didn''t believe in disc based gaming at the time, that the disc add-on wouldn't be used for games. Sony however didn't include any such stipulation in the contract they signed with Nintendo. Sony would be the sole profiteers of the disc based deals. The deal also allowed Sony to eventually create their own disc-only version of the system, which would, according to firmware files on the prototype, read electronic books already made for a disc based unit.) Bernie Stolar also hurt the Saturn, and Sega, by killing it early, taking Sega out of the market for a year.
Dreamcast is still my Favourite Console of them all! Mega CD is my Snatcher System and i very much love my Saturn for a bunch of games, mostly imports from Japan. Good Video my Friend! Well done and some information that is mostly forgotten. Thank you!
The Saturn didn't fail. Sega failed the Saturn. They were too greedy wanting to beat competition to the mark. This upset developers and retailers. Developers didn't like the fact they didn't get the full documentation from Sega, so had to work on what they had. Retailers didn't like that Sega screwed them over by bringing release date forward giving no time to prepare and only selected retailers got any stock. The Saturn was a beast. It didn't fail. The only fail was the company behind it.
Great vid. The trouble started with the Mega CD, which wasn't well received and a commercial failure. It put a dent in Sega's image. Then there was the 32X which further hampered Sega's reputation as a company with the gaming public. Then with the release of the Saturn, they prematurely stopped supporting the Megadrive and its hardware add ons. Why would anyone want to invest in another Sega machine after all that? As a Sega fan, I of course bought one, but those not blindingly loyal to a brand took their money elsewhere. Sega's reputation was in the toilet by then.
32X didn't have Sega of Japan behind it at all. It should have never happened. The Saturn only came to life for us vidiots that imported Japanese games for it. Sega corporate structure was an internal fighting mess of self defeat.
The Sega Saturn did have the WORST launch of any console ever, which did contribute to Sega’s terrible demise of being a console manufacturer. However, it was a neat system.
Sega enthusiasts (like me) made the company a success in North America, Europe, and Latin America. By 1994, so many of us had gladly plunked down over $700 ($1600+ in today's money) for the unstoppable Tower Of Power! Then SoJ decided to throw all of that--and us--out the window and announce a $500 game system in Japan. In May 1995, we were told that Saturn's launch date had been moved up to right now, and we were expected to come up with a Neo Geo priced $400! And we couldn't even reuse our old controllers! And we were now broke! And there would be no more cool games from SEGA!!!
they are stuck because they released too many consoles and useless accessories such as Sega CD, 32X, Mega CD, Pico, Pico Beena, Game Gear . Sega's fate similar to SNK went bankrupt due to the release of useless consoles like Neo Geo CD, Arcade Hyper Neo 64, and Neo Geo Pocket & Neo Geo Pocket Colors they survive because they are acquired and assisted by other companies to survive and survive. what an unpleasant fact to read and hear really the console failed in the market, and competed, as can be seen from the small number of game titles library.
This was the PS3 of the 90's. The Saturn was stronger than a Sony PlayStation but it was harder to develop for so everything 3D looked amazing on the PSX and sucked on the Saturn.
Basically, theres alot of similarities between the two consoles, both were sold at outrageous high prices that costed them alot of launch sales, the ps3 was sold at 500/600 usd which made most go for the 360 instead. Plus the ps3's game library was lacking hard for its first few years and it really didnt recover till the very end. While the Saturn's library was lacking in the beginning but got better but only in japan.
@@kaisarr7632 Yeah very similar. I still haven't forgiven Sony for abandoning backwards compatibility on their newer revision PS3 consoles. I would pay up to $650 today if Sony built a PS6 with the Emotion Engine and Cell Processor inside the motherboard for 6 generation of PlayStation upscaling to 4K.
Long story short: Sega rushed the Saturn to market in order to beat the Sony Playstation to the punch. But in doing so, the console was underdeveloped and couldn't compete with the power of the PS1.
If they never released the 32x, and kept the holiday release date it, and had a new sonic game on release. It would have done much better. Maybe even beat the n64 in the us
The Saturn never failed it’s the PS1 that failed X-men vs street fighter marvel super heroes VS street fighter X-men children of the atom marvel super heroes marvel vs capcom so much more the list can go on and on the Saturn was the king back in the days for gamers who understand about who what consoles plays the best even Nintendo 64 was better then PS1 by accident cause Sony back in the days weren’t giving a crap how bad the games were going to play so I say the PS2 was Sony’s first real PlayStation console the PS1 should be the PS2 model I didn’t see Microsoft first Xbox suck at any games Sony should of waited until 2001 instead
What's so unorthodox about ram expansion? N64 had an identical model with the Expansion Pak and having it being required on games like DK64. Also the particular examples you used in the video are virtually invalid. MSH didn't require the Ram Expansion to play the game, and KoF 95 required a ROM expansion cart which was provided with the game itself since the cart was specifically designed exclusively for KoF95. Nevertheless, nice video.
DK64 required the expansion pack due to Rare not being able to fix the memory leak that would crash the game, the game still crashes if left on long enough.
Back then The saturn was not an interesting console Bad ports or games not released here in europe The famous pal 50hz problem Or good games hard to find in stores I never saw a pal release of panzer dragoon saga That's was the case with many other good games That are now rare gems The impression you had with this console was a mediocre one.
You made a comment about just popping kof into your Playstation and it just played have you actually compared the two that ram cart made all the difference in the world.
A shame that SEGA mishandled the Saturn, what with the better games like X-Men vs Street Fighter or their version of Castlevania: SOTN. Also, the inferior American titles like Mr. Bones only sped up its demise.
Saturn version of grandia also looked the best and when the game was remastered and port they used the inferior ps1 port essentially locking the best looking version of the game behind. A lot of the America releases for the Saturn were pretty poor but apparently someone at sega of japan said to stop releasing Japanese games over in America after the console started to struggle over there, which effectively killed the systems even more, something I forgot to include in the video
The US brach of Sega botched that Era of gaming badly. The whole reason I bought a Saturn was because of the framerate on Capcom CPS2 game ports. The ram cart for KOF 95 had sprite data on them. So neither the cart or cd would work anywhere else. I'm sorry but there is no comparison to the Saturn kof 95. The framerates on psx was so bad I didn't buy Samurai Spirits fencer pack. SS 3 was bad enough Bleh.!!
Sega really needed to put faith on the Saturn and convince its Fanbase hey just because we’re moving to 3D it’s doesn’t mean 2D it’s dead and they should have translated the RPGs from Japan to the west for fans who we’re craving for adventure games but with amazing sprites but Sega in the 90s was a mess inside the company all we’re selfish and bitter towards each other Sega really took the mantel we do what Nintendont and that’s not working together Politics really hurt Sega everyone wanted to be the best but forgot teamwork
It wasn't underrated more than how it was designed. It was more for 2d and pseudio 3d graphics. Not only that it was a btch and a half to develop for by most accounts.
Sega of Japan was jealous of Sega of America. So sad those japanse people working at Sega. If they just left their ego go, Sega would be great. So sad.
Better than the n64 for sure never was a fan of that console, The ps1 was a better optimized console with a superior game library I just think the saturn had a great library as well that nobody every bothers to mention when talking about the console.
This is clickbait first of all Sega Saturn did not fail it was one of the greatest systems of all time you want to talk about a trash system talk about the Atari jaguar and then people will believe you
Please stop spreading this Saturn is best for 2D games myth! Plenty of great 3D games came out and even today. PS1 had the most varied and quality 2D games at the time. Saturn needed further hardware to play the more complex 2D games, I mean wtf..
SEGA Japan should have had a tighter leash on SEGA NA. They did bring the Genesis to insane heights here with Sonic being a pack in game and their marketing tactics but after sega cd SEGA Jp should have stepped in a took control of the hardware manufacturing decisions. They even had the same problem pre DC where they had a Japanese team and American team working seperately on two diff DC prototypes with completely different components that ended up in more fractures and nasty lawsuits leading to the DC launch. Just a management failure all around.
The sega cd was actual sega japans fault in fact sega of japan had started developed on the Cd add-on without informing the America division and when they found out sega jp wouldn’t even send them test units. And there was a lot of quality control issues on top of the high manufacturing cost of around 400 and retail sales being $299 they Barely made much money back.
The Saturn failed?..ha ha.. They don't mention the success it had in Japan??? It was a great success in Japan?? Just because it wasn't a success and the US which honestly my opinion I had one. Not too successful in the US but as far as I'm concerned it never failed? Especially the fact that it hasn't been forgotten??? Consoles that are completely forgotten those are the failed consoles?
Look Yankee. Sega of America is just a satellite. They’re not an equal partner. They’re responsible for marketing and that’s it. Also making games which are targeted to the west. They’re not qualified to make major technical decisions. They’re not involved in that process. SGI is a company that made bulky overpriced 3D workstations and the N64 is garbage. It’s not the cartridge, it’s actually the video cache size apparently. Anyway, SGI blame Nintendo for mucking that up. The Saturn failed because they didn’t advertise it enough. That’s it. It’s not the early release or price or complexity or brand trust. People never even heard about it. I never did. But kids are forgetful and fickle. You need to deliver the message with a sledgehammer. Repeatedly. They cheaped out because they preferred to have Japanese success. Because if you’re registered in Japan as a business, you make much more money selling in your own country. Overseas sales come with a bevvy of taxes and extra costs. Alien Trilogy is a game identical on PS1 and Saturn showing the hardware was roughly equal to the PS1. But the PS1 had cheap dev kits and software libraries from day 1 as well as a fast approval process. So it’s library expanded quickly and more people could find something to their taste. Then epic cutting edge ad campaigns costing Sony a fortune sealed the deal. The costs of the consoles were actually similar. Because the Saturn came with two controllers and built in memory and o think maybe a game. The PS1 only 1 controller and no memory card or game. The PS1 ad campaign was memorable and ingenious. The weird alien girl being interviewed and the weird little girl saying “I’ve conquered worlds” would look fresh even today. Money money money. Sega weren’t greedy, they just didn’t have the incentive to spend like Sony on marketing. Maybe they were a little bit too confident, too, assuming the brand would be enough. But the Megadrive was a bit of a fluke really. That was hardly advertised (in the UK anyway) - I didn’t see a single advert ever. I would surely have bought one if I knew about it.
"They're not qualified to make major technical decisions" Yeah and where did that get them a failed console that could've been avoided if the followed sega of America's plans, By your own logic sega of japan wasn't qualified either, making decisions that jeopardized the system before it even released. Also Sega of America was involved in the development of the consoles they worked on the 32x along side the saturn. SGI at the time was one of the leading cg/3d developers that worked with disney/pixar and many other companies, they had a chip specifically for a game console they wanted sega to try but sega of japan declined. Also the n64 was the most powerful console of the generation, 3 times as powerful as both the ps1 and saturn I don't think the console was that great but Sega missing the deal with silicon graphics was clearly a dumb decision from any stand point The Aliens Trilogy was not a very demanding game graphically it looked on par with doom which even the 32x could run. The Saturn used 3 CPU's while the standard around this time were games designed around 2 CPU so this often made 3d ports on the saturn look terrible because only 2 of 3 CPU's was actually utilized compared to the ps1 which used 2 CPU's making it way easier to develop for. Compare something like panzer dragoon to re2 the graphical capability of the consoles are night and day. Of course sega was greedy the whole reason the 32x was mad ewas to compete with the Atari jaguar the first disc based console which ended up being a terrible idea since the Atari jaguar performed worse than the 32x. Wasting them money and time and losing fan's trust in the proces And advertisements weren't the issue because the saturn was advertised like crazy hell it was announced on the say day as the ps1 at e3 but sega hastily shipped units to retailers without telling and the retailers retaliated by literally banning sega consoles on top of releasing the system early the ps1 literally terrified the company so much that they moved the release closer at the very last minute without informing developers which definitely effect potentially developers so the logical step was to jumpship to the new and easier to develop for ps1.
@@kaisarr7632 there are loads of shoddy looking 3D PS1 titles. I don’t think you’re old enough to remember advertising in 1995. Nobody watched that stuffy old E3 thing. The only footage is some blurry camcorder. It’s a set up. It has to be. Why are people applauding over a guy saying “299”. Like whoa! Console is $100 cheaper than mean old Sega console. What a victory! What a triumph! Wtf?! Like this is the thing we’ve all been waiting for. It’s nonsense. All this tech talk is over both our heads. We’re not engineers. The point is the PS1 was simple to develop because 1: dev kits were cheap and readily available and 2: Sony had ‘libraries’ developers could use to give them a head start. The Saturn was a mystery even to Sega. Sony just had their shit together out the gate. The Saturn had 2 cpus and 2 vdps. There was an sh-1 cpu for controlling the cd-rom as well. But they couldn’t shift consoles because the hype wasn’t there. They must have spent almost nothing in advertising. That is a crazy decision. But failing that the console didn’t have a game which was a must own like Sonic the Hedgehog. That game is the reason the 16bit consoles were so popular. In Japan that game was Virtua Fighter. The closest thing the PS1 had was Tekken or Final Fantasy 7. So it’s the fault of Sega Technical Institute. But I don’t blame them for failing. They were being asked to basically make the best game ever, again. It’s no wonder they choked. Honestly I don’t remember getting much mileage out of the PS1. I played Tekken 3 quite a bit. Parrapa the Rapper was a good time. It was kind of an underwhelming thing for me. I don’t really understand how Sony ran away with it like it did. I don’t think it was due to the hardware or pricing though. I’m fairly sure it was just it had better advertising. The Sega being greedy I’m not sure that’s it because I would guess the 32X was sold at a loss which is standard practise. They need each owner to buy like 5 game’s before they make money. But I guess the logic was that they changed their minds about a budget console being profitable and thought rather than pursue the 32X, just axe it and hope people go for the Saturn. Retailers getting pissy about being left out of the early months of Saturn sales and then refusing to stock it is also really strange. Is that on principle? Because they were not favoured by Sega so they will cut off their own noses to spite their faces? Just to teach Sega a lesson. Isn’t that juvenile and petty? Big companies acting like little girls? A more likely scenario is that money was involved. The major reason the Master System failed in America is because Nintendo would not allow it. You couldn’t stock both systems on your store. So it simply wasn’t available to buy.
@@iwanttocomplain Dude Sega spent $50 million dollars on advertisement for the saturn some movies don't even get that much. For comparison Sony spent only about 20 million advertising the PS5 for it's launch and the ps5 is selling like crazy and im sure the ps1 ad price was around 20mil as well, But advertisement was nonexistent? Advertisements isn't just commercials, its magazine publications, endorsements anything that gets the name out. Sega mishandled that 50 million it's really that simple. "Nobody watched e3 1995" It had attendees rate of around 50k you do realize the whole point of e3 is to showcase electronic entertainment to not just consumers but potential investors, retailers it's been an essential part of the the gaming industry since its inception saying nobody "watches it" is strange. Hell when sony employee said "299" this incident was posted on forums magazines. websites, it mad sega a laughing stock and only free advertising for sony. Yes price matters a 100 dollar difference is a difference must people will take over a console from a company that's failing in the eyes of many. The same-thing happen with sony during the ps3 when sony sold it for $499 while the xbox 360 at $299 complete blew it away in sells until sony dropped the price. The saturn had 2 sh2 chips and 1 sh 1 chip that equals 3cpu's which is far faultier than any 5th generation console it wasn't just the dev kit it was the console itself terrible to work with. Like the gamecube or n64 You don't have to be an engineer to understand that. If I have a low end pc with terrible cpu and all around bad specs and try to play a modern game clearly its gonna run terribly which alot of 3d games on Saturn didnt specifically in comparison to the ps1. The saturn could not properly run a game like ape escape and even the ports like tomb raider on saturn are inferior to the ps1 version on all accounts. Of course it's a money thing, NO developer even knew when the saturn was releasing in america when sega pushed the date forward how are you suppose to create something for another product when you can't even gauge the amount of time you to make it? Capcom, Konami all of these companies took there talents to a less flimsy company. The same goes for retailers you can't just show up one random day with loaded up trucks of your product without informing the seller, you're suppose to schedule these things all the paper work and financing that goes into something like distribution was completely disregarded due to negligence it's really that simple it's not a mystery.
@@iwanttocomplain Also forgot to mention that sega quickly only after a few months dropped the price of the saturn to $299 because literally nobody was buying it at $399 ontop of bundling it went like 3 games trying to play catch up after poor financial decisions was mainly the life span of the saturn whether you like it or not. Did I mention in my vid that sega of jp wanted to make a 64 bit saturn called the saturn 64? You know like nintendo 64? After pushing silicon graphics aside. Sounds like catch up to me.
@@kaisarr7632 they pushed the release forward a bit. I don’t know why everyone is losing their shit about it. If it’s such an inconvenience then why did retailers complain they weren’t the special chosen early retailers and then refuse to stock it? It’s just a few months early. It’s not going to affect your game. There’s no pressing need to have your game ready for the release date. All stuff like that just doesn’t make sense. “Oh Sega pushed the release date forward. Fuck Sega! No games for them! Anyway Capcom put loads of games onto the Saturn. But what I can’t get my head around is a press conference with a cocky Sony rep saying “299” then everyone cheering. I mean, it’s not a Sony conference. Why are they so keen to see Sony succeed and Sega fail? Were Sega that hated?
You are too little obsessed with the supposed "Ultra" incompetence of Sega. Yes, 32x was an error (I love that error, though, and I'm not the only one), but everyone makes stupid errors: Nintendo with Virtual Boy, or Sony with PSP Go, for exemple. The truth is... Sony had a LOT of money to pay the media and promote its new Playstation. Sega could not compete with Sony at that level. Even Nintendo couldn't, and in fact Gamecube was practically Nintendo's tomb during the next gen "trying to compete" with PS2. At least Saturn sold more than N64 in Japan, so, not so bad for Sega Japan (the first time it sold more than Nintendo in that market). But Sega was practically destroyed by the massive money Sony put into Playstation, its ads, its promotion, and all the 3rd party exclusivities they bought. Sony, at all costs, DID NOT WANT TO FAIL in western market, as they just did some years before with its MSX machines. In America MSX was totally unknown, and in Europe only get the residual fourth place in the 8bit microcomputers market (behind Spectrum, Amstrad and C64). So, the competition was very heavy for Sega. Plus, in Europe (specially in some european markets), the piracy in consoles exploded as a REAL pandemic problem, and Sony exploited it very well to sell more machine, while Sega COULD NOT do that for obvious reasons (many of the Saturn games WERE SEGA TITLES, so unlike Sony, piracy for Sega was a giant concern). To me, many myths were build during many years about "Sega's internal problems" in that era. I doubt the other companies did not have internal problems in some moments. The only real facts we all REALLY know are these: Sega, during the 90's, was VERY creative, very competitive and TOO ambitious: While Nintendo gave up in the arcades at the start of the 90s, Sega was just pushing to the limit new 3D technologies with very expensive but surprising and admired arcade boards during all the 90's. At the same time, offered great domestic machines as Genesis, Game Gear, Saturn, and Dreamcast. Even Master System was selling (and very well) in Europe, until the mid 90's, with new games. Sega CD itself was a risky (but impressive) move. Also, Sega had a LOT of internal developer teams, with very talented people, specially during the last years of the 90s. That enormous ambition to make the best possible products for the users, plus the death of its historical chairman Isao Okawa in 2001 (and all its CSK's money), turned to be practically fatal. Nintendo was MUCH MORE conservative (even with giant fails as Virtual Boy), and Sony during PS1 era practically did not have internal studios making its "best sellers" (that's the reason why today its historical PS1 "mascots" Crash and Spiro are from Activision and soon to be get by Microsoft). Sega was too good and tried too hard during many years, for the ungrateful videogames marked. Even Microsoft had significant problems.
Compared to the PS1 the saturn was janky half assed shit. Get triggered all you want, but Sega has always been lower quality dog turd compared to Sony and Nintendo. That's why Sega is out of the console business despite Sony and Nintendo still having consoles. Sega is a sloppy, lesser quality shit sandwich. Triggered Sega fanboys will not change that LMAO!!
I still can't believe they made a video game(Guardian Heroes) based off those How To Draw Manga/Anime books from the 90's. images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51+hneohEaL.jpg
As a 50 year old collector since the 90's. I lived through this era. The 90's was a golden age of quickly evolving technology and ideas. The 32 X was not a bad idea but as with anything, if you do not support it, it will fail. I still have my surprise launch Saturn, I did not regret my purchase at the time. I will admit that when the ps1 came out and I got one, I was more impressed by the ps1's 3d. Today 2d is appreciated far more than back then. This was an exciting era of 3d, 2d seemed like a step backwards. 3d blew gamers socks off because it clearly was the future and animated so lifelike. My real love for the Saturn came in the modern era. The Saturn was no where near exploited here in the west. Today we can region unlock the Saturn, upscale it's impressive video, and play movies with the video card. These features were barely even addressed here in the west let alone utilized. So much potential lost in a series of mistakes. As you mentioned, it wasn't just one mistake Sega made, it was a series that doomed not only the Saturn but made the Dreamcast a still born when it launched. Sega was its own worst enemy, period. The best innovators at the time but a loose cannon constantly shooting itself.
The scary thing about the failure of Sega is actually the failure of the executives working in it.
When a company die or fxxx up people only remember the company brand and name but not the people working in it that causes it.
And these incompetent people merely move on and work elsewhere afterward.
It happen all the time in the business world even to this day that's why people have to rely on themselves or pay heavily to headhunters to look for suitable candidates to enrich and contribute to the company.
If you work in the corporate world you will know what I mean. The mistakes,egos and culture barriers when it come to collaboration and communication between branches as well as the incompetent and fawners in the way as well who made it in life due to pulling relationship card and apple polishing in life etc.
What we know as Sega now might as well be two different companies back then both fighting against each other as well as having their own factions fighting in them as well.
Messy.
Sega is not a dead company, it still exists, is still listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and employs more people than it did in the late 90s....
Moreover, all these stories of competition between subsidiaries or management problems have existed, as indeed in almost all companies, but that is not what is the reason for the abandonment of the home console market. by Sega, it's only a question of competitiveness. When a company like Sega which has to outsource everything is faced with a company like Sony which can produce everything themselves, no matter the quality of the product, they can only lose .
The Saturn playing arcade perfect CPS2 ports of X-Men vs Street Fighter, Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Darkstalkers 3 with mid nighties hardware ( yes even with ram cart) was sorcery at the time. It would be like playing a PS5 game on PS3 hardware. Still one of my favorite consoles ever. So many exclusives still stuck on it.
Saturn was already more powerful than a cps2 board, just that it focuses on different things. Cps2 is more like an upgraded neogeo AES- at most a half step between 16-bit and 32-bit consoles.
I think yes there was many mistakes being made by Sega during this time period but the Saturn is easily one of my favorite consoles ever and I still play mine to this day
I've always said, Sega of Japan is very prejudiced towards the west for its success that it could never replicate in its own country (until Saturn, though that was short-lived). Even to this day, Sega of Japan meddles with many western projects, more recently would be Sonic Origins. Can't forget Sonic Boom as well.
I've heard that Sega of Japan meddled alot with the sonic franchise over the years I wouldn't be surprised if the way 06 turnt out or even how frontiers is shaping up to be is the result of their bad judgement.
You're both just parroting Console Wars talking points fed to Blake J. Harris by Kalinske & co., lol.
They should have had a tighter leash on SEGA NA when it came to hardware. Japan made the good hardware and the guys in the West knew how to market software for it and sell it. They should have maintained this kind of relationship and kept hardware decisions in Japan.
@@kaisarr7632 Pretty sure the writers for Sonic etc did more damage than Sega Jp could ever imagine. Sonic is barely even a known quantity in Japan.
@@spencerstevens2175 Not necessarily, SOJ was in bed with NEC, while SoA was open to many chip manufacturers. Like 3DFX, which was a very popular chip manufacture at the time. SOA also had opportunities to work with Sony and Silicon Graphics well before Sony came out with their own console and Nintendo with the N64, but SOJ told them no.
As someone in the HPC industry and loved the Sega Saturn when it came out. I can tell you what happened, and its still happening today. Pretty much the tools were not there. The architecture was complex, yes. The achilies heel was the bus limitations with the chips. You needed to be a savvy assembly level programmer to really harness something like that. With 3D games everything went to C++ and C. OOP was pretty standard on the Unix workstations at the time (like from SGI, and the likes). It wasn't like Sega didn't know about this. I'm sure there were developers (in japan) using these workstations for pre-rendered graphics. They were pretty big in movie productions too for 3D graphics. More is not always better. Its always been less about compute, and more about bandwidth. Thats why graphics cards need the fastest memory on the market. We still see this today. HW Manufacturers always believe "If you build it, they will come" but if no one can write software for it- its a failure hands down. Not every game developer is a computer scientist, and not every computer scientist is an electronic engineer. They went the route of how their arcade boards were designed at the time, which was pretty standard- but those boards only served sega internally in their very advanced (and legendary) arcade divisions. The cool programmers from England who work on the genesis were not going to code like that. Hacking a platform is fine if your doing it for a hobby, not for making money. Time is money, time to market is key. They did blow it. The 2D games looked amazing yes. Especially the fighters. The saturn was literally a standard JAMMA arcade board, at the time, with less memory. So there you go.
Sad but true. I have those skills but could never actually get a job in game development. And now, many developers use Unity 3D or UE.
The sega Saturn is one of the coolest looking controllers I’ve seen
Oh yes! 6 buttoned controllers are a novelty!
SNES, Genesis and Saturn all had very nice looking controllers. Those dogbone controllers released at the tail end of the NES' life were also great.
yes, i agree
The Saturn was definitely above its time definitely gives Sony an even run for its money
The Sega CD caused people to lose a little faith in Sega but the 32X was when most people lost all faith in Sega and I owned both.I was one of the kids that didn't give up on Sega(I should have)and talked my mom into buying me a $400 Saturn the first Christmas it was out and to my surprise she actually spent that much on me.I thought surely they'll succeed with this,at the time in 1995 the Saturn's and PlayStations we're stacked next to each other.The PlayStation looked so awkward at the time,surely it would fail being a newcomer with it's funny looking controls and need for a memory card that wasn't included.By the time the Dreamcast came out even I had lost all faith in Sega and waited about a year to get one,to my surprise the Dreamcast was awesome and the only other system besides the genesis really worth owning,it had the power of a PS2 a little over a year before it even came out.
I know of a few other victims of the Sega of Japan versus Sega of America disconnect.
One of them was Eternal Champions, a fighting game that tested well and played well and may have been the future direction of fighting games instead of Killer Instinct if Sega of Japan did not clog up the drain. Since Killer Instinct was the better selling system exclusive game now everyone seems to go for 100 hit combos in fighting games instead of a different more deliberate type of game that Eternal Champions was with radically different basic moves and a mechanism to prevent spamming specials.
The other big victim of the fight between Sega of America and Japan was ambidexterity. Sega of America's prototype for Genesis controller, was kind of a two-piece device that could be held in both hands with action being on either one hand or the other and movement on the opposite. There are only four authorized ambidextrous joysticks since the crash of 1983, the Atari 7800 joystick, and 3 Supersticks by Beeshu, authorized for the turbo graphics 16 the Genesis under the name bishu Gizmo and for the NES despite a fight that Nintendo put up to prevent it for being authorized despite it following all the rules.
Personally when I was looking for a right-handed fight stick Nintendo just said learn to play the regular way while Sega actually tried to do something about it by sending me to KY Enterprises.
And then in 2009 I got kicked off sega's website because my thoughts were too American and too crazy. I was trying to suggest an item which I later figured out how to do which was netrogames, a way to turn old games into old online video games with a server that is not dependent on the individual game code. The secret is naturally beating the clock with cellular Direct Connect technology, AKA straight line push to talk.
I’d rate the Saturn over the n64 anytime, such a great library of games for it
Yeah. N64 have the best 3D platforms of that generation, but Saturn ROCKS in many other genres, and in 2D is the BEST machine of that era (without excluding its amazing 3D Sega Model 2 arcade conversions, the ST-V ports, and Fighters Megamix).
same for me as well
Sadly many of the Saturn gems weren’t released for the west, if the west got what the Saturn have in Japan and Asia region it might have been a different story
@@Oniontrololol Nah. I think this was more real in Mega/Sega CD era (more specially in Europe) than in the Saturn one. Don't think the failure of Saturn in the Western countries was for that. This was more the result of its failure in these markets after the first 2-3 years, not the cause.
I mean... I do not remember many great Saturn titles during the first 2 years not appearing in the west, (excluding things considered very very japanese oriented games in the 90s, as Sakura Wars. But this also occurred to PSX and N64, so, no real difference).
In fact, Saturn had a great collection of japanese RPGs in US and Europe, before PSX. This now seems incredible, but it is really true. And this did not change until the launch of FFVII in 1997. Now everybody remembers Playstation as an JRPG behemoth machine (specially compared to N64, a disastrous JRPG wasteland)... but this really started in 1997, not before.
@@shostako1284 According to GameFAQs, there were about 10 games released on the Saturn in North America before 1997 that I would qualify as RPGs. PS1 had about 7. So you're right, but there is not a big difference at all. N64 had more RPGs on it then most people realize (about 10.) Problem is that half of them were not good, 2 of them were those Pokemon Stadium games (more like expansions for the Game Boy titles and have very little to offer on their own), and 2 are Japanese exclusive.
Whether one considers the Saturn better the N64 or not will depend greatly on what genres of games you enjoy. Back then it was all about platformers and fighting games. If you love both, then the consoles are probably pretty equal to you. Otherwise either the N64 (platformers) or Saturn (fighters) are going to win by a long shot.
It’s been getting the a lot of love from the retro community for at least a decade now. North American and pal game prices are pretty high but the
Japanese versions of those games for the most part are pretty affordable. A good amount of the Japanese exclusive games are affordable as well except for really obscure games or very sought after games with limited supply like Shinrei Jusatsushi Tarōmaru, Radiant silver gun and astra superstars to name of few. The controller was the biggest highlight to me, that model 2 North America/ Japanese controller was just the perfect type of controller to play most genres of games in. I loved the fact that the Saturn had internal memory saves, sure the battery in the Saturn lasts about 2-3 years only but you can easily back those saves up on a memory cartridge or an action replay. The games speak for themselves, if you’re into shoot ‘em ups, fighting games, platformers and rpgs then the Saturn has you covered just know that a good amount of those games will be Japanese games but are still very playable. Saturn is a great console, top 5 favorite for me personally
also fan translations of many Sega Saturn games being made more frequent and are nowadays available to be played on real hardware making it much more accessible than it used to be years ago.
If only Sega's home console division was as good as their arcade hardware division in the 90's, then they might still be making consoles to this day.
Bruh Segas home console division was just as good if not better. ( Panzer Dragoon 123, Nights, Astal, Jet Set Radio, Sonic Adventure, Skies of Arcadia, Shenmue etc ). That had nothing to do with Segas poor international inner bad management and strategy.
That first guy is the o.g. Kratos 🤺
You're channel deserves more subs. Excellent videos!
I was 12-years-old with a Saturn and played nearly arcade perfect Marvel vs. Street Fighter with the 4MB RAM cartridge which was literally unbelievable when I told other kids at school or the arcade. I had a Saturn before I could get a Playstation or N64 but I adored the system especially since I loved fighting games and it delivered an experience far better than anything else you could play at home. I have many wonderful memories playing so many unique games, especially the few JP imports I could get, and there was something special about the titles you could play on it even if the system itself looked inferior to other home consoles at the time. Still, fighting games and 2D-oriented games thrived on it as well as 3D titles like Nights, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Burning Rangers, and others you couldn't play on anything else.
Before its home console hay days, Sega's lifeblood was the arcade. The Genesis was marketed as a means to take arcade games to your living room, a trend that persisted through Sega's entire console line up. But this also meant Sega was banking on a dying medium as games built to end quickly fell out of fashion.
Other factors to Sega's demise were their failure to make their non-Somic IPs household names. Check out Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing along with Transformed. Only diehards or gaming historians would recognize Vice, Amigo, Gilis, Shinobi, etc. It looks like Sonic is the one bearing Sega's weight while everyone else is trapped in nostalgia and rereleases. Granted, there's Miku, Persona, and Yakuza, but are those as impactful as even a handful of non-Mario Nintendo IP's?
As much as I'm STOKED for Sonic Frontiers, years down the road, if Sega can't get their act together, they'll fall to the buyout bandwagon.
Funny to hear you say "Saturin", instead of Saturn! My little brothers, and cousins used to say it the same way... Also, I can see you've done your research... SALUTES 💪🏿
Focusing on 2D in the mid 90's was practically a death sentence for the console.
funny that nowadays is more acceptable and you see more of 2D games being made than the mid-late 90's.
Better more varied 2D games on PS1!
This channel NEEDS more views
I gotta say this is certainly one of the best videos covering the Saturn and its demise, keep it up man. You've already managed to out do many far more established channels, I look forward to your future works
The Saturn is much more appreciated and respected these days. It and the Dreamcast are the white horses of retro consoles. I just wish they would've had the popularity back then that they do now
It's not really that the Saturn wasn't designed to do 3D...they did a terrible job at sending the developers any dev tools or documentation. So a powerful, but tricky to program machine with very little documentation from Sega to figure any of it out 🤷♂
16:40 : well , myself ,as someone who grew up with the SEGA MegaDrive/Genesis(i was big SEGA fan back then) my own opinion as SEGA's fan and customer(back then) is that although Tom Kalinsky must have been the main reason behind MegaDrive/Genesis success , he is also a big reason for Saturn's demise.
And i say that from my experience back then as a customer. At the beginning ,i was so hyped with the advertisement of SEGA's new upcoming 32bit console ( Saturn ) , when i started to realise that SEGA was already releasing 32bit hardware add-on for the MegaDrive/Genesis ( 32X ).
This heavily reduced my excitement for the new upcoming console ,since i was seeing reviews about 32X games and i realised that they weren't very different from the MegaDrive/Genesis titles. This destroyed the "magic" of the new upcoming console ,because i already had a glimpse about how 32bit games might look like ,based on the 32X games , and as a customer i wasn't impressed at all with what SEGA was releasing during the 32X-era , completely ruining my expectations for the Saturn.
--P.S. All these MegaDrive/Genesis add-on ( Sega CD , 32X ) , not only they minimized my hype for the upcoming Saturn , but they also made me feel less happy for my MegaDrive as well , since i was feeling that the new games will focus towards these new add-on and less for the basic MegaDrive that i owned.
These were more or less my thoughts back then .... a 15-16 year old kid who was a proud owner of a MegaDrive and was expecting SEGA's next big release. ( i ended up buying a Playstation instead , and judging from SEGA's tragic demise , i never regretted that decision)
Yeah but the prospect of the 32x existing was mainly sega of japan's executives fault as they wanted a cheaper alternative to the saturn for people who couldn't afford it minus the game library because most people didn't wanna developer software for a "filler peripheral" Its pretty ironic because Nintendo would later repeat this mistake with the gamecube which led to that console failing almost as bad as the saturn especially when compare to the sales of the ps2.
@@kaisarr7632 yeah i noticed that you said that ( though ... i had already made my comment before i listened you saying that ) , but i have to say , i believe that you are the 1st i hear saying something like that.
I've watched a lot of Saturn's videos and i think all of them imply that the 32X was something promoted by SEGA of America.
Check Kim Justice video """Sega's Awful 1995 Saturn Launch: What On Earth Happened? | Kim Justice (reup)"""" , *check what he says at **24:50* .
So all this time i was under the impression that SEGA of America was behind the 32X. If that info is mistaken i can't tell , i was stunned when i heard you saying the SEGA of Japan was behind that project , are you sure of that ?
@@Sitharii Sega of Japan President at the time basically forced the development of the 32x because of the possible competition of the Atari Jaguar of all consoles, being one of the earliest 32 bit consoles releasing in that console generation. In hindsight it was poor judgement since the atari jaguar unperformed even worse than the 32x, The 32x was originally gonna be a brand new console but sega of America executives said to make it a peripheral instead. Since the japan division had final say on what goes everything that occurred the creation of the 32x and bad judgement of atari is all of there fault even if the America division had some hand in the development they were just following orders.
@@kaisarr7632 i see , well , as i said this is a new perspective regarding those events back then(at least among the videos i've seen so far) . Interesting ...
@@kaisarr7632 so SoA suggested an addon. Then SoJ ok’d it. The 32X pre sold 1.5mill but Hitachi couldn’t manufacture all the SH-2 chips in time. But what happened next was so stupid. SoJ axed the 32X just a few months after it released. So it ended up with like 30 games and they were all rushed and janky. It made Sega look completely incompetent.
Games that got cancelled include, Rayman, Castlevania, Alien vs Predator arcade, AMOK. The FIFA game is a joke. If the 32X has lasted at least three years then it’s library would have been killer.
Then if the Saturn supported 32X then people could upgrade over time. Then both consoles would have made money. It’s not dumb to have a cheap alternative to the main console. You do need to support it properly though.
The Sega CD never got proper support. That’s why that one failed too. So much nonsense on the Sega CD.
Great analysis. There are a ton of issues why it did not sell as well as the PS1 during the time. One thing I would like to mention is the lack of a "Killer App". You can have a ton of solid games, but without that one iconic game (in this case no mainline sonic title), it becomes a hard sell.
I loved my Saturn. I still play it today.
My favorite console on the teen time. I wonder if it's still working... I've got ao many games for it, would be quite a nostalgic trip to see them after all these years🥰
As an Asian player I can briefly explain why the SEGA Saturn can still stand in Japan.
It was the transition period of 2D to 3D games and a lot of great 2D fighting titles were available in arcade market.
One of them is SNK's the King of Fighter Series. They were massively hit in arcade centres in Asia. To master the fighting skills, every frame counts. Besides expensive Neogeo AES cartridges and long loading time of the CD version, SEGA Saturn version of the KOFs and other SNK and Capcom 2D titles were the best choice of the time.
Furthermore, a lot of Japanese titles were suiting tastes of Asian players, like Sakura Taisen, that the SEGA Lord X was mentioned; a lot of SEGA arcade ports so that you can play SEGA Model 2 titles at home, a lot of 2D games port better on Saturn than the PS1; Some publisher like Game Arts (Grandia and Gungriffon) and Treasure (Guardian Heroes) publish their title on SEGA Saturn only.
Of course, Final Fantasy 7 and Dragon Quest 7 the most anticipated JRPG titles and bio hazard 1 and 2 were leading Playstation to win the console war, but in Japanese market, we wont say Saturn was a failure.
From my point of view, if I want to buy (or collect) 2D games, I would buy the Saturn version, in fact those games are more expensive than the PS1 version in the 2nd hand market.
For 3D games, I would choose Playstation version without doubt.
Sometimes I just wonder what if SEGA adopt all-region policy (allowing JAP games run on US version of SEGA Saturns), would the situation of Saturn in western market a little bit better.
You said it perfectly. Sega Japan's executives were just too arrogant and out of touch with the up and coming 3D era of gaming.
It’s ironic how SoJ developed decent 3D games on it! SoA gave up from the start and churned out shit.
Sega Saturn is a fantastic console, I bought it in September 1995 for $499 Canadian and it is still one of my favourite consoles. The Horde is my favourite game on it, but there are so many great one's.
I really wanted a Saturn back in the day but alas I was just a poor kid. Must have been great to live in this era when you actually had the money to spend on all these systems and games.
You can get a decent one for like 100-150$ on eBay there’s always bids going around
Get one with a 3D controller, RGB cables and go nuts! they play backups now pretty easily. Best decision I made as a gamer who only got to play N64 and psx back in the day.
We were poor, too. I'd been wiped out by the cost of the Genesis, CD, and 32X, plus dozens of games. Now SEGA tossed it all out and expected us to cough up even more for a Neo Geo priced machine with launch titles that could've run fine on the 32X-CD!
There is a reason why Uncle from Another World loves the SEGA Saturn.
This is some great content well put together its amazing how far council gaming has evolved compared to PC gaming even so a lot of 2D gaming had such a huge fun factor i still enjoy till this day
Bernie Stolar was the reason why Sega no longer makes consoles. I love the Dreamcast but the Saturn was such a loss that the company was dealt a deathblow.
Saying the PSX didn't need a ram expansion is inaccurate. PSX already lacked VRAM in comparison to Saturn. The RAM expansion(s) only widened the gap.
The 32X was mandated by Sega Japan because they were afraid of the Jaguar at the time. (Go figure.)
Nintendo didn't betray Sony so much as find out they had been had by them. (Sony told Nintendo, who didn''t believe in disc based gaming at the time, that the disc add-on wouldn't be used for games. Sony however didn't include any such stipulation in the contract they signed with Nintendo. Sony would be the sole profiteers of the disc based deals. The deal also allowed Sony to eventually create their own disc-only version of the system, which would, according to firmware files on the prototype, read electronic books already made for a disc based unit.)
Bernie Stolar also hurt the Saturn, and Sega, by killing it early, taking Sega out of the market for a year.
Dreamcast is still my Favourite Console of them all!
Mega CD is my Snatcher System and i very much love my Saturn for a bunch of games, mostly imports from Japan.
Good Video my Friend! Well done and some information that is mostly forgotten.
Thank you!
The Saturn didn't fail. Sega failed the Saturn. They were too greedy wanting to beat competition to the mark. This upset developers and retailers.
Developers didn't like the fact they didn't get the full documentation from Sega, so had to work on what they had.
Retailers didn't like that Sega screwed them over by bringing release date forward giving no time to prepare and only selected retailers got any stock.
The Saturn was a beast. It didn't fail. The only fail was the company behind it.
A minute of silence for the headphone users.
...
...
I’m sorry
Great vid. The trouble started with the Mega CD, which wasn't well received and a commercial failure. It put a dent in Sega's image. Then there was the 32X which further hampered Sega's reputation as a company with the gaming public. Then with the release of the Saturn, they prematurely stopped supporting the Megadrive and its hardware add ons. Why would anyone want to invest in another Sega machine after all that? As a Sega fan, I of course bought one, but those not blindingly loyal to a brand took their money elsewhere. Sega's reputation was in the toilet by then.
You deserve to have gotten way more subs this far for 20k views dude
32X didn't have Sega of Japan behind it at all. It should have never happened. The Saturn only came to life for us vidiots that imported Japanese games for it. Sega corporate structure was an internal fighting mess of self defeat.
The Sega Saturn did have the WORST launch of any console ever, which did contribute to Sega’s terrible demise of being a console manufacturer. However, it was a neat system.
Yo, the Sega was so far ahead of its time that no one appreciated it until now, smh. Only the true fans appreciated it for what it was.
Sega enthusiasts (like me) made the company a success in North America, Europe, and Latin America. By 1994, so many of us had gladly plunked down over $700 ($1600+ in today's money) for the unstoppable Tower Of Power! Then SoJ decided to throw all of that--and us--out the window and announce a $500 game system in Japan. In May 1995, we were told that Saturn's launch date had been moved up to right now, and we were expected to come up with a Neo Geo priced $400! And we couldn't even reuse our old controllers! And we were now broke! And there would be no more cool games from SEGA!!!
Same as Dreamcast. Missed potential!
Great video. Your knowledge and passion are evident.
Great video!
Kaiser, what is your favorite shoot em up game and action game?
they are stuck because they released too many consoles and useless accessories such as Sega CD, 32X, Mega CD, Pico, Pico Beena, Game Gear . Sega's fate similar to SNK went bankrupt due to the release of useless consoles like Neo Geo CD, Arcade Hyper Neo 64, and Neo Geo Pocket & Neo Geo Pocket Colors
they survive because they are acquired and assisted by other companies to survive and survive. what an unpleasant fact to read and hear
really the console failed in the market, and competed, as can be seen from the small number of game titles library.
This was the PS3 of the 90's. The Saturn was stronger than a Sony PlayStation but it was harder to develop for so everything 3D looked amazing on the PSX and sucked on the Saturn.
Basically, theres alot of similarities between the two consoles, both were sold at outrageous high prices that costed them alot of launch sales, the ps3 was sold at 500/600 usd which made most go for the 360 instead. Plus the ps3's game library was lacking hard for its first few years and it really didnt recover till the very end. While the Saturn's library was lacking in the beginning but got better but only in japan.
@@kaisarr7632 Yeah very similar. I still haven't forgiven Sony for abandoning backwards compatibility on their newer revision PS3 consoles. I would pay up to $650 today if Sony built a PS6 with the Emotion Engine and Cell Processor inside the motherboard for 6 generation of PlayStation upscaling to 4K.
PS1 launch titles looked awful, jagged, and just didn't hold up. SEGA's beautiful 2D games are still great to this very day.
Long story short: Sega rushed the Saturn to market in order to beat the Sony Playstation to the punch. But in doing so, the console was underdeveloped and couldn't compete with the power of the PS1.
If they never released the 32x, and kept the holiday release date it, and had a new sonic game on release. It would have done much better. Maybe even beat the n64 in the us
Craziest thing is the Saturn actually beat the n64 in japan n64 only sold about 5 million units in japan the saturn performed much better.
Great video
The Saturn never failed it’s the PS1 that failed X-men vs street fighter marvel super heroes VS street fighter X-men children of the atom marvel super heroes marvel vs capcom so much more the list can go on and on the Saturn was the king back in the days for gamers who understand about who what consoles plays the best even Nintendo 64 was better then PS1 by accident cause Sony back in the days weren’t giving a crap how bad the games were going to play so I say the PS2 was Sony’s first real PlayStation console the PS1 should be the PS2 model I didn’t see Microsoft first Xbox suck at any games Sony should of waited until 2001 instead
Good job on this video!!!
Thank you dude awesome video!
Why do we need videos about topics that we all know the answer too?
This isn’t a mystery
Mother Trucker! This is good AF. Enjoy your Sub and Bell and Like my dude, and keep it up!!!!
The Saturn is underrated only by people who don't know this console.
I commented on one of your videos it got taken down IDK if it was RUclips or you?
20:29 what is this a wendys comercial
Probably
What's so unorthodox about ram expansion? N64 had an identical model with the Expansion Pak and having it being required on games like DK64. Also the particular examples you used in the video are virtually invalid. MSH didn't require the Ram Expansion to play the game, and KoF 95 required a ROM expansion cart which was provided with the game itself since the cart was specifically designed exclusively for KoF95.
Nevertheless, nice video.
DK64 required the expansion pack due to Rare not being able to fix the memory leak that would crash the game, the game still crashes if left on long enough.
I have 2 questions. What is a Satur-In and what is Silicone Graphics? :p
Ask yo momma
@@kaisarr7632 she said she doesn't know either
Interesting take. Good video thanks
Back then
The saturn was not an interesting console
Bad ports or games not released here in europe
The famous pal 50hz problem
Or good games hard to find in stores
I never saw a pal release of panzer dragoon saga
That's was the case with many other good games
That are now rare gems
The impression you had with this console was a mediocre one.
Kaiser are you from southern Louisiana?
What a loud start >
You made a comment about just popping kof into your Playstation and it just played have you actually compared the two that ram cart made all the difference in the world.
Impressive video. New sub o7
I know. Hard to develop for and no 3D chip.
Yeah VF2 on Saturn for example looks very poor, almost 3DO ish
Loving it
A shame that SEGA mishandled the Saturn, what with the better games like X-Men vs Street Fighter or their version of Castlevania: SOTN.
Also, the inferior American titles like Mr. Bones only sped up its demise.
Saturn version of grandia also looked the best and when the game was remastered and port they used the inferior ps1 port essentially locking the best looking version of the game behind.
A lot of the America releases for the Saturn were pretty poor but apparently someone at sega of japan said to stop releasing Japanese games over in America after the console started to struggle over there, which effectively killed the systems even more, something I forgot to include in the video
Don’t forget the excellent 3D games
The US brach of Sega botched that Era of gaming badly. The whole reason I bought a Saturn was because of the framerate on Capcom CPS2 game ports. The ram cart for KOF 95 had sprite data on them. So neither the cart or cd would work anywhere else. I'm sorry but there is no comparison to the Saturn kof 95. The framerates on psx was so bad I didn't buy Samurai Spirits fencer pack. SS 3 was bad enough Bleh.!!
Sega really needed to put faith on the Saturn and convince its Fanbase hey just because we’re moving to 3D it’s doesn’t mean 2D it’s dead and they should have translated the RPGs from Japan to the west for fans who we’re craving for adventure games but with amazing sprites but Sega in the 90s was a mess inside the company all we’re selfish and bitter towards each other Sega really took the mantel we do what Nintendont and that’s not working together Politics really hurt Sega everyone wanted to be the best but forgot teamwork
Great video.
Sick vid
It wasn't underrated more than how it was designed. It was more for 2d and pseudio 3d graphics. Not only that it was a btch and a half to develop for by most accounts.
Sega of Japan was jealous of Sega of America. So sad those japanse people working at Sega. If they just left their ego go, Sega would be great. So sad.
You think this is better than the PS1 and N64?
Better than the n64 for sure never was a fan of that console, The ps1 was a better optimized console with a superior game library I just think the saturn had a great library as well that nobody every bothers to mention when talking about the console.
Dreamcast too
This is clickbait first of all Sega Saturn did not fail it was one of the greatest systems of all time you want to talk about a trash system talk about the Atari jaguar and then people will believe you
Lol k
Commercially it tanked. You’re speaking whilst wearing your rose tinted glasses.
So many great memories of me laughing at the Saturn dance boy commercials as a lad... good times.
Also, Panzer Dragoon Orta exist... just saying.
I actually consider Orta to be the best in the series I talk about it among other games in my next video
@@kaisarr7632 Yeah Orta feels like a well rounded mash-up of the three installments... plus the extra content adds a bit of depth to the lore IMO.
Please stop spreading this Saturn is best for 2D games myth! Plenty of great 3D games came out and even today. PS1 had the most varied and quality 2D games at the time. Saturn needed further hardware to play the more complex 2D games, I mean wtf..
SEGA Japan should have had a tighter leash on SEGA NA. They did bring the Genesis to insane heights here with Sonic being a pack in game and their marketing tactics but after sega cd SEGA Jp should have stepped in a took control of the hardware manufacturing decisions. They even had the same problem pre DC where they had a Japanese team and American team working seperately on two diff DC prototypes with completely different components that ended up in more fractures and nasty lawsuits leading to the DC launch. Just a management failure all around.
The sega cd was actual sega japans fault in fact sega of japan had started developed on the Cd add-on without informing the America division and when they found out sega jp wouldn’t even send them test units. And there was a lot of quality control issues on top of the high manufacturing cost of around 400 and retail sales being $299 they Barely made much money back.
SoJ made ALL of the hardware decisions from the SMS to the Deeamcast. In 1994, SoJ went insane and ran that company into the ground.
Cool
lol
The Saturn failed?..ha ha.. They don't mention the success it had in Japan??? It was a great success in Japan?? Just because it wasn't a success and the US which honestly my opinion I had one. Not too successful in the US but as far as I'm concerned it never failed? Especially the fact that it hasn't been forgotten??? Consoles that are completely forgotten those are the failed consoles?
Worldwide, yes the Saturn failed. The master system was hugely popular in Brazil but it didn’t make the console a worldwide success.
Look Yankee. Sega of America is just a satellite. They’re not an equal partner. They’re responsible for marketing and that’s it. Also making games which are targeted to the west. They’re not qualified to make major technical decisions. They’re not involved in that process. SGI is a company that made bulky overpriced 3D workstations and the N64 is garbage. It’s not the cartridge, it’s actually the video cache size apparently. Anyway, SGI blame Nintendo for mucking that up.
The Saturn failed because they didn’t advertise it enough. That’s it. It’s not the early release or price or complexity or brand trust. People never even heard about it. I never did. But kids are forgetful and fickle. You need to deliver the message with a sledgehammer. Repeatedly. They cheaped out because they preferred to have Japanese success. Because if you’re registered in Japan as a business, you make much more money selling in your own country. Overseas sales come with a bevvy of taxes and extra costs.
Alien Trilogy is a game identical on PS1 and Saturn showing the hardware was roughly equal to the PS1. But the PS1 had cheap dev kits and software libraries from day 1 as well as a fast approval process. So it’s library expanded quickly and more people could find something to their taste. Then epic cutting edge ad campaigns costing Sony a fortune sealed the deal.
The costs of the consoles were actually similar. Because the Saturn came with two controllers and built in memory and o think maybe a game. The PS1 only 1 controller and no memory card or game.
The PS1 ad campaign was memorable and ingenious. The weird alien girl being interviewed and the weird little girl saying “I’ve conquered worlds” would look fresh even today.
Money money money. Sega weren’t greedy, they just didn’t have the incentive to spend like Sony on marketing. Maybe they were a little bit too confident, too, assuming the brand would be enough.
But the Megadrive was a bit of a fluke really. That was hardly advertised (in the UK anyway) - I didn’t see a single advert ever.
I would surely have bought one if I knew about it.
"They're not qualified to make major technical decisions" Yeah and where did that get them a failed console that could've been avoided if the followed sega of America's plans, By your own logic sega of japan wasn't qualified either, making decisions that jeopardized the system before it even released. Also Sega of America was involved in the development of the consoles they worked on the 32x along side the saturn. SGI at the time was one of the leading cg/3d developers that worked with disney/pixar and many other companies, they had a chip specifically for a game console they wanted sega to try but sega of japan declined. Also the n64 was the most powerful console of the generation, 3 times as powerful as both the ps1 and saturn I don't think the console was that great but Sega missing the deal with silicon graphics was clearly a dumb decision from any stand point
The Aliens Trilogy was not a very demanding game graphically it looked on par with doom which even the 32x could run. The Saturn used 3 CPU's while the standard around this time were games designed around 2 CPU so this often made 3d ports on the saturn look terrible because only 2 of 3 CPU's was actually utilized compared to the ps1 which used 2 CPU's making it way easier to develop for. Compare something like panzer dragoon to re2 the graphical capability of the consoles are night and day.
Of course sega was greedy the whole reason the 32x was mad ewas to compete with the Atari jaguar the first disc based console which ended up being a terrible idea since the Atari jaguar performed worse than the 32x. Wasting them money and time and losing fan's trust in the proces
And advertisements weren't the issue because the saturn was advertised like crazy hell it was announced on the say day as the ps1 at e3 but sega hastily shipped units to retailers without telling and the retailers retaliated by literally banning sega consoles on top of releasing the system early the ps1 literally terrified the company so much that they moved the release closer at the very last minute without informing developers which definitely effect potentially developers so the logical step was to jumpship to the new and easier to develop for ps1.
@@kaisarr7632 there are loads of shoddy looking 3D PS1 titles.
I don’t think you’re old enough to remember advertising in 1995. Nobody watched that stuffy old E3 thing. The only footage is some blurry camcorder.
It’s a set up. It has to be. Why are people applauding over a guy saying “299”. Like whoa! Console is $100 cheaper than mean old Sega console. What a victory! What a triumph! Wtf?! Like this is the thing we’ve all been waiting for. It’s nonsense.
All this tech talk is over both our heads. We’re not engineers. The point is the PS1 was simple to develop because 1: dev kits were cheap and readily available and 2: Sony had ‘libraries’ developers could use to give them a head start.
The Saturn was a mystery even to Sega. Sony just had their shit together out the gate.
The Saturn had 2 cpus and 2 vdps. There was an sh-1 cpu for controlling the cd-rom as well.
But they couldn’t shift consoles because the hype wasn’t there. They must have spent almost nothing in advertising. That is a crazy decision. But failing that the console didn’t have a game which was a must own like Sonic the Hedgehog. That game is the reason the 16bit consoles were so popular. In Japan that game was Virtua Fighter. The closest thing the PS1 had was Tekken or Final Fantasy 7.
So it’s the fault of Sega Technical Institute. But I don’t blame them for failing. They were being asked to basically make the best game ever, again. It’s no wonder they choked.
Honestly I don’t remember getting much mileage out of the PS1. I played Tekken 3 quite a bit. Parrapa the Rapper was a good time. It was kind of an underwhelming thing for me.
I don’t really understand how Sony ran away with it like it did. I don’t think it was due to the hardware or pricing though. I’m fairly sure it was just it had better advertising.
The Sega being greedy I’m not sure that’s it because I would guess the 32X was sold at a loss which is standard practise. They need each owner to buy like 5 game’s before they make money. But I guess the logic was that they changed their minds about a budget console being profitable and thought rather than pursue the 32X, just axe it and hope people go for the Saturn.
Retailers getting pissy about being left out of the early months of Saturn sales and then refusing to stock it is also really strange. Is that on principle? Because they were not favoured by Sega so they will cut off their own noses to spite their faces? Just to teach Sega a lesson. Isn’t that juvenile and petty? Big companies acting like little girls? A more likely scenario is that money was involved.
The major reason the Master System failed in America is because Nintendo would not allow it. You couldn’t stock both systems on your store. So it simply wasn’t available to buy.
@@iwanttocomplain Dude Sega spent $50 million dollars on advertisement for the saturn some movies don't even get that much. For comparison Sony spent only about 20 million advertising the PS5 for it's launch and the ps5 is selling like crazy and im sure the ps1 ad price was around 20mil as well, But advertisement was nonexistent? Advertisements isn't just commercials, its magazine publications, endorsements anything that gets the name out. Sega mishandled that 50 million it's really that simple.
"Nobody watched e3 1995"
It had attendees rate of around 50k you do realize the whole point of e3 is to showcase electronic entertainment to not just consumers but potential investors, retailers it's been an essential part of the the gaming industry since its inception saying nobody "watches it" is strange. Hell when sony employee said "299" this incident was posted on forums magazines. websites, it mad sega a laughing stock and only free advertising for sony. Yes price matters a 100 dollar difference is a difference must people will take over a console from a company that's failing in the eyes of many.
The same-thing happen with sony during the ps3 when sony sold it for $499 while the xbox 360 at $299 complete blew it away in sells until sony dropped the price. The saturn had 2 sh2 chips and 1 sh 1 chip that equals 3cpu's which is far faultier than any 5th generation console it wasn't just the dev kit it was the console itself terrible to work with. Like the gamecube or n64
You don't have to be an engineer to understand that. If I have a low end pc with terrible cpu and all around bad specs and try to play a modern game clearly its gonna run terribly which alot of 3d games on Saturn didnt specifically in comparison to the ps1. The saturn could not properly run a game like ape escape and even the ports like tomb raider on saturn are inferior to the ps1 version on all accounts.
Of course it's a money thing, NO developer even knew when the saturn was releasing in america when sega pushed the date forward how are you suppose to create something for another product when you can't even gauge the amount of time you to make it? Capcom, Konami all of these companies took there talents to a less flimsy company. The same goes for retailers you can't just show up one random day with loaded up trucks of your product without informing the seller, you're suppose to schedule these things all the paper work and financing that goes into something like distribution was completely disregarded due to negligence it's really that simple it's not a mystery.
@@iwanttocomplain Also forgot to mention that sega quickly only after a few months dropped the price of the saturn to $299 because literally nobody was buying it at $399 ontop of bundling it went like 3 games trying to play catch up after poor financial decisions was mainly the life span of the saturn whether you like it or not. Did I mention in my vid that sega of jp wanted to make a 64 bit saturn called the saturn 64? You know like nintendo 64? After pushing silicon graphics aside. Sounds like catch up to me.
@@kaisarr7632 they pushed the release forward a bit. I don’t know why everyone is losing their shit about it. If it’s such an inconvenience then why did retailers complain they weren’t the special chosen early retailers and then refuse to stock it?
It’s just a few months early. It’s not going to affect your game. There’s no pressing need to have your game ready for the release date.
All stuff like that just doesn’t make sense. “Oh Sega pushed the release date forward. Fuck Sega! No games for them! Anyway Capcom put loads of games onto the Saturn.
But what I can’t get my head around is a press conference with a cocky Sony rep saying “299” then everyone cheering. I mean, it’s not a Sony conference. Why are they so keen to see Sony succeed and Sega fail? Were Sega that hated?
You are too little obsessed with the supposed "Ultra" incompetence of Sega. Yes, 32x was an error (I love that error, though, and I'm not the only one), but everyone makes stupid errors: Nintendo with Virtual Boy, or Sony with PSP Go, for exemple. The truth is... Sony had a LOT of money to pay the media and promote its new Playstation. Sega could not compete with Sony at that level. Even Nintendo couldn't, and in fact Gamecube was practically Nintendo's tomb during the next gen "trying to compete" with PS2.
At least Saturn sold more than N64 in Japan, so, not so bad for Sega Japan (the first time it sold more than Nintendo in that market). But Sega was practically destroyed by the massive money Sony put into Playstation, its ads, its promotion, and all the 3rd party exclusivities they bought. Sony, at all costs, DID NOT WANT TO FAIL in western market, as they just did some years before with its MSX machines. In America MSX was totally unknown, and in Europe only get the residual fourth place in the 8bit microcomputers market (behind Spectrum, Amstrad and C64).
So, the competition was very heavy for Sega. Plus, in Europe (specially in some european markets), the piracy in consoles exploded as a REAL pandemic problem, and Sony exploited it very well to sell more machine, while Sega COULD NOT do that for obvious reasons (many of the Saturn games WERE SEGA TITLES, so unlike Sony, piracy for Sega was a giant concern).
To me, many myths were build during many years about "Sega's internal problems" in that era. I doubt the other companies did not have internal problems in some moments. The only real facts we all REALLY know are these: Sega, during the 90's, was VERY creative, very competitive and TOO ambitious: While Nintendo gave up in the arcades at the start of the 90s, Sega was just pushing to the limit new 3D technologies with very expensive but surprising and admired arcade boards during all the 90's. At the same time, offered great domestic machines as Genesis, Game Gear, Saturn, and Dreamcast. Even Master System was selling (and very well) in Europe, until the mid 90's, with new games. Sega CD itself was a risky (but impressive) move.
Also, Sega had a LOT of internal developer teams, with very talented people, specially during the last years of the 90s. That enormous ambition to make the best possible products for the users, plus the death of its historical chairman Isao Okawa in 2001 (and all its CSK's money), turned to be practically fatal. Nintendo was MUCH MORE conservative (even with giant fails as Virtual Boy), and Sony during PS1 era practically did not have internal studios making its "best sellers" (that's the reason why today its historical PS1 "mascots" Crash and Spiro are from Activision and soon to be get by Microsoft).
Sega was too good and tried too hard during many years, for the ungrateful videogames marked. Even Microsoft had significant problems.
Compared to the PS1 the saturn was janky half assed shit.
Get triggered all you want, but Sega has always been lower quality dog turd compared to Sony and Nintendo.
That's why Sega is out of the console business despite Sony and Nintendo still having consoles.
Sega is a sloppy, lesser quality shit sandwich. Triggered Sega fanboys will not change that LMAO!!
I still can't believe they made a video game(Guardian Heroes) based off those How To Draw Manga/Anime books from the 90's.
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