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[cireza]

The losses were all because of the Saturn.

It was not "the Saturn's fault". It was the result of abandoning the console by top management. This was purely a choice on their part. US management was even dumb enough to say that "Saturn wasn't the future" themselves to the consumers. How can you have such an attitude when you are supposed to do your best to support your own product ?

What prevented them from keeping a profitable price point and release some games with a reasonable budget behind them ? This would have bought some time and brought some money, instead of not having anything meaningful to sell until the Dreamcast launch. Virtua Fighter 3 was pretty much ready by the way, Shenmue looked like it was pretty advanced, CPS3 was designed with the same CPU to help ports etc... There was still potential for a couple more years, which would have helped a lot launch the Dreamcast correctly. Of course Sony was cock-blocking every single ambitious third party game out there, but you can't compete with a company that is pretty much buying its way in the market with infinite money.

Nothing forces a company to sell at a loss. SNK ran their Neo Geo business and sold hardware for almost ten years, and still made games for it afterwards.

Their mistake was to go head-on against Sony while they should have targeted a smaller audience with an appropriate price point and make reasonable investments in games. Instead they threw away everything with the Dreamcast, and created a situation where they had no chance of recovering.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Sega CD,32X and Saturn released to close together.
Game quality (for the most part) from Sonic on wasn't as good as it was up to Sonic's release.(not saying no good games released)

People saying Sony is lol worthy in this instance as Nintendo is the one who whooped on them before they beat themselves see above.

Sony smacked them(a good Dreamcast)around when PS2 released.

Who knows how much R&D $$$ it ate up, but add in Sega Nomad, CDX and Pico. None of these would be big sellers to begin with, but Sega made them anyway.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

Who knows how much R&D $$$ it ate up, but add in Sega Nomad, CDX and Pico. None of these would be big sellers to begin with, but Sega made them anyway.

R and D costs wasn't my point(although it sure didn't help)
Releasing all of those together like they did won't be supported by CONSUMERS.

That is what killed them as most people ain't supporting this type of practice.

I remember back then talking about this(even though this hardcore gamer !ME!) bought all 3. No one else did I knew, they thought I was crazy and I do regret the Sega CD and 32X purchase but loved me some Saturn(ah those Japanese imports)

 

[kirby007]

videogames actually started getting good, so crappy shit started selling less

 

[SomeGit]

It was not "the Saturn's fault". It was the result of abandoning the console by top management. This was purely a choice on their part. US management was even dumb enough to say that "Saturn wasn't the future" themselves to the consumers. How can you have such an attitude when you are supposed to do your best to support your own product ?

What prevented them from keeping a profitable price point and release some games with a reasonable budget behind them ?

Because the Saturn didn't move at 399$? Even the 3DO outsold in the summer of 95 in the US (https://segaretro.org/History_of_the_Sega_Saturn/Release), what makes you think it would have sold at that price when the PS1 was at 199$ in late 1997?
The quote is awful yes, but the Saturn wasn't their future, it was a dead end.

I don't know why you are using SNK as an example, SNK went bankrupt at the end of the 90, when the arcade division also dried up. The Neo Geo AES was never a money maker for SNK, at most it was a small secondary revenue stream with low hardware sales.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Saturn was a success in Japan though. UItimately beat by PS1 but not earlier than in 1997, and it kept the N64 behind. This was what made it so difficult for Sega. SoJ and SoA weren't already buddies, and SoA was dead set on killing the Saturn.

But really I think Saturn could at least be a world wide success for Sega. It wasn't like Sega was in a bad spot around 1994. Gamers knew Sega better than Sony. They had the brand recognition. They simply had to launch at an affordable price, and with a good games lineup. Kalinske received lots of praise, but I think he is responsible for the American launch fuckup. They pissed off retailers, developers, and consumers who were still saving up. Generally everyone. A surprise launch may sound great, here's your console today. But if barely any software is ready, the price is high and most retailers won't have stock its not that great for consumers either.

For me personally, the nail in the coffin were Daytona and VF. I know that Daytona was based on Model 2 which was the best looking arcade hardware and thus I didn't expect Saturn to be identical, but the Model 1 port of VF was a disaster. Tekken and RR were made on weaker arcade hardware, so they weren't as heavily compromised. But that aside I think they simply looked and ran better than Sega's games and as mentioned before they had more unlocks for home players. So there was this much cheaper system that also looked better. I started to think Sony might have a chance here, I didn't take them really serious before this. Another big blow was MK3, which was my most anticipated game of 1995. It would only come to playstation so here I also felt Sony was onto something.

I love Saturn but PSX really was the better choice if you were a US or EU gamer. I never regret dropping Sega at first. Its because of the PSX I played FFVII - IX, FFT, Vagrant, Tekken 3, Chrono Cross, Xenogears, RE1-3, MGS, Ape Escape and on. Saturn had already faded away in the west near the end of 1997, it basically succumbed when the 32-bit gen got past its early games and lit up (I think its been said earlier; PSX started to hit its stride from 1998 onward).

 

[Sorcerer]

They were making a lot of money and used that to play catch up / stay ahead of the competition. They invested that money in hardware in a way to boost the software they were making. Rather than focusing on making better games with the hardware they had and investing in marketing and software tools.

PC Engine has a CD ROM - We need one too.
Nintendo put graphic enhancement chips in their cartridges - We need to do that too.
RPGs are now popular - We need to do that too.

^This, times a million. I think Sega actually pulling ahead of the Nintendo for a short while drove Sega to insanity. Investing in hardware way too ahead of its time. Cd's, broadband modems, 32x... Yet for all that, a Dreamcast with no DVD drive. Puzzling, scaling back at the worst time. They should have saved all that tech money to invest in a DVD drive for the Dreamcast, they might have taken a big bite out of Sony. They lost the focus...Had they just stayed their course, there may not have been room for Xbox today.

 

[DaGwaphics]

They actually started with 3D way before the 32X. SEGA have been a massive pusher of 3D and largely invested in creating chips that would enable true 3D engines. This is all written in their history with Yu Suzuki. And to think that such a company would not even put what is required to make 3D in the Saturn ? Let's get real for a sec.


Dreamcast was a disaster because they were basically bleeding money because of this console. Manufacturing it was expensive, parts were expensive, failure rate was high, they could not turn a profit by selling the console alone. Price was low in the US. And at the same time, they made ridiculous investments in games that had no chance of turning a profit. They were basically throwing away money with this console, and made unreasonable investments.

I loved a lot of the quirky software they made, they didn't have a huge install base, so of course, that limited sales a bit. The real kicker was how popular CD-Rs were at that point and it took them way too long to plug that glaring piracy hole. Everyone I knew with a DC was burning games with Alcohol 120. I think there were some very late models where the CD-Rs wouldn't work, but too little, too late.

 

[SkylineRKR]

I loved a lot of the quirky software they made, they didn't have a huge install base, so of course, that limited sales a bit. The real kicker was how popular CD-Rs were at that point and it took them way too long to plug that glaring piracy hole. Everyone I knew with a DC was burning games with Alcohol 120. I think there were some very late models where the CD-Rs wouldn't work, but too little, too late.

I still remember this very well. Piracy didn't surface until summer 2000 or so and had to be done with boot disc at first. It didn't help them, but by then the DC already dropped off and the PS2 had already launched in Japan. Piracy was much more rampant on PS1 actually, but it didn't hurt Sony. I firmly believe that lots of pirates wouldn't have bought the console otherwise, and certainly not the software.

DC was basically all launch. A bit like Vita. It had a gigantic launch lineup, a succesful launch itself, but then dropped off just as quickly. DC was discontinued in early 2001, while it launched Sept '99 in the west (Oct in Europe in think). The DC is fondly remembered upon, but truth is I never parted with my PS1 in the meantime. Just a DC didn't cut it for me, it would mean missing the Square Enix games, popular sports games like FIFA etc. PSX kept on cleaning house in 1999 and 2000, with some all time classics released in that era.

 

[buenoblue]

Oh look, its that misinformation again.

I heard the boss from SEGA went into the factories and soldered the VDP1 and the second SH2 on the motherboards himself.

? Ok maybe not added last minute but the Saturn was definitely designed as a 2d machine first no doubt.

 

[cash_longfellow]

They didn’t release any sequels to Skies of Arcadia.

 

[Dane]

It was not "the Saturn's fault". It was the result of abandoning the console by top management. This was purely a choice on their part. US management was even dumb enough to say that "Saturn wasn't the future" themselves to the consumers. How can you have such an attitude when you are supposed to do your best to support your own product ?

What prevented them from keeping a profitable price point and release some games with a reasonable budget behind them ? This would have bought some time and brought some money, instead of not having anything meaningful to sell until the Dreamcast launch. Virtua Fighter 3 was pretty much ready by the way, Shenmue looked like it was pretty advanced, CPS3 was designed with the same CPU to help ports etc... There was still potential for a couple more years, which would have helped a lot launch the Dreamcast correctly. Of course Sony was cock-blocking every single ambitious third party game out there, but you can't compete with a company that is pretty much buying its way in the market with infinite money.

Nothing forces a company to sell at a loss. SNK ran their Neo Geo business and sold hardware for almost ten years, and still made games for it afterwards.

Their mistake was to go head-on against Sony while they should have targeted a smaller audience with an appropriate price point and make reasonable investments in games. Instead they threw away everything with the Dreamcast, and created a situation where they had no chance of recovering.

Because the SoJ top management killed the console at its inception, it was poorly designed and badly documented, it was entirely aimed towards japan which still used 2D but totally inadequate for the rest of the world, Stolar strong arming to force the Dreamcast was a necessity to not have the company bankrupt before that because Sega of Japan was jealous and refused to listen most of the advices and concerns from America, at least the DC was cheaper and much better designed so any developer could do the best without begging for a negligent technical support from Sega.

SNK had only a small interest in selling Neo Geo AES, these were just arcade boards consolized for rich customers, their bet was on Neo Geo CD for half of the price and which became a massive failure and the company started to bleed heavily as they were far behind 3D too, they also had Neo Geo pocket which was badly managed in the west by its representative.

Saturn was a success in Japan though. UItimately beat by PS1 but not earlier than in 1997, and it kept the N64 behind. This was what made it so difficult for Sega. SoJ and SoA weren't already buddies, and SoA was dead set on killing the Saturn.

But really I think Saturn could at least be a world wide success for Sega. It wasn't like Sega was in a bad spot around 1994. Gamers knew Sega better than Sony. They had the brand recognition. They simply had to launch at an affordable price, and with a good games lineup. Kalinske received lots of praise, but I think he is responsible for the American launch fuckup. They pissed off retailers, developers, and consumers who were still saving up. Generally everyone. A surprise launch may sound great, here's your console today. But if barely any software is ready, the price is high and most retailers won't have stock its not that great for consumers either.

For me personally, the nail in the coffin were Daytona and VF. I know that Daytona was based on Model 2 which was the best looking arcade hardware and thus I didn't expect Saturn to be identical, but the Model 1 port of VF was a disaster. Tekken and RR were made on weaker arcade hardware, so they weren't as heavily compromised. But that aside I think they simply looked and ran better than Sega's games and as mentioned before they had more unlocks for home players. So there was this much cheaper system that also looked better. I started to think Sony might have a chance here, I didn't take them really serious before this. Another big blow was MK3, which was my most anticipated game of 1995. It would only come to playstation so here I also felt Sony was onto something.

I love Saturn but PSX really was the better choice if you were a US or EU gamer. I never regret dropping Sega at first. Its because of the PSX I played FFVII - IX, FFT, Vagrant, Tekken 3, Chrono Cross, Xenogears, RE1-3, MGS, Ape Escape and on. Saturn had already faded away in the west near the end of 1997, it basically succumbed when the 32-bit gen got past its early games and lit up (I think its been said earlier; PSX started to hit its stride from 1998 onward).S

If it goes by anything, it was Sega who should have been the 32-bit sales leader as they chose the CD format early on, but their vision was entirely out of touch with the market.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Because the SoJ top management killed the console at its inception, it was poorly designed and badly documented, it was entirely aimed towards japan which still used 2D but totally inadequate for the rest of the world, Stolar strong arming to force the Dreamcast was a necessity to not have the company bankrupt before that because Sega of Japan was jealous and refused to listen most of the advices and concerns from America, at least the DC was cheaper and much better designed so any developer could do the best without begging for a negligent technical support from Sega.

SNK had only a small interest in selling Neo Geo AES, these were just arcade boards consolized for rich customers, their bet was on Neo Geo CD for half of the price and which became a massive failure and the company started to bleed heavily as they were far behind 3D too, they also had Neo Geo pocket which was badly managed in the west by its representative.

If it goes by anything, it was Sega who should have been the 32-bit sales leader as they chose the CD format early on, but their vision was entirely out of touch with the market.

Those were the times when Japan ruled console design. Not just Saturn, but consoles back then all did their own thing.

Not till recent times when consoles have a more streamlined PC structure. Good for games, porting, and PC centric games coming to consoles. Xbox OG is a good example.

 

[Dane]

Those were the times when Japan ruled console design. Not just Saturn, but consoles back then all did their own thing.

Not till recent times when consoles have a more streamlined PC structure. Good for games, porting, and PC centric games coming to consoles. Xbox OG is a good example.

Everyone did their thing, but the saturn did the worst of the three, it was over complicated, 3d ports were from slighty worse to absolutely awful, 100 dollars more expensive, bad marketing decisions that led to boycotts from large retailers.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Everyone did their thing, but the saturn did the worst of the three, it was over complicated, 3d ports were from slighty worse to absolutely awful, 100 dollars more expensive, bad marketing decisions that led to boycotts from large retailers.

I remember seeing Saturn games at a indie game store. 3D games looked like shit. Wipeout looked like it ran at 20 fps tops.

 

[Dane]

I remember seeing Saturn games at a indie game store. 3D games looked like shit. Wipeout looked like it ran at 20 fps tops.

It ran like shit because it was actually designed for 2D, the 3D was a later development tuck-in, no wonder why 2D games were better than on PS1.

 

[93xfan]

I'd just like to remind everyone that Sonic was never good.

It was great! Good point

 

[Guilty_AI]

 

[cireza]

the 3D was a later development tuck-in

If I keep repeating this, it will eventually become true.

People thinking that you could just add 3D at the last moment are absolutely delusional and have no clue on how hardware was designed, nor how it worked, especially in the 90s.
Saturn was always built to allow for BOTH 2D and 3D. It had the hardware capabilities to do so. While PS1 and N64 made the choice to completely drop any 2D hardware and offer only 3D capabilities. Doing 2D on these consoles required circumventing the hardware capabilities to push 2D while using the 3D hardware. And of course, to complement this focus on 3D only, you had a huge marketing campaign aimed towards ridiculing 2D from both Sony and Nintendo. Because what other choice did they have ?

Saturn was a more complex hardware mainly because it pushed for both worlds. Not because 3D was added "last minute" lol...

 

[GymWolf]

You misspelled 2005 wrong.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Yes I think Saturn was always meant to be what it was. Its possible that Sega preferred 2D gaming at first, but it wouldn't align with the steps they made in the Arcade; they pioneered 3D fighting and racing. They also released the Sega CD which did flirt with FMV.

If you look at the architecture, I think Saturn is a lot like Model 1 and 2. The VDP1 served the same purpose as the Model 1/2 hardware, rendered quads but it was ofcourse weaker. The VDP2 would render the backgrounds. I think Saturn was always meant to be a 3D system based on this. But like Model 2 (which was mainly used by Sega themselves), it also meant not everyone could get the hang of it. So there was a huge difference in quality. There were some games that looked phenomenal like VF2, and others looked like dog shit. Tomb Raider development for example started on Saturn IIRC, but it was worse than on Playstation. Probably because Core didn't know the hardware and the documentation was likely only in Japanese at the time.

Sony ofcourse didn't have a pedigree in the Arcade, no real first party studios yet and no earlier hardware. So their console was probably designed to meet third party developers demands. They were also a bit more open towards western studios (after some doubts) as documented by Mark Cerny. Sony was the new kid on the block without a blurred vision and basically took a different, more modern and open approach than Sega and Nintendo did. This was key for their success.

 

[Toots]

I think there's no doubt to anyone that "peak Sega" was around 1992 to early 1994.

What happened is that i turned ten in 1995 and i didn't want to play kid games anymore so i asked my parents to buy me a snes.
Sorry dude...

 

[socksfelloff]

SEGA's developers were at their peak creatively during the Saturn/ DC era it's just a shame the buisiness side wasn't

 

[cireza]

Tomb Raider development for example started on Saturn IIRC, but it was worse than on Playstation.

I disagree on this. It is actually more complicated than simply saying "this one is better". Saturn is superior on a good number of aspects, like draw distance and water effects. The Saturn version is perfectly fine overall.

 

[SkylineRKR]

I disagree on this. It is actually more complicated than simply saying "this one is better". Saturn is superior on a good number of aspects, like draw distance and water effects. The Saturn version is perfectly fine overall.

It wasn't bad but I remember being disappointed by its crushed blacks and muffled sounds mainly. The Playstation was better playable in dark areas for me. Still, the Saturn version wasn't bad but its the only example I can think of being the target platform and yet PSX doesn't come off as worse.

On the contrary i'm one of the few who greatly prefers RE1 on Saturn. I liked the Saturn character models more (they had actual faces lol), and the backgrounds, since it was prerendered, were higher resolution. Load times were also faster, I think. It did come out a full year later, which might've helped ofcourse.

 

[cireza]

its crushed blacks

I personally find the PS1 version too bright. I think Saturn was closer to what was intended initially. Both versions were great anyway.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I think there's no doubt to anyone that "peak Sega" was around 1992 to early 1994.

This was when they were on top of the world. They were outselling the SNES and pumping out hits like SOR2, Sonic 2/3, Shining Force, PS4, Virtua Fighter and Daytona USA in the arcades.

Sega was at the peak of their creativity and quality. During this time they made some of the best games of all time. It's like they could do no wrong.

But by around 1994, cracks were beginning to show. SOR3 felt unfinished and rushed and didn't live up to SOR2. The Sega CD while popular never really took off.
Some of their other big games like Sonic CD and Eternal Champions failed to live up to the hype.

It just seemed like they started to lose focus around that time. Trying to do too many things and not focusing on just making great games. There might be some deeper reason behind it though.

Streets or Rage 2, Shinobi 3, 93-94 Sega Sports, model 2 arcade games. You got it.

As a big sports gaming fan, it was a dead zone of sports for me in that 95-98 kind of era aside from Genesis EA NHL games and WSB. Sega Sports at the tail end of Genesis were awful (I think contracted out), Saturn Sega Sports were shit, some EA Sports didn't even get made for Saturn/PS1 for the first year or two. Year 1 PS1 989 sports were bad too.

When PS1 sports game went polygonal is when it picked up again as they were much smoother playing that EA's 3D sports games.

 

[cireza]

Saturn Sega Sports were shit

They eventually reached some very good quality with late titles such as NBA Action 98 and NHL All-Star Hockey 98. There were also Sega Worldwide Soccer 97/98 that were very solid games. No opinion about NFL or Baseball though, never played any game.

 

[Tiamat2san]

The Saturn and the Dreamcast are my 2 favourite consoles ever.
Sadly most of consumers weren’t like me.
Sega+

 

[Crew511A]

It all comes down to Daytona, doesn’t it? Most kids checked out the minute PSX arrived, and their only memory of Saturn was a famously smudgy, grungy Daytona USA.

Weirdly enough, nobody ever mentions Daytona CE (the finished JP edition). What’s the story on that?

I think it's that whole first impressions thing. You had to pay an extra 100 dollars to play Daytona over Ridge Racer in 1995, and that was brutal.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

They eventually reached some very good quality with late titles such as NBA Action 98 and NHL All-Star Hockey 98. There were also Sega Worldwide Soccer 97/98 that were very solid games. No opinion about NFL or Baseball though, never played any game.

World Series Baseball 98 is still the greatest baseball videogame ever made. The rest of the Sega Sports 98 lineup is supremely solid. For Worldwide Soccer 98, be sure to get the JP edition which features analog controller support and online play (would love to try that out sometime). For hockey, NHL Powerplay 96 is my favorite. For US football, Madden NFL 98 is the one to get. And let's not forget Decathlete, Winter Heat and Steep Slope Sliders.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

I think it's that whole first impressions thing. You had to pay an extra 100 dollars to play Daytona over Ridge Racer in 1995, and that was brutal.

By the time the Playstation launched, the Saturn's price dropped to $350 w/Virtua Fighter or $299 w/o any pack-in game. I would certainly agree on the first impressions, and I've always agreed that Ridge Racer was the prettier racing game. But Daytona plays so much better and offers far greater depth.

And, again, the JP Circuit Edition just kicks. The trick is to unlock the original Daytona car and select the fastest steering option from the options menu (that's when using digital controls). Then hook up two Saturns and play link-up mode and have the time of your life.

 

[fast_taker]

Bad business decisions and ps1 happened

 

[chromatic9]

Damage was done by the Mega CD and 32X that were poor addons with too many poor games. They really should've brought out a new system to herald in a new era, the Mega CD was expensive and was still limited to a very low colour palette of the Mega Drive and hampered everything.

I was a huge Sega fan at the time and was one of the very few that bought the Mega CD, I still have Snatcher and Final Fight but I can admit at the time and now most of the games were poor and very bad looking like Earnest Evans. Of course it has a cult following and fondness.

Like most I went with the PS1 over a Saturn after the mess of the addons. All my Mega Drive owning friends didn't bother with the addons and went the same way.

Sega dropped the ball and it was immediately picked up by Sony. Nintendo was late with their cart based system and it was a brief open door for Sony and they ushered in a new era. It was a strange stalling by the two then big companies. The devs, the gamers and Sony could see the next step.

 

[cireza]

Damage was done by the Mega CD and 32X that were poor addons with too many poor games.

This is largely exaggerated. People who bought the 32X could probably be disappointed because of the short lifespan, but the Mega-CD was a fine add-on with very good support and great games. It was expensive, but it offered something else entirely.

These add-ons did not have more bad games than the MegaDrive, overall in terms of their entire library, I think the MegaDrive has more stinkers. The 32X library is small, but there is a good dozen are great games on it. Which isn't bad for its small lifespan. Mega-CD has a ton of great games as well, and was supported from 1991 in Japan to 1996. That's actually perfectly fine.

 

[levyjl1988]

Piss poor management. SEGA can’t even produce a good AAA Sonic game that rivals Mario games. Their software is C-B tier in mediocre, oh how the mighty have fallen. If Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric was multiplayer co-op on multi platform system like Xbox 360 and PS3, we would have gotten a good bug free game, but SEGA meddled with it and ruined it.

 

[JLB]

Basically Saturn got relegated to a distant third place. Nintendo 64 got all the attention and PSX was a complete hit.

 

[JLB]

Eh, the Saturn wasn't that great. It was hard to program for and it's 3D capabilities weren't as good as the Playstation's. You had to do extra work for things the others could do easily (transparencies for instance).

N64 also had issues. Some bottlenecks here and there and the lack of CD, which was beneficial to publishers. Again, it was a harder console to push than the Playstation.

Playstation was a better designed, more balanced hardware. Easier to program. I can see this even though i prefer the N64 personally.

PS had terrible 3d capabilities as well. But having CD as format basically become the killer feature.

 

[SF Kosmo]

I think there's no doubt to anyone that "peak Sega" was around 1992 to early 1994.

This was when they were on top of the world. They were outselling the SNES and pumping out hits like SOR2, Sonic 2/3, Shining Force, PS4, Virtua Fighter and Daytona USA in the arcades.

Sega was at the peak of their creativity and quality. During this time they made some of the best games of all time. It's like they could do no wrong.

But by around 1994, cracks were beginning to show. SOR3 felt unfinished and rushed and didn't live up to SOR2. The Sega CD while popular never really took off.
Some of their other big games like Sonic CD and Eternal Champions failed to live up to the hype.

It just seemed like they started to lose focus around that time. Trying to do too many things and not focusing on just making great games. There might be some deeper reason behind it though.

Ok so first of all, SOR3 was made by Ancient, not Sega so that's a pretty bad example. Eternal Champions was made by Interactive Designs, who were a Sega subsidiaries but we're never known for great games. The guys who made Green Dog.

Creatively I think Sega peaked when they split up their internal teams into semi-autonomous studios in the DC era. They might have been a bit arcade oriented and out of step with the market at times but that's the era that gave use Rez and Crazy Taxi and Virtua Fighter 4 and Sakura Taisen 3. They were on fire during those years.

Now obviously their console business peaked in 1994 and there are numerous reasons for that. They hit the fifth generation like a ton of bricks, with a divided strategy, a bad price point, poor hardware choices, and an absence of the biggest titles in the American market. And they never really recovered from that despite reasonably strong first year sales of Dreamcast.

 

[Dane]

This is largely exaggerated. People who bought the 32X could probably be disappointed because of the short lifespan, but the Mega-CD was a fine add-on with very good support and great games. It was expensive, but it offered something else entirely.

These add-ons did not have more bad games than the MegaDrive, overall in terms of their entire library, I think the MegaDrive has more stinkers. The 32X library is small, but there is a good dozen are great games on it. Which isn't bad for its small lifespan. Mega-CD has a ton of great games as well, and was supported from 1991 in Japan to 1996. That's actually perfectly fine.

Sega CD despite its shortcomings sold like 2.24 million, not bad for an expensive add-on, it all comes down to the main dish being screwed up (Saturn), the worst that the side stuff did was that it might have bled them some money.

 

[SkylineRKR]

For me personally the CD and 32x didn't do much, I wasn't interested in buying them. I did look forward to Saturn, which was their real next-gen system. I was mainly pissed off by Sega dismissing the Megadrive/Genesis when the Saturn was announced for the western markets. It felt like a slap in the face. I read in early 1995 that they saw their 16-bit as an important pillar going on, but then support was pretty much killed. I didn't have the cash to buy either a PSX or Saturn at launch day.

I don't think Sega CD or even 32x would matter much if the Saturn made a better debut at a lower price point and with a better marketing campaign. If it didn't launch so haphazardly in the US, and if its VF and Daytona were competent ports, along with a Sonic game and a competitive price then Saturn might've been a success. Even the Dreamcast, 2 years after the Saturn was effectively killed in the US pissing off all their fans, had a succesful launch in the west. But they couldn't maintain it as Playstation had become way too big after years of monopoly.

In 1995 Sega was a far more powerful brand than it was in 1999. They even sustained with how they handled the Saturn and released a follow up console. Saturn could really be a hit console, I don't see why not. They had the brand recognition, they sat on a ton of well known IP. Sony would likely still win because they had deeper pockets and could court most studios and IP, but I'm confident Sega could've bested the N64 at least. CD production was much cheaper, and Saturn still had much more third party support than Nintendo did. I also figure it would still be easier to port to Saturn than to port to N64.

 

[MastaKiiLA]

32X -> Saturn double-whammy. 32X was the Series S of the 32bit era, and then while the Saturn was more powerful, it got clowned by PS1 in 3D rendering, and that's all she wrote. Dreamcast could've been great, if they'd managed to make it close in power to the PS2. But they went for the early launch instead, and didn't have a strong enough library to compel gamers not to wait for Sony to launch.

 

[derrickchase]

Saturn was a success in Japan though. UItimately beat by PS1 but not earlier than in 1997, and it kept the N64 behind.

The Saturn's strength wasn't as highly valued outside of Japan. Japanese gamers were still into 2D arcade games way more than western gamers, so the superior Capcom, Neo Geo, and shmup ports were a huge advantage there. A lot of those games didn't even get released in the west because everyone there wanted 3D games.

What amuses me about the 32-bit generation is that, at the time, it was all made out to be about 3D, and yet the only two games from either console I still play are Guardian Heroes and Symphony of the Night. Basically every 3D game from that era has aged like milk.

 

[Dane]

For me personally the CD and 32x didn't do much, I wasn't interested in buying them. I did look forward to Saturn, which was their real next-gen system. I was mainly pissed off by Sega dismissing the Megadrive/Genesis when the Saturn was announced for the western markets. It felt like a slap in the face. I read in early 1995 that they saw their 16-bit as an important pillar going on, but then support was pretty much killed. I didn't have the cash to buy either a PSX or Saturn at launch day.

I don't think Sega CD or even 32x would matter much if the Saturn made a better debut at a lower price point and with a better marketing campaign. If it didn't launch so haphazardly in the US, and if its VF and Daytona were competent ports, along with a Sonic game and a competitive price then Saturn might've been a success. Even the Dreamcast, 2 years after the Saturn was effectively killed in the US pissing off all their fans, had a succesful launch in the west. But they couldn't maintain it as Playstation had become way too big after years of monopoly.

In 1995 Sega was a far more powerful brand than it was in 1999. They even sustained with how they handled the Saturn and released a follow up console. Saturn could really be a hit console, I don't see why not. They had the brand recognition, they sat on a ton of well known IP. Sony would likely still win because they had deeper pockets and could court most studios and IP, but I'm confident Sega could've bested the N64 at least. CD production was much cheaper, and Saturn still had much more third party support than Nintendo did. I also figure it would still be easier to port to Saturn than to port to N64.

For what I can remember, the Saturn was the worst due to its multiple CPUs not working well together, the 64 while difficult, had a much more powerful hardware which was a bless for western developers who switched to 3D since the generation start, ports were visually better on 64, some games were entirely different to make the best use of its hardware power (Rush and TWINE for example).

The Saturn's strength wasn't as highly valued outside of Japan. Japanese gamers were still into 2D arcade games way more than western gamers, so the superior Capcom, Neo Geo, and shmup ports were a huge advantage there. A lot of those games didn't even get released in the west because everyone there wanted 3D games.

What amuses me about the 32-bit generation is that, at the time, it was all made out to be about 3D, and yet the only two games from either console I still play are Guardian Heroes and Symphony of the Night. Basically every 3D game from that era has aged like milk.

Exactly, I sell videogames and all of my saturn stuff is from Japan, they are all nichey games that it wouldn't likely be picked up by third party publishers for a western release, and the ones people still wanted were 2D fighting games that were released, except for SNK games as they all required expansion carts. It took years to people be open about 2D games again, and reminds me that the GameCube was considered a sales failure because the marketing was seen as towards children than teenagers and adults, maybe that's why Stolar was against 2D games back on his Sony days.

 

[cireza]

I don't think Sega CD or even 32x would matter much if the Saturn made a better debut

32X certainly, but SEGA-CD is a 1991 product. It was released in Japan several years before the Saturn, and its existence was legitimate.

SEGA eventually killed support for MegaDrive, Game Gear, 32X and Mega-CD and I think it was a mistake really. Game Gear was actually having some pretty good games at the end of its life in Japan, you had the Kid's Gear as well, and supporting a console like this wasn't very expensive as the games were pretty simple. They should have put some more efforts in at least Game Gear and MegaDrive.

Then moving onto the Dreamcast they killed the Saturn completely, it was another mistake. They should have supported it to have a source of income. Saturn was phased out too early.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Ofcourse, Stolar wasn't entirely wrong. Its easy to claim otherwise right now but you weren't going to promote your 32-bit system with 2D games back in 1995. Thats not what we wanted. The whole point of the Playstation and Saturn was that we could finally play 3D games at home. 2D was something that could be achieved on the MD and SNES, and we'd been there. So yeah, Stolar blocked 2D games as he felt it didn't display what the PSX could actually do. And at the market he catered towards, he wasn't wrong.

When I walked in to a gaming store back then, I saw the Playstation launch lineup. I pointed at Parodius, and asked others wtf this was doing on Playstation. It looked like a Super Nintendo game. MK3 was an outlier. It was highly popular anyway, and it was being advertised as finally arcade perfect on console (not true, I think its a shit port). Ofcourse, today I'd likely rather play Parodius than Tekken 1 or Kileak or something, but in 1995 I wouldn't waste my cash on it (I did buy Parodius though, sometime in 1998 or so, for a tenner or 2).

It was when I borrowed Street Fighter Alpha, I hadn't played SF since the Megadrive, I noticed 2D was still cool. SFA was a looker, it had huge sprites, lots of color and flash. Comparable to what Strive is now. I thought it was great. I bought SFA2 as a result and liked it even more. From there on I started to enjoy 2D again; MMX3, SoTN etc. The Saturn was king, but the PSX has some amazing 2D games as well.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Here is a link to four articles I wrote for Sega Saturn, Shiro last year. The Sega Saturn 3D Showcase highlights 120 videogames that demonstrate the console’s powers for 3D polygon and sprite graphics.

Let’s see how many of these titles you’ve played:

https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/author/dtm/

 

[EDMIX]

I'd just like to remind everyone that Sonic was never good.

let me just remind everyone here where the report button is. I did my part and reported him 4x times. It literally says in the rules you can't speak about political and or religious views and here you are!

InfiniteCombo facts indeed. I did like Crazy Taxi though. I think they tried to bring back those nostgic times and lean on a lot of that vs a deep focus on new IP. Shenmue being their only huge new IP didn't really help either. Dreamcast had some amazing gems nonetheless. Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Virtua Fighter, Shenmue, Resident Evil CV, Power Stone etc

 

[German Hops]

Final Fantasy VII turned the tide.

 

[MiguelItUp]

I honestly feel like there was a point around the Dreamcast where they were still peaking. But feels like a series of missteps really didn't help their future. Lesser than preferred management, production, development, etc.

I felt like the Saturn was a huge misstep for the US market, though I could be wrong. It felt like it did so much better overseas than it did here. Maybe the PlayStation was just marketed better in the US? I mean, at launch it the Saturn was $399, and the PlayStation was $299, so maybe the price didn't help it much either?

I only had one friend of mine that had a Saturn, I legit didn't know anyone else at the time that did. I guess I could even say the same about the 32X and Sega CD. But I knew a ton of people that had a Genesis. I also knew a ton of people that got a PlayStation.

The saddest part to me, was that the Dreamcast had so much potential, and in my opinion was a spectacular system. It did so many things right, and was honestly pretty innovative in a variety of ways. It had some great exclusives, and even better ports of some games out there. I would've loved to have seen what could've come after that if everything panned out differently.