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[StreetsofBeige]

Guess i was living in an alternative reality at the time where 3D multiplatform games generally ran at higher framerates, with better effects, higher details and smoother textures on PS1. Developers commenting about PS1's higher 3D capabilities were also mirages surely. An actual Saturn developer posted earlier in this thread, did you read it? So you are saying that Saturn could run Porsche Challenge (1997) or even Rage Racer (1996) at same fidelity and performance and could produce the likes of Ridge Racer Type 4, Ace combat 3 or Vagrant Story late into his life cycle?... What 3D Saturn game PS1 couldn't possibly match and exceed exactly? Let's just agree to disagree, Saturn had its advantages in matter of 2D, but i am not particularly fond of this trendy historical revisonism about the machine's 3D capabilities compared to PlayStation. As widely known PlayStation was architectured to be a 3D machine from the ground up contrary to its competitor and the games did the talking. For me that's the end of it.

I agree.

No doubt Saturn had some good games, VF2 looked good, but let’s face it, PS1 3D is better. More fluid, transparencies were easy and common in games, fire effects werent always big blocky messes like Saturn etc…. Even something like cgi cutscenes were better on PS1 because I’m pretty sure their decoding program was better. I think PS1 was JPEG and Saturn was mpeg1. Whatever the reason was Saturn games had grainy fmv and cgi.

What you got on this thread are a few hardcore Saturn supporters with their what-if scenarios on hardware and games where if Saturn had an extra 3 years it would had been equal or better than PS1.

All devs had to do is get better doing dual cpu programming or whatever and Saturn games would eventually blow past PS1.

All I know is seeing what kinds of games were out for both systems when I had a PS1 was that the 3D games were noticeably better. Everyone said 2D games were better on Saturn: I won’t disagree. Even though I didn’t play capcom fighters to witness them, I’ll take peoples word for it big sprite based 2D games were better on Saturn.

 

[Lysandros]

To be honest, at that time (around 1997), it was actually easier to develop 3D games for the Saturn than the Playstation, the standard 3D libraries for PS devs were a lot more low level and required more work.
Of course it was a bit too late, since the Saturn was pretty much dead already.

Thanks for correcting the common misconception, development difficulty is constantly being cited as the main reason of Saturn's somewhat lesser results in 3D games regardless of date. Very nice to learn new things from a former Saturn developer, thanks again for your inputs and the thread.

 

[Fatnick]

Guess i was living in an alternative reality at the time where 3D multiplatform games generally ran at higher framerates, with better effects, higher details and smoother textures on PS1. Developers commenting about PS1's higher 3D capabilities were also mirages surely. An actual Saturn developer posted earlier in this thread, did you read it? So you are saying that Saturn could run Porsche Challenge (1997) or even Rage Racer (1996) at same fidelity and performance and could produce the likes of Ridge Racer Type 4, Ace combat 3 or Vagrant Story late into his life cycle?... What 3D Saturn game PS1 couldn't possibly match and exceed exactly? Let's just agree to disagree, Saturn had its advantages in matter of 2D, but i am not particularly fond of this trendy historical revisonism about the machine's 3D capabilities compared to PlayStation. As widely known PlayStation was architectured to be a 3D machine from the ground up contrary to its competitor and the games did the talking. For me that's the end of it.

Interestingly the last part almost wasn't the case. According to Ryoji Akagawa, the Playstation would have as been as 2d-focused as the saturn had it not been for Virtua Fighter: https://www.eventhubs.com/news/2012/sep/05/how-virtua-fighter-saved-original-playstation/

 

[cireza]

Whatever the reason was Saturn games had grainy fmv and cgi.

Not for late games... And as always, it depends how much space on disc you are willing to reserve to your videos. But there were very significant improvements, and Saturn also supported an external MPEG card, which was not used a lot.

Not saying that PS1 wasn't better in that regard, but Saturn ended up very good. For example Deep Fear has very clean videos. Same for other late games. NBA Action 98 has pretty good videos as far as I remember.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

You should stop discussing technical aspects of video games because this is embarrassing.

There you go ignoring the majority of devs again and projecting.

It doesn't really. I have not seen a single console that did not gain major improvements in the complexity of its games throughout the course of its lifetime.

So you can't read apparently because this is exactly what I said, that it applies to other consoles. Not just the Saturn.

How is this even an argument lol.

This is your argument since you believe the conspiracy opinion that the Saturn has a "higher ceiling" than the PSX, it's basically the Jaguar fan excuse all over again. there's no secret sauce sorry.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Interestingly the last part almost wasn't the case. According to Ryoji Akagawa, the Playstation would have as been as 2d-focused as the saturn had it not been for Virtua Fighter: https://www.eventhubs.com/news/2012/sep/05/how-virtua-fighter-saved-original-playstation/

Which contradicts other people at Sony, who were aware of the Jaguar and 3DO.

The last time Atari Corp. had a positive operating income was in the fiscal year ending December 1989, after that they recorded six consecutive operating losses.
They manufactured 225K Jaguar consoles but could sell to retailers only 125K up to December 1995.
There was nothing to salvage, Atari was an irrelevant entity by that point in time.
I sometime joke by saying that Atari best customer at the time was Sega which paid $50 million for Atari's patents.

Even their relative success with the Atari 7800 was more a matter of living off the Atari brand popularity gained in the past and being cheap.

By salvage, I mean that Sam would have kept Jaguar running at a cheap price as a side console making profit instead of trying to continue competing which it could never do, which would likely lead to him launching another Atari console. The Jaguar only pulled out because of the change in leadership after Sam Tramiels heart attack, which then afterwards Jack Tramiel came out of retirement to help start closing down operations, formed JTS, then liquidated assets and laid a bunch of people off.

As for profits, you are conflating the computer and consoles divisions.

7800 brought in a lot of money as did the Jr. and so did the Lynx for a time. Atari pretty much reported profit for these machines almost everytime. It was only the Jaguar (and the last year of the lynx iirc) that you started seeing losses.

It is worth noting that outside a few years of the ST family, Atari never made money on computers. Ever. Which is why the St was touted as a comeback and was the eye of the press until the 90's.

Even the Atari 8-bit line never made a single dime, even the 5200 which was based on a A400, was pulled out early even though they were beating the CV when they started pulling out, because Atari couldn't see the machine making money, though the 5200 sold 1 million in short time so i think that was a mistake, but Atari likely just panicked and when you include the backlash for the controllers and the fact the games were coming out slower than promised Atari likely just wanted to pull the plug, giving CV victory to pass the 5200 and continue until 1985. J. Computers were always Ataris weakest link, Atari lost more money fighting Commodore and Tandy than they lost in the console crash, and pulled out one of their newer consoles that may have shaved losses from the crash because of their concern about losses from the computer industry. Which before ST lost hundreds of millions, if not more.

After the ST started losing ground it was back to business as usual for the losses. I mean look how quick they abandoned the Falcon.

Speaking of the Atari and Sega feud, there was a requirement in suit for Sega to make games for the Jaguar which Atari strangely did not aggressively go after them for, but it wouldn't have really changed anything since Atari couldn't really produce anything with their lack of funds.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Not for late games... And as always, it depends how much space on disc you are willing to reserve to your videos. But there were very significant improvements, and Saturn also supported an external MPEG card, which was not used a lot.

Not saying that PS1 wasn't better in that regard, but Saturn ended up very good. For example Deep Fear has very clean videos. Same for other late games. NBA Action 98 has pretty good videos as far as I remember.

It’s true that the PSX’s built-in MPEG video allowed for very good video image quality, and Saturn’s early software codec’s were less than optimal. But they did improve things greatly near the end of the system’s lifespan. And, hey, any chance to sing the praises of NBA Action 98 (the original 2K basketball) is a welcome one. We should be playing that right now.

 

[Kruza]

NBA Action '98 was a great game in its heyday! Frame rate can get really choppy whenever a crowd of players gathered around near the basket to contest a ballhandler going for a dunk or layup and also position themselves to jump for rebound attempt. But I still liked a lot of what was featured in this game for sure. Anyway, I thought NBA Action '98 was the first basketball videogame to bring legit competition against the EA's established juggernaut NBA Live series, which were still a very good games in their own right.

*sigh* Now about this topic in general...

As a big Sega fan throughout my childhood and adult life, I'm taking deep breaths, closing my eyes, and painfully nodding while reading a lot of the tragic stuff about this company brought up in this thread. As a youth, adolescent, and also through most of my 20s I was primarily an arcade gamer despite owning a few consoles (Sega Master System included!), and Sega was the biggest reason why. Konami, Capcom, Namco, Atari Games, SNK, Taito, Midway, Data East along with a few other companies also developed many arcade games I enjoyed playing as a youngster. But it was Sega who was the clear #1 to me when it came to providing the most memorable and most influential arcade experiences. Some of the cabinets that housed their games were truly cutting edge! The sitting cabinets for Space Harrier, Out Run, Thunder Blade, Galaxy Force II, Power Drift, Scud Race (Super GT), Sega Rally Championship, Sega Touring Car Championship, then Ferrari F355 Challenge blew my mind, and I will always remember where I was the first time I played them. But that's all stuff that will remain in the distant past. Now fast forward to present time, and the reason I still have positive memories of Sega is mainly because of the long running Virtua Fighter series. And to this day I'm still a VF5FS junkie!

 

[cireza]

This is your argument since you believe the conspiracy opinion that the Saturn has a "higher ceiling" than the PSX,

I didn't say that. You might have reading comprehension issues.

So you can't read apparently because this is exactly what I said

No. You clearly said that Saturn had reach its peak and that it could not make any progress. So you have comprehension issues of your own posts.

 

[nush]

transparencies were easy and common in games,

Transparancies were just an effect, was there ever a game that relied on transparencies for actual gamplay? Gaming press lock onto that as "Proof" the Saturn was worse, but in actuality it does not matter. Sure PS1 was better at 3D and the Saturn brought a 2d knife to a 3D gunfight. But the Saturn isn't a shit system, just an also ran.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

I'm just gonna drop this off here.

 

[Fatnick]

Which contradicts other people at Sony, who were aware of the Jaguar and 3DO.

Is it really such a contradiction? In terms of 3d output, I'd say the Jaguar is closer to the Saturn as Sato originally envisioned it rather than the machine it ended up being

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

I didn't say that. You might have reading comprehension issues.

No, you're deceptive, as you clearly agreed with that statement before, I never said YOU said it and you know that.

No. You clearly said that Saturn had reach its peak and that it could not make any progress. So you have comprehension issues of your own posts.

You are spinning words which is what a person with cognitive disabilities, usually self-inflicted, would do.

However, even if that was said as you put it (which it isn't the context is missing) that doesn't mean the same as saying that the Saturn "didn't improve at all" apparently you have zero critical thinking otherwise such a stupid conclusion wouldn't have been possible. There's a difference between not improving to have a higher ceiling than the PS1, and then not improving at all. A 5 year old would know the difference, not you apparently.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Is it really such a contradiction? In terms of 3d output, I'd say the Jaguar is closer to the Saturn as Sato originally envisioned it rather than the machine it ended up being

This for some reason omits I also mentioned the 3DO. In anycase, even then the goal would be to have a console stronger than the Jaguar, not one that meets it in power. So for either console, PlayStation was likely going to go 3D regardless of whether Virtua Fighter came out or not, and considering what other people at Sony said, this guy had a minority opnion.

 

[German Hops]

I'm just gonna drop this off here.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Is it really such a contradiction? In terms of 3d output, I'd say the Jaguar is closer to the Saturn as Sato originally envisioned it rather than the machine it ended up being

It certainly matches up with Kalinske’s early idea of using the Motorola 68030 processor. That chipset would have looked a lot like Jaguar or Falcon. Needless to say, that notion was obliterated when Kutaragi entered the scene.

 

[Kiya's Guard]

3D happened

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

It certainly matches up with Kalinske’s early idea of using the Motorola 68030 processor. That chipset would have looked a lot like Jaguar or Falcon. Needless to say, that notion was obliterated when Kutaragi entered the scene.

I just realized you and the guy you responding to are mixing up the Saturn and the PSX, I was responding to someone saying that the PSX would have been 2D without Virtua Fighter, but said that's not possible since Sony knew of the Jaguar and 3DO.

Now on Sega's end, the original Saturn would have been Jaguar level or a bit more powerful, and honestly, I believe that Saturn should have been the one to launch in 1993 or maybe spring 1994. Sega would have had a head start with consoles and games ready to ship, both in large quantities, Sega would have gotten a head start on the generation competition being an an affordable price at the Jaguars level or only $50 more, easier to bring games and devs over from the Mega Drive, and would have had over a million or 2 consoles sold, with many software developers preparing upcoming titles by the time 3DO dropped the price 400 times and Sony got the Playstation released. The N64 delay being an additional cherry on top.

A $250 or $300 Saturn with Jaguar or marginally better than Jaguar graphics, with software support and a head start before they dropped the ball with the Mega Drive, would have completely changed how the gen played out. Also consider that many design flaws in the original Saturn were similar to the ones in the Jaguar (68k excluded) but with this Saturn, despite being similar in strength to the jaguar, for 2D and 3D developers would have had an easier time squeezing the juice out of this Saturn due to easier development and tools, so late Jaguar games would have been on the Saturn from the start. You wouldn't have had any Checkered Flag or Club Drive level graphics early on like we saw with the Jaguar.

Of course 3DO would still blow everyone out with its polygonal 1994 games, especially Need For Speed, but it would still be $450 Gold Star $500 Panasonic by end of 1994. This Saturn would have been $200 by that point with double the library.

A lot of people think being Jaguar levels of power is "bad" when people talk about hypothetical launches but it's really not. The Jaguar was a capable machine for the time but it had many design issues and not just that, it had bugs too in the dev tools. A properly designed Saturn would have late end of life Jag games right from the get go, and over time even better than that. Sega having that power with a price advantage, still riding high off the Mega Drive, software developers on board, CD, and with a year head start on everyone but the 3DO, which would be $200 more at minimum, would have won it the gen. Sony would have it's advantages and money but it's be 2nd place at best, depending on how the 3DO would do in this scenario, and the N64 would still be late, in fact, the N64 may have been a disaster for Nintendo in this case because there'd barely be room for them to enter. 3DO only over spend on desperation sales to keep numbers up compared to PS1 and to a lesser extent the Saturn due to their graphical advantage, 3DO would have the strongest console other than the PS1 in this scenario.

 

[cireza]

No, you're deceptive, as you clearly agreed with that statement before, I never said YOU said it and you know that.

I never said nor thought that Saturn had a higher ceiling than PS1. The simple truth is that we cannot tell, since Saturn did not reach its potential.

You are spinning words which is what a person with cognitive disabilities, usually self-inflicted, would do.

Overall this has turned into a bad-faith discussion where you are pretty much saying something then its opposite, and putting false arguments into people's mouth to have the final word. And then you come telling people that they are retarded or whatever.

However, even if that was said as you put it (which it isn't the context is missing) that doesn't mean the same as saying that the Saturn "didn't improve at all" apparently you have zero critical thinking otherwise such a stupid conclusion wouldn't have been possible. There's a difference between not improving to have a higher ceiling than the PS1, and then not improving at all. A 5 year old would know the difference, not you apparently.

In this case, you are derailing my post from "you said that the Saturn could not improve above what it did in 1997" to "you said that the Saturn never improved". Genius.

it's still debatable the Saturn couldn't do much better than those top 1997 games.

This is your own post saying that Saturn could have not done much better than 1997 games, implying that it had reach its peak. And this is beyond stupid, I hope that you realize it. And this is what I was talking about, not some imaginary argument that you said the console had never improved.

What is really sad in the end is the fact that I will never get back the time I lost responding to you.

In the end, I highly doubt that you ever touched these consoles and feel like you simply came here for the sake of arguing. If that gets you excited, then great.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

I never said nor thought that Saturn had a higher ceiling than PS1.

You agreed with someone who did.

Overall this has turned into a bad-faith discussion where you are pretty much saying something then its opposite, and putting false arguments into people's mouth

More projecting, that's all you've done from the start. You've yet to add any substance or evidence to anything you said.

In this case, you are derailing my post from "you said that the Saturn could not improve above what it did in 1997" to "you said that the Saturn never improved". Genius.

This is an example of you projecting, and being deceptive removing context form the conversation.

This is your own post saying that Saturn could have not done much better than 1997 games, implying that it had reach its peak.

And here's another example of your blatant dishonesty, I wonder what console I am referring to with "those 1997 games" oh the PS1 games from that year. Which I don't agree that Saturn had a higher ceiling than. But to you a liar, who seems to not have any sense of morals, for some reason believes that's the same as me saying that the Saturn "never improved" (?) despite the fact the Saturn can still improve, just not improve meeting or passing the competition. It's clear that you're not only are full of it, but can't be trusted to have a simple honest discussion.

In the end I know for a fact you're full of crap, and wouldn't be surprised if you played any consoles let alone these. it seems you just can't handle an alternate viewpoint, and will go as far as to being a scummy dishonest simpleton to try and win some pointless argument you can't win, while riding off others posts because you've added nothing of substance.

 

[Lysandros]

No doubt Saturn had some good games, VF2 looked good, but let’s face it, PS1 3D is better. More fluid, transparencies were easy and common in games, fire effects werent always big blocky messes like Saturn etc…. Even something like cgi cutscenes were better on PS1 because I’m pretty sure their decoding program was better. I think PS1 was JPEG and Saturn was mpeg1. Whatever the reason was Saturn games had grainy fmv and cgi.

This was actually due to a pretty powerful (80 MIPS) MDEC hardware decompressor embedded within the very CPU (alongside GTE 3D accelerator/co-processor responsible for the effects that you mentioned and COP0). Since its job is "decompressing images and video into the VRAM along with the high quality FMV playback" i think it's possible that it was also used for streaming in some games (like Crash Bandicoot and/or Fear Effect?). Saturn didn't have anything quite alike.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

You always get hardcore Sega fans protecting the fort. I thought Genesis was an awesome system. Never had a DC, but could see it had some great games too in a short time span. But let's face it, Saturn was a trainwreck.

A lot of "would have", "could have", "but the potential was there in 1998 when devs got used to it" kind of thing. Who cares what tools or specs it had. The 3D games were worse vs PS. And not just multiplat games.

Name one Saturn racing game or series better than Gran Turismo 1 and 2.

I brought up CGI/cur scenes were better on PS1, and I got responses earlier like Saturn cut scenes improved in NBA Action 98, or Saturn had an MPEG add on. I checked out the MPEG decoder add on. Never knew it existed. It cost 20,000 Yen (about $200 US). How many gamers are going to buy an MPEG add on for that price?

 

[Fatnick]

This for some reason omits I also mentioned the 3DO. In anycase, even then the goal would be to have a console stronger than the Jaguar, not one that meets it in power. So for either console, PlayStation was likely going to go 3D regardless of whether Virtua Fighter came out or not, and considering what other people at Sony said, this guy had a minority opnion.

The 3do complicates things because it looked so good prerelese and so poor post release. The only real lesson you could take away from it is that no one is buying a $700 console in 1994.

I think you might be simplifying things a bit too far. Console design was always a balance of power and cost.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

The 3do complicates things because it looked so good prerelese and so poor post release. The only real lesson you could take away from it is that no one is buying a $700 console in 1994.

I think you might be simplifying things a bit too far. Console design was always a balance of power and cost.

Only the price looked poor, not the graphics.

Not sure what you're getting at in the bottom, Sony was able to outdo the 3DO at a modest improvement in texture mapping and a major improvement in frame rate at a reasonable price. The graphics were not why the 3DO was $700, it was $700 because the manufacturers were not making money on the hardware otherwise. This is why Panasonic later started to produces/publish titles and LG did as well at some point. 3DO was the software portion of the deal, so if they released the console at $300 it would be a bloodbath for Matushitas profits. It's why 3Oo announced the price would drop (again) when Goldstar jumped in because there would be more consoles being made on the 3DO standard and so as a result making them would become cheaper.

Either way Sony was a rich company, and were well aware of what they could pay for 3D graphics on or better than the 3DO and Jaguar, I don't buy that they'd put out 2D device if not for Virtua Fighter, especially when not many other Sony reps corroborate that story.

 

[cireza]

Name one Saturn

Name one series that achieves something better than Panzer Dragoon series or Radiant Silvergun ? And GT2 is 1999 by the way...

This is the kind of argument that isn't worth anything since each console has things where it excels and not the other.

 

[cireza]

You agreed with someone who did.


More projecting, that's all you've done from the start. You've yet to add any substance or evidence to anything you said.



This is an example of you projecting, and being deceptive removing context form the conversation.



And here's another example of your blatant dishonesty, I wonder what console I am referring to with "those 1997 games" oh the PS1 games from that year. Which I don't agree that Saturn had a higher ceiling than. But to you a liar, who seems to not have any sense of morals, for some reason believes that's the same as me saying that the Saturn "never improved" (?) despite the fact the Saturn can still improve, just not improve meeting or passing the competition. It's clear that you're not only are full of it, but can't be trusted to have a simple honest discussion.

In the end I know for a fact you're full of crap, and wouldn't be surprised if you played any consoles let alone these. it seems you just can't handle an alternate viewpoint, and will go as far as to being a scummy dishonest simpleton to try and win some pointless argument you can't win, while riding off others posts because you've added nothing of substance.

With the amount of insults you are now resorting to, I sense that we are close to getting somewhere interesting.

And just so you know...

Can't wait to see your own collection.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

^Posts two copies of one game, calls it a collection, and drops all the other (relevant arguments that started the conversation in the first place) arguments he was losing in one post. Yep, he's done here, going for the angst teenager way of losing an argument.

BTW, you should consider selling one of those, they can go for good prices if you do it right.

 

[Lysandros]

You always get hardcore Sega fans protecting the fort. I thought Genesis was an awesome system. Never had a DC, but could see it had some great games too in a short time span. But let's face it, Saturn was a trainwreck.

A lot of "would have", "could have", "but the potential was there in 1998 when devs got used to it" kind of thing. Who cares what tools or specs it had. The 3D games were worse vs PS. And not just multiplat games.

Name one Saturn racing game or series better than Gran Turismo 1 and 2.

I brought up CGI/cur scenes were better on PS1, and I got responses earlier like Saturn cut scenes improved in NBA Action 98, or Saturn had an MPEG add on. I checked out the MPEG decoder add on. Never knew it existed. It cost 20,000 Yen (about $200 US). How many gamers are going to buy an MPEG add on for that price?

As an example of 3D racing game graphics that PS1 could produce in 1996. Starts at 3:50.

 

[cireza]

As an example of 3D racing game graphics that PS1 could produce in 1996. Starts at 3:50.

Saturn had its share of pretty good racing games. You had the Touge King the Spirits series that was developed exclusively and took advantage of the hardware, with very convincing fog, lighting, a pretty nice fade-in effects for the backgrounds and a good sense of speed.

Here are some examples :

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

When looking at arcade racers, Saturn definitely had the better option at launch with Daytona. I was always confused at how Ridge Racer turned out so bad on PS1, and it didn't help I played the arcade version beforehand. Sega putting out Daytona Championship edition, which fixed the few issues I had with the original release made things even better. Didn't care for Ridge Racer until Type 4, though Rage Racer was alright. For arcade racers I preferred to play them in Arcades or on computers back then. I figured consoles wouldn't handle them for a few more years. I did think Sims and kart racers were slow enough for consoles however.

 

[CAPSOL]

Sega had the worst management ever. They did not make one good decision after the genesis.

Prove me wrong.

Out of that shitty mgmt came some of the best games Ive ever played !

SEGA was on top of their development game when the DC came out imo

 

[cireza]

kart racers

Talking about kart racers, Street Racer is a game that worked very well with the architecture of the Saturn, and a good example of a game being largely more impressive on Saturn than PS1. Not that the PS1 version is bad in any way, there is simply much less going on.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Talking about kart racers, Street Racer is a game that worked very well with the architecture of the Saturn,

Saturn pretty much has an automatic advantage when 2D is involved with few if any exceptions.

VDP2 is what gave the Sega version the advantage. In this case the VDP2 is greatly helping to provide the difference.

 

[cireza]

VDP2 is what gave the Sega version the advantage. In this case the VDP2 is greatly helping to provide the difference.

Precisely. It handles the plane ground, the sky as well as the clouds and transparent shadows they cast. VDP1 displays the sprites as well as a lot of 3D background elements. They even made the effort of baking in transparency for these 3D elements in the foreground. This is a case of a developer really putting in the effort.

 

[Nikodemos]

Out of that shitty mgmt came some of the best games Ive ever played !

SEGA was on top of their development game when the DC came out imo

The VMU was ultimately pointless, tamagotchi and companion screen functionality notwithstanding. Plus it offered too little save space. And the controller was crap (only 1 analog stick made of shitty hard plastic, the d-pad was noticeably worse than previous designs, no multifunctional Select button).
Also, I still think they should've gone for the PowerPC 602e + Voodoo 2.5 version and released 1 year earlier with a bunch of PC ports as launch titles. Also a cheap bundle with KB+M for control parity in online shooters.

 

[winjer]

The Saturn could do great things, when the hardware was properly used.
This is a tech demo for Shenmue, before it was canceled and moved to the Dreamcast.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

The Saturn could do great things, when the hardware was properly used.
This is a tech demo for Shenmue, before it was canceled and moved to the Dreamcast.

Granted this was in a controlled incomplete environmental and we won't ever really know how the game would have looked and ran if the whole first area was playable (in town), but it's an impressive demo.

The VMU was ultimately pointless, tamagotchi and companion screen functionality notwithstanding. Plus it offered too little save space. And the controller was crap (only 1 analog stick made of shitty hard plastic, the d-pad was noticeably worse than previous designs, no multifunctional Select button).
Also, I still think they should've gone for the PowerPC 602e + Voodoo 2.5 version and released 1 year earlier with a bunch of PC ports as launch titles. Also a cheap bundle with KB+M for control parity in online shooters.

VMU also had a shorter than expected battery. Luckily the battery doesn't matter for the VMU acting as a memory card, if Sega had made it so you lost your saves the reaction would have been quite something.

 

[Lysandros]

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 was indeed 20/17 FPS (NTSC/PAL) with drops on top for Saturn and virtually locked 30/25 FPS on PS1, a difference of around 50% in addition to graphical differences like the effects and track detail. Wipeout 2097 situation later was also similar.

 

[RetroAV]

Once again, PandaMonium goes above and beyond expectations! Video description reads:

"This is a journey through time analyzing the history of Virtua Cop, its Saturn port, and revelations on why Sega's 5th gen console performed the way it did. You will see source material that you cannot find anywhere else — woven into a tale straight from the trenches of 90's video game development."