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After 25 years SEGA shows SEGA Venus, the Nomad Prototype (genesis portable)
- Thread starter celsowmbr
- Start date
DunDunDunpachi
Patient MembeR
I don't think Saturn was the problem. It was the SEGA CD + 32x that cut Saturn's knees out from beneath itself. The hardware was based on SEGA's current arcade technology and was/is a solid piece of kit. Unfortunately, SEGA squandered so much of their customer goodwill leading up to the Saturn's launch.
RAIDEN1
Member
Well for what its worth the Sega CD was a very capable piece of kit for 1991, considering the competition...that's why as add-ons go it was more successful than the 32x...and was fortunate to last as long as it did.....Saturn was a good piece of kit if you are specifically looking at the gaming world in 2D which was fine in 1992...but come 1995...Saturn was behind the curve against the competition...
DunDunDunpachi
Patient MembeR
Don't get me wrong: Saturn wasn't flawless, but I think the impression that it was behind the curve was 80% marketing fud and 20% truth. Plenty of stunning 3D games on Saturn, in spite of the hodgepodge coprocessor setup.
Backwards compatibility with SEGA CD titles could've been a huge advantage...
RAIDEN1
Member
Hell backward compatibility with the Genesis would have been the perfect "bridge" instead the $h1$- show that was the 32x was released, because Sega freaked out over the Jaguar...
DunDunDunpachi
Patient MembeR
Indeed. I wonder how feasible it would've been to use the Meg expansion slot (or a converter) to allow Genesis cartridges to play. SEGA CD, Sega Genesis, and Saturn all on one system? Could've been killer.
It must be said that lot of FUDs were created by SEGA fans just to justify the gap with Playstation.
One of the many examples is Virtua Fighters 2 as a great achievement on Saturn because it's 60fps in hires mode. VF2 was a great game and very good technically, but mostly flat, without light sources and goraud shading. When Saturn had to fill the gap with PSX tech, especially with games like Tekken 2, SEGA released Fighters Megamix which is way more interesting on the graphics side, but for good reasons, at lower resolution. Burning Ranger is a truly great game technically on par with MGS.
On 2D side, where in theory Saturn had a great advantage, most of gap in power over PSX was because the double amount of RAM, not because it's supposed best architecture for 2D games.
mansoor1980
Gold Member
owned a master system2 and mega drive2 back in the day, was really hurt when sega quit after dreamcast
DaGwaphics
Member
The Saturn was too poor in 3D performance to compete with PS or N64, Sega was offered the N64 chip before Nintendo, they should have taken it.
cireza
Member
SEGA made a difficult decision to have a competent console in both 2D and 3D, which was not the case of Sony and Nintendo which had two consoles oriented towards 3D, 2D being achieved through indirect means by the developers.
In the end, this made the Saturn the console it is : a complicated machine to develop for. As Sony and Nintendo both had 3D dedicated consoles, they of course aimed all of their communication towards "3D is cool, 2D sucks". As SEGA wasn't, and still isn't, a company that understands shit about communication and marketing, of course they lost this battle.
But in the end, if you take a look at their decision of having both competent 2D and 3D components, coming from the MegaDrive, it was a perfectly understandable approach. At least that's my opinion.
Then they built the best console ever with the Dreamcast. This console had everything you could hope for when released in 98/99, but still failed, which does not make much sense honestly. My guess is that people did not even acknowledge the console, there was only PS1 and PS2 in their minds. Because there really wasn't anything bad to say about the Dreamcast, overall. It was such a huge leap forward, it was incredible.
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DaGwaphics
Member
I just think Sega of Japan misread the market. While Sega of America pushed for the SGI design because they felt 2D wasn't "it" going forward, Japan wanted better 2D and sound performance than what SGI could deliver. Had Sega gone the other way the VG market would look quite different now. I think a CD based Sega console with the 3D performance of the N64 would have been a seller.
Regarding DC, it was one of the greatest consoles of all time IMO. Unfortunately, the ship had sailed on Sega at that point. Consumer trust had tanked after both the 32x and Saturn were quickly abandoned. Sega buyers felt burned, many didn't grab a DC because they figured it would be just another failed attempt. I didn't pick mine up until the discontinuation of the system was already announced (got it for like $50).
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mansoor1980
Gold Member
the n64 specs were on offer for sega and they rejected?
DaGwaphics
Member
Yes. Sega of America was all in, but Sega of Japan said nope.
cireza
Member
That's too bad. Still glad you picked one. Had mine for Christmas 99, and it offered me some of the best gaming years of my life.
The console is still plugged and I use it very often. Great picture even on a HD TV.
mansoor1980
Gold Member
no wonder they lost any good will with fans, sega cd was still pretty good , but the 32x was such a mess causing confusion among fans , and on top of this the rejection of a superior spec sheet.
DaGwaphics
Member
I had an absolute blast with mine as well. I spent $100 initially and got a crazy amount of software plus the system. In the end I played everything I wanted on it, even though the games were no longer available at retail (thank goodness for that CD-R support). Mine gave up the ghost around the time that I got my 360 (early 2006 or so), glad to hear you got a really reliable one.
cireza
Member
Sadly CD-R were a killer for the console, mainly because the files were not arranged correctly when burning games, causing a lot of stress on the lens and motor. Nowadays, you can find ReviveDC isos that are well arranged, even better than some retail discs. And other solutions, such as GD-Emu, that can salvage a console with a dead lens.
DaGwaphics
Member
Any HDMI mods for it? I might have to pick one up at some point if a good HDMI mod is out there, along with SD in place of the optical drive. I still have the ISOs around somewhere.
alabtrosMyster
Banned
Sega CD was OK, it came out in 1991 or 1992, had its own features... What made it a problem was the focus on interactive movies, nobody wanted that.
Either way, 32x was deeply flawed from a technical point of view and unreliable, it caused a split in development resources and messaging... That didn't help the Saturn (which had its own issues compared to the PSX). The Sega CD was not part of the same dynamic.
It really was a critical mass of all these things, especially trying to fit the 32x in the middle didn't help.
cireza
Member
I am using an Akura Box, it does a great job. There might be other, more complicated solutions out there, but I am not an expert. I like it plug and play when it is possible, and the Dreamcast having a VGA output, it natively does a very clean signal. Akura Box takes this signal, and sends it via HDMI (480p through HDMI).
RetroRGB certainly has information about this, you should check the website.
Alan Wake
Member
Yeah, I don't think the Mega-CD was the main reason for the Saturn failing. It was a part of it, though, and one can only imagine being a developer when Sega threw all these different formats in your face. Easier to just go with Sony. It's a darn shame, the Saturn was a nice console.
Laconian Sword
Member
This thread is an oasis 
Thanks for posting!
The video is funnier than I would've ever expected too. Great dry humour and delivery.
Thanks for posting!The video is funnier than I would've ever expected too. Great dry humour and delivery.
ManaByte
Member
Capcom's fighting games (with the cart) on the Saturn were the greatest thing ever.
th4tguy
Member
Not really. Sega approached the Saturn as being the most powerful 2d console and only after realizing that it's competition was going for a 3d focused system did they start adding in 3d components. It's because of this that the 3d capabilities were less than that of the PS1 and N64 and also much much more complicated to make use of. They didn't design the system to be good in both.
cireza
Member
This is a wrong and frequent argument you find around the web from people that have no clue about what they are talking about.
ManaByte
Member
Sega was pushing 3D with the 32X. People are dumb to believe they didn't want their next gen console to run their 3D arcade games at home.
cireza
Member
They were doing full 3D with Virtua Racing in 1992. They had super scaler games starting from 1985. They had the ASIC chip in the SEGA-CD.
But they did not think of putting 3D hardware in the Saturn at first ? Believing this is the next level of dumb indeed.
Tarin02543
Member
I believe Sega Titan existed too, this was the Saturn in a arcade PCB. and it uses cartridges!
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mejin
Member
There was: Sega itself. Or rather, Sega's track record weighed against it.
I'd say some people just didn't want to give the benefit of the doubt anymore. they played the wait game. And those who waited were not surprised when Sega killed Dreamcast so soon after PS2 launch.
I think Sega and MS have some similar behaviour sometimes, essentially being headed by asinine suits (no wonder Peter Moore worked for both), but they have two fundamental differences: the former had great first party games and the latter have the money to survive this market.
Maybe if MS acquires Sega they can for the first time win the people's hearts.
DaGwaphics
Member
They definitely figured 3D in, but I think that Sega of Japan just thought that early 3D was too ugly (at least what could be achieved on a home console) for the masses. There was an article with Kalinske that addressed that, maybe I can find it. They were still looking at 3D as the niche for specific games and genres rather than the immediate future direction. They had gone 3D at the arcade, but those machines contained thousands of dollars of hardware at that point. Plus there's the whole Jupiter fiasco. LOL
The old Sega faithful can debate these issues for days.
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Alexios
Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Why's everyone talking about the Saturn in a NOMAD thread and why's it so common for people to try to pass fud as fact in unrelated topics lately? Saturn was great, the initial wave of multiplatform 3D games of the era before Sony's marketing, alongside SEGA's own mistakes, completely obliterated it in the West don't really show any huge deficiencies bigger than the more/less powerful platforms of today that people are fine with, at least not when at the hands of capable studios. Tomb Raider, Resident Evil and the like all are great versions, you aren't missing anything if you played them on Saturn instead of PS (graphically speaking, RE has more features on Saturn after all but that's expected for a version that released after the original, but before the Director's Cut). Grandia and Dead or Alive are great too. Not to mention its spectacular exclusives or considerably better versions of multiplatform games (stuff like Powerslave). How can fud like Saturn can't do 3D be a thing in 2020, I guess some just never got over console wars and are still ignorant manchildren. It's more than on par and has great 2D and 3D games, it also was more competitive in Japan.
Plenty ace 3D games like Gungriffon 1 & 2, Stellar Assault SS and the Gundam Side Story games didn't make the cut for whatever reason (plus many of the games aren't shown off well, Powerslave looks so awkward, Saga is only starting areas, etc.) so this isn't indicative of its full range still...
Plenty ace 3D games like Gungriffon 1 & 2, Stellar Assault SS and the Gundam Side Story games didn't make the cut for whatever reason (plus many of the games aren't shown off well, Powerslave looks so awkward, Saga is only starting areas, etc.) so this isn't indicative of its full range still...
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BigDeadFreak
Member
There's a planet Mega Drive? I wanna go there.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
I never had a Saturn, but played a bunch of games when I rented it.... VF 2, Rally, NHL etc..... And I play tested random games on demo at game stores.
NHL 97 was god awful, but the other games I played at home were good. Then again, I cherry picked the good ones. VF2 was sweet.
But no doubt PS had way better 3D. It was like night and day. PS was smoother, goroud shading, transparencies. It even had higher quality FMV clips. Saturn had this grainy shit you'd see from early PC-cd roms. I remember playing Wipeout on both and couldn't believe how bad the Saturn version looked.
Most of the Sega Sports were terrible on Saturn so I missed nothing while their baseball and football games on Genesis were great.
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RAIDEN1
Member
When Ken Kutaragi and his team saw Virtua Fighter in the arcades back in 1993, that was the game-changer for them to switch the PSX to a 3D focused system....for some reason Sega themselves couldn't see the writing on the wall....it is telling that the Dreamcast is NEVER referred to as the "Sega Dreamcast" ....much like the "Sega Master System/Sega Genesis/Sega CD/Sega Saturn"....they tried to keep that name as minimalistic as possible as they know their reputation with the consumers was rock bottom after the debacle of the 32x and Saturn....you would think that Sega having never had a console that could give Nintendo's machines a run for their money prior to 1987, having found the winning formula so to speak with the Genesis, they would build upon that with the Saturn....instead they took their eye of the ball the minute the Jaguar was released.....had they focused on the Saturn totally it could have likely taken the PSX to a few more rounds....with regards to the Dreamcast, I have heard that the minute Metal Gear Solid 2 was shown, it was clear that the Dreamcast wouldn't have been able to replicate such a game...even if the system was alive and well for the whole of 2001 and 2002....
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cireza
Member
They actually turned this around pretty well starting from 97, and if sports was your thing, I think there was a decent offering overall.
BabyYoda
Banned
That's insightful, thanks. It astounded me at the time that Sega didn't make a full on 3D console, especially considering they were dominating 3D in the arcades. Mind you, iirc, their Arcade machines at this time were based on Lockheed Martin tech and cost a small fortune, so that wasn't viable for the home! Still, I'm amazed that Sega didn't see the way the wind was blowing, talk about being out of touch with the consumers, 3D was all we could think about back then and even ugly 3D was more than enough for that gen.
Mind you, most of us were in a bit too much of a rush to throw away 2D, it took until games like Cave Story and others for developers to realise there was still hunger for ye olde games. I personally became a 3D snob for a decade or so! I of course realise both can co-exist, it's like it was a 2D vs 3D thing for a while there for some odd reason, man us humans are so tribalistic...