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Which black sheep console had it worse, Wii U or Sega Saturn?

Which doomed system had it worse?


  • Total voters
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It's not a lame cop out, that's why you removed the rest of context because you didn't have a valid response.

It's a lame copout to say it didn't matter that a system had a poor launch because its 'rivals' were coming later, more so when it doesn't fit a narrative. I keep bringing up Japan for the simple reason it was a market where SEGA and Saturn was able to outsell the PS for large periods and also the N64 and just wondering how 'if' SquareSoft had moved to the Saturn for FF7 what sort of impact that would have had in Japan. That's for Japan, sadly in the USA and Europe would morons in charge of SEGA thinking another add-on and the cartridge format was going to be the winner for the next-gen and where you had SEGA Vs SEGA for its consumers, retail and developers. Do I back the Saturn or the 32X? I totally mess of a business strategy, if ever there was one

The Mega Drive launch sales didn't set sales alight in the USA, it didn't have a great launch lineup and wasn't doing wonders in Japan, the only expectation to the rule was Europe (where the Mega Drive from day one enjoyed great sales) It took until Sonic before we saw Mega Drive sales truly explode that was 2 years after the Mega Drive 1st came out. So a great launch isn't the be and end all. It's what comes later with the 1st and 2nd gen software that can have a bigger impact on sales, more so when the console price hits the magic mass-market price point Dragon Quest came out in 2000 and long after Squaresoft had made the PS the system to own in Japan for RPG's


A SEGA just behind the Saturn could have put up a much better fight and possibly could have come a good 2nd place and if SEGA had Square a easy number 1 in Japan
 

th4tguy

Member
Saturn had it worse. For all the reasons listed already and the simple fact that most of its very expensive games are still only available on the original system. Even emulation for the system is very lacking.
Not only is most of the wiiu library available on other consoles but emulation for wiiu is somehow in a much better state.
I got a Saturn back in 96 and because of where I lived had a very hard time finding games for it. Still so many games for the Saturn that I wish I could have played and if it was any other system I would have had many different means of doing that.
 
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Genx3

Member
Saturn is till this day the Fighting game King.
No console has had a better fighting game library.
No console has come packed with a better fighting game controller.
Saturn also had Graphically superior (more frames of animation) versions of 2D fighters due to it having more Ram than the competition.
Saturn's 2D hardware was 2nd to none. It could handle more sprites, parallax backgrounds and animations than any console launched WW for it's time.
Too bad the hardware was literally a clusterfuck of processors thrown all together last minute to help the Hitachi developed Saturn SH2 HW catch up to the MIPS developed MIPS R3000 chipset in the PS1.
 

Jubenhimer

Member
not a single relevant new IP to carry the platform,
We did get Splatoon TBF. But I agree that the Wii U desperately needed more games that were unique to it. Far too much of the console's library feels like it was recycled concepts from the Wii, DS, and 3DS.
 

Synless

Member
I’m voting Wii U because it’s legacy has been mostly ported to Switch. At least the Saturns games are for the most part only playable on the Saturn.
 
When I was a kid I didn't know anyone with a Sega saturn. In fact seeing the console for the first time when I was in my early teens I thought I was seeing a console that was rare.
 

Nikodemos

Member
The original Wii sold the lie of a revolution, the WiiU sold the lie of an ipad for kids
Seamless motion controls weren't a lie. True, Sega had them on the Dreamcast, but outside of Sega Bass Fishing and the one guy who finished Code Veronica using said fishing rod, very few people took notice.
 
People had already gotten weirdly toxic about Sega, in my anecdotal memory being a kid in Chesapeake VA in the mid 90s. I think I was in the 3rd or 4th grade with my token small group of nerds, and we were analyzing each console. When I mentioned the Saturn someone immediately blurted out “Saturn REALLY sucks!!” But here’s the hilarious part: I calmly replied, like I was the Sage of video games (which I still fancy myself as being) that the Saturn was technically more powerful than PlayStation. I actually knew this shit as a fucking 12-year old, even though it didn’t really get hashed out until over 20 years later. There must have been some short commentary on it from a hardware person in EGM, GameFan, NextGen, or whichever magazine I read at the time. Anyways, of course it didn’t matter because to the naked casual eye they were either the same, or the PS was slightly better since it was getting all the R&D from the majority of devs. Or the PS was getting all the games the casual player wanted to play like Spyro, not that weirdo game based on the art by a guy named “Möbius” about a dragon flying through some steampunk world with genetic engineering.

So, the Saturn lol. People just ignored the WiiU or gave it a free pass. In fact I haven’t even really seen Nintendo fans acknowledge it as a failure. They sort of just say, “Meh, a 3 year run is good enough. I had a good enough time for what I paid, with my quaint little library of maybe a dozen games along with the backwards compatibility. Ain’t much else I give a fuck about.”

The other fun detail I have to mention about that story in the first paragraph is none of those dudes had gotten screwed by the 32X. I always get tired of that legend of the MD add-ons because no one actually owned a 32X and the SegaCD was legit good, but it is what it is. The fucking hilarious thing is I DID know one dude with a 32X, an affluent kid the same age as me, and there was zero evidence that he was bitter about it. He just didn’t think about it on those terms — probably thought it was a good enough experience with Virtua Racing Deluxe, Star Wars, and Virtua Fighter. The concept of resenting the whole company forever and wanting nothing less than for their name to be scrubbed from existence was foreign to him. The funny thing is I had skipped the 32X and gotten the PS and Saturn, which we played a lot together, but he never once started crying or something and saying he should have bought this instead lmfao. What’s even more hilarious is I was sitting there sort of secretly feeling sorry for him, thinking how I had committed a much more educated move as a consumer whether it was the Sat or the PS. But I think he had too many other interests in his life. He was a talented musician, but I digress.
 
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It's a lame copout to say it didn't matter that a system had a poor launch because its 'rivals' were coming later,
You can't compare the PS2 to rivals that didn't exist yet. You're being completely irrational, you can only compare to the DC launch to the ps2, and outside Japan I said the PS2 was worse, and Sega squandered their early advantage their second year.

The Mega Drive launch sales didn't set sales alight in the USA,
This was never part of the conversation, I explained this twice, you brought this up without reason. The point was that Sega failed to convert Genesis owners because it didn't have games they wanted.

SEGA just behind the Saturn could have put up a much better fight and possibly could have come a good 2nd place and if SEGA had Square a easy number 1 in Japan

No it couldn't, they did not have the games to bring in new SEGA customers or two convert genesis owners. I know this is something Saturn fans constantly have trouble admitting but Sony hrounroughtg in an expanded audience and converted many computer and console users over time, Sega didn't do either even just within it's own ecosystem.

As for Japan, you continue with the strange delusion that Sega having FF7 would work, it wouldn't unless it was Exclusive, and even then that wouldn't have given Sega victory because Sony already had other system sellers even without FF7 before and during that same year. It was already near 2:1 with momentum before FF7 or the hype for it before release even began. Also already games on both systems were frequently selling more on PS1 even then.

You're basically ignoring all this to create an imaginary battle where you can pretend the only reason the Saturn became irrelevant innjapannis because of FF7, no. Even then SEGA would never get it as an exclusive regardless, it would be in both, and Sony would back it and have the marketing deal, and it would sell more on PS1.

In America the games barely relevant compared to all the other big sellers.

I keep bringing up Japan for the simple reason it was a market where SEGA and Saturn was able to outsell the PS for large periods and also the N64
It wasn't large periods, they were losing substantially in less than two physical years to the PSX from launch. The Saturn also never outsold the N64 a single year the N64 was out. N64 was delayed and outsold the Saturn every fiscal year it was out in Japan, if the N64 released earlier the Saturn would have lost. N64 had no fighters, jrpgs, and many other japanese favorite genres yet it outsold the Saturn in it's first fiscal year which was the peak Saturn fiscal year. N64 ended less than the Saturn but they both ended up in the 5 million sales tier.
 
I was the Sage of video games (which I still fancy myself as being) that the Saturn was technically more powerful than PlayStation.
The Saturn is not stronger than the PlayStation. The gap isn't as wide as people believed due to the amount of work needed to show it, but it was not stronger. I'm hearing this a lot recently I think Saturn fans are becoming the same as Jaguar fans.

The other fun detail I have to mention about that story in the first paragraph is none of those dudes had gotten screwed by the 32X. I always get tired of that legend of the MD add-ons because no one actually owned a 32X and the SegaCD was legit good, but it is what it is. The fucking hilarious thing is I DID know one dude with a 32X, an affluent kid the same age as me, and there was zero evidence that he was bitter about it. He just didn’t think about it on those terms — probably thought it was a good enough experience with Virtua Racing Deluxe, Star Wars, and Virtua Fighter. The concept of resenting the whole company forever and wanting nothing less than for their name to be scrubbed from existence was foreign to him. The funny thing is I had skipped the 32X and gotten the PS and Saturn, which we played a lot together, but he never once started crying or something and saying he should have bought this instead lmfao. What’s even more hilarious is I was sitting there sort of secretly feeling sorry for him, thinking how I had committed a much more educated move as a consumer whether it was the Sat or the PS. But I think he had too many other interests in his life. He was a talented musician, but I digress.

The 32X blame is a strange one, it was released to give life to the Genesis and it did, it sold estimated 750k and could have sold more if they didn't pull the plug. Especially with how slow the first year of the Saturn was in the US, had some decent games on it the short time it was out, I could have seen further adoption as high as 2 million. Maybe could have helped Genesis keep it's lead on the SNES.
 
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Old Retro

Member
I loved the Saturn for 2d games, especially imported Japanese titles, which I have a bunch of. I loved it since I first played a demo in a Sears in the fall of 95. To me, the Wii was gimmicky and had as many epic games as the N64, which was not that many. I did love I could play Gamecube games I had missed like Metroid Primes.
 
Due to circumstances surrounding SEGA of Japan and of America at the time, the Sega Saturn had it worse, but that in no way, shape or form means that it's a worse home console than the WiiU.
 

Kokoloko85

Member
When you look back at the Saturn, try to name 10 must play games, I get to about 5 and give up, those 5 being:

  • Virtua Figther
  • Tomb Raider (the best version of the game in fact)
  • Daytona
  • Panzer Dragoon Saga
  • Sonic 3D Blast

As for must plays:

Guardian Heroes
CastleVania Symphony of the Night ( The better vesion )
ShiningForce 3 + ( Part 2 and 3 if you can read japanese lol )
Fighters Megamix
The better version of the 2D fighting games of the generation. Street Fighter Alpha 1-3. King of Fighters. Street Fighter vs Xmen/ Marvel etc
Grandia
Dark Saviour
Radiant Silver Gun
Resident Evil
Dragon Force 1 and 2
Lunar series
Shin Megami Tensei Devil Summoner
Suikoden
+ Many more Shootem ups and JRPG’s like Batsugan, Battle Garegga, Langrisser, Magic Knight Rayearth, Shining Wisdom, Tactics Ogre, Sakura Taisen


More awesome games if you dont count them as must plays:

Saturn Bomberman ( The best game in the series )
Panzer Dragoon 1 and 2
Nights
3 Dirty Dwarfs
Die Hard Arcade
Shinign in the Holy Ark
Albert Odyssey
Burning Rangers
Sega Rally
Wipeout
Baku Baku Animal

Its one of my favourite consoles and one of the best consoles when it comes to Fighting games, Shmups and JRPG’s
Galactic Attack
 
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Kokoloko85

Member
I loved the Saturn for 2d games, especially imported Japanese titles, which I have a bunch of. I loved it since I first played a demo in a Sears in the fall of 95. To me, the Wii was gimmicky and had as many epic games as the N64, which was not that many. I did love I could play Gamecube games I had missed like Metroid Primes.

Ive had every major console since the Nes and the Wii is my least favourite console ever by far. I remember the advert about the motions controls which was a bunch of lies lol. Ive loved every other Nintendo console and Handheld.

N64 had some amazing ground breaking games like Zelda OOT, MM, Mario 64 and Golden Eye. And some classics like Mario Kart 64, Banjo, Perfect Dark, Smash and WCW Revenge/ WWF No Mercy but the Sega Saturn had just as many if not more amazing games. And I prefer the Saturn

Saturn outsold the N64 in Japan beause of the JRPG’s, Fighting games and Shmups, which the N64 lacked
 
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the_master

Member
Seamless motion controls weren't a lie. True, Sega had them on the Dreamcast, but outside of Sega Bass Fishing and the one guy who finished Code Veronica using said fishing rod, very few people took notice.
But imho, it was not a revolution as they discontinued that approach.
Also, all the ads they had and trailers they made with people aiming guns around the house, cutting with the swords or playing sports like real life, where all a lie.
It was the worst, most dishonest marketing campaign I remember. The WiiU failed at this point and sunk
 
Ive had every major console since the Nes and the Wii is my least favourite console ever by far. I remember the advert about the motions controls which was a bunch of lies lol. Ive loved every other Nintendo console and Handheld.

N64 had some amazing ground breaking games like Zelda OOT, MM, Mario 64 and Golden Eye. And some classics like Mario Kart 64, Banjo, Perfect Dark, Smash and WCW Revenge/ WWF No Mercy but the Sega Saturn had just as many if not more amazing games. And I prefer the Saturn

Saturn outsold the N64 in Japan beause of the JRPG’s, Fighting games and Shmups, which the N64 lacked
No Saturn outsold the the N64 because the N64 came out late. Japan just stopped caring about the Saturn's genre advantage for some reason.

Otherwise, I agree it had a lot of good games. Also waggle was bad.
 

zaanan

Banned
Black sheep?
r5nOEJ4.gif

You mean African-American Sheep, racist!
 

Faithless83

Banned
Looking at the poll it looks like people here were too young or too attached to ninty to understand the major difference between these consoles.
Saturn at least had third party support.
 
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BlackTron

Member
Wii U's biggest problem today is that most of its library is on Switch. But, the massive success of that library goes to show that Wii U was highly underrated.

The hardware itself is cumbersome, the exact opposite of Wii. But based on the strength of its games, I'd say the system had a worse reputation and performed more poorly than it really deserved.

Games are often cited as the most important driver of hardware sales, but they aren't the ONLY one. Wii U is a prime example that those games still need to be on a platform that is not shooting itself in the foot at every opportunity. It seems that Nintendo just wings it and doesn't care until the money stops flowing, then they straighten out for JUST long enough to reopen the floodgates, then go back to lazy ass Nintendo in less than a gen.
 

Drew1440

Member
Wii U was a very poorly designed system from a developer standpoint, as Nintendo insisted on reusing the PPC750 core, that was designed in 1998 and used on the original imac as its main CPU. Which meant third parties had to redesign their games extensively to run on that CPU and became a huge bottleneck, despite being clocked at 1.2ghz and having triple cores . Many modern engines simply lacked support for it, as its too much hassle to develop on.
 
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DGrayson

Mod Team and Bat Team
Staff Member
I love JRPGs and I love 2D fighting games so Saturn takes it for me. Although I love my Wii U as well.
 

ParaSeoul

Member
The Saturn still has its games even if most of them are Japan exclusive,almost every decent wii u game has been ported.
 

JPSLotus97T

Member
I'm a huge fan of the Saturn, but the Wii U had it worse.

The Saturn regardless of competition had a very good catalog of games if you include Japanese only releases.

The Wii U never had the right support out of the gate, and outside of Nintendo first party titles, there's really little worth playing. I mean in it's final stages, what was there that came out, Devil's Third? I think the Wii U had far better potential than what we saw from it. It had good ideas, just the name of the console, and the time period it was released, all poor decisions. I'm glad I have a Wii U so I could see what Nintendo was trying to do (albeit unsuccessfully) but it was the worst mainline console of the last 20 years.
 
Saturn definitely had it worse. Wii U had every opportunity to succeed, but just never clicked because of marketing or shifting conditions in the casual gamer space, etc. Saturn was just doomed from day one.
 

BlackTron

Member
Everything about the Wii U is amazing, it was too good for this world

I got a Wii U at launch, still have the dozen games I got for it, and am a die-hard fan that looks for any scrap of Nintendo goodness I can get.

And I have to say that the hardware and OS was a shitty mess. It was bad, and they should feel bad. The system has many redeeming aspects but it's far away from everything about it being amazing.

IMO they fully 100% deserved its faceplant in the market, and it was a necessary debacle to end up with Switch. In fact, Switch goes to show how effortlessly Nintendo can win just by NOT being so actively terrible.
 
I got a Wii U at launch, still have the dozen games I got for it, and am a die-hard fan that looks for any scrap of Nintendo goodness I can get.

And I have to say that the hardware and OS was a shitty mess. It was bad, and they should feel bad. The system has many redeeming aspects but it's far away from everything about it being amazing.

IMO they fully 100% deserved its faceplant in the market, and it was a necessary debacle to end up with Switch. In fact, Switch goes to show how effortlessly Nintendo can win just by NOT being so actively terrible.
I never read something so wrong lol. Every bit of soul the Wii U had basically vanished from the corporate Switch
 

buenoblue

Member
They were so close with the wii u. I rember when I got mine on day one, took the controller to the bathroom.... And no signal. Couldn't even get a signal from one end of my living dining area to the other.

The switch is basically an all in one Wii u, so it has to be the Saturn that was worse. Though looking back the playstation marketing got to me as I though the Saturn was trash, now I look at Saturn and feel like it was a great machine.
 

Codes 208

Member
Probably the saturn since at least for their respective times i knew what a wii u was. I didnt even know the saturn was a thing until like 2008 (i had just assumed that the dreamcast was the genesis’ direct successor)
 

cireza

Banned
Someone never played Xenoblade Chronicles X, Super Mario Maker, Pikmin 3, Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart 8, DKC: Tropical Freeze and a few others xD
There are great games on WiiU...
Wii U has a few great games, but the offering is really small compared to Saturn overall. Still love the console, of course. It is my favorite Nintendo console by a large margin.
 
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Kokoloko85

Member
I actually like the Wii U alot. It was much better than the Wii for me.

But I Loooove the Sega Saturn
People forget how great of a system it was, yes it didn’t have the 3D games the N64 and Playstation had like Mario 64, OOT, Banjo, MGS and Resident Evil 2. Or the Square JRPG’s.

But It had the best 2D fighting games of the generation and amazing JRPG’s, Shoot em up’s And Beat em up’s.

It sold better than the N64 in Japan because it lacked JRPG’s, Fighting games and classic shoot’em Up’s, whereas the saturn was a powerhouse in these games.

And it had the better 2d fighting games compared to both the Playstation and the N64, like Street Fighter Alpha 1, 2& 3 and the Marvel fighting games and Cross overs aswell as the Kings of Fighters game being better compared to the Playstation.

With some good 3D fighting games like Virtua Fighter 2, Virtual On, Fighters Megamix, Dead or Alive.

JRPG wise Id say the Saturn is in the top 3-5 consoles of all time. After the Playstaion and Snes for me.
(Even though Shining Force 3 is my favourite game of all time. Also Guardian Heroes is my 2nd and Panzer Dragoon Saga and Grandia are top 20 for me easily.)

JRPG’s like Shinning Force 3, Dark Savour, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Grandia, Suikoden, Dragon Force 1&2, Lunar series, Valdal Hearts, Langrisser, Sakura Taisen, Tactics Ogre, Albert Odyssey and loads more.

Along with other amazing games like Guardian Heroes, CastleVania Symphony of the Night, Saturn Bomberman, The Legend of Oasis, Radiant Silvergun, Resident Evil 1 etc

A super console with lots of top games

Edit, lol I just realised I posted in this thread before
 
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stranno

Member
How's Wii U bloated for devs? It's just a tri-core Wii with AMD graphics sub-system. It shouldn't have been anything special for old Gamecube/Wii developers, since it probably shares the same developing pipeline as Wii, with some new libraries.

Biggest bottleneck of Wii U was of course the outdated CPU, they maintained a completely obsolete CPU just to provide a not-even-perfect (specially when it comes to the crappy upscaling) retro-compatibility. They should have used the PowerPC 970 back in the day.
 

Kokoloko85

Member
How's Wii U bloated for devs? It's just a tri-core Wii with AMD graphics sub-system. It shouldn't have been anything special for old Gamecube/Wii developers, since it probably shares the same developing pipeline as Wii, with some new libraries.

Biggest bottleneck of Wii U was of course the outdated CPU, they maintained a completely obsolete CPU just to provide a not-even-perfect (specially when it comes to the crappy upscaling) retro-compatibility. They should have used the PowerPC 970 back in the day.

Looking at it now it feels like Nintendo is still closer to the Gamecube than Current gen consoles lol.
Wii was basically a Gamecube but 720p, Wii U was basically a stronger Wii with a decent controller and the Switch is basically a portable Wii U
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I think Wii U sold more. But how often do you ever hear anyone talk about WIi U? Basically never. But you always get some legacy Saturn talk or threads. So based on that, I'd say Wii U was worse.

I avoided those two systems.
 
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stranno

Member
Looking at it now it feels like Nintendo is still closer to the Gamecube than Current gen consoles lol.
Wii was basically a Gamecube but 720p, Wii U was basically a stronger Wii with a decent controller and the Switch is basically a portable Wii U
Gamecube, Wii and Wii U share the same CPU, with twice the clocks in each iteration due die shrink in half.

Switch has nothing to do with them. It is an ARM Cortex platform with Nvidia Maxwell graphics, compared to the PowerPC CPU and AMD graphics of the Wii U.

There are many ports of the Wii U, but they are just ports with no inherent advantage in hardware.
 

LordOfChaos

Member
Honestly in retrospect, I think the Saturn had it far rougher. With the Wii U, you can at least tell Nintendo tried. Even when the writing was on the wall, they still trudged forward and tried to make it work. The Wii U's main problem was simply that Nintendo betted on the wrong horse.

I'm not entirely sure I agree with the assessment of Nintendo really tried. Yeah it did have some good platformers, but my impression was rather that after the slow first two years they were pretty well thinking "Ok, let's make the next thing work", and you could see that with how BoTW's Wii U features were removed and it was delayed to coincide with the Switch. That was supposed to be that one game that could turn the Wii U around, but they had given up on it by then. iirc when it launched the Wii U build date was also months old.

World Premiere - Zelda - YouTube

^I never forget this lol
 
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Faenrir

Member
I'm not entirely sure I agree with the assessment of Nintendo really tried. Yeah it did have some good platformers, but my impression was rather that after the slow first two years they were pretty well thinking "Ok, let's make the next thing work", and you could see that with how BoTW's Wii U features were removed and it was delayed to coincide with the Switch. That was supposed to be that one game that could turn the Wii U around, but they had given up on it by then.

World Premiere - Zelda - YouTube
Yeah 100% agree.
They abandonned it very fast. I wish breath of the wild was exclusive to the wii U and still had the tablet features.
 

LordOfChaos

Member
Yeah 100% agree.
They abandonned it very fast. I wish breath of the wild was exclusive to the wii U and still had the tablet features.

Also BoTW 2 started its life as a BoTW DLC until expanding into more. It's a shame that they made that fairly modern engine work on the Wii U to mostly pretty good effect (framerate in areas aside), only to ever use it once. I thought it would be a nice gesture to port it to the Wii U just as one last goodwill goodbye, but of course we're never going to get something like that from Nintendo, and the game that was originally meant to save the Wii U barely sold compared to the Switch version because of the above mentioned.

I hope though that the Wii U becomes like a Dreamcast situation where that's still getting new games. The full SDK leaked and the console is pretty well swiss cheese to bypass security, so I hope we get fuller games from enthusiasts that actually use the GPU and stuff.
 
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