Sega likely couldn't have saved the Saturn even if they wanted to.

[JaguarVision]

I want to start my mentioning the Saturn failure is commonly blamed on several factors:

 

1. Price

 

2. Past failures

 

3. Lack of Jrpgs

 

4. Lack of a "real Sonic game"

 

5. Lack of "third party support"

 

6. $299 PSX

 

A lot of gamers and journalists believe the Saturn could have been saved with some fixes. I'm going to deviate from that, I believe that even with fixing some of these problems the Saturn was always going to fail. Some of these also likely never could be avoided.

 

Breaking it down, the Sega Saturn was already gpoing to throw Europe under the bus. SOJ had no real interest in SOE, and SOJ fighting with SOA distracted SOA's attention from helping SOE. The Saturn was going to arrive with a wimper in Europe before the system was released, and have poor support after. This was automatically going to cut out a large part of the Genesis' audience. SOJ's lack of understand SOA's moves, and wanting to "save" Segas brand in japan by basically throwing everyone off the cliff would have nasty long-term effects on how the Saturn would be handled in the US as well.

 

This was all before launch but after the system was already "prepared"..

 

The Saturn was not originally made for the type of 3D that 3DO and PSX features: texturing. Saturn was designed as a 32-bit 2D machine that would have 3D capabilities similar to the Model One Arcade machine. The Model One focused a lot more on flat polygons than textured polygons. Seeing Panasonic and Sony's tech demos, it was clear Sega of Japan believed they would need to remedy this and slapped another VDP chip in the Saturn. The biggest problem with this decision is they did not adapt their dev kits and developer manuals before slapping the VDP on the Saturn. Instead they did that AFTER and slowly. This is why even after launch, countries outside japan still did not know how to get great performance from the Saturn.

 

The inclusion of this chip also changed the original planned price for the Saturn, adding an estimated $50-$100 more depending on what source you believe.

 

Now for this part I'm going to heavily deviate away from most "gaming journalists" on the software library. I'm going to give SOA credit, them thinking Japanese games wouldn't help the Saturn in the US was 100% correct. In fact, the lack of US/Western games on the Saturn was already an issue. Outside of Nintendo consoles, if you look at the top selling games on every relevant console in the US: Gen/PSX/Xbox/PS2/DC/etc. there are vastly more US/western games than japanese ones. Same applies to Europe. There is, even in 2018, a odd myth that's been spread for years about Japanese developers dominating software between the 80's and 90's when that has never actually been the case outside Nintendo platforms. Here are the top 20 PSX games in NA:

 

PSX Sony Gran Turismo 3.26
PSX Sony Crash Bandicoot 2 3.12
PSX Sony Gran Turismo 2 3.1
PSX Sony Crash Bandicoot 3: Wrapped 3.05
PSX Atari Frogger 2.94

PSX Sony Crash Bandicoot 2.75

PSX Sony Spyro The Dragon 2.75

PSX Namco Tekken 3 2.7

PSX Activision Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 2.63

PSX Atari Driver 2.62
PSX Activision Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2.51

PSX Sony** Final Fantasy VII 2.45

PSX Konami Metal Gear Solid 2.43

PSX Acclaim WWE Warzone 2.2

PSX Activision Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 2.1
PS2 Activision Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 2.07
PSX Atari Driver 2 2.05

PSX Namco Namco Museum Vol. 3 2

PSX Squaresoft Final Fantasy VIII 1.91

PSX Sony Crash Team Racing 1.9

 

That's 13:6, the lack of western games on the Saturn was going to hurt it in the NA market. From launch till jan 1st 1996, less than 20 western developed games, a good chunk were fmv games or CD-i ports. The belief more Japanese games would help the Saturn is idiotic because the Saturn already got plenty of Japanese games. Some say JRPG specifically, but only three JRPGS sold over 1 million in the US and that was FF7,8, and 9. These games however were not even top 10 best sellers on PSX. How much would FF7 sell on the Saturn?

 

I also don't understand this belief that Sonic would have moved any life-saving amount of consoles. One thing that people have to realize is SOA bundled Sonic the Hedgehog on the genesis and that momentum carried over in Sonic 2, in Japan Sonic really didn't take off much, and while SOE would later adopt a similar strategy to SOA with Sonic, SOE also had bundles including other games around the same time that did just as well. Sonic was no where near as big as people think he was despite Sega pushing the series to high heaven.

 

Sonic 1 sold 15 million WORLDWIDE

 

Sonic 2 sold 6 million WORLDWIDE

 

Sonic CD Sold 1.5 Million WorldWide

 

Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles COMBINED (2 games) sold 4 million WORLD WIDE, which means each sold 2million or less.

 

Genesis 3D Blast 700k+.

 

I would also like to remind people that the whole reason why Sonic Jam on the Saturn was made, was because they wanted to increase brand awareness for Sonic because of falling sales. A 3D Sonic may have sold a couple million, but it wouldn't do squat for the Saturn. Saturn may have got more benefit in America by getting exclusivity to Mortal Kombat Trilogy and actually having Mortal Kombat 4, the Saturn being the only system MK4 wasn't on.

 

Don't forget that Sonic Adventure was bundled for awhile on the DC but most preferred getting other bundles or a DC by itself. Selling less than 2 million on the DC despite around 10 million DC's being sold. Also, from 2003-2018 no Sonic console game has sold more than Sonic Heroes which sold around 3 million. So whenever somebody talks about Sonic having high selling power I always tilt my head.

 

With no big game franchise to bundle with, confusing dev kits that would take years for those outside japan to get adequate performance out of, throwing Europe under the bus, the last minute VDP raising the price, and previous retail issues, all of which happened before and at launch. i really don't believe there was anything Sega could have tweaked to fix anything.

 

I tried to put myself in Segas shoes: "we are launching in a couple weeks how can we fix things so the Saturn can succeed?" and the answer is basically nothing. If you don't have the markets that sold genesis hardware, they'd have to rely on japan alone to make up for it, and Sega was in no position to outgun Sony in japan, let alone Sony in japan during the 90's.

 

A lot of people believe that the Saturn could have been manageable if they made changes close to or at launch. Acting like SOE or SOA could have done some thing to turn it around, but I think that's impossible. Nothing short of changing the idea of the Saturn when they first conceived it would save that system. it was an Atari jaguar situation honestly. I think no alternate timeline could have made the Saturn successful in NA or Europe without going back far enough to change how it was conceived, and who was in charge of SOJ. Some may not agree and think they could have made some moves to save it, but looking at the info we have, and what we know, I think the word impossible applies heavily here.

 

 

[+x=usr(1536)]

There are times where I like to play out scenarios in my mind related to a Soviet invasion of West Germany c.1983. It's fun!

[Flojomojo]

And yet JV thinks that ditching the 5200 was one of Atari's dumbest moves? Both scenarios are a case of "when you're in a hole, quit digging."

[Tanooki]

There are times I'd like to play out where Nintendo would have been stupid enough to let Sony keep all the money on every CD game licensed/sold for the SNES CD drive that never happened. That would have been fun too.

 

 

And given you have zero experience in the gaming industry or any insider knowledge of the time, pretty ballsy calling out the group as being less smart than you that the Saturn could have been saved. The system could have, just things would have had to be handled differently earlier on. A hundred dollar less PSX would matter nothing. Have you ever looked at the list of games that thing launched with let alone came out in the year after? There wasn't much there to sell that thing worth a spit. Yes they could have and should have handled changes to the kit/guide certainly. Yes the hardware was made to do one kind of 3D and 2D really well but it could be adapted to do it anyway as you could see with cross system conversions so it wasn't a lost cause, just some more work. But going into it Sega was in the big space, not Sony, Sony was an upstart jerk nobody like MS was with their meh xbox that trickled along over a year off halo and little else.

 

Sonic was never a system seller other than when it helped move the Genesis along because Alex Kidd wasn't doing it for them, you're blowing the whole SONIC sells way out of proportion to make a false point. This seems more like a poorly conceived perhaps hour of your time size of a post here making false statements and weak opinions to take multiple digs at Sega which you appear to have little love for. Is like your whole short existence here just for revisionist history attention getting troll posting for fun or do you actually believe all this stuff?

[youxia]

could have been

 

Jeez, my dude...another one? You're fighting on too many fronts. Time to read some Sun Tzu or play a Total War game.

[derFunkenstein]

If the Saturn was always doomed to fail, then what was the Atari 5200?

 

First you need a lesson in causality. Sure, it's a shame there was never a Sonic game on the Saturn. But there was tons of third-party support and adequate jRPGs (which didn't really swell well in the west anyway) in Japan. The Genesis did fine in America without Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger, for example. Capcom and SNK in particular showed the Saturn a ton of love in Japan but those titles never made it stateside. The 4Meg RAM cart made the system a 2D powerhouse but nobody in America or Europe got to try it out. But that's the effect, not the cause. And that brings me to my next point.

 

The only thing that sank the Saturn in America was Sega. Walmart was furious over Saturnday in May of 1995 and never carried the system. Biggest retailer in America won't touch your junk? You're hosed, no questions asked. On top of that Sega soured its retail relationship with KayBee and Best Buy, too. It was a stupid publicity stunt that got a couple hundred-thousand sales in the near term and sacrificed huge retail networks in the long term. Kalinske made a mistake.

 

Everything else was just icing on the cake. It didn't sell early on, so it lost out on those titles that were available in Japan.

Edited September 9, 2018 by derFunkenstein

[Flojomojo]

Was Walmart that big in 1994? I was buying all my game stuff from mall stores, of which there were many, before they consolidated into GameStop.

[82-T/A]

Man... I loved the Saturn... still do. It's one game system I'll never give up.

[Osgeld]

Was Walmart that big in 1994? I was buying all my game stuff from mall stores, of which there were many, before they consolidated into GameStop.

 

Yes, though I dont recall ever buying a console game there, a third of their electronics department was dedicated to it, its probably smaller now as maybe an eighth of that department is dedicated to gaming

 

I did buy a lot of pc (pc as in personal computer, not 100% IBM) software there at the time cause it was generally cheaper than babbage's or EB

[Flojomojo]

I can't remember if I bought my $400 Saturn from Toys R Us, Electronics Boutique, or Babbage's.

 

Ah the days of $60 half-assed games, all spread apart with only a few must-haves every year. $40 games like "Bug!" and "Astal" were like bargains. Sheesh.

[Osgeld]

I bought my playstation from circuit city, and my ps2 from walmart

[Jess Ragan]

I bought Saturn games from Wal-Mart back in the day! Granted, they were trying to get rid of them all, but still. Five dollars for Sega Rally Champ... you can't beat that with a stick!

[derFunkenstein]

Was Walmart that big in 1994? I was buying all my game stuff from mall stores, of which there were many, before they consolidated into GameStop.

Yes. Largest retailer in America, even back then. In 1990 they were expected to pass both Sears and K-Mart (pre-merger)

 

https://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/28/business/company-news-wal-mart-net-jumps-by-31.8.html

 

According to Wikipedia, they did that in late 1990 or early 1991, in plenty of time for the Saturn deal to be a big problem for Sega.

 

1993

Walmart celebrates its first $1 billion sales week.

https://corporate.walmart.com/our-story/our-history

[JaguarVision]

And yet JV thinks that ditching the 5200 was one of Atari's dumbest moves? Both scenarios are a case of "when you're in a hole, quit digging."

Except the 5200 didn't put them in the hole. They also did not have enough to know if it would make it worse or get them out they cut it off early and admitted as such.

 

 

There are times I'd like to play out where Nintendo would have been stupid enough to let Sony keep all the money on every CD game licensed/sold for the SNES CD drive that never happened. That would have been fun too.

 

 

And given you have zero experience in the gaming industry or any insider knowledge of the time, pretty ballsy calling out the group as being less smart than you that the Saturn could have been saved. The system could have, just things would have had to be handled differently earlier on. A hundred dollar less PSX would matter nothing. Have you ever looked at the list of games that thing launched with let alone came out in the year after? There wasn't much there to sell that thing worth a spit. Yes they could have and should have handled changes to the kit/guide certainly. Yes the hardware was made to do one kind of 3D and 2D really well but it could be adapted to do it anyway as you could see with cross system conversions so it wasn't a lost cause, just some more work. But going into it Sega was in the big space, not Sony, Sony was an upstart jerk nobody like MS was with their meh xbox that trickled along over a year off halo and little else.

 

Sonic was never a system seller other than when it helped move the Genesis along because Alex Kidd wasn't doing it for them, you're blowing the whole SONIC sells way out of proportion to make a false point. This seems more like a poorly conceived perhaps hour of your time size of a post here making false statements and weak opinions to take multiple digs at Sega which you appear to have little love for. Is like your whole short existence here just for revisionist history attention getting troll posting for fun or do you actually believe all this stuff?

Care to show the proof you know I've never been in the industry because until then you're post is completely irrelevant. Especially given your historically inaccurate view on the Xbox and Halo despite actual NPD figures suggesting otherwise.

 

You also agreed with me that Sonic wasn't a system seller, but were too up your own ass to realize that so you attacked me thinking the opposite.

Edited September 9, 2018 by JaguarVision

[JaguarVision]

If the Saturn was always doomed to fail, then what was the Atari 5200?

 

First you need a lesson in causality. Sure, it's a shame there was never a Sonic game on the Saturn. But there was tons of third-party support and adequate jRPGs (which didn't really swell well in the west anyway) in Japan. The Genesis did fine in America without Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger, for example. Capcom and SNK in particular showed the Saturn a ton of love in Japan but those titles never made it stateside. The 4Meg RAM cart made the system a 2D powerhouse but nobody in America or Europe got to try it out. But that's the effect, not the cause. And that brings me to my next point.

 

The only thing that sank the Saturn in America was Sega. Walmart was furious over Saturnday in May of 1995 and never carried the system. Biggest retailer in America won't touch your junk? You're hosed, no questions asked. On top of that Sega soured its retail relationship with KayBee and Best Buy, too. It was a stupid publicity stunt that got a couple hundred-thousand sales in the near term and sacrificed huge retail networks in the long term. Kalinske made a mistake.

 

Everything else was just icing on the cake. It didn't sell early on, so it lost out on those titles that were available in Japan.

 

This whole post almost agrees with everything I said in the OP did you read it or just see that first part where I mentioned what "others" commonly blamed for Saturns failure and then go off that as if I was talking about myself?

 

Also these blows against the 5200 doesn't make sense, Saturn had issues before launch and they already had clear signs things were not going well hence why they panciked and added a chip to the Saturn. The 5200 has no sings at all and Atari just rapidly decided to kill it early pissing off devs and retailers without really knowing whether it could stay in the market, to the point of continuing to support it after discontinuation with softwar.e.

[derFunkenstein]

 

This whole post almost agrees with everything I said in the OP did you read it or just see that first part where I mentioned what "others" commonly blamed for Saturns failure and then go off that as if I was talking about myself?

 

Also these blows against the 5200 doesn't make sense, Saturn had issues before launch and they already had clear signs things were not going well hence why they panciked and added a chip to the Saturn. The 5200 has no sings at all and Atari just rapidly decided to kill it early pissing off devs and retailers without really knowing whether it could stay in the market, to the point of continuing to support it after discontinuation with softwar.e.

Reading comprehension fail. Back to third grade.

 

What you listed as causes I'm saying are effects. The real cause was the retail situation. Plain and simple.

[Lost Dragon]

I'm going to let actual Ex-Sega staff do the talking:

 

 

To mark the Saturn’s 20th birthday, we talked to Kalinske to see if his feelings over SEGA of Japan’s decision to release the system early have changed.

 

SEGA Nerds: This year’s E3 marks the 20th anniversary of SEGA’s surprise announcement that the Saturn was available on store shelves. Your misgivings concerning that announcement have been well documented, but have your feelings about it changed over the years?

 

Kalinske: No, my feelings are the same, had we waited until we had more and better games, launching with all retailers instead of with a few, with marketing that could reach every player, we would have been much more successful, even if that meant waiting for a late October or November launch.

 

SEGA Nerds: If you had SOJ’s continued support, like you did earlier in your time with SEGA, what was your plan for the Saturn to compete against the Nintendo 64 and the new threat imposed by Sony with its PlayStation?

 

Kalinske: With very aggressive marketing that would have shown the benefits of Saturn vs other systems, with a complete line up of games, making it the only system a college age or older player would have wanted (of course younger players would then also want what big brother or older rockstar or athlete played on).

 

SEGA Nerds: Speaking of which, what do you think the long-lasting impact on the industry would have been if SEGA and Sony jointly developed and released a console?

 

Kalinske: Well, clearly SEGA would still be relevant and much stronger today had the alliance been approved by SEGA Japan. At that time, SEGA was much much stronger in developing game software, we actually were teaching Sony’s team how to program better games, splitting the loss from the combined Sony/SEGA hardware, would have saved SEGA a fortune. Lots would be different today had that deal been approved. It’s likely both Nintendo and Microsoft would be far weaker today.

 

SEGA Nerds: How different do you think the SEGA of today would have been?

 

Kalinske: A still dominant video game company jointly producing hardware with Sony, much stronger developer and marketer of video games.

[JaguarVision]

Reading comprehension fail. Back to third grade.

 

What you listed as causes I'm saying are effects. The real cause was the retail situation. Plain and simple.

Yes your reading comprehension is failing, I listed what "others" commonly blamed the system for. Then addressed those in my post. I am not the one who agrees with them.

[Lost Dragon]

You didn't actually mention Sega had an alternative to adding a second CPU, but could instead of used a single chip designed by Silicon Graphics..

 

But again here's Joe Miller one of the original Saturn design engineers being asked about it:

 

 

Sega-16: When we spoke to Tom Kalinske, he mentioned that the Silicon Graphics chipset that ended up becoming the Nintendo 64 was initially pitched to Sega, but that SOJ shot it down. Is this true?

 

Joe Miller: It’s true. I would say that it’s not so much that they shot it down as much as it was that they simply didn’t warm up to it. We were highly confident that collaboration between Sega and SGI would work well, and Tom and I were excited about it; we were strong proponents of it. We were able to get the conversation to a level that had all the right people from Japan looking at the opportunity and in the room. This was partially due to the fact that Sega had always been a hardware company; its DNA was driven by its ability to design high performance hardware systems for coin-op for many, many years. There was a tremendous pride within the organization about their ability to engineer whatever was needed to create compelling entertainment platforms, whether they were consumer, coin-op or whatever they might have been.

 

I think the problem with the SGI opportunity was that there may have been a touch of NIH (Not Invented Here) in the reaction. That might not be completely fair, because they were concerned that the process required for fabricating that particular chipset was new. There were concerns about yield; there were some voiced concerns about how many of these could be made quickly. Part of what makes a consumer products company successful is that you understand the manufacturing process well enough to know that you can make enough product to meet demand, and there was concern on that particular opportunity that that chip was going to be difficult to manufacture at the quantities needed.

 

The way I would put it is that it would have been an amazing opportunity– obviously Nintendo figured it out… so it wasn’t a problem ultimately for those involved, except I’m not sure that Jim Clark felt that it was the best result for SGI. I think it’s fair to say that both Tom and I, and others at SOA, felt this was absolutely a potential next platform opportunity for us, and we got fairly deep into conversations with all the right people at SGI, brought SOJ in, and we wound it down pretty quickly. At that point, it was pretty clear that if Jim Clark wanted to pursue that idea, he was going to have to start making other phone calls, and he did and went with Nintendo.

 

This can't be classed as revisionist history, more personal views of key Sega staff at the time.

 

If your going to do an alternative Saturn history thread, the S.G chipset offer has to come into it.

 

Also, at this stage of the game the burden of proof in terms of actual industry experience does kind of lie with the thread creator.

 

The rest of us are openly admitting we merely lived through the era, are giving accounts of personal experiences in our areas and putting up quotes from actual Sega employees. ..

Edited September 9, 2018 by Lost Dragon

[derFunkenstein]

Yes your reading comprehension is failing, I listed what "others" commonly blamed the system for. Then addressed those in my post. I am not the one who agrees with them.

 

You're going to have to show me in your manifesto that you wrote that launching early in the US killed it in America (where the Genesis/Mega Drive sold the most units) because there was no software ready at launch.

 

I see this:

 

* Sega of Europe apparently punted, but no evidence (anecdotal or otherwise)

* A bunch of rambling about PS1 games that sold better

* Additional rambling about how Sonic was a poisoned well

[JaguarVision]

 

You're going to have to show me in your manifesto that you wrote that launching early in the US killed it in America (where the Genesis/Mega Drive sold the most units) because there was no software ready at launch.

 

I see this:

 

* Sega of Europe apparently punted, but no evidence (anecdotal or otherwise)

* A bunch of rambling about PS1 games that sold better

* Additional rambling about how Sonic was a poisoned well

 

The rambling PSX list wasn't about PS1 games selling better it was about which TYPE of games sold MOST on the PS1 in the US and I bolded select games. Notice what they all have in common? They are all western games. Looking at the launch line-up, and the list of games that would have been released if Tom was able to delay the Saturns launch, there was a severe lack of western games in that line-up. US gamers were buying Western games in droves much more than Japanese ones on average outside huge exceptions. it's also a big part why the Genesis succeeded.

 

So releasing later likely was never going to do anything for the Saturn in the US, I'm sure you agree with that at least.

[derFunkenstein]

 

The rambling PSX list wasn't about PS1 games selling better it was about which TYPE of games sold MOST on the PS1 in the US and I bolded select games. Notice what they all have in common? They are all western games. Looking at the launch line-up, and the list of games that would have been released if Tom was able to delay the Saturns launch, there was a severe lack of western games in that line-up. US gamers were buying Western games in droves much more than Japanese ones on average outside huge exceptions. it's also a big part why the Genesis succeeded.

 

So releasing later likely was never going to do anything for the Saturn in the US, I'm sure you agree with that at least.

 

You may think you're implying something but you aren't, and then when people say it you get angry. Have you considered seeing a counselor?

 

Look, I think it's great that you have such faith in the community to be mind readers. That must mean you really think we're something special. But instead, try writing what you claim to have said or meant. If that means pre-planning your threads and writing the OP in Word, saving it for later, and coming back to it and revise, then do it. There's nothing wrong with writing concisely, avoiding vague pronouns, and using correct definitions of words. It's a principle upon which society is based.

[JaguarVision]

 

You may think you're implying something but you aren't, and then when people say it you get angry. Have you considered seeing a counselor?

 

Look, I think it's great that you have such faith in the community to be mind readers. That must mean you really think we're something special. But instead, try writing what you claim to have said or meant. If that means pre-planning your threads and writing the OP in Word, saving it for later, and coming back to it and revise, then do it. There's nothing wrong with writing concisely, avoiding vague pronouns, and using correct definitions of words. It's a principle upon which society is based.

 

Don't mix me up with the other guy because you're lazy. Look at this quote:

 

 

I'm going to give SOA credit, them thinking Japanese games wouldn't help the Saturn in the US was 100% correct. In fact, the lack of US/Western games on the Saturn was already an issue. Outside of Nintendo consoles, if you look at the top selling games on every relevant console in the US: Gen/PSX/Xbox/PS2/DC/etc. there are vastly more US/western games than japanese ones. Same applies to Europe. There is, even in 2018, a odd myth that's been spread for years about Japanese developers dominating software between the 80's and 90's when that has never actually been the case outside Nintendo platforms. Here are the top 20 PSX games in NA:

 

 

This reads perfectly and clearly explains the point of the PSX list of games and why some were bolded. I don't have to revise anything. I get that it's a long post, but please at least try reading it if you're going to respond to it.

Edited September 10, 2018 by JaguarVision

[derFunkenstein]

You still haven't quoted where you said launching early killed the Saturn. That's what you claim to have said.

[DJ Clae]

So what the Saturn needed was more Mr. Bones, Three Dirty Dwarves, and Bug! Clearly the brilliance of these Western developers would have saved the Saturn if given the backing they deserved. It's not because the Saturn's third place position caused it to miss out on blockbusters like FF7 and Metal Gear Solid.