Could Sega Save The Saturn?

[Magmavision2000]

Could Sega save the Saturn?* My answer is yes, if Sega halted production on the Dreamcast or didn't move projects over to the Dreamcast, they probably would've been able to save the system.

 

*I know that the Saturn did better in Japan, but overall the Saturn was still considered a commercial failure.

Edited January 15, 2020 by Magmavision2000

[Austin]

No. SEGA shot themselves in the foot early and were never able to win back the trust (or interest) of consumers. For a good while they had the $200 console bundle with three free games (a great deal) and still couldn't move units at a decent pace. By late 1998 most of its software had been dropped to budget prices, despite there being a solid lineup. No one was interested.

 

I do think they could have handled the transition from Saturn to Dreamcast much better (there was a large first-party software gap from the last SEGA-published Saturn release to the Dreamcast's launch), but "saving" the console? It would not have been possible by 1998 and SEGA knew it.

Edited January 15, 2020 by Austin

[Tanooki]

No.   And I don't base this domestically but specifically because of Japan.  While it sold best there, it still sold relatively poorly there with most games, and even the ones that did great were still sad numbers against both Sony and even Nintendo with no CDs to account for.  It was a very badly made system that slapped all sorts of chips at to pull off software 3D which wasn't the best but only solution, and we know up until it seems the WiiU it had the most nightmarishly annoying coding language required to make games that helped kill it on that side too.  Had they tried really tried to get some quality parts together and quality releases from a wider pool of options it could have pulled it off.  I mean look at what NEC did in Japan, here the TG16 was an utter failure as they kind of pulled a Sega with poor releases, not much to go by, and mismanagement.  But in Japan they cleaned Segas clock and also kicked the Famicom around for awhile too taking the top billing for a stretch with that system and then first CD option out the door after.  NEC knew how to peddle add-ons properly and how to back them up properly too, another thing Sega screwed the pooch on before Saturn even hit the market which hurt them financially too.

[8th lutz]

No. Sega made too many mistakes and the launch was a disaster. They rushed titles with the Saturn. 

 

The other problem is despite N64's modest game library, they had some titles that sold a lot. Sega lost the battle by spring of 1997. Sega did not have any titles that were huge seller. The Saturn had wonderful game, but they did not sell well. Austin already mention the only Sega could've done is handle the transition from Saturn to Dreamcast much better.

 

The problem the Saturn was to customers was similar to how I was in 1995 when I was a high school student. In 1994, I was excited for the Saturn. I was surprised on the Saturn's launch. When I read magazine reviews at the time of new Saturn games such as Daytona Usa, I was not sold on the system despite me being Genesis owner.  I read reviews of games being rushed and the price the system made me wait till the N64 comes out of getting a good read on the library. 

 

I was ready to make a choice for a console in 1997, and the Saturn was out of the question. I did not like the support N64 was getting and Playstation was my choice.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 15, 2020 by 8th lutz

[Greg2600]

1. Saturn cost too much money.  The Playstation was cheaper at its launch because Sony made everything down to chips in house, so they cut the price.  Many consumers were still buying games for SNES, Gameboy and Genesis in 1995, and weren't even looking at the new stuff.  I was one of them!  SOJ dropped the Genesis, which cut off a good cash flow for the company, especially in North America and Europe. 

 

2. Saturn was too troublesome to program for.  SEGA's dev kits weren't good enough either.  Most Saturn games took months if not a full year to be completed versus ports on PC, PS1, or 16-bit consoles.  As a result, most of the 3rd party titles on the Saturn were released quite stale. 

 

3. First party support, was to be fair, highly questionable.  Perhaps this didn't mean very much in Japan, but in the rest of the world, SEGA had built it's brand with games like Sonic, Streets of Rage, Wonder Boy, not to mention the slew of SEGA arcade ports.  After Burner, Outrun, Golden Axe, Altered Beast, Shinobi, Thunder Blade, Space Harrier, etc., etc., etc.  Heck even the 32X had a popular arcade port lineup with Virtua Fighter, Virtua Racing, Star Wars, MK II, Afterburner, etc.  SEGA should have led with their ports, but the launch offerings were horrible.  Daytona USA, Virtua Fighter, and others were notoriously buggy.  By the time the ports began coming our way, it was way too late.  And Sonic was poorly represented.

 

4. The launch pissed off several retail chains, who infamously refused to carry the system period.  This cannot be overlooked.  It was so bad that Nakayama began giving away multiple games free with consoles, and then some.  It didn't help. 

 

5. Last but not least, all of these issues compounded SEGA's bottom line.  The stock price nosedived, and without a revenue stream (Japan dumped the 16-bit line), the company could not afford to pay for costly translations of Japanese games, whether 1st or 3rd party.  This kept a multitude of games in Japan which could have been very successful in the rest of the world.

 

The system was too expensive, with a poor game lineup that was frequently stale, and lacked many of the successful games it's predecessors had.  I place the blame on each point with SEGA of Japan.  It was their decisions which doomed the console.

[phoenixdownita]

The gaming world was ready/eager for 3D (a la PS1) but the Saturn bolted it on as an afterthought making it too hard for devs to get it right, that plus some oversight on the basic feature set (easy to handle transparencies [no meshes] and light sources).

 

Nowadays the 3D of many PS1 games looks horrible and so do the Satrun games (Sega Rally being still quite good though) but the Saturn has a stellar line up of other games that look and play far better than on PS1 (most if not all 2D fighters, shmups, a lot of RPGs and some more, PS1 does have an incredible Castlevania and of course FF VII).

 

Somewhat a pity.

 

Am I the only one that resented both the PS2 and the Dreamcast for being so fuxxing noisy? ... I understand why but man, we went from silent consoles to "helicopter" mode ... it was worse on the PC to be fair and square but there it was sort-of "expected" as water-cooling was just around the corner (wasn't it?).

[MrMaddog]

The Saturn should have had all it's problems fixed at the beginning of it's launch.  Sega should have allowed their American division to go through with the Saturnday launch plans and also have an upward upgrade path for exisiting Genesis & 32X owners.  Instead they only listened to the hardware designers and jealous salarymen who were too damn polite to aggressively compete against Sony and Nintendo.  I understand in Japan they needed a clean break from the unsucessful Mega Drive, but that's not who the rest of the world works...so they broke their trust with their loyal customers and developers to the point were not even the Dreamcast, great as it was, could regain it back.

[roots.genoa]

No because in that parallel universe, Atari saved the Jaguar as well and crushed the competition. Nobody knows what the PlayStation is since everyone is playing the new Atari VCS 5!

[dj_convoy]

I love the Saturn to death, but SEGA was plagued with too many problems. You had SEGA Japan and SEGA of America butting heads, the relative difficulty of programming for the Saturn, the lack of any real killer apps (not saying there weren't good games, of course, but there were very few must haves), and eroding consumer (and indeed, retailer) confidence. A perfect storm of problems that couldn't be overcome.  

[HoshiChiri]

2 hours ago, MrMaddog said:

The Saturn should have had all it's problems fixed at the beginning of it's launch.  Sega should have allowed their American division to go through with the Saturnday launch plans and also have an upward upgrade path for exisiting Genesis & 32X owners.  Instead they only listened to the hardware designers and jealous salarymen who were too damn polite to aggressively compete against Sony and Nintendo.  I understand in Japan they needed a clean break from the unsucessful Mega Drive, but that's not who the rest of the world works...so they broke their trust with their loyal customers and developers to the point were not even the Dreamcast, great as it was, could regain it back.

Basically this- that surprise launch did so much damage to Sega's reputation, it basically signaled the end of their console production (even though it wasn't obvious at the time). 

 

I don't think anything would have truly saved the Saturn- PlayStation nailed what the public, at the time, wanted so strongly Sega didn't have a chance to beat it. But- if they'd stuck with the original launch date, perhaps they'd have eked out enough of a second place to push back the Dreamcast, which would give them more time to bring it up to par with the PS2, which may have kept them in the console business.

[CatPix]

26 minutes ago, HoshiChiri said:

to push back the Dreamcast, which would give them more time to bring it up to par with the PS2, which may have kept them in the console business.

I don't think the DC is rushed or have so much issues - the trouble here is that the DC was also plagued with development issues - Sega of America and Sega Japan competing for their own designs - which wasted money of course, but also caused a leak that made most people aware that merely a year after the Saturn's lauch, Sega was already working on a new console; and was advanced enough in it (as opposed to you know, just throwing ideas out) which caused further consumer distrust : why would you buy a console when clearly, the manufacturer planned to replaced it in a few years?

Sure the DC could have been refined more, but (moving topic a bit) when the DC was launched, the issue was simple : Sega didn't had enough ressources to properly advertise their system for a worldwide launch; and this isn't some random post-analysis, it's from Sega (I think I read it in an interview of the former Sega France director of the time)

 

Sega doomed themselves by taking so many poor decisions in 1996 it's incredible.

Releasing the 32X then droping support of SMS and Megadrive altogether merely 6 month after. (yes, even SMS support hurt them, at least in Europe - the SMS remained popular as an entry-budget console and also, it was very common to play SMS games on a Game Gear, so it had a public).

Reducing/disabling Sega Europe's power to choose which game they wanted. Many games were announced in European magazines, or even by "local" Sega offices, only to never being released because Sega USA said "no".

Sega announcing, merely 2 years after the console's release, a new console.

Sega was basically in an ongoing trainwreck from 1996 and never stopped.

The Saturns couldn't have been saved, IMO, because they did everything wrong even before the console's release.

Even if Sega had made a perfect launch in the USA, let Sega Europe living their own life... They would have still needed to stop the USA/Japan struggle, postpone the DC developement 2 years later and focus on games instead, letting at least the Megadrive still live for one or two years... And even then, it wouldn't solve the issues of costly hardware and square polygon based 3D making game ports harder to do on the Saturn than on the PS1 and N64.

 

[deepthaw]

No.

 

Saturn was a super-scalar system that they panicked and tried to turn into a 3D system way too late, never even released a Sonic game on it, cost too much... While Sony came out of the gate firing on all cylinders. Even Nintendo struggled against the PS1, what could Sega have hoped to do?

[derFunkenstein]

It's a little late to be asking this question; they abandoned the Saturn 21 years ago. No saving it now. 

[Magmavision2000]

2 hours ago, derFunkenstein said:

It's a little late to be asking this question; they abandoned the Saturn 21 years ago. No saving it now. 

 

[Cobra Kai]

Ah, what a trip down memory lane. Just reading the replies is raw nostalgia. I don't really remember all the circumstances about Sega during the Saturn launch, so it's fun to freshen up on it.

[Zoyous]

I just think it's a shame that the entire video game industry took such a drastic turn toward 3D in the mid-90s and almost completely abandoned 2D. 2D games were arriving at their pinnacle of artistry and realtime 3D was underpowered and ugly. It's no coincidence that it's the early 3D games with a stylized art direction that have held up the best - the attempts at realism are always the first to become profoundly dated. Even the box art suffered terribly during the mid-90s as a result of this shift. So, the Saturn, initially designed as a powerhouse 2D console, had a Western library that lacked almost all of its masterpiece 2D Japanese games.

 

Even though these armchair hindsight corporate strategy discussions are fun, it's folly to assume that it would have been so easy to make better decisions and navigate better than the leadership of Sega or any other company. Companies are composed of many groups who often have competing visions and goals. With Sega you have a collection of companies operating across at least four regions that each have their own conflicting needs. Yeah, other companies did it better, but many more did it worse.

[CatPix]

The difference, as far as video game is concerned, was that Sega had a bad case of poor leadership. I'm not sure about Sony, but for Nintendo, if there were struggles between NOA, NOE and Nintendo Japan, then the final word was for Nintendo Japan - this is the reason why the Wii was released without HDMI or component; because Nintendo Japan planned to sell the Wii for young people and kids, which would have only low-end TV without HDMI at the time; unlike Western markets where most people would have or planned to switch to HDMI-able displays.

Bad decision maybe, but a firm one nonetheless.

 

Here we had Sega Japan, who was making the games, the system, and was, after all, the original core of the company; but their performances on their own market was abysmal. Then Sega of America, which, after a false start with the SMS, became the main seller of Sega systems in the Megadrive Era.

Then Sega of Europe, which, with a fragmented market, several languages, laws, taxes, but early adopter of Sega hardware, even before the SMS since the Sega SC-3000 was sold in Europe (at least in France as the Yeno SC-3000) and had in general, a taste for Japanese games more than the US market. And even tho Megadrive sales in Europe ended up in a 1/3 of the market compared to Nintendo, it was still a decent market grip, and let's not forget that the SMS and Game Gear sold well too.

 

Apparently, it was easy for Sega Japan to ignore Sega of Europe (alienating millions of customers in the process) but not so much for Sega of America.

It probably didn't helped that in the early months of the Saturn's sales in Japan, the Saturn sales outpaced the Playstation's sales and even after slowing down, were still, up to early 95, 1/3 of the PS sales, givign the impression that the Saturn would be a solid seller in Japan.

[Tanooki]

8 hours ago, Zoyous said:

I just think it's a shame that the entire video game industry took such a drastic turn toward 3D in the mid-90s and almost completely abandoned 2D. 2D games were arriving at their pinnacle of artistry and realtime 3D was underpowered and ugly. It's no coincidence that it's the early 3D games with a stylized art direction that have held up the best - the attempts at realism are always the first to become profoundly dated. Even the box art suffered terribly during the mid-90s as a result of this shift. So, the Saturn, initially designed as a powerhouse 2D console, had a Western library that lacked almost all of its masterpiece 2D Japanese games.

You know Sony was a good piece of the blame game on that one.  I never knew it at the time but when I was working at Midway in 2000 it was only a few years after the Sony internal development rules changed and they still were grousing about it when certain conversations came up.  Sony actually would mouth off about 2D games as they wanted to bury Nintendo and Sega as they did and they actually made it a rule to not actively pursue let alone allow 2D game development, and if someone did push for a 2D release to get a license they had to pay a fee (penalty) to go ahead with it.  Their argument was that 2D games were of the past, of Nintendo and Sega, and they were of the future and that was 3D, FMV, amazing CD audio.  That's a good solid reason why outside of a few shooters and fighting games there wasn't much 2D going on.  Then again it didn't help either that N64 was a 2D cripple as the hardware wasn't made for full screen 3D stuff, so if you did 2D it had to be done on the back of polygons to fake it basically so 2D games were rare on it too.  But still, to think of that kind of ballsy crap to financially punish 2D game development.  That to me is only second evil to the MS development plan of suckering future generations into paid multiplayer accounts and making mulitplayer the center of the gaming universe which has really done harm to the single player experience.

[Austin]

10 hours ago, Kobra Kai said:

Ah, what a trip down memory lane. Just reading the replies is raw nostalgia. I don't really remember all the circumstances about Sega during the Saturn launch, so it's fun to freshen up on it.

No one really did. Game magazines only divulged so much, and for most of us, the Saturn was just another console on store shelves. It wasn't really until the YouTube era that the more nuanced details about the console's situation (like the headbutting between Sega of Japan and USA) become more common knowledge.

 

What it came down to is the Saturn just didn't resonate with mainstream gamers at the time. Even popular heavy hitter games that appeared on both the Saturn and PS1, like Madden Football or Tomb Raider, didn't help its case in the end. The kids wanted the PS1 or Nintendo 64, and for good reason.

 

As an aside, I was one of those weirdos that went for the Saturn first back then. Stuff like Guardian Heroes, Galactic Attack, Fighting Vipers and Virtual-On sold me on it and I wouldn't have had it any other way. Despite not having the mainstream success of its competitors, its US library was still excellent.

[Cobra Kai]

I sold my original Jaguar to buy a Playstation. What I thought about the Saturn at the time was that it was expensive, and that my opinion of Sega as a whole was that I really soured on them from the 32X. I didn't buy the 32X but I thought the entire contraption of Sega Genesis/CD/32X was the most ridiculous video game console I'd ever seen, and Sega made such a cluster f*** out of it, that there was no way I was investing in the Saturn, especially when I could only afford one of the systems available.

[glazball]

I also agree the answer is no, and like others have said or suggested, it was really the 32X that started SEGA's downward spiral.  There was no saving the Saturn, but (to look on the positive side) I think the best thing to come of its poor reception and failure is that it made the launch of the Dreamcast one of the most exciting console launches ever.

[Mikebloke]

Here in the UK I barely remember the 32x, it's not that it was a terrible idea, its just that the cd had already came out for the console. I think most gamers weren't keen on expansion consoles so it was just easier to get the next one up. 

 

So yeah, 32x probably hampered sega but as a consumer I didn't really notice it. The problems I felt with saturn was more :

 

1) it simply lost the advertising war with Sony from start to finish. I don't even remember saturn having TV ads in the UK. 

2) there was a cartridge slot, but not for games. Feels like a real shame, 32x compatibility could have ensured people bought the games at least and kept some mega drive owners still in with the new games if they couldn't afford a saturn. 

3) ports just took too long. Years of waiting for games from ps1 to saturn, and many decent games with extra features was Japan only. 

4) the great games came too late. FF7 and a number of other hit titles from what most people then would regard as niche genres really stuck out for Sony, pds and sf3 were too late. 

 

I don't agree that the saturn should have kept going either, although I never got a dreamcast at the time I remember being in awe of it, keeping the saturn going longer would be a repeat of the 32x saturn issue. 

[turboxray]

Save the Saturn from what exactly? From Sega themselves? From the massive PS1 and N64 popularity? From mid to late 1996, I don't remember seeing the Saturn anywhere. And by 1997 it was like the Saturn didn't even exist. Dreamcast was the right answer, just the unfortunate reality of chance/luck and having to re-break back into the game (market). Nintendo had similar struggles from the GC error, though not as bad as Sega. I think if it weren't for the GBA and NDS systems, Nintendo would have been in a much worse state that it was. Sega didn't have that crutch.

[Lostdragon]

Missed this thread first time round, so a necrobump i am afraid.. 

 

But when you've Sega saying third party software support wasn't critically important for the commercial success of the Saturn... 

 

It was an easy vote NO in this poll. 

Edited October 29, 2021 by Lostdragon

[CapitanClassic]

2 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

 

But when you've Sega saying third party software support wasn't critically important for the commercial success of the Saturn... 

You are misconstruing what he said, “While third-party support is incredibly important, It isn’t critically important.”

 

Cohen Sega VP Communications goes on to say that Sony is doing a great job on 3rd party support, but that will only gain them money in the short term not in the long term as well. For long term money, they will need good first party games, that Sony doesn’t have but Sega does.

 

The just of his point was that Sony was apparently paying developers like Tamsoft for exclusive rights to games like Battle Arena Toshinden, and eventually those exclusive licenses would expire and the hottest games on PSX would be coming out for Saturn. Sega on the other hand had excellent arcade ports that they could spread the cost of development over both the arcade and Saturn.

 

While a lot of people will pay a premium to play the hottest games now (so much cheaper waiting for the Steam sales, or buying games  6-12 months after they release and the price drops by 50%, Sega was betting on 3rd party support and exclusive games that you could only play on Saturn.

 

That wasn’t what eventually happened though, mostly due to the difficulty for developing a Saturn game compared to a PSX game and the fact that a few years into both consoles launch the OSX had the bigger install base. When you are a 3rd party developer, you make the game for the bigger installment base first, only then do you spend the money (if at all) to port it.