Ah, Sega Saturn. The unfortunate neglected middle child of the 90’s Sega family.
I picked up one of these bad boys not too long ago. It’s been on the “to-buy” list for me for a while and, to be honest, if I had to say why I wanted it so bad, I’m not really too sure. I never had one, I never knew anyone who had one when it was a current system, and I don’t ever really remember playing it ever, maybe in a store demo or something.
Then again, I am an OCD collector that pretty much wants any and all things game related, so it would be downright unfair of me to neglect this little guy if I’m also typing “Atari Jaguar” and “TurboGrafix” into my eBay searches.
The Saturn often gets hastily plopped in to the category of “failure”, along with pretty much everything else in between the SNES and the Playstation. Technically, this was one thing that precipitated Sega’s slide out of the hardware business, but it does have some bright spots and to be honest, not all of the issues the Saturn faced were really within its control. But it still had its fair share of stupidity.
So, to start, I’m going to list off a few general reasons why the Saturn didn’t fare so well and then give my general feelings about the system…
Issue #1: Timing – As stated before, not all of the Saturn’s downfalls were within its control. This is one issue where that rings partially true. In North America, Sony initially announced its American release date on “Saturnday”, September 2, 1995. I didn’t make that up, that was an actual pun they used for marketing. The system fared pretty well in Japan when it was released about a year earlier (170K sold on opening day), so things were looking good for Sega.
Only, there was one problem.
Sony announced that their Playstation would be released one week later on September 9th. Because of this, Sega attempted to release the console early, marketing it as a surprise when it was actually released on May 11th. It sure came as a surprise to third-party developers who suddenly found that they didn’t have the four months they anticipated to polish the release-date titles, therefore leaving Sega with basically no well-constructed launch titles. The majority were Sega arcade ports, like Virtua Fighter and Daytona USA, which were unimpressive ports that brought about the 32-bit era with a whimper instead of a bang.
Issue #2: Hardware – Compounding the frustration of a rushed launch for the third-party developers was the overcomplicated hardware design of the Saturn, which made programming unnecessarily difficult. I’m not a super proficient computer expert here, but from what I understand, the Saturn’s use of two CPU’s and six processors made coordinating it all together really difficult. Also, many of the computery bits (not technical term) in the system weren’t specifically designed to work together.
Sega also failed to supply the programmers with any good development tools, making the developers do even more work coding and stuff. In the interest of time and convenience, some developers would just use one CPU (Alien vs. Predator as one example). Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the Atari Jaguar had a similar issue (using 2 cpus), and that's never good when you share failure points with the Jag.
Issue #3: Competition – Playstation…Nintendo 64…enough said
Issue #4: Bernie Stolar – I know the guy gets a tough rap, and it seems like everyone passes harsh judgment on the guy. With the gift of hindsight, we can now see the error in his ways. He thought that RPG’s wouldn’t fare well with an American audience. I think Final Fantasy XII did OK. He felt that 2D games weren’t any good because they didn’t fully harness what the Saturn had to offer. I guess that’s why something like Guardian Heroes is one of the most sought after Saturn games and commands prices of modern games over a decade later.
When it rains, it pours buddy. To be fair, a lot of Sega’s arcade ports (Virtua Fighter 2, Virtua Cop) did well and were flagship Saturn games, but they just couldn’t compete with the boundaries that the Playstation and the Nintendo 64 were pushing. Stolar’s issues also overlap into the final nail in the Saturn’s coffin…
Issue #5: The Dreamcast – It takes some kind of company to have your next-gen console hurt your current-gen console in the way the Dreamcast affected the Saturn. By 1997, Sega (at least in America) decided to move forward with their next-gen system that became the Dreamcast. By throwing in the towel on the Saturn, Sega again pissed off a lot of its third-party partners that expected a longer lifespan and more opportunities to make games. Perhaps screwing the Dreamcast before it was even released, a lot of these developers left and made the move to develop for Sony and/or Nintendo.
My Thoughts…
The Saturn gets a big shrug of indifference by me.
I think it looks pretty sleek, better than the Playstation for sure, which is one of the ugliest looking systems in my opinion. Sega retains its bad boy image with another black system that just looks as sexy as a game system can look. The controller is basically a Genesis/Mega-Drive 6-button controller with R and L triggers ala SNES. It feels good and works well.
There are not a lot of games that really jump out me in its library. I might amend that by saying its affordable and non-imported library. That’s one thing about the system potential buyers should know; a lot of the favorite games among fanboys and collectors of the Saturn are the imports. The Street Fighter games and a lot of sh’mups were never released in Stolar’s America, but they actually turned out to be good! A few of them also require a RAM expansion to be playable, but I don’t know how much those go for. The biggie for the system that isn’t an import is Panzer Dragoon Saga, which is like four discs and it’s an RPG. I don’t know much about it, but it’s consistently rated #1 on pretty much every top ten list for Saturn games and it easily sells for over $100 on ebay. I saw one disc (of four) on sale by itself for $50, so that's saying something.
I only have two games so far. When I got the system, I bought Tempest 2000 because it was basically the only game the store had that wasn’t a sports game (another Sega trend). It’s pretty fun, but it doesn’t come across as a game that NEEDS to be on the Saturn. It’s got Vectrex-esque graphics with all wire frames and stuff. It’s a simple but cool title that’s one of those pick-up-and-play games. It’s multiplayer too, though I haven’t tried that yet. Also the soundtrack is absolutely awesome, bumping techno that actually puts the CD-ROM to good use. If you’re really feeling cool, you can pop the game into a CD player and listen to it in the car or at your next Tempest themed party.
I also bought Command and Conquer. I love C&C and basically all RTS games. I anticipated this to be a pile of crap, the idea of a RTS on console sounding like a carpal tunnel inducing mess, but it was four bucks so I said screw it. Surprisingly, it works a lot better than I thought on the Saturn. The controls are pretty easy once you get used to it. Its two discs, one disc for each faction’s missions (nearly 30 all together). It’s only the campaign mode, so there’s no multiplayer or skirmish mode, which kind of hurts its replay value. The music sounds good also, although some of the songs are annoying industrial crap. If you’ve never played this game, get it on PC. It’s not a must-have on the Saturn, but it’s pretty damn cool and for four bucks you’re getting an awesome classic and a surprisingly faithful port.
I also have Daytona USA coming in the mail here soon. A note to consumers, apparently I bought the wrong version of Daytona. The one I bought was the release title version. It was apparently later rereleased (championship circuit edition or something like that, I forget exactly what it’s called) by a more competent team not hampered by a rushed launch. It had some graphical issues fixed and added things that had to be taken out of the original, like multiplayer. Yeah, the one I bought is only one player! What kind of garbage racing game is only one player? Let that be a warning to you all, research your crap before you rush to buy it somewhere! Oh well, it was like six bucks so whatever.
So, in conclusion, the Saturn probably isn’t for everyone, but it has some cool stuff going for it. Out of my three Sega systems (Genesis, Saturn, Dreamcast), the Saturn is a pretty distant third. They’re relatively cheap though, making it less of a guilty purchase. I got mine for a little less than 30 bucks with a controller and the AV and power hookups. It has a limited collection of good games, but a lot of them are pretty common (i.e. cheap). If you’re a collector, this is one of the more memorable failures that your collection can not be complete without.
I picked up one of these bad boys not too long ago. It’s been on the “to-buy” list for me for a while and, to be honest, if I had to say why I wanted it so bad, I’m not really too sure. I never had one, I never knew anyone who had one when it was a current system, and I don’t ever really remember playing it ever, maybe in a store demo or something.
Then again, I am an OCD collector that pretty much wants any and all things game related, so it would be downright unfair of me to neglect this little guy if I’m also typing “Atari Jaguar” and “TurboGrafix” into my eBay searches.
The Saturn often gets hastily plopped in to the category of “failure”, along with pretty much everything else in between the SNES and the Playstation. Technically, this was one thing that precipitated Sega’s slide out of the hardware business, but it does have some bright spots and to be honest, not all of the issues the Saturn faced were really within its control. But it still had its fair share of stupidity.
So, to start, I’m going to list off a few general reasons why the Saturn didn’t fare so well and then give my general feelings about the system…
Issue #1: Timing – As stated before, not all of the Saturn’s downfalls were within its control. This is one issue where that rings partially true. In North America, Sony initially announced its American release date on “Saturnday”, September 2, 1995. I didn’t make that up, that was an actual pun they used for marketing. The system fared pretty well in Japan when it was released about a year earlier (170K sold on opening day), so things were looking good for Sega.
Only, there was one problem.
Sony announced that their Playstation would be released one week later on September 9th. Because of this, Sega attempted to release the console early, marketing it as a surprise when it was actually released on May 11th. It sure came as a surprise to third-party developers who suddenly found that they didn’t have the four months they anticipated to polish the release-date titles, therefore leaving Sega with basically no well-constructed launch titles. The majority were Sega arcade ports, like Virtua Fighter and Daytona USA, which were unimpressive ports that brought about the 32-bit era with a whimper instead of a bang.
Issue #2: Hardware – Compounding the frustration of a rushed launch for the third-party developers was the overcomplicated hardware design of the Saturn, which made programming unnecessarily difficult. I’m not a super proficient computer expert here, but from what I understand, the Saturn’s use of two CPU’s and six processors made coordinating it all together really difficult. Also, many of the computery bits (not technical term) in the system weren’t specifically designed to work together.
Sega also failed to supply the programmers with any good development tools, making the developers do even more work coding and stuff. In the interest of time and convenience, some developers would just use one CPU (Alien vs. Predator as one example). Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the Atari Jaguar had a similar issue (using 2 cpus), and that's never good when you share failure points with the Jag.
Issue #3: Competition – Playstation…Nintendo 64…enough said
Issue #4: Bernie Stolar – I know the guy gets a tough rap, and it seems like everyone passes harsh judgment on the guy. With the gift of hindsight, we can now see the error in his ways. He thought that RPG’s wouldn’t fare well with an American audience. I think Final Fantasy XII did OK. He felt that 2D games weren’t any good because they didn’t fully harness what the Saturn had to offer. I guess that’s why something like Guardian Heroes is one of the most sought after Saturn games and commands prices of modern games over a decade later.
When it rains, it pours buddy. To be fair, a lot of Sega’s arcade ports (Virtua Fighter 2, Virtua Cop) did well and were flagship Saturn games, but they just couldn’t compete with the boundaries that the Playstation and the Nintendo 64 were pushing. Stolar’s issues also overlap into the final nail in the Saturn’s coffin…
Issue #5: The Dreamcast – It takes some kind of company to have your next-gen console hurt your current-gen console in the way the Dreamcast affected the Saturn. By 1997, Sega (at least in America) decided to move forward with their next-gen system that became the Dreamcast. By throwing in the towel on the Saturn, Sega again pissed off a lot of its third-party partners that expected a longer lifespan and more opportunities to make games. Perhaps screwing the Dreamcast before it was even released, a lot of these developers left and made the move to develop for Sony and/or Nintendo.
My Thoughts…
The Saturn gets a big shrug of indifference by me.
I think it looks pretty sleek, better than the Playstation for sure, which is one of the ugliest looking systems in my opinion. Sega retains its bad boy image with another black system that just looks as sexy as a game system can look. The controller is basically a Genesis/Mega-Drive 6-button controller with R and L triggers ala SNES. It feels good and works well.
There are not a lot of games that really jump out me in its library. I might amend that by saying its affordable and non-imported library. That’s one thing about the system potential buyers should know; a lot of the favorite games among fanboys and collectors of the Saturn are the imports. The Street Fighter games and a lot of sh’mups were never released in Stolar’s America, but they actually turned out to be good! A few of them also require a RAM expansion to be playable, but I don’t know how much those go for. The biggie for the system that isn’t an import is Panzer Dragoon Saga, which is like four discs and it’s an RPG. I don’t know much about it, but it’s consistently rated #1 on pretty much every top ten list for Saturn games and it easily sells for over $100 on ebay. I saw one disc (of four) on sale by itself for $50, so that's saying something.
I only have two games so far. When I got the system, I bought Tempest 2000 because it was basically the only game the store had that wasn’t a sports game (another Sega trend). It’s pretty fun, but it doesn’t come across as a game that NEEDS to be on the Saturn. It’s got Vectrex-esque graphics with all wire frames and stuff. It’s a simple but cool title that’s one of those pick-up-and-play games. It’s multiplayer too, though I haven’t tried that yet. Also the soundtrack is absolutely awesome, bumping techno that actually puts the CD-ROM to good use. If you’re really feeling cool, you can pop the game into a CD player and listen to it in the car or at your next Tempest themed party.
I also bought Command and Conquer. I love C&C and basically all RTS games. I anticipated this to be a pile of crap, the idea of a RTS on console sounding like a carpal tunnel inducing mess, but it was four bucks so I said screw it. Surprisingly, it works a lot better than I thought on the Saturn. The controls are pretty easy once you get used to it. Its two discs, one disc for each faction’s missions (nearly 30 all together). It’s only the campaign mode, so there’s no multiplayer or skirmish mode, which kind of hurts its replay value. The music sounds good also, although some of the songs are annoying industrial crap. If you’ve never played this game, get it on PC. It’s not a must-have on the Saturn, but it’s pretty damn cool and for four bucks you’re getting an awesome classic and a surprisingly faithful port.
I also have Daytona USA coming in the mail here soon. A note to consumers, apparently I bought the wrong version of Daytona. The one I bought was the release title version. It was apparently later rereleased (championship circuit edition or something like that, I forget exactly what it’s called) by a more competent team not hampered by a rushed launch. It had some graphical issues fixed and added things that had to be taken out of the original, like multiplayer. Yeah, the one I bought is only one player! What kind of garbage racing game is only one player? Let that be a warning to you all, research your crap before you rush to buy it somewhere! Oh well, it was like six bucks so whatever.
So, in conclusion, the Saturn probably isn’t for everyone, but it has some cool stuff going for it. Out of my three Sega systems (Genesis, Saturn, Dreamcast), the Saturn is a pretty distant third. They’re relatively cheap though, making it less of a guilty purchase. I got mine for a little less than 30 bucks with a controller and the AV and power hookups. It has a limited collection of good games, but a lot of them are pretty common (i.e. cheap). If you’re a collector, this is one of the more memorable failures that your collection can not be complete without.
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