30 Years Ago, Sega Took Its Biggest Gamble With Saturn And Failed

"That’s not how you launch a system".

[MaximusPrime_]

Good timely article

[thorstein]

The Dreamcast was the biggest gamble and way ahead of its time.

[OtterX]

I wish we lived in the Alternate Timeline where Sega was still a dominant force in the console space and it hadn't been Microsoft.

[D2niceforu]

lol

[Deeeeznuuuts]

I've always said this, would much prefer SEGA, such a shame.

[blacktiger]

this was all part of the plan to give Microsoft the spot

[chicken_in_the_corn]

Would be interesting to see what they would do for a modern console.

[darthv72]

Saturn was a fantastic piece of kit... they just went a little too ambitious with its dual CPU setup. which turned a lot of developers off (at the time). The homebrew community have done some amazing work many years later, thanks to multichip experience. It is still the best platform for arcade fighters and shmups of all time. Dreamcast is a close 2nd though.

[Profchaos]

Yeah it was a interesting decision especially when looking at how dual CPU is considered a root cause of why the Jaguar was a failure.

Also the hardware rendered four sided polygons where the standard was three if they kept with triangle polygons I feel the systems development would have been easier to work with and we would have seen more third party ports in the west.

I think it was a victim of its time more than anything it saw huge success in Japan but the leadership and internal turmoil in the west meant games were not getting localised along with a focus on arcade like games were the PlayStation and later the N64 were pushing more in depth experiences over coin munching high score driven games.

[Knightofelemia]

I still enjoy my Saturn it was the first console I mowed lawns for and saved up for to purchase. I went so far as to purchase a used Saturn to run off an SD card. I even have a second Dreamcast modded to run off an SD card as well.

[COS]

I owned the Saturn, unless just a year ago, so much potential, so poorly designed and marketed. Virtua Figher 2 was Amazing as well as many other games. Memory Expansion Cartridge was a great idea too late. Had some solid RPGs

[Popsicle]

$299

[andy85]

30 years. Man I remember getting one for Xmas 95. Great memories

[jznrpg]

I miss Sega. Would be awesome if they were still around. I still own all of their consoles.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I wish I still had all my Sega consoles from when I was a kid.

[Storm23]

I wish I had all of my collections from when I was kid. So dumb looking back on it now to get rid of so many amazing devices and games.

[TheColbertinator]

Sega was the greatest console maker. Nobody will ever match their brilliance. Nintendo does come close though.

[OhReginald]

Sega tried to compete with playstations polygonal games and failed. I know sega Saturn's strengths were it's fighting games and shumps which they should have ported to the west. In the end its kind of their fault for fumbling the saturn.

[Ps5conehead]

I wish sega would make another console.

[Cellblock11]

I wouldn't call it a "failure". I personally loved my Saturn and had some great fun with it playing some really great games. It's just that for me the games that were coming out for PS One pulled my attention in that direction and unfortunately the options for Saturn games began to stifle. And the rest as they say is history but good history and fond memories of a really cool game console.

[ocelot07]

Saturn and Dreamcast are in my top 5 consoles. So sad they killed sega as a platform though.

[hiawa23]

I would later rebuy a Saturn but I remember being a college student and working at Sears at launch and the Saturn released a week earlier than the Playstion so I bought it. Sears later allowed me to return it for the Playstation as every multi-plat game performed or looked better. The Saturn was a 2-D sprite crunching monster but back then most games moved to 3D polygons. It seems Segas downfall started with all those add-ons for the Genesis before the Saturn arrived.

[DefenderOfDoom2]

The video games I played the most on my Sega
Genisis was the EA NHL Hockey games . I was going to buy a Sega Saturn, but there was no EA NHL EA Hockey 96 for the Sega Saturn in 1995 . So I ended up buying PlayStation because it was a hundred dollars cheaper and I had good feeling that the Playstation was going to attract the most video game developer studios .

[Flewid638]

Sega-CD, 32X, 32X-CD, Saturn and Dreamcast all failed. Thats why they went 3rd party.

[rgraf77]

Sega Saturn was one of the all time greats. PS1 couldn't not match its 2d prowess
I remember PS1 versions of fighting games would be missing animations because it didn't have enough RAM. With it being $100 dollars more then PS1 upon lunch and the move to 3d and past failures haunted them.

[DustMan]

The Saturn was stuck in the muck and mire of Sega of Japan, and Sega of America. So many great games came out in Japan that never got a US port. The Saturn was the absolute best platform for fighters, and other 2d games. Everybody wanted jagged polygons on the playstation though. I never understood.