Happy 17th birthday, Saturn.

[RCM]

Subject says it all: Sega Saturn was released 17 years ago today in the United States. The very first day of the very first E3 was 17 years ago today too. Man, I feel old.

[Manhattan Sports Club]

I never had a Saturn in its heyday but I do recall playing one at a friend's house, and seeing NiGHTs at the kiosk of certain stores.

I eventually bought a model 2 for around $40 at a Gamecrazy I believe, and have been enjoying it ever since. Definately my fav system of that era.

[Kevincal]

huge mistake by Sega to do the surprise launch months before anyone expected.. and to make matters worse asking too much $399.. They should have waited until saturnday sept 2 released a week before playstation at the same price $299. Could have released polished versions of virtua fighter and daytona.

[Flashback2012]

Happy Birthday to my 2nd favorite console and one of my top 5 favorite systems ever!

huge mistake by Sega to do the surprise launch months before anyone expected.. and to make matters worse asking too much $399.. They should have waited until saturnday sept 2 released a week before playstation at the same price $299. Could have released polished versions of virtua fighter and daytona.

Absolutely. Their little stunt was about as knuckle-headed as they come. I've always considered myself a big Sega devotee (going back to the Master System days) but the move left me cold and I opted to go with the PS1 when it came out. I didn't jump on with the Saturn until the 3-game pack-in special and it retailed for $249. Granted, once I got my Saturn I put many, MANY hours into it.

The only thing I wish they did different aside from the surprise launch was to do away with the obnoxious packaging that carried over from the Sega CD. I was sooooooooooooo glad when Sony said "enough is enough" and switched to standard sized jewel cases. It's a shame Sega didn't follow suit.

[Orion Pimpdaddy]

Yeah, the surprise launch was an attempt to get out way ahead of the PS1, but it blew up in Sega's faces. A surprise launch means no press coverage, no people sleeping out in front of the store, and games being pushed out the developers' doors before they were complete. Seventeen years, but still a bittersweet moment for Sega fans.

[RCM]

Yeah, the surprise launch was an attempt to get out way ahead of the PS1, but it blew up in Sega's faces. A surprise launch means no press coverage, no people sleeping out in front of the store, and games being pushed out the developers' doors before they were complete. Seventeen years, but still a bittersweet moment for Sega fans.

Well, they did announce the launch at E3 where most of the enthusiast press -- if not all -- were there covering them. Besides that, you didn't have folks camping out back in the day the way people do now.

Sega seemed to have done everything wrong with Saturn in the United States, but it was mildly successful in Japan. I'm guessing a lot of that had to do with the Virtua Fighter craze as well as all the other groovy arcade ports from Capcom and SNK. Regardless, it remains my favorite system 17 years later, with Genesis and Dreamcast tied for second. It was the console that forced me to import, and while it would have been nice to save the money and buy stuff domestically, I wouldn't change a thing.

I always have a laugh at Sony's expense 'cause they really did design an elegant machine that deserved all its success with PlayStation. While PS2 sold better than PS, and PSP/PS3 are success stories to a point, they haven't really delivered a system that's developer-friendly in the way PS was. I've heard OK things about Vita, but it may be too little, too late. While they influenced others to create dev-friendly environments, they've kind of produced "Saturn messy" dev environments with newer consoles, as I understand it.

[wiggyx]

Love, love, love the Saturn. Hate, hate, hate how SOA treated us, the customer. Not to mention all the developers and publishers that insisted US gamers wouldn't want some of the best titles that came out for the system. I recall the rationale being that 2D games were no longer popular in the US, and we all know that 90% of the real gems on that console were/are 2D.

Luckily imports were easily obtained for those of us that knew what we wanted.

The mess that the Saturn caused also put hurt on what I think of as SEGA's greatest achievement, the Dreamycast. What a fantastic platform. Too bad the Saturn burned so many hardcore SEGA fans. Two of my favorite consoles made obsolete in too short a time by a handful of really crappy choices very early in the Saturn's lifetime.

Long live the Saturn!

[gameofyou]

Wooohooo! ...And it is still my favorite system, by far.

[Emperor Megas]

Yeah, the surprise launch was an attempt to get out way ahead of the PS1, but it blew up in Sega's faces. A surprise launch means no press coverage, no people sleeping out in front of the store, and games being pushed out the developers' doors before they were complete. Seventeen years, but still a bittersweet moment for Sega fans.

Did people do the whole camping out and lining up for launches back then? I don't remember any of that shit back in the day.

[Retronick]

Did people do the whole camping out and lining up for launches back then? I don't remember any of that shit back in the day.

I don't think people started doing that shit until the dawn of the next generation.

[Orion Pimpdaddy]

Besides that, you didn't have folks camping out back in the day the way people do now.

Did people do the whole camping out and lining up for launches back then? I don't remember any of that shit back in the day.

I don't think people started doing that shit until the dawn of the next generation.

My bad. In America, I guess people didn't do that until Dreamcast and PS2.

[Orion Pimpdaddy]

Well, they did announce the launch at E3 where most of the enthusiast press -- if not all -- were there covering them.

But remember, those were the days of print media. Sega's announcement was that the Saturn was launching immediately. So, it would be a month or two before before the magazines could even tell people that the Saturn was available at retail. Maybe Sega put some TV commercials on at the time to tell people, but I don't remember any.

Another aspect to it, is that systems that were close to launch would have a run-up in coverage in magazines all the way up till launch day. Sega essentially gave up four months of pre-launch coverage by doing the surprise launch.

[Genesaturn]

Happy Birthday Saturn! I remember opening up my Saturn on Christmas morning of 95'. I didn't get a game with it unfortunately, but I had plenty of fun playing the demo disk it came with :P . All my cousins jumped from Genesis to the Playstation. I never regretted my decision, and like my name says...GeneSaturn, 1 of my 2 favorite systems of all time

[treismac]

Cheers, Saturn!

[wiggyx]

My bad. In America, I guess people didn't do that until Dreamcast and PS2.

Honestly, I don't recall anyone camping out until the PS3 and Wii. Before that, you just got up early to get to the store around the time it opened, you know, before the kids were out of school. I recall there being like 7 or 8 soccer moms at the TRU where I bought my GameCube on launch day. I think I grabbed my PS2 at Circuit City two days after launch. And Xboxes, man, those were never in short supply. Everyone had massive piles of those things.

[FrankSerpico]

Gonna have to play some Fighters Megamix tonight in celebration. Gonna mess some fools up with Hornet

[RCM]

But remember, those were the days of print media. Sega's announcement was that the Saturn was launching immediately. So, it would be a month or two before before the magazines could even tell people that the Saturn was available at retail. Maybe Sega put some TV commercials on at the time to tell people, but I don't remember any.

Another aspect to it, is that systems that were close to launch would have a run-up in coverage in magazines all the way up till launch day. Sega essentially gave up four months of pre-launch coverage by doing the surprise launch.

Oh, I didn't forget. Sega put out these strange "Theater of the Eye" commercials to let the public know Saturn had arrived. Some mainstream television media also picked up the story. And Saturn was hard to miss if you walked into a Babbages or other stores that carried it.

I'm not disputing what Sega did was dumb, especially in light of the fact that third party software really wasn't ready to ship. I got the Saturn a little while after I heard it launched and had to endure a software drought which lasted several months. Luckily, I was more than happy to play the piss out of Daytona, Virtua Fighter, and Panzer Dragoon, but i'm sure others Saturn owners weren't quite as pleased.

[Graham Mitchell]

Saturn and neo geo are probably the pinnacles of sprite-based gaming. Saturn in rgb on a good monitor is as good as it gets. Soooo many undiscovered gems on this classic console.


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[Orion Pimpdaddy]

Honestly, I don't recall anyone camping out until the PS3 and Wii.

The PS2, PS3, and Wii all had campers. There are videos on Youtube of people doing it. I experienced it firsthand when I camped out for the Wii, and there were about 100 other people camping there too.

[BricatSegaFan]

I never had one growing up but I always wanted one. Now that I have one i realize this was a very underrated console. I do have to say its the best looking console i own....that and the model one genesis