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.