It's summer 1996. How can the USA Sega Saturn become successful?

[calgon]

I honestly don't believe by that point sega could have won, or even claimed second place. They were blindsided by Sony and looked and felt irrelevant next to some of the newer ideas the psx was pushing.

You could definitely have mitigated the loss though. First, and apologies because many people have said this already but, keep Genesis titles and hardware in production. Phase out game gear which admittedly was on its way out anyway.
Get sonic xtreme out at all costs, regardless of quality even. Sonic had the power to be a system seller and if STI were allowed to keep the nights engine some cool things would have come of it.

Bring all the fighters out and bill Saturn as THE arcade conversion machine for hardcore gamers. Do not announce that Saturn is not our future...

I believe those steps would have kept sega going a little while longer at the very least

[SparTonberry]

Probably with Genesis games is that Japan had already largely called it quits when the Saturn launched. I think there were a few MD games released in Japan post-Saturn but after that it was mostly western-developed games.

The problem with making it the "ultimate hardcore machine" is... would the "hardcore" crowd have kept the console afloat? Not likely.
I'll have to wonder that same sort of thing when Nintendo's next portable comes, if it's going to be in a similar boat (with that one Sony guy suggesting they're going to just give that market to Nintendo since there's not much room anymore). Or is going to be "a Pokemon console"?

[Bhris]

You could definitely have mitigated the loss though. First, and apologies because many people have said this already but, keep Genesis titles and hardware in production. Phase out game gear which admittedly was on its way out anyway.

Probably with Genesis games is that Japan had already largely called it quits when the Saturn launched. I think there were a few MD games released in Japan post-Saturn but after that it was mostly western-developed games.
I remember games like Pulseman being previewed in DieHard Game Fan, which should have been released in the US. Sega had created a loyal audience with the Genesis.





Bring all the fighters out and bill Saturn as THE arcade conversion machine for hardcore gamers. Do not announce that Saturn is not our future...

I believe those steps would have kept sega going a little while longer at the very least



The problem with making it the "ultimate hardcore machine" is... would the "hardcore" crowd have kept the console afloat? Not likely.
I'll have to wonder that same sort of thing when Nintendo's next portable comes, if it's going to be in a similar boat (with that one Sony guy suggesting they're going to just give that market to Nintendo since there's not much room anymore). Or is going to be "a Pokemon console"?

I think it would have been possible. If Sega had gotten Genesis owners to view the Saturn as the next level of gaming, AND had a launch title Sonic game to make the new system feel more familiar I believe they could have fared a lot better. Of course polygon games were the future, but had they gotten more third party arcade games ported for the Saturn (Alien vs Predator being associated with Capcom and the Fox film franchises would have been one big help), and continued their more recent franchises like Streets of Rage, Eternal Champions, Phantasy Star, etc, I for one would have been asking my parents for a Saturn.

Instead the 32X was advertised to Genesis owners and the Saturn to...who? They were dividing their own audience. 32X got a Sonic-related game before the Saturn. Doom, Star Wars, and Virtua Fighter were also on the 32X. That was a lot of incentive to do a mild upgrade with the 32X versus the big investment of the Saturn.

[dendawg]

They were blindsided by Sony and looked and felt irrelevant next to some of the newer ideas the psx was pushing.

They also pretty much blindsided themselves by pullilng a surprise early launch without telling 3rd party devs and pissing them off, driving them into Sony's waiting arms.


Instead the 32X was advertised to Genesis owners

Who the hell else could they have marketed it to? It was a Genesis add-on, after all.

[Bhris]

Who the hell else could they have marketed it to? It was a Genesis add-on, after all.

Sega put out ads that pretty much told Genesis owners could upgrade their old consoles to a 32-Bit machine for that fraction of what it would cost to buy a 3DO, Jaguar...and even Saturn. So you had a portion of the market that believed that, so what incentive did they have for buying the Saturn?
SOA was dividing up their own fan base. Back then multiple systems in a household wasn't common. So some Sega fans like me got the 32X, while others went with the Saturn. Instead of that, SOA should have never put out the 32X, and instead should have focused on getting ALL Genesis owners, and everyone else, to get ready for the Saturn.

[MadaoBob]

There is one way to make the Saturn successful....

Send in Segata Sanshiro to beat it into their minds.


All jokes aside, adverts play quite a big role, and points about bringing as many of the titles it had in Japan that never made it over were actually quite valid.

[calthaer]

By 1996, too much had gone wrong. Yes, the glut of good shooters and fighters would have been nice, cheap localizations, but that wasn't what people were buying at the time...People wanted sports games in 3D, Final Fantasy, 3D platformers, and Resident Evil...and then Metal Gear happened.

This is just about what I was going to come to this thread to say, except pithier. What could Sega have done in '95-'96?

Get Final Fantasy VII.

The rest of the amazing PS1 library helped a lot, too, but that game alone was massive back in the day. A total departure from any experience that had come before. Might be hard to imagine that if you revisit the title today, but in the mid-'90s it was kind of revelatory, giving even a hard-core PC gamer like myself steeped in RTS and old-school RPGs (like Ultima) reason to pick up a system and play.

[Tron 2.0]

There is one way to make the Saturn successful....

Send in Segata Sanshiro to beat it into their minds.


All jokes aside, adverts play quite a big role, and points about bringing as many of the titles it had in Japan that never made it over were actually quite valid.
Would have been some thing if he knock out berine stolar to begin with ;)

[Cafeman]

SEGA was wise to pursue their coin-op games on Saturn like VF2, V.Cop, V. Racing and Sega Rally, but SOA made a mistake by not pursuing popular Genesis IP's , yet giving us weird new ones like Ghen War, Bug, Astal, Clockwork Knight, Mr. Bones, etc. Not that these games weren't decent. But Sony had better new properties like Crash Bandicoot , Wipeout, and Spyro. but where where:

- A new Sonic game. WTH happened? Sonic Jam along with a fuller Sonic World 3D gameplay should have been available earlier. Sonic 3D Blast and Sonic R were too little, too late for anybody to care. Even though they weren't terrible games. To tell you the truth, the aborted Sonic 3D game never looked that great to me from magazine shots, especially with its weird fisheye camera. It didn't shock me that it was cancelled.

- Updates to Streets of Rage, Eternal Champions, Thunderforce, or even a decent Batman or Spider-Man game?

- NiGHTS into Dreams is excellent, but I doubt many gamers understood it or loved it as much as Sonic.

- We shoulda got another Sega Rally on Saturn. Or the rumored Racing Megamix!

- Where was Shining Force or Phantasy Star, near launch???

Also, I was disappointed that Sega kept playing Sony's game , trying for better 3D and to prove it could do transperencies. I wish Sega had used the Saturn for what it was designed for -the best 2D ever!

[Bhris]

Totally agree. I seriously don't understand why they didn't get a Phantasy Star game going for Saturn. I remember I had just gotten into RPGs with Shining Force II, got excited for Lunar II and Final Fantasy III on SNES, and was fiending for RPGs. I think it was FFIII on SNES that helped pave the way for a wider audience for RPGs in the US.
Can you imagine if Sega Saturn would have launched with a Sonic game, Phantasy Star V: The Return of Alis, Streets of Rage IV, and Eternal Champions? I know I would have been excited for it despite the price tag. Even though 3D was the future, I think Saturn could have at least carved out a bigger niche for itself had they done more quality 2D games with recognizable franchises.
I always had a soft spot for Clockwork Knight, but Sonic III and Sonic and Knuckles seemed to look better overall, and feature more varied and fast paced gameplay. NiGHTS always looked awesome to me, but by the time it was released I think it was too late to garner the audience it needed.

[thetallguy]

On November 22, 1994, Sega launched the Saturn in Japan, to great success. But when it came time to introduce the Saturn in America, Sega didn't stick to their original September 2, 1995 launch date, jumping the system ahead to May 11, 1995 and only giving select retailers Saturns. The system came out with few games and many retailers pissed at Sega. Through the summer of 1995, the Sega Saturn sells slowly and the Sony PlayStation, released September 9, 1995, sells more units in its first two days alone than the Saturn could muster in its first four months.

Now it's June 1996. The PlayStation has been kicking the Saturn's ass in sales, and the Nintendo 64 is on its way. What can Sega do to make the Saturn successful in the USA?

I think that to make a successful Saturn, Sega would need to:

1) Keep supporting the Genesis. This seems counterproductive, but Sega itself was being hurt when they de-emphasized the Genesis in 1995. The 16 bit market was still doing very well in 1996: Nintendo only had a 16 bit console for most of that year, and they did well. Cut 16 bit marketing in 1997, not 1995.

2) No regional lockout. Many of the Saturn's best games were Japanese exclusive. Immediately remove regional lockout from newly produced Saturn systems, and let people know.

3) Get translating. Even without regional lockout, uptake of Japanese games will be limited. Localize a lot of the Japanese games, especially RPGs.

4) Sonic X-treme. This is still in development in June '96. Take it to completion and release it, even if it's a late '97 release.

5) "The Saturn is not our future." Don't say that at E3. Keep Saturn development going as long as possible - preferably until the Dreamcast launch.

Huge mistake was not releasing X-Men vs. Street Fighter to US and beat the Playstation release. I mean who wouldn't want to play that here?

[SparTonberry]

Is releasing X-Men vs. Street Fighter likely to have been a profitable move for Sega in the US, especially after considering the cost of the RAM cartridge and the X-Men license?

[celerystalker]

Is releasing X-Men vs. Street Fighter likely to have been a profitable move for Sega in the US, especially after considering the cost of the RAM cartridge and the X-Men license?

Nope. Great game. I bought it with the RAM cart. But 2D fighters weren't the answer. Saturn already had dynamite ports of Nightwarriors, Street Fighter Alpha and Alpha 2, X-men: Children of the Atom, Dark Legend, Golden Axe: The Duel, Marvel Super Heroes, Galaxy Fight, and more in the US, and they hardly made a difference. We also got Galactic Attack and Darius Gaiden, but people want to delude themselves and think that these games and Guardian Heroes and so on were system sellers in their actual release window. This stuff only became popular much, much later with collectors and retro gaming enthusiasts. I bought all this stuff so cheap back then because nobody cared. They weren't going to save a system that just was out of place in its lifespan.

People don't remember, as we get starved for classically-styled 2D games now, but fighters, shooters, and platformers were comsidered unambitious, also-ran games that were played out at the time. I am not disparaging these games. I love them, and they were the ones I was buying. However, the mass appeal in the US just did not exist in the late '90s, when these games couldn't even get good enough arcade revenue.

[otaku]

the issue for the saturn celerystalker was in my opinion the 3d was lacking and so they focused on quality 2d games which went over quite well on the system

[celerystalker]

the issue for the saturn celerystalker was in my opinion the 3d was lacking and so they focused on quality 2d games which went over quite well on the system

That's definitely true. It's just a shame that 2D quality games weren't what people wanted at the time. Retroactively, people have found a lot to love in games like Astal, Three Dirty Dwarves, etc., but at the time they really wanted to play Crash Bandicoot. Nowadays, the 2D enthusiasts will pay good money for the likes of Punky Skunk, who was a freaking punchline at the time.

[MathUser2929]

They should have decreased the price by at least 100 to compete at the same level as Sony.

[bangtango]

I'd wonder if some of PlayStation's early momentum probably came from Sega and Nintendo's mistakes. (when Nintendo decided to make the N64 a cart console, it drove away third-parties, especially Japanese. Would be interesting to think about what if Nintendo did use CDs... or some CD-like disc, knowing Nintendo's preference to proprietary formats. How would that have changed things?)

Sony had more financial and marketing resources, so I think it was in the bag for them before the Playstation even launched. Having the most money behind you will either give you better odds of getting shit right or being able to recover from any screw-ups you make.