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

[Tanooki]

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?)

Maybe. With Sega you had them bungle the 32x and sort of the SegaCD, and then they threw the Saturn under the bus as well. Factor in the under-designed system that had to calculate in software 3D instead of using chips like PS1/N64 did, you had a problem. Nintendo went and revenge burned Sony when they tried to screw them out of all their CD profits with shady contracts which caused the PS1 to exist, then Nintendo being stupid also ditched Philips and ended up with 20-30 dollar(just for the chips alone) cart costs which made games $50+ each with very limited space. They both screwed the pooch, but Sega had a track record of failure going and Sony really hurt them sandbagging their release coming up earlier yet and $100 less.

[celerystalker]

Reading this thread summarizes pretty well to me why the Saturn had no chance in the US. Not because of the negative reasons like the 32X, but the games people are calling for to save the system.

Don't get me wrong, they're awesome games. I've been importing Sakura Wars games since that time, but they wouldn't have been even remotely close to a system seller here, anymore than Snatcher didn't sell Sega CDs. Sega's import catalog is incredible, and would have summarily done nothing over here. People didn't give two shits about shooters over here. Lunar and its remakes are excellent, but Working Designs was never going to release anything in the kind of print run that it would be a system seller. I would have happily bought them up, as would just about everyone here, but we are very much the vocal minority.

Also, while the idea of prolonging the Genesis and Game Gear sounds nice and might have kept some revenue coming in, it hardly would have directly helped the Saturn. Consoles in that crossover period get sloppier versions of new-gen games more than anything. Had Pulseman, Alien Soldier, and the rest come over, they'd have done poorly to mediocre. Wily Wars was previous-gen stuff. Alien Soldier is an obtuse boss rush that, while I like it, is thoroughly inferior to Gunstar Heroes, which was hardly what made the Genesis sell. Pulseman wouldn't have seemed all that special had it come out at a time where mascot platformers were everywhere. I don't mean to insult those games. I like them and bought them, and still have them. However, in the context of the time, they weren't even sort of mainstream for appeal, as all 16 bit marketing was about how the systems could still offer high-end experiences with the likesof Donkey Kong Country or Vectorman. They were niche games then, and are still now, and their notoriety is greatly enhanced by being some of the few english-friendly import exclusives for the Mega Drive, which is one of the least loaded import libraries around.

Not in any way meant as an insult to Sega or its games, but these were exactly why Sega failed. Their brand of awesome wasn't what Americans were interested in anymore, and going even more Japanese would have only appealed to the hardcore who were already into these things. It took a developed collector's market to bring any notoriety to these games, even the good ones that did come out over here. There was a time when you could easily snap up copies of Guardian Heroes at retailers on clearance for $5, and no one cared. It was well after the fact that retro styles became fashionable again to the collector's market, which is a comparatively small sub-section on the overall marketplace that snapped up a bajillion copies of Crash and Spyro, while Galactic Attack, Guardian Heroes, Marvel Super Heroes, Night Warriors, Darius Gaiden, and more just languished, being outsold by shitty ports of Doom, Duke Nukem, and even freaking Hexen. People were way more into crap they'd turn their backs to as soon as a prettier new version would show up later, not the timeless classics that took too long to get the appreciation they deserved.

[Greg2600]

Yes Saturn had many fine arcade ports and niche games with strong cult followings today. That wasn't going to sell many systems in 1996.

[Kevincal]

Sega just totally screwed up by doing the surprise launch in May 1995... Their 2 most important games were not ready, virtua fighter and Daytona... once people saw those games didn't look that great on Saturn, they decided to wait for playstation with toshinden and ridge racer..... sega should have stuck with the original idea of saturnday sept. 2nd... they probably would have beat playstation cus by then they would have polished their games much more and attracted more 3rd parties... also obviously the 32x was a huge mistake and played a part in taking segas focus and resources away from Saturn. Saturn was too little too late cus playstation came out with a friggen bang in sept 95 and never looked back. right away tons of great software and it hasn't stopped to this day for sony and their playstation brand... sure ps3 wasn't a mega hit but it did just fine. to be fair, sony had loads more money to play with than sega in 1995 1996.

but to play with the topic. summer 1996 sega should have had Saturn hardware and software even lower in price than they did and they should have had a better marketing campaign. that's pretty much it. that alone would have attracted more 3rd party support which Saturn was greatly lacking compared to playstation in the usa... I assume we are talking about usa here... japans a whole nother story obviously. whole nother world where actually Saturn probably beat playstation? about even lets call it

me personally. I was a big genesis fan in the early 90s and jumped on the 32x bandwagon a short while. sega cd was never of interested to me, too pricey for what seemed like nothing special. why do I need sonic cd when I have the sonics on genesis. SPEAKING of sonic, that right there was a big fat fail for sega. here the Saturn is a 2d powerhouse yet they don't continue the awesome 2d sonic series from the genesis? wtf were they thinking... sonic the hedgehog 4 would have been the bees knees. and no sonic and knuckles technically officially isn't sonic 4 its more like sonic 3.5 and lets not even talk about knuckles chaotix a very weak game with broken play mechanics..

poor sega....I would much rather they had stuck around than Microsoft entered the gaming scene, I detest anything xbox. you know what also killed the Saturn too early is again sega making the mistake of releasing a system too soon in the dreamcast. sega should have waited to release dreamcast alongside ps2 with dreamcast also being able to play dvd movies and games etc. dreamcast 3d graphics were just as good as ps2.

[Alianger]

Warp back to '94 and make a better first impression.

[PreZZ]

Sega of america didnt like the saturn gpu and had proposed sega of japan to choose silicon graphics new gpu in development. Soj turned it down and it became the n64 gpu... now imagine if the saturn had n64 graphics with the cd format capabilities, it would have been the best hardware of the generation hands down.

[sfchakan]

You can keep your blurry, muddy and empty early 3D shitfests. I'll take my 2d gems just fine, thanks.

[PreZZ]

Yeah 3d games from that generation aged badly, but im sure they could have made good 2d games with that gpu too... mortal kombat, mischief maker and yoshi looked great on n64

[celerystalker]

You can keep your blurry, muddy and empty early 3D shitfests. I'll take my 2d gems just fine, thanks.

This is kinda my whole thing... if Sega had done the things it would have taken to be popular at the time, we'd have missed out on some of their best, most beautiful, and weirdest stuff. If I could go back, I'd leave it as it was, because the games they couldn't hardly give away like Guardian Heroes and Galactic Attack were the games I wanted. The Nintendo 64 is where I learned to stop trusting Nintendo as a brand. This is an entirely subjective statement, but the N64 is a turd with about 10 great games and a bunch of garbage, and almost half of the good ones are wrestling games, whereas the Saturn library is awesome and varied. Both as a system and a first-party developer, Sega spanked Nintendo in that generation; just nobody cared until long afterward.

Mischief Makers was pretty sweet, though.

[Gamevet]

1-3. FIRE. BERNIE. STOLAR.

4. Bring over all the Capcom fighters. So what if it requires a RAM cart? Bundle similar games together with a cart at a small premium. We loves us some 2D fighting games.

5. Be nice to Working Designs, so they will support both the Saturn and PlayStation. I will buy Lunar on both systems.

6. With 1-3 and 5 accomplished, ask Working Designs to lend a hand in localizing Sakura Wars.

7. See #6 also for the remaining 2/3 of Shining Force III.

8. Print more than 50 copies of Panzer Dragoon Saga (OK, so there were about 150,000 of these printed, but still... I believe no game without its own cabinet should be $300) .

Bernie Stolar had nothing to do with the failure of the Saturn. If anything, he was trying to cut losses for Sega, before the console sunk the company completely. The expensive hardware design of the console meant that Sega couldn't compete with Sony, and Stolar (Tom Kelinski knew that as well) knew that continuing to throw money at a money-pit was not the answer for Sega's future.

While I appreciate the efforts Working Designs made for Sega's consoles, their game sales were hardly worth noting. Even their support for the Playstation didn't create a large amount of software sales for the company.

The one saving grace for the Saturn would have been a strong output of sports titles for the North American audience. Sega should of had another Joe Montana Football game available for the Saturn in the fall of 95. The Playstation had NFL Gameday available that fall, and it was one of the key titles for the Playstation during that holiday season.

[Alianger]

You can keep your blurry, muddy and empty early 3D shitfests. I'll take my 2d gems just fine, thanks.

Except wouldn't that not be a problem when you have CD storage? Carts was the cause for this afaik.

Anyway there's really no saving it as late as 1996, even tying top selling third party devs to them and getting stuff like FF7 and MGS, their ports would've been inferior graphically and probably released later due to the system being harder to develop for.

I do find it interesting that games like Rayman and Oddworld sold so well though. Maybe a Saturn 2 geared completely for 2D (no ram carts needed, for example) would've turned a profit at least.

[TonyTheTiger]

The key complication with this question is that it's effectively asking "what could Sega have done that would not have been Sega-like."

[Tanooki]

Which basically is the answer to the question. There is no way going back to 1996 that Sega could have been successful and really that could be said for some years earlier. They got a huge lucky break with the Genesis and the gap into the SNES and in the US their arrogant and disgusting marketing department with their shady ad campaign was a good help too. At first against 8bit Nintendo it made sense, then it got into selective lying against the SNES and yet it still worked, for awhile. But once the ads and the hardware weren't cutting it anymore, and when they decided to release one bad idea after another, it was game over. Good will was lost, then the fans in good numbers bailed, and they had nothing to live for but shattered dreams and a life support machine that wouldn't last forever which the Dreamcast was the victim of when that plug was pulled.

[Gamevet]

Which basically is the answer to the question. There is no way going back to 1996 that Sega could have been successful and really that could be said for some years earlier. They got a huge lucky break with the Genesis and the gap into the SNES and in the US their arrogant and disgusting marketing department with their shady ad campaign was a good help too. At first against 8bit Nintendo it made sense, then it got into selective lying against the SNES and yet it still worked, for awhile. But once the ads and the hardware weren't cutting it anymore, and when they decided to release one bad idea after another, it was game over. Good will was lost, then the fans in good numbers bailed, and they had nothing to live for but shattered dreams and a life support machine that wouldn't last forever which the Dreamcast was the victim of when that plug was pulled.

Don't let your personal bias towards Nintendo blind you to what really happened. Sega pretty much screwed themselves over by releasing the Sega CD and 32X in North America. The Mega-CD became a necessity in Japan, because of the popularity of NEC's PC-Engine and it's CD add-on in Japan. The Mega-Drive was a distant 3rd in Japan and Sega had hoped that the introduction of the Mega-CD would help gain some ground there. The introduction of the Sega-CD slowed down the momentum that Sega had built with the Genesis and the 32X pretty much killed it all together. It would have made more sense for the Genesis to have been just the console, with a slow progression towards the Saturn, than having the confusing add-ons they had brought with the Sega CD and 32X. The momentum that SOA had created with the Genesis was pretty much killed with the introduction of those add-on devices.

[Alianger]

What was the deal with not using ram carts more for boosting graphics in 3D games? I've heard that at least one game did this (Final Fight Revenge).

[Tanooki]

I don't really have a personal bias with Nintendo anymore, in the 80s and 90s sure, but not now. I meant it at face value, Sega got a hell of a break with the Genesis when they dropped it and then extended it with their ad campaign they ran. Even Sega said years later they disliked the company and their tactics they hired for their US ads. And despite that break they screwed it up with their badly handled addons to the Genesis and how they tanked and screwed up the Saturn even before it retail. It was like a really bad one two punch to Sega because they hosed over their users with the accessory devices to the console, then they made an under-performing (for 3D) Saturn which was grossly complicated to program for due to its design which did them no favors. It made it easy for Sony to swoop in and wreck them.

[Gamevet]

What was the deal with not using ram carts more for boosting graphics in 3D games? I've heard that at least one game did this (Final Fight Revenge).

The RAM carts could hold more texture memory, but would provide no increase in 3D performance for the console. The RAM carts were beneficial for sprite based fighters, because they could hold more sprite data for each character, allowing for more frames of animation per character.

[Tanooki]

Exactly. I had the Action Reply 4M+ or whatever it was branded. That thing was awesome because some imports like XMen vs Street Fighter required using it (or greatly benefited I forget) and also it allowed mass storage of save files since the CR2032 in the Saturn was flaky at best, plus if you wanted, it cheated and allowed imports to work as well without mods/burning stuff.

[Gamevet]

I used the Japanese RAM cart I got with Dark Savior with the NA version of Marvel Super Heroes.

[SparTonberry]

I don't really have a personal bias with Nintendo anymore, in the 80s and 90s sure, but not now. I meant it at face value, Sega got a hell of a break with the Genesis when they dropped it and then extended it with their ad campaign they ran. Even Sega said years later they disliked the company and their tactics they hired for their US ads.

Sega's Genesis-era commercials were at least pretty amusing even if they were angry (that even '90s then-Nintendo-biased kid me could mostly find amusing).
I think it was Nintendo's "Play It Loud" (1994 until N64 launch) that was really tasteless (you really nailed that 9-14 demographic, Nintendo! So while I probably laughed at them as a kid, I can only facepalm today.) EarthBound "This Game Stinks!" is probably the most famous victim, as being an RPG with an unfamiliar IP and non-CGI in WOW-CGI 90s would've been tough even with good marketing. I think the Yoshi's Island barfing guy commercial was the lowest point they sunk, but it had IP recognition to save it.