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Thread: What if Sega had waited until their planned September 1995 launch date for the Saturn?

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    Strawberry (Level 2)
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    Default What if Sega had waited until their planned September 1995 launch date for the Saturn?

    Few would argue that Sega's decision to launch the Saturn early was a major screw up. For months, developers and retailers were working toward a September 2, 1995 release date, confident that they had the summer of 1995 to put the finishing touches on planned launch games and make plans to have stock on that September date. However, as many of us know, Sega robbed third party developers of those final 114 days of development time and chose to give the Saturn a surprise limited release on May 11, 1995. Retailers that didn't get any Saturns that day were pissed and some chose not to do business with Sega for months or even years after that. Developers were left with games that were unfinished on May 11 and the Saturn's launch lineup sucked.

    Would the planned launch date have helped? It would have allowed for a much better first impression, with a wider range and better quality of launch titles. The supply of consoles at launch probably would have been adequate, and perhaps they could have launched it at a slightly lower price than $399 - probably not the $299 of the PlayStation, but maybe $349. It would have put more distance between the launch of the 32X and Saturn. Would it have made a difference in the long run?

    I would guess it would make a significant difference, with the PlayStation still winning the 1995 holiday season but the Saturn as a strong second, probably selling at least at half the rate of the PlayStation, creating a ripple effect that would have increased third party support and the system's lifespan. Lifetime sales of the Saturn would have perhaps doubled from 9.26 million to 16-20 million. It's possible that the Saturn could have held out long enough that the Dreamcast could have launched with a DVD player, making it competitive with Sony. There would probably be a 50-50 chance of Sega still being in the console market in 2019, competing alongside Sony and Nintendo (it's possible Microsoft would have still entered the market as well).
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    Strawberry (Level 2) sfchakan's Avatar
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    Well, Sega wouldn't have pissed off some retailers who refused to carry the Saturn after being left out on day one. The launch library would've been a lot better as well.

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    The age old question for that generation, isn't it? There were a myriad of reasons the Saturn was ignored by gamers who anxiously awaited the PlayStation, and I'm not sure that release date played a significant role to those people. Did it harm Sega? Of course it did, but I really doubt it made a huge affect in the grand scheme. The system was doomed by the thickheaded Japanese executives who chose an absolutely horrible system design, made only worse by adding components at the last minute. Add to that the lack of dev tools to easily code on the console. Then look at the games that did come out, particularly first party, and while many were good, they were not system sellers. Hell, Sonic was largely forgotten, as the company blundered by releasing the system with its 3D Sonic title in development infancy. Something Nintendo rarely did, was release a new system without Mario leading the way. They scrambled badly during the winter/spring of '95 because it was very very clear that the PlayStation would be more powerful, with huge buzz, leveraging Sony's massive budget and retail experience, and featuring strong 3rd-party support. The Saturn was seemingly a "pet project" for a contingent within SOJ, muscled through while ignoring the warnings of engineers, marketing, and partners.

    PS: At the end of the day, the only difference would probably have been them not pissing off retailers, which hurt them for years after, including right through the Dreamcast, another system that really never stood a chance.
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    From an 'outside' perspective (I wasn't paying attention at all to Sega back then, so everything I've encountered was well after the fact), the surprise early launch for the Saturn was probably the most damaging mistake that Sega made, acting as something of a force multiplier for the rash of missteps that they were so set on making. A lot of what went on felt like a clique of executives trying to go for some sort of 'edgy' decision-making process that was reliant on sycophants and fanboys to validate. They had taken on Nintendo and came out with some victories not so long before, so they could take their own brand of frothing insanity and make lots of money with it. They just failed to realize that Nintendo tempered their craziness with conservative business practices, and they didn't realize what the Playstation was about to do. Angering devs? Pfft, big N loved getting all Darth Vader on third-party guys and they get loads of cash! Burning bridges with retailers? Whatever, the sheep will just buy our awesome stuff from people that love us!

    Not having a strong starting library and forcing devs, both first- and third-party, to shovel out half-baked games meant that any immediate adopters would actually create negative buzz and doing it a few months before the Christmas season instead of either just before or during meant that any of the seasonal hype would have a very limited effect on sales of the thing. The kiddies had time to decide that "Saturn sucks" so it wouldn't go on their wish lists. Burned retailers were just selling something else (hell '95 was still a great time to get a 16-bit system, especially if you knew how to bargain hunt).

    In the end, if they had stuck to the later date, there would have been something of a stronger library, less burned bridges with business connections, and they would have been able to harness the seasonal hype a little bit better. They would have pushed more consoles and games by a significant fraction. They might have been able to wise up some, and corrected some of their perceptions to fit the market. They could have pushed a few more Dreamcast machines down the road, and maybe even capitalized on Sony getting that anti-JRPG lunatic that SOA dropped by branding themselves as the RPG machine. I think personally they were heading for a fall soon in any case; there was an air of panic that started to really show right around this time, and it colored a lot of their decisions from this point forward. They never came across as confident or reliable after this, and this is a business where perception doesn't inform reality, it is reality.
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    $399 price tag didn't help either against the $299 Playstation. Even if it came out in September Sega Couldn't drop the price because it was already losing a lot of money on each system even at $399. At $399 that was a lot of money back then and most people weren't going to pay that for a gaming machine.
    Last edited by RPG_Fanatic; 02-18-2019 at 09:53 AM.

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    It's been said, but their higher price waiting or not would have been a problem, as to how much who knows really. Sony that first year didn't really have much of crap worth bothering outside of an arcade port or two that would wear thin, so there was a good window of time that Sega and Nintendo combined could have done some good damage. Sony saw the perceived threat and handled each accordingly. Sega was suffering so they outpriced them and came out with what they did for better or worse. Nintendo being a cart was easy to pick on, but then they lied and called it the kiddie box through Sony media doing a smear campaign despite having less T/M games than the N64 had at the time -- and those factors along with the heavy price of a ROM chip vs optical helped further.

    Had Sega waited, they would have held on, they had better games, to a point people will pay a bit more for better quality. Despite pissing some off with the 32X and to a lesser point the CD too, they had still a pretty large loyal base that weren't looking to flock elsewhere yet, especially not to Nintendo due to the fanboy console 16bit wars. Sega did though have that other black hole of a problem no one knew of, horrible as all get out to get all the parts to play nice internally combined with the most hellishly complicated setup to try and program games for which I think unless the WiiU topped it still is the worst to date. You couldn't port things, you couldn't borrow stuff, it all had to be redone, even the system didn't use triangles for polygons, it used quads. Sega screwed up designing the hardware, screwed up with the pricing, just screw it all up being over confident and arrogant since they did pretty strongly with the Genesis. They didn't learn from Nintendo being snotty in the 8bit era. Seems to happen, Sony was kind of a-holish and took a back seat for a good stretch with the 360 making them look worse despite the RROD ticking time bomb many of those were.

    It's just too hard to say, but I think if Sega had got out when they should have, had the intended launch they should have, not pissed off and lost developers and also some retailers from peddling their goods, they would have held a better share of the market beyond a doubt and perhaps survived longer not having the DC out too early and cut down after just a couple years on the market. It all was a big annoying domino effect there.

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