Documents dating to early 1996 detailing Sega's plans for their then current consoles (Saturn, Genesis, Game Gear, Sega CD, 32X, and Pico) have recently been released. It's 289 pages, and focuses primarily on the Saturn.
https://segaretro.org/images/8/8c/Se...dReview_US.pdf
Some things of note:
-Page 22, email from Tom Kalinske, March 28, 1996: "We are killing Sony." Mentions sold out Saturn hardware vs. stacks of PlayStation, 40-50 copies of Panzer Dragoon Zwei or Virtua Fighter 2 in even small stores. Kalinske wants to know how they can show that at E3 (May 16-18, 1996). Kalinske says "we will win in the US eventually".
-Page 43, Kalinske is not happy with advertising direction. "When did we decide on Hare Krishna cult members? Who in our audience identifies with them?". He suggests casting younger pilots for an airport-themed ad to identify with market, whom is said to be college-aged. He also wants to show more game footage in ads and pre-empt the upcoming Nintendo 64's claim as "The Ultimate Game Machine".
-Page 48, Sales through December 1995: PS1 has sold 645,793 units, Saturn has sold 237,317. The situation for Sega seems to have improved in December 1995 vs. September-November.
-Page 50, Sega assumed PS1 wouldn't drop to $199 until fall 1996 and the N64 wouldn't be available until late fall.
-Page 52-56, Sega Saturn FY'97 Strategies is a must-read. They emphasized third-party PS1 software coming to Saturn with equal quality, alongside several games that all ended up coming out roughly when they wanted them to (with the major caveat that "Sonic" ended up being 3D Blast with a new coat of paint instead of X-Treme)
-They had a NiGHTS month, fighting-game month, Sonic month, and arcade-game month planned in marketing
-Page 35-36, Sega still has 401,942 32X consoles in inventory. Considering the 32X sold only 665,000 units, many were probably pawned off cheap in '96. They only have 135,194 Genesises in inventory and 25,784 Saturns.
-Page 46, When the Saturn's price was lowered to $199 (planned by this time, and effective as from May 17, 1996) they were eating a 23% loss on each console. Cost them $232 to make one and they were $188 for retailers to buy. With a bundled game, it cost them $236 to make and $225.50 for retailers to buy, only a 4% loss.
There's so much more in here, it's a gold mine.