SEGA SATURN

Collectors and tryhard hipsters not jumping into the bandwagon as hard as they did.

Better development tools.
A less bizarre ad campaign.
Launching on the actual planned release date in U.S. and Europe, instead of the surprise early launch.

Not be made by a shit tier company whose main market is autists.
Not let Japan make all the decision for NA after the American side proved they knew the market better.
A real Sanic game to get those sweet Mr. Autismo dollars.
Don't make it so hard to program for.
Don't do a surprise early launch and not warn retailers and 3rd parties.
Don't cancel the Genesis so early, thereby pissing off loyal customers. Also, don't make terrible Genesis add-ons like the Sega-CD and 32x.
Match the price of the Playstation.
Don't leave most of the good games in Japan.

Not putting any resources into the 32x and instead focus on getting developers behind the Saturn.

>>3748519
>don't pander to autists
>get those sweet Mt. Autismo dollars.

huh

Also

>believing the SoA meme

Come on goy, Kalinske is only good at selling Barbie dolls. You know who is Yu Suzuki? He was on SoJ, not SoA.

No surprise launch.
No stupid 'no RPGs' rule at SEGA of America.
Marketing and commercials that aren't fucking shit (Hell they could've just aired the Segata Sanshiro ads)
Have Sonic Team develop a Sonic game first, NiGHTS afterwards.
Port over the few worthwhile 32x games that nobody bought.
Better documentation of how to make games on the damn thing.
Stop Bernie from uttering "The Saturn is not our future" and signing off on its early death.

>>3748490
100% this.
It was ignored by memesters as a failure for a long time allowing people who just wanted a decent console with a decent library to pick things up cheap. Then, like everything with hipsters, the uncool became cool and they jumped in and shitted things up. I was fortunate to get my stuff before that and have several consoles, nearly every accessory, and boxes of games. I don't even want to think of how many thousands of dollars it would cost to get the same.

>>3748485
It was good.
Needed more 3D platformers.

>>3748534
Sadly for me when I moved I decided to just give my console with some games to an old childhood friend. With encouragement from my mother to. So it is kind of bittersweet for me. On one hand it was giving my buddy a gift before never seeing him again but on the other fuck man it would be so damn sweet to still have that console with the few games I ever had for it. Which wasn't many at all.

>>3748485
I had this abomination...I wound up playing virtua fighter,virtua cop most of the time. I would spend an hour looking for decent games at the store only to leave empty handed.

>>3748523
This is pretty important. People often talk about Sega pissing people with all of the add-ons like the Sega CD and 32X but that never made too much sense to me. The Sega CD was YEARS before the Saturn, no one was confused about that. The 32X caused a little bit of confusion initially but no one bought that shit anyway so the idea that there were tons of pissed off 32X owners is literally impossible.

The biggest reason the 32X was idiotic is because it pulled away resources from the Saturn's launch. Without the 32X you would have had a number of those games as Saturn launch games, or at least first year titles, all of which with a few months (at the least) extra development time. Now the 32X library before the end of 1995 was pretty shit overall but there were half a dozen decent games that if you had had a focused development for them on a single more powerful console would have been a huge draw...especially with a bit more development time that the Saturn launch window would have offered. Imagine a polished near arcade perfect port with CD sound version of Star Wars arcade as a Saturn launch game instead of the gimped MIDI sound version they decided to put out on the 32X.

>>3748534
I lived in Japan about 7-8 years ago before the Saturn price train took off and it was glorious. Rarer U.S. Saturn games were already getting pretty high and there were U.S. resellers importing JDM games for increasingly higher prices but offline you could still get most Saturn games for ridiculously cheap. I didn't even shop at game stores, a few local grandpa owned book stores would have a tiny section of miscellaneous BS for sale such as DVD's and the like and there were almost always at small little lot of mint as hell Saturn games. I think the Saturn was right at that age in Japan to were it was old enough to get rid off but not old enough to be considered "retro cool" and since it actually did pretty damn well in Japan there are tons of games out there.

My Saturn and a PC-Engine Duo were the only consoles I had while living in Japan, both of them hooked up to a tiny 14" Sony CRT that I got for free from some dude who just wanted to get rid of it.

I would never argue that the Saturn was the best console but it is definitely my favorite console as its history is so quirky and yet it still has a fuck ton of relatively unexplored games that have never been ported.

The consensus seems to be, among many other things, the console was massively over engineered, and that made delevopment support for it difficult.

>>3748678
Did the same around 1990. No regrets. It all went to good people and I built a larger collection here. Do miss the cabs though, which I probably won't ever have space for here.

>>3748728
You can probably still find good deals in flea markets. I was still picking up Saturns for ¥400-¥600 a year ago. I don't know if prices have shot up but I doubt it because a few months ago I found one in the trash for free. Thing is is most hipsters don't live in Japan or even travel there, or even leave the comfort of their moms basement, aside from to sip a soy latte in a non-franchise coffee shop while playing chiptunes on their DMG with 70's over hear headphones using a 1/4" to 3.5mm adapter. So they pay hipster prices and shit up the market for kids who just want to play some good games.

>>3748687

>shit taste detected

>>3748753
>over-engineered
Maybe. But for no clear gain. It wasn't like this unwieldy beast that you could get amazing power out of it if you just put in the time to wrestle with it. They way it was specced makes it sit in that awkward period of early 3d graphics. I always lump it in with the 3DO and the PC-FX for some reason.

When your hardware is difficult to work with for no reason, and your first and even third party efforts are lacklaster, why should anybody buy your console?

33 Year old fuck here:

>1995
> Still have SNES I bought a few years ago and still enjoying Killer Instinct, DKC, Star Fox, etc.
> So many shit consoles had come and gone in just few years
> Saturn comes out and VF1 and Daytona USA looks and play terribly when I tried them out at Circuit City
> PS1 Comes out and Ridge Racer, Warhawk, and Toshinden blew me away
> Wait until summer 1996 to buy a new system and by this point PS1 is KILLING It with an amazing library while Saturn is still trying to gain a foothold
> I bought the PS1 and a few months later all the Nintendo people and kids bought a N64

By 1996, it was clear that Saturn in America had no real audience. The teenagers and adults bought into PS1 because it took gaming from being a nerdy thing into the mainstream. The kids and hardcore nintendo people waited for the N64.

>>3748485
>What could have went better?
Everything. The hardware. The price. The ease of development. The marketing. The relations inside Sega. The flopped consoles that preceded Saturn. And even the games—no Sonic, Phantasy Star, Streets of Rage, or Golden Axe was a huge failure on Sega's part.

The rest was the result of the above.

>>3748485
Backwards compatibility with Genesis and 32x games via cartridge slot, and with Sega CD through the disc drive.

>>3748526
>No stupid 'no RPGs' rule at SEGA of America.
This rule made sense though, Sega prided itself as the king of arcades at the time, the Genesis sold loads (more than SNES even) despite not having many RPGs to it's name because Americans bought action games more than they bought RPGs.

>>3749279
>Sega prided itself as the king of arcades
In Japan they had both RPGs and arcade games, without any issues. Especially on Saturn.

>>3749286
Was there really anti-RPG policy within SOA? There were plenty of localized RPGs in the U.S. like Riglord Saga (a launch game), Shining in the Darkness, Climax Landers, Panzer Dragoon Saga and Shining Force III (even if it was just 1/3 of the game). That's not counting all the WD-localized stuff either. The only Sega RPG that wasn't localized that comes to my mind were Sakura Wars (which I get why they choose to skip out on that) and 3rd party stuff.

>>3749294
>Climax Landers
*Dark Savior. Not sure why I always get those two mix up.

>>3749286
That's good but we're not talking about Japan, we're talking about America where for the majority of the 90's RPGs sold at a much lesser rate than sports and action titles

>>3749294
>Shining in the Darkness
*Shining the Holy Ark
I'm having my Sega RPGs mixed up lately. Might add Legend of Oasis to that list too.

SoA could have ported over the games that were actually out for the thing. Easily the second best console of its generation with the N64 in a firm last place. The N64 has a smaller library than its competition, but nintendo has an excessive nostalgia factor with its fans clinging to it.

>>3749372
>has an excessive nostalgia factor with its fans clinging to it
Mostly in the USA.

>>3749294
>which I get why they choose to skip out on that
>gets Russian translation
>no English release at all
No, I don't get why.

>>3749398
Sakura Wars was localized in Russia? First I heard of this.

>>3749395
pretty much the only region it was successful in.

>>3749405
Yes, first two games on PC. 2006 and 2008 if I remember correctly. Not a fan translation, official release.
I can't believe it wouldn't succeed in 90s in the US, you guys had anime boom back then, with Toonami and all that.

>>3749417
it would have been received very well, but SoA's incompetence was key in the failure of the saturn.

>>3749417
>>3749428
I always wondered why WD chose to localize Rayearth over Sakura Wars. Not saying Rayearth was trash, but it's not usually regarded as a classic.

Being $100 cheaper and not losing third parties for starters.

>>3749229
100% this

>>3748485
Not forgetting all the cool Sega franchises (Sonic, Streets of Rage, Ecco, ToeJam & Earl, Golden Axe, Eternal Champions...) would have been a good start, especially when you have to rely on your own catalogue because third parties won't develop stuff.

Imagine a Nintendo console without Zelda and Mario. They did it... the absolute madmen.

>>3749207
32 year-old from Europe here. Same story.

I was a Saturn fanboy from the start because I wanted those sweet 3D arcade games. But you couldn't try the console anywhere (while PlayStation was ubiquitous) and the releases got less and less exciting while PS1 games were... killing it indeed. I was being ridiculed by my buddies for supporting the Saturn, and then we spent amazing afternoons playing Toshinden, Ridge Racer, Tekken, Wipeout, or those amazing PlayStation Magazine demos. It was just too good. But in my head I thought that Virtua Fighter 2 or Daytona USA were no slouch either.

However in 1996 it was painfully obvious Saturn was losing the fight, despite a bunch of good releases like Nights. Too many hot games on PS1. Every single month. Crash Bandicoot (basically the Sonic we were waiting for)? Resident Evil? It's over. Especially with Resident Evil. It was dark and innovative. That should have been something for Sega... if their console were actually successful. From now on you knew the major stuff would happen on PlayStation only. Saturn would not deliver. Saturn was dead in my head. (At this point, I had only one buddy who had the Saturn and he kept it a secret because he feared being ridiculed.) Then add the N64 into the equation and that's the final blow for Sega.

In 97, when I finally got the funds to buy a console, the battle was so utterly lost by Sega that I didn't even hesitate. I chose a PlayStation. Without a single regret, as it continued to deliver huge releases for the next years: Final Fantasy VII, Gran Turismo, Resident Evil 2, Metal Gear Solid, Tekken 3... plus a good lot of deliciously original stuff like Parappa, GTA, Libero Grande, Kula World, Music, Tobal 2, etc.

In the meantime, Saturn was ragequitting the game and Dreamcast came with mild enthusiasm.

>>3748753
>over engineered
Pretty much this. When you've created a console that is less powerful where it counts (and more powerful where it doesn't) which costs a lot more to manufacture, basically making price matching financial suicide (which is what happened eventually), you know you messed up.

>>3749395
>>3749406

Kind reminder that N64 sold more software in Japan than Saturn.

Anyway, I love both Saturn and N64, more than the PS1.

>>3749532
>Kind reminder that N64 sold more software in Japan than Saturn.
I was under the impression the Saturn had the higher install base.
>Anyway, I love both Saturn and N64, more than the PS1.
All three fifth gen consoles were breddy gud in my opinion. Hell, even the 3DO and Jaguar had something unique to offer if you're willing not to dismiss them out of hand.

Everything became way too homogenized from sixth gen and onward after Sega left the hardware race, with the PS and Xbox being too similar to each other and Nintendo doing their weird niche things.

>>3749154
>It wasn't like this unwieldy beast that you could get amazing power out of it if you just put in the time to wrestle with it.
This is pretty much the reason why the PS3 managed to recover from the initial trouncing the Xbox 360 gave it. Multiplats on PS3 were often lesser versions of the same games, but tailor-made exclusives were usually on par with what the 360 offered.

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The emulation

Living in Japan, probably.

Am planning to burn some discs but I see that some games come with a second disc, can anyone tell me if the second one is needed or is simply a bonus disc?

Games are:
Lunar 2
Macross
Sengoku Blade/Ace
Grandia
Mr. Bones
Lunacy
and Deep Fear

Hey I've been looking for recommendations for some Saturn games. Mine has been gathering dust recently.

I'm a fan of schmups (especially side scrollers) and platformers specifically. Anyone know of anything in these two genres that's a must play?

>>3748485
No early launch, no 32X, don't immediately kill the Genesis. Also, have an actual Sonic title in development.

No 32X means devs are working on Saturn games instead of fiddling with the 32X for a bit and then fucking off. All of those 32X games could have been on the Saturn, and better.
No early launch means the hype doesn't fucking immediately die, especially since no one was ready, not the players, not the developers, not the stores, fucking no one.
Not killing the Genesis wouldn't have helped the Saturn... but it would have helped Sega a lot, they lost like two whole years where they could have still been raking in the money since the Genesis was extremely successful.

It wasn't going to do fantastically, not with the hardware or price, but it shouldn't have been an utter disaster.

>>3750125
>Also, have an actual Sonic title in development.
Would that really make it better?

>>3750131

Sonic was still a hot property at the time and the gaming press were all over SEGA's ass for the racing games, remakes and compilations, so sure. They tried I guess, Sonic Team were busy making Knuckles Chaotix and NiGHTS so Yuji Naka got SEGA Technical Institute to work on Sonic X-Treme, which was obviously a big mistake as they barely scraped together a playable demo. Sonic Team did eventually start work on Adventure on the Saturn but development carried over.

>>3750169

Actually scratch that, my memory is a little whacked - the side Sonic games didn't come out till after X-Treme was cancelled but I do remember the previews of them alluding to the mystery of X-Treme's development. So Saturn was literally devoid of any Sonic until late 97. And Sonic 3D Blast despite its quality was STILL the top selling game behind NiGHTS in Christmas '97. So they fucked up alright.

>>3750169
>>3750180
Was 3D Blast really any good? It has been a long time since I played it. I remembered it being pretty damn bad actually.

Would it really have hurt them to just make a good 2D sonic game again? I know that 3D graphics were the hot new thing back then but looking back in retrospect I'd like to imagine a 2D Sonic would have been great to have on Saturn. I still liked many 2D games from that time. I would also bet a 2D Sonic game at launch for Saturn would have went over well and at least made the Saturn sell a little better.

>>3749514
I thought they got it right with the Dreamcast but with the momentum Sony had and adding. DVD player on the ps2, Dreamcast was done that was it with sega as a console developer when the Xbox was announced.

>>3749514
Lol I remember some kid back in 96-97 saying to me "the saturn isn't even an actual 32bit system"

>>3749514
I'm about the same age. I liked the Saturn as a kid because you could save games to the internal memory.

I remember renting Wild Arms for the PSX and not being able to get far because you couldn't save to the system. Could barely afford to rent games after getting a console so I never had a memory card with my PSX.

>>3750929
>PSX
Not retro

the mauve eject button

>>3748485
System was fine,they were as always way way ahead of its time and the people were not ready.

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>>3751263
There's also the start button and the L and R on the controller.
Anyway you're not getting it. That mauve colored eject button/start button is a metaphor for Krishna's Vishnu Tilaka.
For westerners who aren't aware of this association, it just makes the Saturn look like a birthday cake, which leads to people to make sacrilegious abominations like pic related.

>>3751292
>saturn
>ahead of its time

The Saturn was probably the console that was the best in its own time, compared to the PS1 (which focused on cinematics) or N64 (which focused on 3D prowess).
Saturn's forte was being a wacky Sega console that was like in between System 32/Multi and Model 2. It could actually do 2D great, but for 3D games it needed to work very hard to get good stuff out of. It was still possible, in some cases with great results, but overall the good 3D games on Saturn are scarce, its forte is definitely 2D.

It was the 5th gen console that was the most in the present of all. Like "hey, 2D still rocks!"

>TFW I live in the third world and never got my hands on it

Nor the Sega CD or the 32X either. Genesis was well established here but the later Sega hardware was so expensive that it disappeared. Knew a couple of guys that owned the Dreamcast though.

I played NiGHTS and Radiant Silvergun on the emulator. Good games. But I wish I could try the console.

36 year old fag from U R gay

>>3749279
Pretty much this. Hindsight is 20/20. RPG'S weren't popular in America until Ff VII. I remember loving FF3 (6) on the Snes and nobody that loved 7 on PS1 even knew it existed.

Sony bet on polygons and it paid off in America. Americans were so hype on shit polygon games and in japan they were hype on good games. Saturn dominated Japan. Sony wasn't even in the race until FF7. Plus Saturn had tons of Arcade ports and arcades were booming in Japan and dying stateside.

>>3751292
lol@ a shit tier company like Sega being ahead of their time. Yes, making a good 2d system when it's obvious 3d was the new hotness sure was a decision! And of course, ignoring Sanic and pissing off it's autistic fans was a great decision!

inb4
>>m-m-muh Sanic! Sega never made a single mistake. Sanicccc noooo

>>3748485
I didn't know a single person in my school that had a Sega Saturn. Genny's and DC's? Sure. But not a Saturn among them.

>>3752085
Different guy and not a Sega fanboy by any means, but Sega went with both 2D and 3D. Nobody knew polygons were going to be that great. Up until that point most polygon games were complete ass. Sony bet on the right horse. It could have easily flopped for them if Namco wasn't making great polygon arcade titles at the time. Plus Wipeout and Twisted Metal were amazing. If you look back at the first two years of game releases it's pretty neck and neck. Resident evil's release was the game that really made it feel like Sony was winning the race.

>>3750082
anyone?

>>3752278
sega would have been smarter to get more advanced 3D hardware in the saturn. The system's way of handling 3D is clearly meant for very specific circumstances, and definitely not for full 3D games. Considering their latest arcade games being so 3D focused, they should had a better 3D solution to at least get good 30fps ports of their 60fps arcade games.

Saturn's pricing was pretty fucked too, and the American surprise launch and all the shit involved there did not make for a good experience for customers, but a lot of the bad decisions for the saturn did come back to good 'ol SoA.

>>3750082
I think all of those are multi-disc games except Mr. Bones.

Panzer Dragoon Saga is also a 4 disc game and it's not shy about it.

>>3748485
barf

>>3752278
Sega already made Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter when they started working on the Saturn. I'm not sure how their consumer division could not see the trend towards 3D polygonal graphics that their own amusement division were pioneering.

>>3753508
>I'm not sure
You coulda stopped there sport

>>3748524
>You know who is Yu Suzuki?

A guy whose job is making games, not selling consoles.

>>3749514
>Especially with Resident Evil. It was dark and innovative.

I never understood what people liked in that game. You just run around with a polygonal character in fixed bitmap backgrounds. The camera changes between each screen and sometimes you fall back and forth between them if you stand at the part where they change. Occasionally you pick up an item or shoot a zombie. Also, tank controls.

It's just boring.

>>3749882
Saturn emulation has been fine for over a decade. Stop using MAME and Yabause, they suck.

>>3754009
>i read a fake compatibility list bit never actually tried emulating a saturn
topkekkid

>>3754007
>The camera changes between each screen and sometimes you fall back and forth between them if you stand at the part where they change.

No you don't, that's the whole point of RE's controls.

>>3754000
You need good games in order to sell consoles.

>>3754213
I have it set up right now.
It works fine, dunno what the fuck your problem is.

>>3754227
>You need good games in order to sell consoles.

Then how come the Wii sold 100 million?

>>3754247
Believe it or not that thing has good games, in between wades of shovelware.
However, not retro.

>>3750790

It was a bad game when it came out on the Genesis and a worse game when it came out on the Saturn. How well it sold just shows you how much interest there still was. A 32-bit Sonic would have been great, would have probably looked a lot like Sonic Mania does now. The first Sonic X-Treme trailer is just SEGA shitting on Mario 64 so they evidently wanted to stay on an even playing field, it's a shame.

>>3754213

Mednafen, bro. Stop using SSF or whatever.

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Soooo...anyone here actively collect for the Saturn? Got any pics of your collection?

>>3754450
I don't collect, and my collection is small and has a few really bad games on it (that I still like for nostalgic reasons), although I have a few gems like Panzer Dragoon Zwei, I mostly play Saturn with CD-Rs.

>>3754243
My problem is I know how the games are supposed to look/play on a real saturn. Ignorance is bliss as they say.

>>3754295
Tried it. Still shit.

>>3754450
I do. I have two plastic storage boxes full of them on top of a cabinet. Play off CD-Rs as only two of my saturns aren't modded.

>>3754465
>Panzer Dragoon

Wish I got to play these games when I still had a Saturn. Problem is Saturn was so freaking dead in the US that I eventually just mostly played Playstation or N64.

Sega was so great. If only they weren't such a retarded company.

>>3748485

Not release it before there were any games or space in the stores for it.

Localize everything.

If it could've stayed in ring long enough it would've been another PC Engine. It had arcade perfect ports before it was cool.

>>3748485
I don't get how after this and the pains of the PS3, Nintendo STILL insists on using their own weird proprietary architecture. I really hope Nintendo went through with the Nvidia deal on the Switch, the fact they still haven't mentioned specs has me concerned.

>>3749372
I got a 64 for my 16th birthday in march. Then in july, my younger brother got a saturn for his 14th birthday. After that, the 64 just collected dust. The saturn was a flop, looking back, but in my opinion the 64 was the biggest shark jumper. Today 36 years old i have a modchipped saturn and a fuckton of games. I cant replay anything on the 64. And i never owned a playstation

>>3757526
The PS1 was great, but it's problem is most of the great games are 40+ hour investments. Saturn's games are largely 30 minute to hour and a half arcade quality experiences, and there's lots of games like that. There's also some great longer form games, but the system never feels like it's really wasting your time and you can pretty much pick it up and play at any time.

>>3748485
The problem was the early launch. Everyone in america was still reeling from the loss of kurt cobain and john candy