How much better would the Saturn have been had these issues been fixed?

Azureth

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As we all know, while the Saturn wasn't a horrible system, a lot went wrong. Admittedly I didn't get a Saturn till much later but still enjoyed it, but of course got demolished between the N64 and PSX. But how much better do you think it would have been had these conditions had been met:

1. Built from the ground up to be a 3D system.
2. Released as originally intended instead of releasing very early.
3. Price was the same as the PSX.
4. Sega of Japan gave Sega of America a LOT more leeway into what happens.
5. Sega had a good sonic game for launch.
6. Sega of America were more willing to bring the good games to the west.
 
I think the games were the biggest issue weren't they? N64 had superb Mario games and PSX had a huge catalog plus was bringing in the RPGs that many gamers of that time were craving. PSX was what I got when it came out, didn't even think about going for a Saturn.
 
The biggest problems were the weird architecture and SoA's insistence on 3D gaming over 2D. The Japanese Saturn library is amazing and full of variety, but we missed a lot of those games here. I remember buying a Saturn pretty much at launch because I was really looking forward to it due to Virtua Fighter. When it came out, I got one and quite a few launch games and had a good time with them, even if they're probably not the best now: Bug, Daytona USA, Clockwork Knight, Panzer Dragoon, and...maybe 1 or 2 other games. I actually held out on getting a PS1 until late 1996 or early 97 because FF7 was coming out, and until then, was vehemently anti-PS :p
 
When the PSX and Saturn came out I couldn't afford both so I only had the Playstation. Nights always looked cool, I still remember the ads and they made me want a Saturn. By the time I finally got around to buying a new system I ended up going with Dreamcast because Saturn came and went so fast.
 
I had a Saturn and loved it. Lots of great RPGs for it.

Shining Force 3 was amazing!

The castlevania was far superior to the PSX version.

Actually a lot of the later 3d games looked better than the psx ports. Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, Powerslave, etc...

Oh yea, don't forget Death Tank Zwei!
 
Never owned one but I played Nights into Dreams at Toys R US and thought it was awesome.
Consoles are not doing so good I mean they are already releasing Slim versions of Both systems with a Handful of game that pass as good.
 
Never owned one but I played Nights into Dreams at Toys R US and thought it was awesome.
Consoles are not doing so good I mean they are already releasing Slim versions of Both systems with a Handful of game that pass as good.

Ah, so thats why both the PS4 and XB1 are already 20+ million combined ahead in sales versus their previous iterations in the same timeframe?

either way, Saturn was a blip. 2-3 games most folks can even remember. Sega's downfall started there. Shame they couldnt have timed the Dreamcast better.
 
Dual CPU in 1995, what could go wrong?

But yes, if I remember back to my kiddie days, price was a big factor.
 
The games were excellent. A lot of gems on the Saturn.

If SoA had their way, the Saturn would have been amazing. They wanted to partner with Silicon Graphics, but were turned down. They sent them to Nintendo. They wanted a great 2D machine with 3D capabilities. They used quadrangles rather than triangles. Price was higher than PSX. Early launch, failed 32X, too many add-on's without much support. Dual Hitachi CPUs were apparently a pain to program for, while Sony had released a much easier platform along with actual programming tools for their system. Sega was angering the retailers and the consumers and not making it easy for developers.

Looking back, Sega just screwed the pooch on the Saturn. I picked one up on launch day as I was a huge Sega fanboy and when I saw Panzer Dragoon, I was sold. Still one of my favorite systems (besides the Genesis/Sega CD model 1 combo). Sega just made a ton of mistakes with it.
 
I had a Saturn and loved it. Lots of great RPGs for it.

Shining Force 3 was amazing!

The castlevania was far superior to the PSX version.

Actually a lot of the later 3d games looked better than the psx ports. Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, Powerslave, etc...

Oh yea, don't forget Death Tank Zwei!

Not sure about Saturn castlevania being "far superior" to the PSX version. As far as technical performance, the PS1 obliterates the saturn version by a mile...the saturn version was not appropriately ported. However, if you're talking content, then yes, the Saturn version does have the upper hand.

 
Was an early adopter. Loved Virtua Fighter 2, panzer dragoon, nights, wipeout, sega rally, daytona USA. Was always waiting for a 3D sonic, but it never came
 
Was an early adopter. Loved Virtua Fighter 2, panzer dragoon, nights, wipeout, sega rally, daytona USA. Was always waiting for a 3D sonic, but it never came

You must have been as crestfallen as I was after playing that piece of shit, Sonic 3D Blast
 
Beyond the things you listed (agreed with all of 'em) I blame Sega's path of new hardware leading up to it didn't help, too.
There were so many half-supported add-ons to the Genesis, I think people were starting to be wary of Sega. I was a diehard back then, but even I was burned out on how they treated the CD and 3DX.
Jumping the gun when the PSX was incoming compounded that. If felt like Sega simply threw strategy and preparation out the window. They weren't ready to launch yet another product.
 
There are some good points made in this thread. Aside from the problems with the Saturn itself people may have been sick of Sega throwing hardware at them. The Genesis CD drive, and the 32x had limited software, even though there are gems among them. I only knew one spoiled brat as a kid that got the Saturn, and he refused to even plug it in when I was at his house, because it sucked.

Hey, at least it wasn't an Atari Jaguar!
 
As we all know, while the Saturn wasn't a horrible system, a lot went wrong. Admittedly I didn't get a Saturn till much later but still enjoyed it, but of course got demolished between the N64 and PSX. But how much better do you think it would have been had these conditions had been met:

1. Built from the ground up to be a 3D system.
2. Released as originally intended instead of releasing very early.
3. Price was the same as the PSX.
4. Sega of Japan gave Sega of America a LOT more leeway into what happens.

5. Sega had a good sonic game for launch.
6. Sega of America were more willing to bring the good games to the west.

/thread
 
Saturn was originally created to be a 2d powerhouse.. it was only after Sony showed their hand that they last minute threw a second cpu in there which in turn made it impossibly hard to get on par 3d performance with the PlayStation. It took several years just to catch up to how PlayStation games performed at launch. There were a few gems, Sega 1st party games for the most part, but nearly every multi platform game performed better on the PlayStation.. besides 2d brawlers and arcade ports as the Saturn was a beast in this regard.

Sega grossly underestimated the shift to 3d and paid the price.
 
Saturn was originally created to be a 2d powerhouse.. it was only after Sony showed their hand that they last minute threw a second cpu in there which in turn made it impossibly hard to get on par 3d performance with the PlayStation. It took several years just to catch up to how PlayStation games performed at launch. There were a few gems, Sega 1st party games for the most part, but nearly every multi platform game performed better on the PlayStation.. besides 2d brawlers and arcade ports as the Saturn was a beast in this regard.

Sega grossly underestimated the shift to 3d and paid the price.

It wasn't meant to be that way, though. SoA wanted to make it a very kick ass 3D machine. SoJ saw Kalinske succeeding so much in America and they got pissed. So, they took the reins from him. It was a huge pride thing, IMO. Japan just couldn't let SoA show them up.
 
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