SEGA Downfall Leaked

[OKC Yeakey Trentadue]

Ive never seen a Saturn in Person. Its my understanding it had some great games, in its small library.

They really fudged the launch, maybe worse than the WiiU. The marketing was so bad that it really set up the Dreamcast for failure, which was a rather solid system. Having 2 sub-10 million console generation sales in a row was all it took.
Had the Switch been as unsuccessful as the WiiU, Nintendo consiles may have had the same death.

 

[OKC Yeakey Trentadue]

Sega really had 3+ console failures in a row if you count the 32x and Sega CD.

 

[OKC Yeakey Trentadue]

One of my friends had a Sega Saturn most of us had a playstation, N64 or both. He was the only one with the Saturn. He didn't have RAM cart so we couldn't play the Capcom fighters how they were meant to be played. But damn those sprites were thick and fast compared playstation at the time.

It definitely was a gamers system in that regard. Digital Foundry has talked about how most Saturn games were 60 fps which is impressive.

 

[Unabomber]

Amusingly the PS2 also appears to have been a nightmare system to develop for in a very similar way, but by then they had so much traction it didn't matter.

True, but by that time, programmers were far more adept when it came to coding for multiple processing units (not just CPU's or CPU cores) working at the same time.

That, plus the CPU was already an order of magnitude more powerful than the previous generation, that programmers could afford to be lazier. For it to have a production lifespan of over a dozen years is quite remarkable.

 

[next-Jin]

I bought the Saturn day 1. I had Virtual Fighter, Die Hard, Virtua Cop, Nights into Dreams, Clock work knight, Bug, Shining Force III, Panzer Dragoon 1,2 and Saga, and a few others.

Never got burning rangers because I got the PlayStation right before and stuck with that brand other than PC.

 

[DukenukemX]

Sega really had 3+ console failures in a row if you count the 32x and Sega CD.

I don't consider the Sega CD a failure as much as the Wii U was a failure. The Sega CD has some great games on it, like Sonic CD, Mortal Kombat, and Earthworm Jim. To a lot of people these games look like Genesis games with CD Music, but I assure you they weren't. Sega CD ports were the definitive way to play those games, despite most of them being on the Genesis and Super Nintendo. The problem with games on the Sega CD was all the full motion crap that looked and played awful, which also plagued other CD based consoles like the 3DO and CDi. There were exceptions to this like Night Trap, but most full motions games died off thankfully. While the 32X doesn't have a single redeeming game worth playing it did have a couple notable games. Knuckles Chaotix wasn't bad but the conjoined system didn't make it good either. Doom for the 32X wasn't a great port, but compared to the 3DO and Jaguar ports, it was a serviceable port. In fact the community went ahead and fixed what's wrong with the Doom port for 32X. The Saturn was popular in Japan due to the many JRPG's the Saturn has. The obvious exception was games like Final Fantasy games and Chrono Cross. A game like Castlevania Symphony of the Night was only released in Japan, and not America and Europe. There was no effort on Sega's end to save the Saturn.

Amusingly the PS2 also appears to have been a nightmare system to develop for in a very similar way, but by then they had so much traction it didn't matter.

Sony was a massive brand back then. People killed you for a Sony Walkman as well as a Playstation. Sony doesn't have that kind of mindshare today. Also, the Playstation 2 had decent tools while Sega Saturn was late on updating their development tools that would make it easier to work on the console. This is why some games on the Playstation had 3D backgrounds while the Saturn had a 2D background. The Saturn was the only console that could properly do X-Men vs. Street Fighter.

 

[funkydmunky]

More popular and far better then history gives it credit. A bungling launch in N.America/Europe was its downfall in getting traction.
Because of this it is absolutely one on of the best retro-collectables as far making $$ goes. Now everyone loves what it was good at. The pinnacle of 2D machines (and yes a good hat thrown in the ring for budding 3D) and so many Japan only titles that collectors crave.
If ya see one buy it!