Nah, I don't think SEGA were as bad off as Microsoft because they actually got games to market in their launch year that competed very well with the best PS1 was putting out in '95. VF Remix (which should've been at the May surprise launch as it was apparently ready; I remember Pandemonium Games talking about it in their VF retrospective), VF2, Virtua Cop and Sega Rally just to name some. At a technical level they were on par with games like Tekken, Wipeout, Ridge Racer etc. and in some cases better (VF2 with its high-resolution mode option that Tekken, BAT, and even Tekken 2 lacked).
Microsoft never managed anything like that within the first year of Xbox Series. Halo Infinite looked like crap compared to Returnal and R&C: Rift Apart, or launch PS5 games like Demon's Souls Remake. And they were losing out on most 3P multiplat comparisons, too. At least SEGA got some visually market-leading games out for Saturn by end of '95, they were just too slow to to get SGL out to 3P devs.
EDIT: Looks like
RetroGamingUK
linked the vid about VF Remix.
I think that's realistic. The main reason Saturn failed was because of poor Western adoption; the N64 ate up a lot of what would've been Saturn's Western 3P support, especially for genres like FPS.
IMO SEGA were on an upward trajectory with Mega Drive; had they canned the 32X, not rush Saturn in America and had better API support for 3P out of the gate, they likely would've gotten more serious 3P support for 3D games and hit maybe 45 million lifetime sales.
I don't know if N64 would've seen too much a drop, but might've hit closer to 30 million than 35 million. And I think PS1 would've topped out closer to 80-85 million vs 100 million, due to more competition from Saturn and a mostly-still competitive N64 (the power of Pokemon!).
In hindsight (maybe even noticeable at the time), SEGA picking up Visual Concepts in lieu of Lobotomy might've been one of their biggest mistakes.
On one hand I can understand the need for VC; sports games were massive on Genesis and helped it perform super well in the American market. On the other hand, the sports games were only a major driver for the American market. SEGA needed games with more global appeal and while FPS titles weren't that popular in Japan at the time, they would've had more pull for Dreamcast in Europe than American football, basketball and baseball games.
Visual Concepts would've likely made more sense if SEGA also got them to make a soccer game, but that never happened. SEGA needed to cover weaknesses in their exclusives to address emerging genres during the 5th-generation that mostly skipped Saturn. They did this to some degree with certain 1P titles like Jet Set Radio, Shenmue and Space Channel 5, but they never really got to that with FPS genre. If they had picked up Lobotomy alongside Visual Concepts then that would've been great, but if forced between the two, if I was running SEGA at the time I'd of chosen Lobotomy Software and just take EA up on their deal for sports exclusivity on Dreamcast.
After all, had they taken EA's deal, they maybe would've been able to negotiate on a few other console exclusives (timed or full) from EA that gen, and could've leveraged marketing deals with Madden & other games to push Dreamcast in holiday sales vs. PS2. Meanwhile the money saved on VC could've gone towards Lobotomy and maybe a few other studios like WARP, Game Arts and Treasure (all of whom had extensive history with SEGA systems).
It's just
SOOO frustrating to think about a lot of SEGA's business decisions from the '90s, particularly from 32X-onwards. A string of disaster choices on their part. Even so, the systems themselves (well, less so 32X but still) are fantastic with strong libraries. Glad to see systems like Saturn finally getting the respect they've deserved.
