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[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Right, Saturn is much easier to develop for.

That's....highly debatable. The PS2 is definitely a more complex system, since it's much more advanced. And, I guess, you could say in comparison to contemporaries it was harder to develop for than the Saturn was to its own contemporaries.

However, I don't remember Sony leaving major parts of the PS2 undocumented, the way SEGA basically did for things like the SCU DSP in Saturn. Sony also had proper devkits and APIs ready for developers very early on, again unlike SEGA during the Saturn era. The PS2 technically had two CPUs (the main R5900, and another MIPs CPU that was basically the R3000A from PS1), but their architecture was clearly designed with very specific roles for both from Day 1. It wasn't a last-minute addition like the 2nd SH2 in Saturn (which going by the timeline, would seem SEGA decided on around Summer 1993 or later into the year). SEGA never even redesigned the system bus to account for the 2nd SH2, they just threw it in with the bare minimum and I guess some additional semaphore or mutex logic to the SCU.

The PS2 lacked a lot of the new bonus GPU features both Xbox and Gamecube would have, yes, but it had a ridiculous 48 GB/s bandwidth for the GS's eDRAM to basically push through that with great framebuffer clearing rates. Most of PS2's challenges programming-wise came from simply trying to harness the power; nothing in its design was an outright bottleneck to any other component within the system. It just required a different design paradigm to tackle it, and that took time.

Same can't be said for the Saturn, where more than a couple of things are active bottlenecks to each other. The system bus being a bottleneck to the two SH2 CPUs due to their implementation; the SCU DSP's design being bottlenecked by both the system bus and also the H-WRAM/L-WRAM setup for the CPUs, since it could only use L-WRAM and the SH2s had to VERY carefully manage a portion of the L-WRAM space for the SCU DSP data (the SCU DSP not having its own local RAM aside the on-chip cache). So in a way, there were actually THREE CPUs in the Saturn (the SCU DSP was designed RISC-like but had its own assembly language; you couldn't even use C to program it) all fighting on a super-congested system bus for H-WRAM & L-WRAM memory resources.

That's an entire other league of bottlenecking which simply doesn't exist on the PS2.

The original PlayStation outsold Saturn over 10:1 though, there were always going to be more people interested in PS2 than Dreamcast.

I recall showing off my Dreamcast and SoulCalibur to friends, they were very impressed but they were all PlayStation owners who were very happy with the product and were willing to wait another year.

A few remarked that Sega would abandon it after a couple of years as per the Saturn and they ended up being completely right, by then Sega were seen as a dying brand and had just come off the back of having a while year of zero retail presence. One of my friends did buy one for Code Veronica, which was a very rare example of a developer putting real effort into a third party exclusive.

Dreamcast had to be way better than PS2 in every department to get people back.

Let's also not forget E3 2000 being overshadowed by constant rumours of Sega doing a deal with Acclaim to publish games on PS2 (again, turning out to be completely true)

Sega Addresses PS2 Rumors

GameSpot News speaks with Sega's Charles Bellfield for the full story.

www.gamespot.com

Oh dang I had forgotten about those rumors. I think EGM mentioned them back in the day too. It was basically E3 1997 all over again for SEGA. In fact, in a lot of ways business-wise the Dreamcast was a series of repeating many of the Saturn's worst mistakes in new record time.

The eagerness of SEGA to make up for Saturn made them end up going too fast, and tripping into a lot of the same mistakes they did with the Saturn instead.

Again it goes back to SOA. Who cocked up and mishandled the Sonic project?, who cocked up and mishandled the launch of their next gen system?
And again, SEGA real fight wasn't with SONY. Sony had the better hardware, the better tools, the better launch line up and also $500 million behind the PS1, no way could SEGA counter that, not that makes much difference as the Xbox showed.

The N64 and Nintendo were there for the taking; A system that launched with no sports games and well only launched with 2 games was even harder to developer on with a more expensive developer environment and where the move to carts was such a backward step

SEGA should have destroyed the N64 in the USA, Europe and Japan really and without the 32X I believe SEGA would have done just that.

TBF, SOA had no choice in Saturn's early launch. That was a direct order from SEGA of Japan, thinking they could repeat their Japanese launch success (remember in '94 Saturn launched 1-2 weeks ahead of the PS1. November 22nd vs December 3rd).

Well, it ended up being a disaster for reasons I'm sure everyone ITT knows about. As for Saturn destroying N64 in the West....no, that simply wasn't going to happen without a 3D Sonic, or new entries of Genesis games popular in the West like Streets of Rage, or games to combat MK being timed exclusives on PS1 such as a new Eternal Champions. RetroGamingUK is 100% correct in that context and I think you should consider what they are saying more carefully.

Axing the 32X would've absolutely helped SEGA in the West, but that alone wouldn't have helped them very long, especially once N64 & Super Mario 64 arrived.

I need to shed some light on this topic.

Sega was the cost-effective company with the Mega Drive. Studies show that $149 was the sweet spot for a console to become mainstream. Sega knew this, but as you know, the Saturn was $399. In times like these, the company needs to sell a certain number of consoles and games to lower the price in the following years. Sega thought there would be demand, and there was, but not at that price, not with the PS1 as option.

Accept this truth: moving consumers to buy a new console is a Herculean task for a newcomer like Sony and an underdog like Sega. In 1995, Sega hadn't crystallized as a brand in the minds of consumers (from 1989 to 1995, six years).

There are several factors:
1. Six years isn't a long time. The PS5 will be six years old and it seems like it was released yesterday. for all intents and purposes Sega was also a newcomer to the console market. Before the Sega Genesis, there was only the NES in people's minds.
2- Parents bought consoles for their children, many bought Sega simply for the price, therefore they don't create a link with the brand
3- Saturn and PS1 were bought by young people with their own money
4- The Saturn and PS1 weren't purchased by regular Genesis and SNES customers; most of the initial sales came from a new audience, perhaps even non-gamers.
5- The psychology of the masses shows that the strongest and most popular, continually grows in popularity, Sony led the generation so the benefits of people's trust were transferred from Nintendo to Sony, therefore the PS2 could have been launched even without a game and it would be a success. That's why Japanese consumers abandoned Nintendo on the GameCube, after all, the old king is dead, long live the king, it's the same concept.

Among all the misconceptions already discussed, we need to add these two truths: Moving consumers to a new platform is very difficult, unless you're a brand that inspires trust. Sega, despite having done a good 4th gen was still a new brand, without the freedom to make mistakes, everything would be different if they had beaten Nintendo in America with an indisputable victory this intangibility explains Saturn, Dreamcast , japan GC.

Wow, one of the few responses from you ITT that I genuinely agree with. Well said.

 

[Crayon]

I often think the saturn could have been weaker, cheaper, and better for it. But the problem is that those model2 ports were just barely hanging in as it was. Those would have to be replaced with severe down-ports. So no VF2 , Sega Rally, et all as we know them. They would have come out, but had to be re-interpreted with even more limited 3d ability. You can still make fun and successful games like that. The nes era was full of those severe downports becoming classics. Psuedo-daytona would have to be a good ass game, possibly a better game than the arcade, while being daytona mostly in name only. Tall order but not impossible since they would be free of trying to directly replicate the arcade.

Then the 16-bit franchises would have to come back in pseudo-3d form. Without an original arcade version to compare them to, and instead comparing the the old genesis prequels, maybe they could have got away with it. Could they have pulled enough tricks to make those games have the next-gen impact of ps1 games? idk. A $249 saturn that could have stayed a $50 advantage through the price drops? technically inferior but a bunch of great looking and playing games that made it not matter so much? Worked against snes, right?

 

[Team Andromeda]

That's....highly debatable. The PS2 is definitely a more complex system, since it's much more advanced. And, I guess, you could say in comparison to contemporaries it was harder to develop for than the Saturn was to its own contemporaries.

However, I don't remember Sony leaving major parts of the PS2 undocumented

Yeah, the system was so well documented that why so many developers couldn't figure out to get AA in their games . The system was hard to use and so was the PS3, but if you get Marketshare developers don't care at all, that what matters the most, not how wonderful your system tools and API's are. The GameCube showed that

SONY and going early was not a direct order from Japan, I think Tom once said, it was even his idea. Not that going early was wrong at all IMO. SOA just picked the wrong date and should have gone in early Aug 95 when Bug, VF Remix, Clockwork Night 2 were ready to go

At the end of the day going early was a panic mode by SOA has they thought the 32X would be massive seller and they wouldn't have to worry much about selling the Saturn, that was the really issue IMO

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Funnily enough, Sega were supporting 4 platforms by Christmas 1995 (GameGear not pictured). A nightmare for parents.

Even funnier, I placed an advert in the local paper for a Saturn + 8 games for £200. The woman who came to look at it with her daughter had never heard of it. The little girl turned her nose up at all the games apart from NiGHTS.

I then I showed them my MegaDrive which included Sonic, Ristar, Gunstar Heroes, Dynamite Headdy and a couple of Disney platformers. They ended up walking away with my MegaDrive instead

That's how unpopular Saturn was here, the best games lacked mainstream appeal and there were no good platformers.

 

[cireza]

Castlevania games were mostly linear, action games with "levels" before SOTN

You know perfectly well that I was referring to SOTN. All modern "Metroidvania" games draw much more from Castlevania than Metroids. They have experience, inventories, levels, and very rarely a level design as convoluted as the best Metroid games. Because Metroid was purely about exploration, while modern games (and Castlevania games) includes more elements with a much more accessible exploration.

As you can see, more and more new gamers who never bought the previous entries buy the newer Mario Kart games. So i guess you are wrong once again.

And I think you can't read. As stated, again, Mario Kart didn't create any trend. And you are proving my point. Where are the other Kart games selling tenths of millions of units ? There is no trend here, Mario Kart sells to Nintendo players and pretty much nothing else is relevant in the genre because people don't care about it.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

And I think you can't read. As stated, again, Mario Kart didn't create any trend. And you are proving my point. Where are the other Kart games selling tenths of millions of units ? There is no trend here, Mario Kart sells to Nintendo players and pretty much nothing else is relevant in the genre because people don't care about it.

Mario Kart doesn't just sell to Nintendo players.

It MAKES Nintendo players!

 

[cireza]

Mario Kart doesn't just sell to Nintendo players.

It MAKES Nintendo players!

But it did not create any kind of trend, which was the actual point.

Also funnily enough our friend omitted the Wii U sales numbers. So it MAKES Nintendo players, but somehow, it also LOSES Nintendo players.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

But it did not create any kind of trend, which was the actual point.

Also funnily enough our friend omitted the Wii U sales numbers. So it MAKES Nintendo players, but somehow, it also LOSES Nintendo players.

Odd, because it was responsible for the incredibly popular Crash Team Racing, Diddy Kong Racing, and numerous Sega/Sonic knockoffs. As with all things a market monopoliser emerges though.

As for Wii U, let's not forget how successful their primary platform, 3DS, was during that time.

 

[cireza]

Odd, because it was responsible for the incredibly popular Crash Team Racing, Diddy Kong Racing, and numerous Sega/Sonic knockoffs.

As with all things a market monopoliser emerges though.

You might want to check what a trend is. We have been discussing one in the latest posts and it wasn't "Kart games".

 

[RetroGamingUK]

You might want to check what a trend is. We have been discussing one in the latest posts and it wasn't "Kart games".

Street Racer
Sonic Drift
BC Racers
Diddy Kong Racing
Crash Team Racing
Speed Freaks
Nicktoons Racing
Wacky Racers
Looney Tunes Space Race
Jak X Combat Racing

That's a trend

 

[cireza]

Street Racer
Sonic Drift
BC Racers
Diddy Kong Racing
Crash Team Racing
Speed Freaks
Nicktoons Racing
Wacky Racers
Looney Tunes Space Race
Jak X Combat Racing

That's a trend

20+ years old games lol.

 

[Avid Reading Horse]

That's a cool story, but how exactly does it demonstrate in any way that the add-on was a failure ? Were you also bullied at school for having the wrong console ? You guys went to weird schools lol.

Barely anyone had Sega CD, and nobody kept buying games for it. It was SNES , then Genesis games with dreams of PlayStation and "Ultra 64" and well-earned skepticism for Saturn that dominated the conversation.

Sales figures are irrelevant. What is, is the support that the add-on had with games being published by SEGA until the end of 1995. Tells us everything we need to know. The fact that the SEGA-CD damaged the reputation is pure fantasy, again, where are the facts exactly ?

When people bring up sales numbers you don't like, they're 'not accurate' because they didn't consider how many Segas the Catholic Church bought in order to donate to the Lost Tribes of the Amazon Rainforest or some bullshit. So there's not much point in playing that game with you.

As for reputation, let's put on our thinking caps for a second here. If Sega CD was this beloved well-supported add-on that everyone enjoyed oh so much, and not largely a piece of junk with bad gimmick games (FMV) mixed with more traditional still-not-as-impressive-as-SNES-but-potentially-with-CD-quality-music, then 32x would have sold a lot more. Because there would be trust in the previous product. But there wasn't, so it didn't.

Again, this is a cool story but largely incomplete ? Maybe take a look outside of your bubble ? The Master System was everywhere around me, and the Game Gear as well. In my country (France), this console sold more than the NES. Many kids at school had a Master System, more than NES actually. So it wasn't a curiosity, it was a great piece of hardware at a great price with great games, it was next to the MegaDrive in magazines, for a fraction of the price you would play Sonic, awesome Disney games, Mortal Kombat, Desert Strike, Micro Machines, Road Rash, Wonderboy, Alien 3, Robocop vs Terminator, Hulk... All pretty great games.

France wasn't that relevant to the console wars. Sega could have had 100% market share there, or 0%. Would make no difference. Sonic was years after the Genesis released... how NES was doing vs Master System in the 90s is nothing but a footnote.

Game Gear was fine. Again, some kids had a Game Gear with the power plug and could play in their bedroom. It was a pretty frequent thing.

All these stories are great, but they don't demonstrate anything. And certainly not consoles failing or whatever. In the end, what matters is if the consoles were supported, this is the best testimony of something being profitable for a company. Which of course includes building a good image of the company, otherwise they would stop as well.

And really, support was pretty weak. In your beloved Euro region it looks like games released from April, 1993 to June, 1995 if you want to look at it in any meaningful sense. Unless you want to count two final releases, one in September and one in December as an epic Christmas lineup for this supposedly healthy and lovingly supported platform. (List of Sega CD games (Wikipedia) -- sort by PAL release date). Even worse longevity than it had in my 'bubble' of the United States of America.

 

[Ozzie666]

Still going strong

20+ years old games lol.

Sonic cross roads ?
Countless kart racers in the past 20 years.
Several by Sega themselves even Sony.

First Metroidvania now this kart stuff.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

20+ years old games lol.

Correct me if I'm wrong

The debate is "did Mario Kart create a trend", so it clearly did. Just because none of them could compete with Mario Kart (other than Diddy and Crash) doesn't invalidate it.

The fact that Sega's latest game is a kart racer just proves that it wasn't just a short term fad either.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

When people bring up sales numbers you don't like, they're 'not accurate' because they didn't consider how many Segas the Catholic Church bought in order to donate to the Lost Tribes of the Amazon Rainforest or some bullshit. So there's not much point in playing that game with you.

Cireza will argue that black is white to attempt to discredit anyone who criticises Saturn on this forum. Apparently he's the only one on here that knows what the term "trend" means.

If SEGA supported the MegaCD up until the end of 1995 despite the meagre audience is their own stupid fault.

So by the pivotal Christmas 1995 period Sega were supporting and/or selling…

Saturn
MegaDrive
MegaCD
32X
GameGear
MasterSystem

Retarded management, utterly bone-headed.

 

[nkarafo]

Cireza is just acting dumb to distract us. The original argument was the 16bit Genesis/SNES games were INFLUENTIAL and games later on (and even today) are still based on some of them, as opposed to the Sega CD which doesn't have a single original game that influenced anything.

It was a part of whether the Sega CD was a success or not argument.

It was not necessarily about specific games creating a "trend" or becoming a mainstream "fad" that all population on earth are aware about or something. This is simply a distraction method otherwise i don't know why he went there.

And for someone who complains about "goal post changing" cireza really seems like a goal post changing world champion.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Cireza is just acting dumb. The original argument was the 16bit Genesis/SNES games were INFLUENTIAL and games today are still based on the, as opposed to the Sega CD which doesn't have a single original game that influenced anything.

The fact that only 2.4m of 30+m MegaDrive owners bought a MegaCD just proves what an absolute folly it was, same as 32X.

Supporting these failed platforms while trying to get Saturn off the ground, just utter mismanagement.

Barring Sonic Team (who should've made Sonic instead of NiGHTS), Team Andromeda and a couple of AM divisions Sega's management between 1993 and 1997 was an utter shit show across the board.

Again, Nakayama was entirely responsible.

 

[nkarafo]

Street Racer
Sonic Drift
BC Racers
Diddy Kong Racing
Crash Team Racing
Speed Freaks
Nicktoons Racing
Wacky Racers
Looney Tunes Space Race
Jak X Combat Racing

That's a trend

Kart games is basically a genre of it's own. More so than Metroidvania. After Super Mario Kart even the home computers and PCs had to have at least a couple of item based cart racers.

 

[Team Andromeda]

As for Sega Master System, look, that wasn't really a thing. If a kid had it, it was a curiosity. A real conversation piece. It wasn't bad or anything, but clearly wasn't Nintendo either. Now I got myself a Base Power Converter (which if I recall, didn't require a fucking power brick) and a pile of discount liquidated games and it was a pretty good time all things considered. And it had a much better version of Ghostbusters compared to the NES piece of shit.

Game Gear? Skipped it. No real opinion. Atari Lynx loyalist here. Best handheld. But I'm not going to sit here and pretend that it was particularly successful either. Atari was a tough sell. Damaged reputation. Bit of history that repeats itself, that.

Depends on where you lived. Because I can tell you no one cared a toss about the NES in the UK or most of Europe, much the same for the Super Nintendo

Hmm, lets see the sales:

Super Mario Kart - 8.7 million

Mario Kart DS - 23 million

Mario Kart Wii - 37 million

Mario Kart 8 - 77 million

As you can see, more and more new gamers who never bought the previous entries buy the newer Mario Kart games. So i guess you are wrong once again.

You just backed up cireza point Nintendo fans buying the same old Nintendo games again and again Nintendo who are meant to be the kings of originally and creativity yet milk the same IP's and make nothing new, they're even worse than Capcom. At least Capcom give us new IP as well

 

[RetroGamingUK]

You just backed up cireza point Nintendo fans buying the same old Nintendo games again and again Nintendo who are meant to be the kings of originally and creativity yet milk the same IP's and make nothing new, they're even worse than Capcom. At least Capcom give us new IP as well

You could say that of the industry as a whole though. All the good ideas have been exhausted.

We've got one more generation of worthwhile graphical improvements, a likely re-run of Wii-style motion games (albeit with better tech that actually does what it should). VR is inherently flawed and makes most people sick, so that's a dead end.

Then, just like music and movies (where the possibilities were reached a decade or two ago) gaming will follow them into stagnation.

Be glad you lived through the exciting days, like our parents did with music.

 

[nkarafo]

You just backed up cireza point Nintendo fans buying the same old Nintendo games again and again

No, it shows people who never bought the old Mario Kart games are buying the newer ones.

It shows the old games influenced even more successful newer games.

It shows you don't have to have nostalgia for Super Mario Kart to want to buy Mario Kart 8.

It proves the original 16bit era Super Mario Kart was an influential game with a legacy that affects the industry even today, which Cireza denies.

Cireza's point was the people who buy the new Mario Kart games are the same ones who bought the old ones. He specifically said this:

Mario Kart sells to Nintendo players who have been buying the same games for three decades.

In what way the 40+ million (at least) people who bought Mario Kart 8 as their first Mario Kart game (out of the 77 million copies sold total) are "buying the same games for three decades" exactly?

 

[Kyo]

Been reading these Saturn discussions for quite a while now and thought I'd chime in. Sorry if this is all over the place.

I never owned a Mega Drive (got a Super NES instead), though we did rent one occasionally to play stuff like Streets of Rage 2 and Comix Zone. Some friends owned Mega Drives, but we mostly played Sonic and Puyo Puyo on it. So you could say that most Sega games at the time didn't really connect with me. This was unlike the Saturn, which was carried by all-new, decidedly modern types of games that didn't rely on nostalgia and familiar names. Objectively, the lack of a Sonic game was bad. But did I care? Not at all. I'd played Sonic 1 and 2 and they bored me enough not to finish either at any point. Why would I need more of that?

But while I personally didn't really care, the failure to build on the success of popular Mega Drive games with strong sequels for Saturn was clearly a major blunder. With the system being more successful in the West than in Japan, that would've been a task for Sega's branches over there. But SoA (and SoE) utterly failed to contribute anything to the Saturn portfolio that held up. Instead they gave us the rushed early launch in the West, one of the most moronic moves ever. I can't stress enough how much of an idiot you had to be to launch the console with the original Virtua Fighter in the West when Sega of Japan already had VF Remix ready to go in April. As I've said before: They should've had Remix available for the Euro and US launch with an option to choose between arcade mode (flat-shaded polygons) and Saturn mode (texture-mapped). And I gotta mention that they also chose to go with that crappy US/Euro controller instead of the godlike Japanese Saturn controller. What an unnecessary fuckup that was.

It was clear that Sega's brand was in bad shape in '95, with all the add-on hardware they had released really dragging down the Saturn's perception. It was obvious that the market couldn't sustain the MD, the MegaCD, the 32X and the Saturn all at the same time, but all this stuff was still all over the magazines, and it wasn't a pretty picture. So there was a lack of Saturn games early on while reviewers were talking about tons of mediocre-to-awful 32X games, about such nonsense as games for 32X *and* SegaCD (crappy FMV games now with slightly more colors, yay!), about whether Vector Man was enabling the MD to keep up with Donkey Kong Country's rendered graphics on SNES. While ideas like the Neptune were being floated, it was obvious to just about everyone that all these machines were destined to be dead very soon. Except for the Saturn. Maybe. It was not a good spot to be in for the company. To state the obvious: Any line in a magazine wasted on covering the inferior 32X version of Virtua Fighter was bad for both the 32X *and* the Saturn. Who at Sega greenlighted this nonsense?

Despite all this obvious incompetence at Sega, I've been a Saturn fan ever since I saw the original VF running at a local store in late '94. I'd seen some pictures of the game in magazines, but seeing it in motion really blew me away. It was obvious that this was the future, the animation was so far beyond everything else on the market. I got the console in the spring of '95 so I could play VF and Daytona, not wanting to wait for the later European release. Wasn't too impressed with the other early titles (I never even got Panzer Dragoon), but late '95 was amazing with VF2 (just stunning visually, still holds up amazingly well), Sega Rally (awesome vehicle handling and music) and Virtua Cop (also damn near perfect, set the bar really high for lightgun shooters), all offering experiences on a level not previously available.

In retrospect, you really gotta wonder why they didn't push for some Sonic title early. Why bother with a new IP like Clockwork Knight instead of using a similar engine for a 2.5D Sonic game? It would've been significantly different from any Sonic before it in a good way! Another option would have been to give us the most spectacular 2D Sonic ever, with awesome effects, more colors and better animation than ever before, ideally using hi-res mode throughout. This truly is the path not taken for the 32-bit generation and it's a shame that it took us so long to get to hi-res 2D. Was Saturn Bomberman the lone exception then? And while wonderful in its own way, that was hardly a graphical showcase. These days hi-res 2D is everywhere and people aren't whining that it's a thing of the past, they just accept it as an alternative approach to game design that is different from the (increasingly generic) 3D worlds we're exploring otherwise. Back then it fell victim to the silly "it's gotta be 3D" zeitgeist.

There's clearly a lot that went wrong with the Saturn, but other than the lack of easy (especially polygonal) transparencies I never had a problem with its 3D performance and Sega's "big 3" from late '95 remained state of the art for quite a long time. I also played Tomb Raider on the Saturn and found it perfectly fine at the time. Must've been the only PAL game I ever bought for it – I never cared much for what most European and American developers did with the machine. Japanese developers, on the other hand, gave me plenty of games that hold up extremely well: The SNK and Capcom fighters, especially the vs. series with the 4MB RAM cartridge, were amazing for their time and the continued interest in such conversions speaks volumes. Saturn also got some of the best shooters - Thunderforce V, Radiant Silvergun and Sokyugurentai were all fantastic.

Honestly, if there's one thing that bothered me about the Saturn's performance, it was the sound. I was always annoyed by the muffled voices in the various fighting games. It seems to have been a matter of insufficient RAM, because the Capcom 4MB vs fighters and The King of Fighters '95 (with its ROM cartridge) didn't have the problem, featuring much clearer voices. So going from KoF '95 to '96 (which needed the 1MB RAM cart) was in fact a downgrade in that respect.

While the system had enough great stuff coming out at least until late '97 (if you were open to Japanese imports), let's not forget another reason why I think the Saturn failed to keep up with the PlayStation beyond '96: Sega's own standards went down. While some games like Panzer Dragoon Saga and Burning Rangers did keep pushing the hardware, these were becoming rare cases. Fighting Vipers and Fighters Megamix had 3D cages and gouraud shading, but the characters were clearly less detailed than those in VF2 and the game was rendering them at the standard resolution instead of the stunning hi-res look of VF2. Despite being released two years later, Sega Touring Car Championship was leagues behind Sega Rally technically, with a lower framerate and that ugly warping road. While Virtua Cop 1&2 looked great for their time, The House of the Dead was given to 3rd party developer Tantalus and it ended up being one of the ugliest things on the console. Similarly, the Saturn conversions of Manx TT Superbike (Tantalus again) and Sky Target (Appaloosa) were both given to 3rd parties instead of handling them in-house. It sent a message.

And there's another aspect to it: There was a lack of progress in terms of game design there. While European developers were adding more and more tracks, cars and game modes to their racing games, Sega kept churning out bare-bones arcade conversions, just changing the types of cars. Going from NASCAR to Rally to Touring Car to Motorbikes may have been enough to keep people's interest in the arcades, but home gamers were increasingly demanding more. Same with fighting games: You got arcade mode and vs mode and that was pretty much it! All while Tekken gave people countless (though generic) bonus fighters to unlock and cool rendered videos. And once you got to the breakable barriers and armor of Fighting Vipers, there was hardly any progress gameplay-wise. Last Bronx looked nice, but it didn't add anything new – the handling of weapons was totally superficial and disappointing to me. Fighters Megamix got 3D sidestepping (from VF3) and a whole bunch of bonus fighters at last, but it always felt more like a loose party game than a serious fighter and clearly this was too little too late.

And it took Sega's game designers years to wake up to the increasing demands from players – they were still struggling with this in the Dreamcast years, after all! The Japanese VF3 was such a bare-bones port that it didn't even have a versus mode. The DC version of Fighting Vipers 2 felt extremely lackluster, too. And I think none of their later racing games managed to combine the appeal of their earlier arcade hits with a large number of tracks or more expansive game modes. It's a shame. Similarly, they were very late to understand the appeal of cinematic action adventure games. While Resident Evil and (later) Metal Gear Solid were getting very popular over on PlayStation, Sega was struggling to produce anything worthwhile along these lines. Late Saturn title Deep Fear felt too derivative of RE to really win people over, Headhunter was a mediocre attempt to explore this type of game on Dreamcast, and Shenmue, for all its forward-thinking aspects, had its own share of problems.

 

[Team Andromeda]

No, it shows people who never bought the old Mario Kart games are buying the newer ones.

It shows the old games influenced even more successful newer games.

It shows you don't have to have nostalgia for Super Mario Kart to want to buy Mario Kart 8.

It proves the original 16bit era Super Mario Kart was an influential game with a legacy that affects the industry even today, which Cireza denies.

Cireza's point was the people who buy the new Mario Kart games are the same ones who bought the old ones. He specifically said this:



In what way the 40+ million (at least) people who bought Mario Kart 8 as their first Mario Kart game (out of the 77 million copies sold total) are "buying the same games for three decades" exactly?

All its shows is Nintendo fans buying the same tired old IP's again and again I'll agree that Mario Kart had its impact, but then so did Elite on the BBC or Football Manager on Sinclair. Infact a lot of games were play today properly go be traced back to the Microcomputers and PCs in the old days

You could say that of the industry as a whole though. All the good ideas have been exhausted.

We've got one more generation of worthwhile graphical improvements, a likely re-run of Wii-style motion games (albeit with better tech that actually does what it should). VR is inherently flawed and makes most people sick, so that's a dead end.

Then, just like music and movies (where the possibilities were reached a decade or two ago) gaming will follow them into stagnation.

Be glad you lived through the exciting days, like our parents did with music.

At least other corps bring out new IPs, not like with Nintendo who just milk the same IPs again and again and maybe give us a new IP like Splatoon even 10 years or so
Even bloody Xbox brought out more brand new IP this year than Nintendo done over the last 2.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

Could they have pulled enough tricks to make those games have the next-gen impact of ps1 games?

Yes, but naturally they would need to make fud against full 3D, however the PS1 is a more powerful hardware and could keep up with the Saturn in any trick that Sega invented. 1993 was a cruel year, there was no way Sega could make a 3D console even close to the standard of the PlayStation for less than $600. When the competitor is much more powerful the only alternative was to make a Saturn weaker than the Saturn we know.

A $249 saturn that could have stayed a $50 advantage through the price drops? technically inferior but a bunch of great looking and playing games that made it not matter so much? Worked against snes, right?

It would be necessary to make a 2.5d 480p console for Sega to resist and beat the N64 and PS1. I can't see any other alternative

 

[nkarafo]

and again I'll agree that Mario Kart had its impact, but then so did Elite on the BBC or Football Manager on Sinclair. Infact a lot of games were play today properly go be traced back to the Microcomputers and PCs in the old days

So what are you arguing about with me exactly? Did i ever said the opposite? I was arguing with someone who claims Super Mario Kart was not influential, along with any other 16bit game, because i argued the Sega CD didn't have a single influential original/exclusive game.

At least other corps bring out new IPs,

Like who? Sega? Who still makes crappy Sonic games and can't figure out how to make a good one?

Like Capcom who are now releasing Resident Evil 9 and Street Fighter what 6? 7? I lost count. Soon they are going to count in double digits, like Final Fantasy. Where is that now, at 16?

How many Ass Creeds are there? How many Call of Duties?

That's how the AAA industry works. That's what big publishers do, they have a bunch of successful iPs that worth millions and try to take advantage of them. .If you want new iPs you look at smaller teams or new studios.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

If Sega's president chose Cireza to help produce a console, he would approve garbage games, outdated hardware and full price; the console would be discontinued in 24 months. Cireza "People don't understand what quality means."

 

[Team Andromeda]

So what are you arguing about with me exactly? Did i ever said the opposite? I was arguing with someone who claims Super Mario Kart was not influential, along with any other 16bit game, because i argued the Sega CD didn't have a single influential original/exclusive game.

That Nintendo fans buy the same stuff again and again, which was the point he was trying to make
Why you had to have a dig at the Mega CD is beyond me, other that the trademark SEGA bashing in threads like this

If you want to be clever and talk influential, I believe it's mainly because of Night Trip that we have a game rating system that's still in use to this very day . Not that I really think people care about influential games when buying a gaming system.

 

[cireza]

As for reputation, let's put on our thinking caps for a second here. If Sega CD was this beloved well-supported add-on that everyone enjoyed oh so much, and not largely a piece of junk with bad gimmick games (FMV) mixed with more traditional still-not-as-impressive-as-SNES-but-potentially-with-CD-quality-music, then 32x would have sold a lot more. Because there would be trust in the previous product. But there wasn't, so it didn't.

This sentence makes absolutely no sense lol. What do you hope to demonstrate with such broken logic exactly ? Apply it to the Wii U and understand the extend of the stupidity of your sentence, which basically says that a product is guaranteed to sell well even if it is trash as long as the previous product was a hit. Unbelievably dumb.

The debate is "did Mario Kart create a trend", so it clearly did.

It didn't, because if it did, we would not be discussing Metroidvanias and Souls-like saturating the market, but Mario Kart-like games. But outside of three meaningful games per gen, there is nothing notable in this genre, except maybe games for 3 years old kids based on whatever shitty cartoon license if you really want to count them.

I think that if this goes on, in a few posts, we will read that Nintendo has invented arcade racers.

So in the end, not a single person here was able to make a compelling argument demonstrating that the SEGA-CD was a failure, which was the new BS some of you were arguing for.

If Sega's president chose Cireza to help produce a console, he would approve garbage games, outdated hardware and full price; the console would be discontinued in 24 months. Cireza "People don't understand what quality means."

I'd rather see you president to have a good laugh. I am not obsessed with SEGA's revival, unlike you.

 

[Team Andromeda]

So in the end, not a single person here was able to make a compelling argument demonstrating that the SEGA-CD was a failure, which was the new BS some of you were arguing for.

Spot on mate,

It's just an excuse for the SEGA haters to have fun

 

[cireza]

Cireza will argue that black is white to attempt to discredit anyone who criticises Saturn on this forum. Apparently he's the only one on here that knows what the term "trend" means.

If SEGA supported the MegaCD up until the end of 1995 despite the meagre audience is their own stupid fault.

So by the pivotal Christmas 1995 period Sega were supporting and/or selling…

Saturn
MegaDrive
MegaCD
32X
GameGear
MasterSystem

Retarded management, utterly bone-headed.

The fact that only 2.4m of 30+m MegaDrive owners bought a MegaCD just proves what an absolute folly it was

These two posts also are pretty funny and demonstrate how much you don't understand a thing about the market back then. I really wonder if you lived through it because it doesn't seem like it.

Putting all together MegaDrive, Master System, Game Gear and Mega-CD and saying it was retarded to have them is beyond stupid. Because you see, people who had a Master System did not have a MegaDrive. People who had a Game Gear did not have the other consoles. They were all addressing a different market, and this exactly the reason why they were supported by SEGA equally until they moved on to the Saturn.

As for the Mega-CD, it was a premium product offering a premium experience. It was meant to be installed with a quality stereo setup, which would greatly enhance the sound of the base MegaDrive games while retaining RGB output for the TV, and would allow playback of your music. On top of getting new games that took advantage of the excellent sound you got from the add-on. So again, it was addressing another market, with people that had more income and were more technology-savvy. It was never supposed to sell to every single MegaDrive owner. What a dumb logic. But not surprised, you would resort to even the most stupid and inconsistent arguments to push your narrative.

 

[Team Andromeda]

As for the Mega-CD, it was a premium product offering a premium experience. It was meant to be installed with a quality stereo setup, which would greatly enhance the sound of the base MegaDrive games while retaining RGB output for the TV, and would allow playback of your music. On top of getting new games that took advantage of the excellent sound you got from the add-on. So again, it was addressing another market, with people that had more income and were more technology-savvy. It was never supposed to sell to every single MegaDrive owner. What a dumb logic. But not surprised, you would resort to even the most stupid and inconsistent arguments to push your narrative.

Spot on and it was expensive because all CD based systems were at that time . No add-on sells to 100% of the base user none. Unless people want to be clever and bring up PC CD-Rom

 

[NeverYouMind]

Odd, because it was responsible for the incredibly popular Crash Team Racing, Diddy Kong Racing, and numerous Sega/Sonic knockoffs. As with all things a market monopoliser emerges though.

I think they did that because gameplay design is simple and console Mario Kart was trash. Arguably the only good ones were on handhelds until 8 (but almost no one bought a Wii U so they improved it and made it portable). I guess Nintendo even managed to fuck that trend up with their latest.

As for the Mega-CD, it was a premium product offering a premium experience.

The Mega-CD expensive sidegrade experience:

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

I am not obsessed with SEGA's revival.

Sega still exists, I refuse to believe that people like Sega Lord X want to live forever playing old Sega Genesis games
Sega has a natural vocation to return to this sector and recover some market share, but only true fans are able to say to Sega " you need forget 85% of your past, if you want to be great" Let's be honest, nobody likes the Sega Saturn, what people like is SEGA, unfortunately Sega's 5th gen console was the Saturn, so it's because of SEGA that people say they like Sega Saturn games but inside, nobody likes them, you know.

 

[NeverYouMind]

Any line in a magazine wasted on covering the inferior 32X version of Virtua Fighter was bad for both the 32X *and* the Saturn.

The 32X version is the definitive port. Remix has half the framerate (with long load times) and original Saturn version has loading screens and flickering polygons.

Fighting Vipers and Fighters Megamix had 3D cages and gouraud shading, but the characters were clearly less detailed than those in VF2 and the game was rendering them at the standard resolution instead of the stunning hi-res look of VF2.

Virtua Fighter 2 runs at 30fps and is not as responsive as the other games you mentioned.

 

[Kyo]

The 32X version is the definitive port. Remix has half the framerate (with long load times) and original Saturn version has loading screens and flickering polygons.


Virtua Fighter 2 runs at 30fps and is not as responsive as the other games you mentioned.

Virtua Fighter 2 runs at 30 fps? In what universe?

 

[diffusionx]

"Sega CD sucked but the 32X was good" is a take I never thought I would hear.

Yeah, the system was so well documented that why so many developers couldn't figure out to get AA in their games .

No, it was not that they couldn't "figure it out", it was that they had to come up with a solution and not every dev had time to do so.

PS2: Aliased No More - IGN

The Jaggies Ever since the launch of PlayStation 2 in Japan on March 4,…

www.ign.com

It was nothing like say transparency on Saturn

 

[Team Andromeda]

"Sega CD sucked but the 32X was good" is a take I never thought I would hear.

34 years ago and still can't let it go...

And one had plenty of transparent effects on the Saturn





Keep it coming

 

[cireza]

The 32X version is the definitive port. Remix has half the framerate (with long load times) and original Saturn version has loading screens and flickering polygons.

Virtua Fighter on 32X doesn't run at 60fps lol. It's a great port, but Remix is superb as well, character models are huge and textures very detailed. It's a totally different take from the original visuals, but that's what it needed to be.

 

[Team Andromeda]

The 32X version is the definitive port. Remix has half the framerate (with long load times) and original Saturn version has loading screens and flickering polygons.


Virtua Fighter 2 runs at 30fps and is not as responsive as the other games you mentioned.

What gives? you are usually well briefed.

VR Remix runs at the exact same frame rate as the Arcade and 32X versions and VF2 runs at 60 FPS on Saturn and in the Arcade

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

"Sega CD sucked but the 32X was good" is a take I never thought I would hear.

I've read something similar on a blog before.

But that's not important. You said something that made me reflect and refine my own position: "The console that made the best racing game would win 1995." You're right. PS1 quickly released six racing games, which is quite significant. That's why Crash, Mario, Tomb Raider, and Die Hard Trilogy were important because, in those days, 3D was synonymous with FPS games, fighting games, and racing games these early games were saturated.

 

[diffusionx]

34 years ago and still can't let it go...

And one had plenty of transparent effects on the Saturn





Keep it coming

Watch the video

 

[Team Andromeda]

Watch the video

I made the video *rollseyes* so spare on us on that one.

VDP2 could handle transparent effects, VDP1 couldn't for polygons

 

[diffusionx]

I made the video, so spare on us on that one.

VDP2 could handle transparent effects, VDP1 couldn't for polygons

Kind of an important detail don't you think

PS2 was perfectly capable of AA as devs figured out before the system even came out.

 

[Team Andromeda]

Kind of an important detail don't you think

PS2 was perfectly capable of AA as devs figured out before the system even came out.

My point was the Saturn could handle transparent effects

And yes, developers could handle AA in PS2 games, thanks to a tools update. So just like the Saturn, the launch tools for the PS2 weren't great, but if you were a good developer, you could work around it anyway

 

[diffusionx]

My point was the Saturn could handle transparent effects

And yes, developers could handle AA in PS2 games, thanks to a tools update. So just like the Saturn, the launch tools for the PS2 weren't great, but if you were a good developer, you could work around it anyway

people cared about it for polygons though.

 

[Team Andromeda]

people cared about it for polygons though.

If it were about Polygons the Xbox would have won...

 

[nkarafo]

So in the end, not a single person here was able to make a compelling argument demonstrating that the SEGA-CD was a failure, which was the new BS some of you were arguing for.

Except i just did.

It didn't sell well. That's, like, pretty major.
It didn't have good enough adoption from Genesis/MegaDrive users. Only around 1 every 13 Mega Drive users had one.
It didn't have enough exclusive/original games that can be considered great and/or influential.
It has a very small library of games, only 200 something titles in all regions combined and a big portion of it is shovelware FMV slop.
Another equally big portion is Mega Drive ports with redbook audio and very few (if any) other improvements. Games like Eternal Champions being one of the rare exceptions.
Even as an FMV console it's still worse than the CDi, Amiga CD32 and 3DO because it has the worst video quality by far. So it doesn't even do that right.
Only a handful of games make good use of it's extra hardware capabilities.

What else do you need for a console to be considered... not that successful?

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

The PS2 is a piece of hardware intelligently designed to remain competitive for many years , Kutaragi accomplished this mission. The Sega Saturn didn't have the processing power to compete in the 5th gen of consoles. These are not comparable feats.

difficult to program doesn't mean impossible to program, the Sega Saturn has 1,000 games, many made by a single person, including modern games made by XL2, what the Saturn lacks is processing power to impress people, when a console doesn't have this, it doesn't stand up. MGS2, an early game is among the most advanced games on the PS2 all time, please.

 

[RetroAV]

I often think the saturn could have been weaker, cheaper, and better for it.

A $249 saturn that could have stayed a $50 advantage through the price drops? technically inferior but a bunch of great looking and playing games that made it not matter so much?

Wasn't that basically what the 32X was supposed to be? A cheaper, more streamlined step between the Genesis and Saturn.

Look at what homebrew devs have pulled off — Sonic Robo Blast 2 and even Tomb Raider running on actual 32X hardware.



Sure, Sega couldn't have shipped games like that in '94–'95 — modern tools and hindsight make that possible now — but that's not the point. The point is the hardware itself wasn't the useless brick people make it out to be.

If Sega had focused, invested, and actually supported the 32X instead of dropping it overnight, it could've delivered far more than what we got.

 

[NeverYouMind]

Virtua Fighter 2 runs at 30 fps? In what universe?

I never personally tested framerate but it has about half the animation frames of Model 2 version modern ports and greater input delay. It running at 30fps relative to known 60fps arcade version is the simplest explanation I could think of.