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[Geometric-Crusher]

In 1995 it was. Barely anyone bought Parodius at PSX launch.

However, more than 1 million bought Arc the Lad and Namco Museum in the following months. Please don't resist. We need to be realistic here: the Saturn's 2D games just aren't that good. Shinobi Legions isn't better than Shinobi 3, you know. Think about it, if the Saturn were Nintendo's, they would make a Super Mario using Astal's technology or a Metroid using Golden Axe The Duel's technology, and both games would sell more than any Sega Saturn game like Yoshi Story did.

 

[SkylineRKR]

However, more than 1 million bought Arc the Lad and Namco Museum in the following months. Please don't resist. We need to be realistic here: the Saturn's 2D games just aren't that good. Shinobi Legions isn't better than Shinobi 3, you know. Think about it, if the Saturn were Nintendo's, they would make a Super Mario using Astal's technology or a Metroid using Golden Axe The Duel's technology, and both games would sell more than any Sega Saturn game like Yoshi Story did.

Arc the Lad sold in Japan, where 2D games continued to be widely adopted.

Namco museum was a success. Vol 1 was carried by Pac Man. Vol 3 did well too, which had Ms Pac Man. The others without Pac Man didn't sell that great.

But many 2D games sold mediocre or were simply ignored at the time. I can't think of a truly succesful 2D game on Saturn and PSX in the west. A great game with rave reviews such as SotN sort of bombed, gained traction later and became expensive. Trash like Nightmare Creatures vastly outsold it.

Perhaps SF Alpha was the most succesful, I believe SFA1 and 2 sold about a million combined, and SFA3 sold 1 mil on PSX alone. Which was ofcourse a far cry from SF2 on 16-bit. But generally I wouldn't put my money on 2D in that era.

 

[ReBurn]

I played my PS1 more. Well, to death actually. I think it was the much better console experience, which had little to do with specs. It just had so many awesome games. But I love my Saturn. It's on my Sega shelf with my Genesis and Dreamcast. I'm always going to be a Sega console fan at heart. I had to stop myself from picking up a super clean, super complete tower of power at my local indie shop the other day. It was so nice but I didn't need to waste that many hundreds on a toy.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

This is my guess based off experience and stuff I read on the net.

I never bothered with a Saturn though I was a big Genesis gamer (and SNES combo). I got a PS1 a year after it launched here (used to save a few bucks) because it was cheaper and had better sports. I think I got it around fall 1996 or early 1997. The Saturn sports seemed like junk some reason coming off awesome Sega Sports on Genesis.

I didnt really notice or care at the time about PS1 being better at 3D so much because it seemed similar enough in those early days. Later on the gap got bigger which I noticed at game store demos and reading mags where Sony's polygon 989 sports games were very good compared to Saturn junk. Although World Series 98 was supposed to be god tier console baseball game. But I had MLB 98 which was rock solid anyway.

I dont care about JRPGs, so whatever Saturn and PS had was zero effect for me.

But rounding out my game library I picked up games I never played before like Tekken 2, Ace Combat 2, Destruction Derby 2 etc... Never played their first games. My system came with a sampler disc too that had Tekken 2 and F1 demos, so I also got F1 which was awesome. Never knew it was out for PS at the time.

Other things about PS1 made no difference to me like aesthetics (I preferred Saturn as I like how Sega would make nice looking black systems), the memory card way of doing things, etc...

I dont know how rock solid Saturn systems were, but my PS1 eventually failed like many. Upside down trick only worked for maybe half a year. Eventually it got to a point it would never read a disc unless I kept trying for 15 minutes and maybe it'd finally catch. The system would boot up but just stall at the logo and I'd give up most of the time. At that point I gave it all away to a coworker.

What probably killed Saturn too (which I didnt know until the net) was Sega got grilled by retailers who hated they launched first at certain stores. So they boycotted carrying it or perhaps delayed carrying it. I remember Walmart being one of them. You never grill points of distribution. Especially mainstream stuff like a game system which historically is sold at all major places at once. Some might have more stock than others, but at least they all start at the same time. What Sega was thinking was crazy.

 

[AGRacing]

For me it's very simple.

This generation of console would make textured 3D graphics the norm. So the performance and look of those 3D graphics was very important. Basically, the console that has the best 3D graphics would win.

The early games pretty much showed the world the PS1 will have better graphics. Tekken/Toshinden looked better than Virtua Fighter. And Ridge Racer looked better than Daytona. Doesn't matter if Saturn could do better, doesn't matter if the games were rushed. People didn't know that stuff back then.

So there you have it. Once the rumor the PS1 has better 3D graphics took off via word of mouth or magazines, it was over for the Saturn.

As a 15 year old kid I entered a Electronics Boutique in 1995 to BUY a Saturn and had a sick feeling in my stomach when I discovered Ridge Racer and Toshinden and saw a video of Destruction Derby. My father thought his kid was about to make a bad decision with the first big purchase he ever made with his own earned money and stopped me. He bought me the buying guide for PlayStation magazine that EGM made (I still have it!). A week later we came back and I bought a PlayStation and Ridge Racer. Sega never recovered from a terrible launch with rushed software in the US.

At points later (namely the 3 game bundle period a year later) Sega looked much better. But Sony had its own second wave of titles. It was too late.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

the important is 1995, Arc the Lad and Namco Museum Vol. 1, Rayman and MK3 are games from 1995 as well as Astal, Golden Axe The Duel and Shinobi X. Do you realize that if Namco Museum Vol. 1 and Arc the Lad sold more than 1 million copies, would it be too much to ask for Sega's 2D games to also sell 1 million copies? On the Sega Saturn, only three games (Sega Rally, Daytona, and VF2) outsold Sonic 3D Blast, a game that sold 700,000 copies.

Sega needed a big 3D Sonic game to go up against Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot for Christmas 96. Expecting Sega to have something ready for late 95 after delivering Sonic & Knuckles a year prior is unreasonable.

I loved Nights, but I can see why most people didn't get it.

Sonic Xtreme's failure to launch was the straw that broke the camel's back. Saturn was a dead console walking in the west after that.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

If you had just bought a new $249-$699 32-bit console, you wanted to see it work and that meant 3D games.

I was 13 or 14. I still wanted and needed yoshi's island. I saw that as an exceptional late 16bit game worth as much or more than anything on ps1. But in general, I was over 2d games.

In fact, I considered something like panzer dragoon to be more 2d than 3d. It played too closely to space harrier for me. It wasn't just about graphics. I wanted to play games in 3d space.

I see things differently, I played in the arcades and was very used to SFA2 when I finally played the SNES version, I told my friend let's play Metroid because this is not SFA2. I don't agree with the suggestion that a 5th gen 2D game is like 4th gen 2D.

 

[simpatico]

Saturn would have needed truly perfect execution to beat Sony in the US. When PSX launched, Sony had this amazing brand impression in the minds of Americans. Think of Apple in their prime, but cool, and existing in the realm of HiFi gear and general consumer electronics. But always "cool". PSX nailed this branding and bolstered it. Force of nature. It had the opposite quality requirements. There was room for a few fuck ups since the brand was so strong. Plus, SEGA was a game company, and games were for kids. Another piece of baggage Sony didn't have to carry.

 

[Ozzie666]

The Saturn exposed Sega and mostly Sega of America for the house of cards it was with the genesis. Manager and subpar second party developers. No longer protected by the clever accounting and smoke and mirrors to inflate the genesis success.

Even Sega of Japan had no idea. They weren't doing as well as they believed.

Sonic had become an American project that was not skilled enough for 3D. Cerny had left too. Naka back to Japan.

 

[Crayon]

I see things differently, I played in the arcades and was very used to SFA2 when I finally played the SNES version, I told my friend let's play Metroid because this is not SFA2. I don't agree with the suggestion that a 5th gen 2D game is like 4th gen 2D.

I guess if game development shifted majorly to super-scaler style psuedo-3d games, then yeah. But It seems like a whole lot of games would have had to adhere to standard 2d-templates and just pumped up the graphics/spectacle. For example, scaling-sprite racing games where you can't turn backwards on the track. Someone could put in a lot of effort to make that work... just to be able to look backwards down the track. Where in polygonal 3d, the ability to turn backwards on the track just naturally follows.

So what I'm saying is that 3d gameplay enabled by 3d graphics was a giant leap.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

Sega needed a big 3D Sonic game to go up against Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot for Christmas 96.

Sega Saturn died for consumers when Resident Evil was released on the Playstation early 1996, Sega themselves and consumers who bought magazines already knew that the Sega Saturn had lost the race and was not worth it, because the set of games for PS1 exceeded in quality the options present on Saturn, this paved the way for the PS1 x N64 polarization, so obviously there would not be a Sonic to compete with Mario because the decision had already been made when they chose to make the 1995 games that you know.

I loved Nights, but I can see why most people didn't get it.

Sonic Xtreme's failure to launch was the straw that broke the camel's back. Saturn was a dead console walking in the west after that.

I agree.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

What also might had hurt Saturn was that was the time for CD cinematics and cut scene galore.

For me, dont really care as I skip them most of the time.

But if you were a gamer who followed gaming and like that stuff, PS1's FMV clips were much smoother looking than Saturn which had a shitty grainy look to them. I think it had to do with codec differences. So Saturn couldnt even get that right.

 

[diffusionx]

What also might had hurt Saturn was that was the time for CD cinematics and cut scene galore.

For me, dont really care as I skip them most of the time.

But if you were a gamer who followed gaming and like that stuff, PS1's FMV clips were much smoother looking than Saturn which had a shitty grainy look to them. I think it had to do with codec differences. So Saturn couldnt even get that right.

PSX had built in hardware on the CPU to decode FMV. I don't think Saturn did. The PSX was a very forward looking device while the Saturn was far less so.

If you had just bought a new $249-$699 32-bit console, you wanted to see it work and that meant 3D games.

I was 13 or 14. I still wanted and needed yoshi's island. I saw that as an exceptional late 16bit game worth as much or more than anything on ps1. But in general, I was over 2d games.

In fact, I considered something like panzer dragoon to be more 2d than 3d. It played too closely to space harrier for me. It wasn't just about graphics. I wanted to play games in 3d space.

this is not talked about enough in vintage game discussion. They see the Saturn running SFA3 flawlessly and are confused at why people didn't go ape shit over this or why people didn't care as much about Saturns 2d. Well that wasn't where people were at in 1996. People were ready for something new. They wanted 3D and Sony was wise to focus on it. Nowadays people play the same shit they were playing 10 years ago and pretend that slightly shinier reflections are some groundbreaking feature, but back then the technology was moving fast and people wanted to be part of it.

 

[Radical_3d]

LOL sega resistance trying to retcon that Saturn had similar power to PlayStation. Man. I had a Saturn in those days and it was rough.

 

[Red Crayon Aristocrat]

It's simple, once FF7 dropped it was OVER.

I heard the N64 never really sold that great in Japan either, what was it missing? FF7.

 

[coffinbirth]

the important is 1995, Arc the Lad and Namco Museum Vol. 1, Rayman and MK3 are games from 1995 as well as Astal, Golden Axe The Duel and Shinobi X. Do you realize that if Namco Museum Vol. 1 and Arc the Lad sold more than 1 million copies, would it be too much to ask for Sega's 2D games to also sell 1 million copies? On the Sega Saturn, only three games (Sega Rally, Daytona, and VF2) outsold Sonic 3D Blast, a game that sold 700,000 copies.

Namco Museum Vol. 1 was one of PlayStation's secret console sellers. First proper home console port of Pac-Man was a big deal for those middle-aged divorced dads. My dad did this. He also bought Vol.3 for Ms. Pac-Man, haha.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

For those of you who chose PS1 over Saturn, I remember some pointers people brought up as better than Saturn. And they had nothing really to do with 3D trends. Did any of these influence your purchase as major factors?

- System was smaller
- Gamepad feel was newer with a better d-pad
- Memory card system system was better than Saturn's limited internal storage. More PS save cards were cheap, while Saturn you had to buy more pricier save carts
- Any other things that added to it

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

The Saturn exposed Sega and mostly Sega of America for the house of cards it was with the genesis. Manager and subpar second party developers. No longer protected by the clever accounting and smoke and mirrors to inflate the genesis success.

Even Sega of Japan had no idea. They weren't doing as well as they believed.

Sonic had become an American project that was not skilled enough for 3D. Cerny had left too. Naka back to Japan.

This is an important point, it's true, human resources at Sega weren't the best, I never understood how someone could work at a company and develop products that go against the trends. Sega's RPG Panzer Dragoon Saga has the protagonist with different hair from the regular RPG protagonists, Burning Rangers is about rescuing people instead of fighting people, Panzer Dragoon is reminiscent of Space Harrier, Virtua Fighter has no plot lore. Nights is an androgen, ideal for 2025, terrible for 1996, Guardian Heroes was Sega's answer to RE1. The Saturn's big hit was Virtua Fighter, but as soon as other minds started making their 3d fighting games, they just made them better.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

This is an important point, it's true, human resources at Sega weren't the best, I never understood how someone could work at a company and develop products that go against the trends. Sega's RPG Panzer Dragoon Saga has the protagonist with different hair from the regular RPG protagonists, Burning Rangers is about rescuing people instead of fighting people, Panzer Dragoon is reminiscent of Space Harrier, Virtua Fighter has no plot lore. Nights is an androgen, ideal for 2025, terrible for 1996, Guardian Heroes was Sega's answer to RE1. The Saturn's big hit was Virtua Fighter, but as soon as other minds started making their 3d fighting games, they just made them better.

I think a problem Sega had was they had such smash hit arcade roots, a lot of their home games were just downports with hardly any extra features. A big Sega arcade gamer probably loved it, but gamers looking for more meat or something new and longer lasting appeal they picked PS1 or N64.

I always found it odd out of Sega, Nintendo and Sony that Sega struggled the most with hardware. You'd think with their arcade roots making awesome machines that their R&D tech wizards should figure out how to make solid home console hardware, which Nintendo/Sony shouldnt be able to figure out or beat them at it.

 

[Crayon]

For those of you who chose PS1 over Saturn, I remember some pointers people brought up as better than Saturn. And they had nothing really to do with 3D trends. Did any of these influence your purchase as major factors?

- System was smaller
- Gamepad feel was newer with a better d-pbiad
- Memory card system system was better than Saturn's limited internal storage. More PS save cards were cheap, while Saturn you had to buy more pricier save carts
- Any other things that added to it

None of those. I was at the time super optimistic about new players in the market, the technology was good, wipeout/destruction derby/toshinden had me hyperventilating for the launch.

 

[kevboard]

For those of you who chose PS1 over Saturn, I remember some pointers people brought up as better than Saturn. And they had nothing really to do with 3D trends. Did any of these influence your purchase as major factors?

- System was smaller
- Gamepad feel was newer with a better d-pad
- Memory card system system was better than Saturn's limited internal storage. More PS save cards were cheap, while Saturn you had to buy more pricier save carts
- Any other things that added to it

the dpad was only worse in North America and Europe, not in japan (nor south America weirdly).

some insanely retarded product designer shat this thing out of his ass and cursed the west with it at launch:

while Japan got this vastly superior controller:

and that dpad was far better than the PS1's mediocre one. it was only the western model 1 controller that had an insanely bad dpad. the model 2 controller, which was just the japanese one in black, fixed it a while later.


I really wonder what the hell Sega tried to accomplish with that awful model 1 design
they probably had the same focus group for their tests as Microsoft had with the Duke.

because, fun fact, Microsoft had both the Duke design and the Controller S design ready for launch essentially. but the focus group they tested them on preferred the Duke, so they mass produced that one for launch, and almost instantly regretted it when the public got their hands on it lol.

 

[yogaflame]

I actually prefer saturn at first than PS1. Sadly Sega focus to much on 2D.

 

[consoul]

Saturn's game catalog was weak in the west and strong in Japan.

There were a lot of factors, but this seems like the most consequential one.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

I actually prefer saturn at first than PS1. Sadly Sega focus to much on 2D.

except no, ps1 has more 2d games than Sega Saturn.
Sega wasn't in a good creative phase at the time, so much so that I wouldn't even miss it if Thanos snapped his fingers and made all Sega games on the Saturn disappear.

 

[yogaflame]

except no, ps1 has more 2d games than Sega Saturn.
Sega wasn't in a good creative phase at the time, so much so that I wouldn't even miss it if Thanos snapped his fingers and made all Sega games on the Saturn disappear.

Saturn was capable of 3d games but 3d was harder to develop for Saturn. Saturn is excellent when it comes to 2d. For example , Marvel versus capcom or marvel versus street fighter on Saturn was better than Ps1 but RE1 on Ps1 performance is better than Saturn version.

 

[Ozzie666]

All you need to know about why the Saturn failed is Sega thinking Atari Jaguar was going to be a threat to their business. Purely clueless management.

The Saturn was doomed from the design phase and not taking Sony seriously. The disconnect between Japan and America can't be ignored. The overinflated success of the Genesis in North America. Europe was the lone bright spot. The Sega CD and the 32X, so many things before the Saturn was even completed.

Saturn was dead somewhere between the Japan launch to the $299 mic drop moment, and it just got worse. If you believe articles out there, 50% of their sales numbers were either returned or sitting on shelves and not actually sold. It's very similar to the Genesis where they counted many unsold consoles sitting in warehouses that had been returned from retailers.

As someone else mention as I did in another thread, they used the System 32 arcade board as the initial design and regretted not using the Model 1 or similar set-up.

I had one, I loved it for what it was. I liked Sega and still do. But they messed up nearly every stage, including whatever that launch was in North America. Just Mickey mouse level management.

 

[nkarafo]

Saturn is excellent when it comes to 2d.

I'm still not convinced the Saturn was any better than either the PS1 or N64 at 2D graphics. What exactly made it better? In most cases where the Saturn beats the PS1 at multiplatform ports, it's the extra RAM carts that make the difference, not the internal vanilla hardware. In all other cases there's no definite winner. Some games are better on the Saturn, some are better on the PS1. Both consoles have some equally great looking 2D exclusives too. I just don't think there's a single game on either console that proves one is superior to the other on that front. They look equally good to me.

Just because the Saturn was weaker in 3D than it's competition it doesn't automatically make it better at 2D. I'ts not an RPG where a weak stat makes other stats stronger.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Stuff like no EA games and the worse version of Tomb Raider killed the Saturn in the West

 

[kevboard]

I'm still not convinced the Saturn was any better than either the PS1 or N64 at 2D graphics.

I also wonder what exactly the Saturn is supposed to be better at when it comes to 2D.
you can't even overlap a transparent sprite with another one unless they are on separate layers, while the PS1 can easily do that.

so you often see dithering to mimic transparency, or even in some games you see real transparency, that makes other elements on the same layer disappear when the transparent sprite overlaps with them.

arguably the dithered approach was fine enough on the CRT TVs of its time, but even on a CRT, if you had one with very sharp image quality, you could see the dithering.

 

[consoul]

I'm still not convinced the Saturn was any better than either the PS1 or N64 at 2D graphics. What exactly made it better?

Its architecture was better suited to 2D, specifically its VDP-1 and VDP-2 combo with 1.5MB VRAM.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I thought Saturn was better at 2D?

I remember reading 2D based games like Capcom fighting games were always better on Saturn due to more ram so characters had more frames of animation? Or was that all BS?

 

[Lionel Richie]

Godly thread OP, very much fun to read both the initial post and your replies to it. For me personally I think this goes back to the prior generation, the Genesis didn't lose to the SNES because of the lack of JRPGs, BUT I think that the market shifted towards that kind of game and Sega didn't really match it. The Saturn (and Genesis) had JRPGs, but not many that had western marketability. Add that on top of the clusterfuck that was Sega management at the time and yeah, the Saturn was an obsolete console almost from the start. It was admirable they put up a fight like they did, but it's tough to survive both market inadequacy and extreme managing stupidity.

 

[Parazels]

I'm still not convinced the Saturn was any better than either the PS1 or N64 at 2D graphics. What exactly made it better? In most cases where the Saturn beats the PS1 at multiplatform ports, it's the extra RAM carts that make the difference, not the internal vanilla hardware. In all other cases there's no definite winner. Some games are better on the Saturn, some are better on the PS1. Both consoles have some equally great looking 2D exclusives too. I just don't think there's a single game on either console that proves one is superior to the other on that front. They look equally good to me.

Perhaps technically the Saturn was better in 2d graphics, however:

1) It was only noticable in a handful of titles.
2) The majority of 2d games looked identical.
3) The PSX also had excellent 2d games.
4) SOTN was better on the PSX (arguably the best 2d game ever).

 

[snapdragon]

I'm young and did not grow up with the Saturn but it still feels extremely off just how poorly the saturn did in western markets (1.6 million units in a little over 2 years is truly horrendous), it seems like the whole failure of the saturn was caused by its terrible early launch and the spiraling effects of that, you dont just have a console that outsells the PS1 for 2 years (sega basically having no console market share before this and sony being a far larger company than sega) and then just have it completely tank everywhere else.

Sega was literally the early 20th century germany of video game history, so much potential, so many retarded decisions, pretty depressing reading about it.

 

[cireza]

Saturn's game catalog was weak in the west and strong in Japan.

This is the usual over exaggeration about the Japanese games we get to read. Western library was actually very strong.

No need to list Japarnese only games as a response. This will prevent me from having to list Western games and demonstrate the library was perfectly fine.

 

[cireza]

PlayStation had polygonal backgrounds, character lighting and transparencies, Saturn did not



PlayStation

Saturn

Funnily enough your Saturn example actually has transparency on display for everyone to see.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Funnily enough your Saturn example actually has transparency on display for everyone to see.

That's 2D over 2D though

On PlayStation the skyscrapers are 3D complete with with a video screen.

On Saturn it's entirely 2D

 

[RetroGamingUK]

This is the usual over exaggeration about the Japanese games we get to read. Western library was actually very strong.

No need to list Japarnese only games as a response. This will prevent me from having to list Western games and demonstrate the library was perfectly fine.

Those 2D games wouldn't have sold well in the west anyway, I can see why the likes of Dodonpachi and Elevator Action didn't release in the west.

 

[nkarafo]

This is the usual over exaggeration about the Japanese games we get to read. Western library was actually very strong.

According to the Redump database, there are less than 300 games in US or Europe (258 in US says chatgpt).

Western Saturn library is even smaller than the western N64 library.

Would you say the N64 western library is "very strong"?

 

[roosnam1980]

-32x and sega cd should have never launched , R and D focus should have been on the saturn
-as mentioned in wikipedia a model1 based saturn should have been developed and launched much earlier than ps1
-this would give sega a head start in the market , similar to how the 16 bit genesis got the headstart on competitors

 

[Ozzie666]

I'm still not convinced the Saturn was any better than either the PS1 or N64 at 2D graphics. What exactly made it better? In most cases where the Saturn beats the PS1 at multiplatform ports, it's the extra RAM carts that make the difference, not the internal vanilla hardware. In all other cases there's no definite winner. Some games are better on the Saturn, some are better on the PS1. Both consoles have some equally great looking 2D exclusives too. I just don't think there's a single game on either console that proves one is superior to the other on that front. They look equally good to me.

Just because the Saturn was weaker in 3D than it's competition it doesn't automatically make it better at 2D. I'ts not an RPG where a weak stat makes other stats stronger.

My 2 cents,

Part of it is probably the lack of retail 2-D games aside from the most well known Mischief Maker and Mortal Kombat Trilogy. I might also add both were early titles and size limited.

MKT makes me believe the console was MORE than capable of 2-D games, I enjoy this version. If companies like SNK or CAPCOM actually supported the system and felt it was financially viable. Especially as cartridges got larger and larger. The N64 cartridges would have surpassed the Saturn RAM carts in terms of performance. The only bottle neck was the cartridge size. We never got to see a 256 or 512 used for 2-D gaming. I can only imagine if you added the ram pak support on top of that.

As you've pointed out in other threads, each console was good at certain things and they really leaned heavily into those., which became their identity. They had no choice, especially Saturn who had so many of the smaller Japanese developers.

 

[nkarafo]

as mentioned in wikipedia a model1 based saturn should have been developed and launched much earlier than ps1

Wasn't the model 1 architecture too expensive for a home console in 1994?

 

[roosnam1980]

Wasn't the model 1 architecture too expensive for a home console in 1994?

it was but as mentioned earlier hideki sato did regret not using model1 hardware as a base for the saturn , sega system 16 was used as the basis for genesis design , this was a successfull investment for sega , it would have been worth it for the saturn too.

 

[cireza]

According to the Redump database, there are less than 300 games in US or Europe (258 in US says chatgpt).

Western Saturn library is even smaller than the western N64 library.

Would you say the N64 western library is "very strong"?

You moved the goalpost. You are giving me numbers of games, with the large majority of Japanese games being awful filler games you would never play (same as SNES by the way). Numbers don't matter.

What I was answering to was :

Saturn's game catalog was weak in the west and strong in Japan.

Which is entirely BS and a complete exaggeration. Throwing numbers of games in the libraries won't prove anything. You can have 1000 games that all suck, and 200 games that alone define your library and are great. Which is exactly what happened with Saturn. The Western library is very strong, not weak. We didn't get every single Capcom/SNK game, and we didn't get a lot of RPGs/shmups, but it is not as if we didn't get any of them either, and what we got was among the best. Every major title was available in the West. My library was entirely Western and I never felt I needed to import anything. The handful of great Japanese games we didn't get (Grandia, Radiant Silvergun, Bulk Slash, Vandal Hearts) doesn't create a gap from weak to strong. Thus BS.

N64 is off topic. But as you want to talk about it, its library is not strong, it is weak with a low variety of games. Again the number of games is irrelevant. It is about quality and variety. Saturn completely destroys the N64's library of games in the West.

 

[SkylineRKR]

LOL sega resistance trying to retcon that Saturn had similar power to PlayStation. Man. I had a Saturn in those days and it was rough.

Yeah absolutely. Especially if you factor in the weak distribution in the west. Saturn simply looked worse. Imagine you like many others were psyched for a perfect Doom port on console, and you'll come home with the Saturn version. The difference with the PSX was immense.

Tomb Raider as well, the Saturn version is worse. It runs worse, it looks more flat and colors are crushed. Tomb Raider was another VERY big deal, one of the most important IP of that gen. Die Hard Trilogy was rough on Saturn too. Another significant release. And this was just 1996, a year after launch in the west.

It might've had more potential doesn't really fly. These big third party games needed to look good when it counted.

 

[Team Andromeda]

What also might had hurt Saturn was that was the time for CD cinematics and cut scene galore.

For me, dont really care as I skip them most of the time.

But if you were a gamer who followed gaming and like that stuff, PS1's FMV clips were much smoother looking than Saturn which had a shitty grainy look to them. I think it had to do with codec differences. So Saturn couldnt even get that right.

That's a myth that's been peddle for years . Saturn had great FMV, when used right

 

[Team Andromeda]

it was but as mentioned earlier hideki sato did regret not using model1 hardware as a base for the saturn , sega system 16 was used as the basis for genesis design , this was a successfull investment for sega , it would have been worth it for the saturn too.

You are taking what Satio said out of context, I feel

Model 1 wasnt practical to have hardware based around it . It's main CPU was too weak and having over 8 Fujitsu co-processors just for GFX simply wasn't practical or affordable for a home system .

That's to overlook how Model 1 had some of the same issues of Saturn. Hard to program for, mesh transparencies and quads. But SEGA should have made the Saturn a full 3D system looking back

What cost the Saturn wasnt it's hardware, the launch line up or the early launch.

It was the Muppets at SOA putting all their faith, money and resources in the 32X and also for added measure, totally fucking up 32 bit Sonic project

Without the 32X and a SEGA just focused on the Saturn for the home, market (And of course Arcades); SEGA could have been a strong number 2 and beat the N64 in west .

 

[RAIDEN1]

It didn't help matters that there was a civil war on at Sega leading up to and into the launch of the Sega Saturn, there was probably more unity in the 80's with the Master System project and Project Mega-Genesis...

 

[bellome]

Good games + good marketing

That's it

 

[cireza]

Saturn had great FMV, when used right

Indeed. There are plenty of games with excellent FMV especially late in the life-cycle of the console. This simply demonstrates that progress was made with encoding throughout the life of the console. We ended with super clean FMVs in many games.