My analysis of Saturn's failure
- Thread starter Geometric-Crusher
- Start date
RetroGamingUK
Member
1. Focus on 3D from the beginning
2. Better dev tools a year before launch
3. Call it UltraDrive instead of Saturn
4. Change the Japanese controller design to include handles, use that worldwide
5. Sonic Team to focus on Sonic first. Sonic Jam/World at launch, proper Sonic 3D by Xmas 96, save NiGHTS for a bigger audience in 1998
6. No shitty cardboard boxes in PAL regions, DVD style from day 1
7. Big new franchise that appeals to global 20 something audience similar to WipEout
8. Offer both the black western design and grey Japanese design globally, the latter will suit more modern TV styles
9. More console exclusive content/features in arcade ports (eg: a couple more cars/tracks in Sega Rally)
10. 32X, just no
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Signalis
Member
Saturn didn't have enough bussy back in the day. That caused it's failure
Team Andromeda
Member
I'm so glad I bought the Saturn then and not the She/her trans PS1.
RetroAV
Member
The way Sega could have saved the Saturn would've been to fully commit to 3D from the start. Instead, Sega seemed intent on easing developers into 3D since most were still accustomed to working in 2D—meaning they could pump out Saturn software faster. On top of that, Sega didn't want to devalue their arcade business by bringing near-arcade-perfect games to consoles too quickly.
The problem was that Sony completely changed the game. The PS1 had both the specs and the developer-friendly tools to make 3D the clear standard, and suddenly Sega was scrambling to catch up with hardware not truly designed to excel in that space. The Saturn might have thrived as a "super-scaler" machine for System 32–style games, but once Sony set the bar for 3D, that vision was outdated overnight.
If it were up to me, the first move would've been to delay the Saturn and rework it into a more capable 3D competitor, while assigning a smaller team to maintain the 32X as a temporary stopgap. Realistically, I doubt anything Sega could've done would've flipped the outcome entirely—Sony was too smart in prioritizing the right development tools alongside their hardware, something Sega wasn't in a position to match. But at the very least, Sega could have made things more competitive. In the end, their fear of cannibalizing arcade profits by making the Saturn too powerful is what cost them the generation.
The problem was that Sony completely changed the game. The PS1 had both the specs and the developer-friendly tools to make 3D the clear standard, and suddenly Sega was scrambling to catch up with hardware not truly designed to excel in that space. The Saturn might have thrived as a "super-scaler" machine for System 32–style games, but once Sony set the bar for 3D, that vision was outdated overnight.
If it were up to me, the first move would've been to delay the Saturn and rework it into a more capable 3D competitor, while assigning a smaller team to maintain the 32X as a temporary stopgap. Realistically, I doubt anything Sega could've done would've flipped the outcome entirely—Sony was too smart in prioritizing the right development tools alongside their hardware, something Sega wasn't in a position to match. But at the very least, Sega could have made things more competitive. In the end, their fear of cannibalizing arcade profits by making the Saturn too powerful is what cost them the generation.
Geometric-Crusher
"Nintendo games are like indies, and worth at most $19" 🤡
The problem with this "3D from the beginning" theory is that the Saturn has been 3D from the beginning. Yes, there was something 2D until early 1993, but that wasn't the Saturn ,again that wasn't the Saturn. The Saturn is what it is, and the marketing campaign determines what the product is, and the marketing of both the Saturn and the 32X was 3D again 3D. Sega should have just made clone games of Guardian Heroes at some point these games would burst the bubble but they chose to make 3D games, this was a fatal mistake because with each new 3D game, it was like a free marketing campaign for the PS1, it tacitly positioned itself as a second-class PS1. When competing against more powerful hardware, the fight needs to be asymmetrical; they needed to insist on the massive production of non-3D games. Because making 3D was like going to fight on terrain that favors the enemy.
RAIDEN1
Member
The other thing being, I think instead of the 32x, Sega should have made the cartridge slot at the back of the console compatible with Genesis games, that would have been the better "bridge" to 32 bit gaming, than the 32x ever was or could have been....if they could do it with the Genesis and Master System, then why not for the Saturn.....
RetroGamingUK
Member
I remember mates asking me if the cartridge slot played MegaDrive games back in the day and I think I just lied and said "yeah, think it does".
If it could have doubled up as a Memory Card & MegaDrive cartridge slot with just a small extra cost I say do it!
People would have traded their existing MegaDrives to cover cost.
RetroGamingUK
Member
Yup, Saturn was always going to have the dual VDP set up.
In hindsight they should have designed it for polygons as per PlayStation, N64 and PC.
RetroAV
Member
Sony's rise wasn't inevitable—it was accelerated by Saturn stumbling out of the gate. Remember, in '94/'95 Sony had zero track record in gaming, while Sega was coming off the Genesis, one of the most successful systems of its era. Consumers trusted Sega. If Saturn hadn't been rushed and underpowered, people wouldn't have jumped to PlayStation nearly as quickly.
It's like the Dreamcast vs. PS2 years later—people looked at what Sony had and said, "if this looks good now, imagine what PS2 is going to be like." Back in the mid-'90s, the same logic would've worked in Sega's favor: "if PS1 looks this good, imagine what Saturn is going to be like." Without Saturn's weak launch as a direct comparison, Sony doesn't get that instant credibility.
Sure, Sony still had killer third-party support, and that would've mattered in the long run. But the speed of their rise? That was fueled almost entirely by Sega giving them an easy win.
It's like the Dreamcast vs. PS2 years later—people looked at what Sony had and said, "if this looks good now, imagine what PS2 is going to be like." Back in the mid-'90s, the same logic would've worked in Sega's favor: "if PS1 looks this good, imagine what Saturn is going to be like." Without Saturn's weak launch as a direct comparison, Sony doesn't get that instant credibility.
Sure, Sony still had killer third-party support, and that would've mattered in the long run. But the speed of their rise? That was fueled almost entirely by Sega giving them an easy win.
nkarafo
Member
Yeah but Sony targeted the casuals and non-gamers, which was a much more massive crowd compared to dedicated gamers.
Saturn failing only made Sony's already massive base a little bit bigger but it's not like it made any big difference. But even if every single Sega Genesis owner bought a Saturn, it would still only sell 3x as much as it already did worldwide (30 million instead of only 9 million) which would only help the Saturn compete with the N64 for the distant second place.
cireza
Member
For the same reason Wii U is BC with Wii and GC, but Switch is not BC with Wii U.
Saturn was already complicated enough it didn't need to include the MD VDP and the MS Z80 on top of everything else.
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RAIDEN1
Member
Yeah but the conditions were there ripe for them. a Saturn that was a haphazard design, a Nintendo stuck in 2nd gear with Ultra 64....3DO throwing in the towel....so it is little wonder that all Sony had to do was avoid what Sega is doing..
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Lots of mistakes. The only things it did well were if youre a big fan of Sega arcade ports and JRPGs (minus FF). And if youre a huge fan of black coloured systems so it blends in with your TV and stereo.
High price, blacklisted by some stores for releasing early at other stores without telling them, lots of bad games (esp sports), laughably bad 3D/transparency effects/CGI quality, lots of missing big third party support and IPs. Internal memory system worse than cheap mem cards. Even the gamepad in the US stunk. And the system itself was giant like double the size of PS1.
High price, blacklisted by some stores for releasing early at other stores without telling them, lots of bad games (esp sports), laughably bad 3D/transparency effects/CGI quality, lots of missing big third party support and IPs. Internal memory system worse than cheap mem cards. Even the gamepad in the US stunk. And the system itself was giant like double the size of PS1.
Geometric-Crusher
"Nintendo games are like indies, and worth at most $19" 🤡
It doesn't work that way, comrade. If the PS1 hadn't performed well, Sony would never have increased subsequent investments . The other user is right, Sega had the advantage of having IPs recognized throughout the west, but Sega made the conscious decision to ignore them all and create new games without charisma. Sega consciously decided to give up that advantage. That's why I insist that the intellectual capabilities of Sega's teams were limited, note that only 5 PS1 games were decisive, 5 games! Sega produced 17 games in the period but 5 was enough.
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RetroAV
Member
Sony didn't have a "massive base" at launch—they started from zero. What gave them their foothold was Sega fumbling the Saturn. Sega already proved with the Genesis that targeting casuals and non-gamers worked, Sony just pushed it harder with the PlayStation. And without Sega dropping the ball, Sony's rise would've been slower. Their "massive base" was built on Sega's mistakes.
Physiognomonics
Member
Back then the SONY brand was well established and very liked by the general public with its high quality electronic products.
For many it was a no-brainer to buy a Sony gaming product.
For many it was a no-brainer to buy a Sony gaming product.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Problem with Sega is most of their arcade ports were literally barebones. Great if someone wanted that. But at that time I think most gamers wanted more meat and potatoes in their games.
At the time, their biggest games were VF and Sonic. They messed up Sonic on Saturn and VF is the most boring fighting game out there. That's why it sells poorly and Sega barely even makes them anymore. Tekken is a million times better. Looks better, sounds better, more characters and variety and way more move sets. You get bone crunching hits in Tekken. VF is two fighters tapping each other.
At that time of fighting games being huge, VF games had the tech. All they had to do is make VF more exciting. But it's like they made it as boring as possible with hardly any characters and moves. Which is the opposite of what fighting games should be. Fighting games are similar to sports games. You want more variety, players, teams etc... VF is like a sports game purposely making it only a 10 team league. Gamers will move on to better games with all 30 teams.
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Parazels
Member
I wonder how the modern audience would perceive an Apple console.
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th4tguy
Gold Member
Sales for Saturn were pretty in line with psx the first two years. Really dropped off a cliff after that.
Few things Sega needed to do to have the system do better.
1: prioritized sdk and documentation/ best practices for developing on the system. Share tech with partners. In English
2: give away dev kits cheap and buy into 3rd party support. Marketing deals. Exclusive deals. Funding ports.
3: 3d sonic wasn't working. Not with that gen. Too slow and limited with what could be displayed.
They should have done a 2d/3d hybrid sonic game and leaned into fast, tight gameplay, with as flashy effects as they could muster.
4: stop relying on arcade ports. With expanded storage of cd, psx was getting tons of exciting, longer, story driven games with nice pre-rendered backgrounds. We hardly got any of that on Saturn.
Segas biggest failure with Saturn was simply it being so competitive with its own self. They rushed release. Didn't have a good sdk ready. Wouldn't share any development tech, even among themselves so no one took full advantage of the system.
It was almost like they DIDNT want others to develop for the system.
Parazels
Member
They should have adopted pseudo 3D graphics from games like Doom.
Generally speaking, I'm surprised the technology wasn't used outside of first person shooters.
Team Andromeda
Member
At the end of the day the 3D in the Sega Saturn was the best that SEGA could do and afford.
All that really should have been done is no 32X and then SEGA would have been able to take on Nintendo and the N64, the PS1 wasn't SEGA true battle IMO
I've said this until I was blue in the face on System 16 forums and believed it at the time in 1994/5, people can ask Lee the boss of my import shop LOL and he'll tell you I said and believed all this way back inthe mid 90s ...
No 32X, all software support for the Mega Drive dropped in mid1994 and moved up to Saturn production, Sonic Team mandated to make the 3D Sonic game, not hand it over for SEGA America and also to have kept the original sliver champagne finish of the Saturn
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cireza
Member
And when is the beginning exactly ? Because most launch games were 3D.
No thanks lol.
That would be nice to have. Saturn PAL plastic cases are not DVD boxes, DVDs weren't around back then. They are much better boxes than DVD boxes, by the way.
I think the console was fine. The issues are around the existence of the 32X and the mismanagement between USA and Japan, as stated by many. You remove the 32X from history, and you have Japan and USA working together rather than against each other, and you can turn this around in a better situation, because this would have led to better tools and a Sonic game.
It still wouldn't have been enough to counter Sony's infinite money (299$ was okay for them, they could take the hit), but it would have helped mitigate the final results. What can you do when a major game like Tomb Raider, that defines the generation, comes out and your competitor locks all the sequels because he has infinite money ? You are fucked anyway. SEGA absolutely needed to secure Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid. But Sony took these steps. Either by blocking the games entirely, or making it so obviously advantageous to release on PS ASAP that it was going to make Saturn slowly fade away, until it became unnecessary to even release on Saturn. Because let's be frank for a second, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid aren't exactly unbelievable games from a technical point of view. I don't see why they wouldn't run on Saturn.
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cinnamonandgravy
Member
11. corporate sabotage to destroy sony's playstation ambitions
Geometric-Crusher
"Nintendo games are like indies, and worth at most $19" 🤡
Sony didn't have infinite money, business is not philanthropy, the PS1's growth is a result of sales, for example, Sony made millions in profits at launch, then reinvested the money. Don't resist. Regarding Tomb Raider 2, the Saturn was already dead behind the scenes in June 1996. And it didn't have good 3D performance to justify the port, homebrew port is missing 5 stages and others look bad.
If you understood the technology present in both consoles I would explain RE2 to you, however Cireza you do not descend from your position.
Team Andromeda
Member
Spot on mate. The Saturn was always designed to handle 3D from the very start
Team Andromeda was given two choices either to make a driving game or a shooting game, the only mandate from SEGA Japan was it had to be 3D
When SEGA was showing off the Saturn in the June Toyko Game show of 1995, it had '3D worlds' as part of the promotion
RetroAV
Member
I don't think anyone is saying the Saturn wasn't designed with 3D in mind. Of course it was. My point is that it wasn't designed to be a fully 3D-focused machine the way the PS1 was. Saturn's hardware was built around 2D strengths, with 3D tacked on through a very complex architecture. That's why it ended up with a kind of "pseudo-3D" approach rather than the streamlined 3D design Sony committed to. Sega tried to hedge their bets instead of going all-in, and that hesitation is what hurt them.
Kyo
Member
Where's this nonsense coming from?
Team Andromeda
Member
But SEGA couldn't afford the $500 million SONY put into PS development, SONY also had its workstation division which helped with 3D.
SEGA was always about getting off the shelve parts and customising them, no way could they match what SONY was up too
SONY was never the real battle for me, it was the N64. The Saturn could have smashed that system IMO if not for the 32X and also Sega trying to support the Mega drive in 1994//6 which was madness in my book
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Sega should had had the money since they knew how to make awesome and pricey arcade tech and cabinets. I dont see how they couldnt use their expertise in arcade hardware R&D and figure out how to scale it down nicely to a home console. Yet, Nintendo and Sony figured it out. Sega did a fantastic job with DC at $200, but was too late. Gamer sentiment was gone, games were easy to pirate and a lot of third party co's bailed.
Geometric-Crusher
"Nintendo games are like indies, and worth at most $19" 🤡
The Sega Saturn project was worth $600 million, according to data compiled by a Sega fan. Hideki Sato said that $300 million is the minimum price for a 5th-generation console.
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nkarafo
Member
Disagree. The majority of Sony's fanbase was built by their marketing. Even if the Saturn was a success, most non-gamers who never bought a console before would still buy a PS1 and it would still win by a bit less, but still by a lot. It sold 100+ million units, that's more than both the Genesis and SNES combined.
I even remember guys from high school who used to mock videogames and called us "nerds" bought a PlayStation back then. It was really more like a popular gadget than a games console.
But that just my opinion.
RoboFu
One of the green rats
Oh an actual good question!
at that time nothing was standard as of yet. most 2d consoles up to that point were set up in a way as 1 8x8 BG tile was populated with 1 8x8 character data. even in arcades a lot of hardware worked the same but most newer has scaling and rotation. it was a very efficient way of doing things. developers were use to it.
So ... I personally think .... sega's bet was to build off of that and have 1 tile to one character to one quad which could be placed in 3d space.as a way to m make the transition easier since they were thinking everyone was still going use machine code and use their own libraries. that is basically how the saturn's hardware memory and drawing is all set up 1 texture( sprite) to 1 quad.
Quads themselves are better suited for 3d modeling in general which is why 3d applications still use them as default.
Team Andromeda
Member
SEGA was only worth $2 billion at their height, and you expected them to splash out over $500 million on just R&D?
Arcade was different back then, no way could SEGA bring home just the Fujitsu 5 DPSs that made up part of the graphics system of Model 1
I don't agree with you over the N64 btw, I felt it was the worst chipset of that generation Low 20 FPS games, terrible screen res and where a lot of SNES games sounded better than the software music you got off the N64. I was glad SEGA turned down that poor chipset myself
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RetroAV
Member
Even if Sega couldn't match Sony's investment or workstation expertise, that wasn't the point—they didn't need to match Sony. They just needed to go fully 3D-focused instead of trying to straddle 2D and "pseudo-3D." That half-measure design is what hurt Saturn the most.
As for the idea that the 32X somehow crippled the Saturn—how? The 32X was abandoned almost immediately, and its tiny library wouldn't have changed a thing if it had been on Saturn instead. Blaming that for Saturn's failure doesn't make sense. And honestly, you can't fault Sega of America for wanting to keep the Genesis alive—it had a huge install base and was far easier and cheaper to support than the expensive, complex Saturn. The real issue was Sega of Japan not backing the 32X properly and not committing to a clear, unified hardware direction.
RetroGamingUK
Member
I'm saying drop the whole VDP1/VDP2 setup and instead of having 3D based on sprite and background layer warping make it a polygon machine like PS1, N64 and PC.
Developers would have much preferred this. Obviously the likes of Capcom's 2D fighters wouldn't have been as nice, but a sacrifice worth making.
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Team Andromeda
Member
The Saturn was 3D so let's stop that crap, it was just the way it went about it.
The 32X was hardly abandoned almost immediately every interview with SOA was always how the 32X was the only mass market system and the future of gaming
And anyone who was a big gamer in 1994 could see and read that the market was getting oversaturated and gamers and hell, even press reviewers, were getting bored of the same left to right scrolling game and wanting something new and different. SONY had a massive install base and was far easier and cheaper to support on PS1, didn't stop SONY bringing out the PS2 a mere 6 years from the PS1, in contrast to the Saturn, which came out 7 years after the Mega Drive
Like I say, the double standards with PlayStation fans is there for all to see
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RetroGamingUK
Member
It wasn't 3D in the modern way though which its contemporaries were.
It was still a sprite based machine which very few devs before or after have the experience of creating 3D games for.
Team Andromeda
Member
Sprite based systems could handle 3D be that the Amiga or hell even the Mega Drive with its 80 sprites on screen and yet was able to handle 3D
RetroGamingUK
Member
True, but developers found that method of developing full 3D games to be much more awkward than creating them entirely from polygons
Even AM2
01:38:51
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Geometric-Crusher
"Nintendo games are like indies, and worth at most $19" 🤡
forget it, what you want is a better vdp1, one that isn't 60% weaker than the ps1 gpu.
Team Andromeda
Member
True and yet Virtual Cop was a better conversion than Time Crisis on the PS1 and you know it ! Same was true for Virtual On compared to Cyber Sled
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RetroGamingUK
Member
It's not simply about power, it's about completely rethinking the way they went about 3D entirely.
Ditch the archaic and old fashioned way of doing 3D for a more modern approach.
Yes, and AM2 had to bend over backwards to make it work. Third parties weren't going to do that, nor should they have been expected to.
Team Andromeda
Member
AM#2 are GODS and just showed with a little hard work you could outperform the PS1 sometimes , just like with CRI's Virtual ON port
Geometric-Crusher
"Nintendo games are like indies, and worth at most $19" 🤡
it's simply about power don't resist.
xpresstuning
Member
In a perfect world, Sega Saturn's release date would have been as planned in September 2nd '95, Tom Kalinske wouldn't have been cucked by the japanese branch and he would have been left to unleash his brilliant marketing strategies to push the console, and all focus would have been on a full-ledged 3D Sonic game (using the engine in Sonic Jam) by early '96, before Mario 64's release. That would have led to the Saturn being a juggernaut in direct competition to the PS1. Dreamcast would have had more time in the oven to directly compete with the PS2. Xbox 360 would have basically been Dreamcast 2.
But unfortunately, the exact opposite happened.
But unfortunately, the exact opposite happened.
Alexios
Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
I mean, it's mostly one guy saying that, two others reply that it was their first 3D game and they thought it's all just normal. None of the other techniques and technologies you only in decades later retrospect claim they should have gone for were nearly as established (or as good as they became), these were pioneering times for 3D. A team porting a game from a massively more powerful arcade board with some complete noobs on top of that did pretty damn great. Several times. Same story in tons of other Saturn games, many had a super quick turn out (like the Panzer Dragoon games, the first of which even got a boost in performance mid development so that ended up being a hidden cheat cos the whole game was tuned to the lower framerate otherwise) and/or were from smaller devs (not that any given Sega team was gigantic) and still had great results so clearly the difficulty (compared to 3D game making being difficult regardless) is way overstated, it was mostly a lack of effort and budget (and therefor tool and technique development) on a system that showed it wouldn't sell as great as the competition early on hence the whole industry focused and evolved their techniques for others (than having that only go the opposite way). Most of the difficulty they discuss is from the vast power gap between the Model 2 & Saturn which wouldn't have been too much better on PS either (which got similarly degraded ports from way lesser arcade boards).
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Alexios
Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
I mean, they were just one company, the lack of other games was the lack of 3rd party support (due to sales) and more so the lack of localisations (due to sales), otherwise they did plenty longform home games like say, 3 Shining Force games, Shining the Holy Ark, 2 Dragon Force games, The Legend of Oasis, 2 Sakura Wars games, Panzer Dragoon Saga and many more (and actually too many third party stuff to start listing to be honest, but again, not localised), as well as games that bridged the gap from arcade to home like Panzer Dragoon and NiGHTS (having a story and such despite arcadey gameplay), and as for ports, ok Namco was adding tons of shit after Tekken 1 and 2 but other companies weren't that much different to Sega, ie Capcom (which only really added substantial home longform stuff to Street Fighter Alpha 3 way later).
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