Problems, Complications, and Bad Happenings…
Is The Saturn Worth The Effort?
The Sega Saturn was supposed to be Sega’s champion during the fifth generation console wars, but sales-wise wasn’t quite a winner.
Released first in Japan in 1994, then in North America and Europe in 1995, its sales weren’t satisfactory anywhere but Japan. The system continued to receive some support until 2000 in Japan, but only late 1998 in most other regions.
History of Saturn
The Saturn has had a number of problems, mostly ones that involved the development of games for its console.
A team of twenty seven was dedicated solely to designing the Saturn as a magnificent, beautiful piece of hardware that would flourish in any market, world-wide. Employees from nearly every department were there, including hardware engineering, product development, and even marketing.
Up, Up, And Kaboom!
The Sega Saturn launch was more then disappointing – it was widely considered a major flop. Numerous bad decisions were made on Sega’s part that seriously contributed to the downfall of the console.
In Japan, although the PlayStation had outsold the Saturn in regards to consoles, it was a fair success. Thanks to a great advertising campaign, the Saturn was viewed as the console for the dedicated, hardcore gamer. So, while the PlayStation sold more of the actual consoles, the Saturn sold much more software. However, when the production was ended, it upset many people as it held some popularity in Japan. Many third part developers, including Electronic Arts, vowed to never develop another game for a Sega console.
In North America, Sega made a critical mistake that may have led to the downfall of Sega creating consoles altogether. They released the console a few months before the date they announced at E3, and although this may seem like a great way to take their competitors by surprise, it backfired horribly on them. Only a few retailers were permitted, and they hurt the feelings of many companies – including KB Toys and Wal-Mart, who were not selling the Saturn. This actually resulted in many stores never stocking the Saturn, and the eventual Sega successor, the Dreamcast.
Third party developers also thought that they had much more time to finish their games; so many games didn’t come out for another a month or more after the console was released. Also, some top-selling games in Japan for the Saturn never made it out of the country, because the president of Sega of America believed that RPGs, and other Japanese games, would only be popular in Japan, and no other countries. Game history has taught us, though, that this is not true.
In Europe, the Saturn performed even worse than in North America, which wasn’t thought possible. All focus was turned on the Sony PlayStation, and even the Nintendo 64 attracted much more attention than the Saturn. Saturn sales were almost non-existent throughout Europe, and Saturn was clearly one of the worst sales mistakes Sega had ever made in Europe.
Flawed? Or Just The Way It Should Be?
One of the major flaws with the hardware of the Sega Saturn is the two CPUs that go into the console. Many programmers weren’t able to handle both, so that most of the raw power at their hands went completely unused. Some were able to manage a slight performance increase, but only a rare few were truly capable of harnessing the power of both CPUs, which resulted in double the speed. If handled like they should, a skilled team to truly take the game to a whole new level, producing such beautiful games as Duke Nukem 3D, and Quake. It was truly amazing for its time.
For a real display of the raw power that the Saturn could deliver, however, one has to turn to the game Shenmue. This game was the most expensive video game ever produced for it’s time, and when it was released the graphics clearly surpassed other consoles. The game was utterly beautiful, featuring fully rendered locations and characters, and it was all done in 3D.
It’s rumored that the second, risky processor was a change that was made late in development. The creators of the Saturn wanted to increase the consoles 3D performance, and to do so they needed another processor. The problem occurs when a programmer is less then careful with the coding – one CPU would have to wait until the other finished before it could begin something new. This is caused by both CPUs sharing the same RAM and bus.
Sadly, many developers were simply unable to harness the power of the two CPUs – it seemed only Sega game developers were truly skilled enough to effectively utilize it. And the difficulty fully using the second CPU was only part of a larger problem.
Due to the sheer difficultly of programming for the Sega Saturn, it lost much third party support, and although the second CPU could be mostly ignored, other things couldn’t – such as the Saturn’s usage of quadrilaterals. All systems at the time used the standard triangle, and it left some developers only making cross-platform games for other consoles, like the Nintendo 64 or Sony PlayStation, which held more of the market, simply because it was easier to do.
A Big Oops on the Part of Sega
The Saturn was greatly hampered by the seemingly never ending mistakes of Sega. Bad console design, alienating many third parties, including game developers and even the super chain Wal-Mart. Sega couldn’t afford to make such mistakes with the Saturn, and they paid for the demise of the ‘Champion of the Fifth Generation’.
However, there is still some fan base around the console, and some hardcore gamers actively seek out the best titles that the Saturn has to offer – some paying more then twice what the game for first sold for to be able to play it.
The Sega Saturn as since been succeeded by the Dreamcast, although that too was another of Sega’s major flops, and it’s last try in the console market.
