Sega Saturn
Summary
Sega Saturn is overshadowed by management decisions that are responsible for Sega’s withdrawal from the hardware industry a few years later.
Several problems cause the console to reach only a third of Mega Drive sales: After a respectable start in Japan, Sega throws Saturn into the American market in a panic reaction four months before the announced date. At this time, neither marketing nor distribution are prepared, and numerous games are not yet finished. The development of games is difficult anyway, because the unusual hardware architecture of Saturn makes it unattractive for developers. In the end, a chain of unfortunate circumstances leads to a halt to the development of Sonic X-treme, which means that there is no part for Sega’s most important series of games on Saturn.
Sega sells nearly nine million copies, a fraction of PlayStation’s sales.
Detailed description
The Sega Saturn game console from the Japanese manufacturer Sega is launched in Japan in 1994. At the time, the technical specifications attracted attention: two main processors and six programmable processors offer the developers completely new possibilities. However, these cannot be exploited in principle because of the very complex programming.
Sega also made a crucial mistake in its Saturn launch strategy. Eager to release it before Sony PlayStation, the company brought the US launch forward by four months at short notice. As a result, both the supply of consoles and the selection of games were limited at launch.
Some US dealers are so angry with this surprising action that they don’t even include Saturn in their product range. This in turn upsets many players and ultimately leads to the Sega Saturn being a console from the beginning, which has to contend with many problems and a weak image.
In retrospect, the earlier release turns out to be a questionable decision when Sony announces the price for PlayStation. This is, with a price of 299 USD, about 100 USD cheaper than Sega Saturn. With various additional peripherals, Sega tries to make playing with Saturn more attractive to the players. So in the course of the exclusive title Nights into Dreams… a special gamepad named 3D Pad appears. As one of the first gamepads at all, it has an analog stick next to a D-pad. With the so-called Multitap, it is also possible to complete multiplayer games with comparatively many players. Up to twelve players can compete at the same time, for example in titles that are explicitly focused on multiplayer games, such as Bomberman. Sega also emphasizes the multiplayer component by publishing a modem add-on called Sega NetLink. This allows US and Japanese Saturn players to surf the Internet with the console from 1996 and play against each other online. However, this is only supported by very few titles.
After a comparatively short period of time, after six years of market affiliation, Sega finally ceases production of Saturn. With nearly nine million systems sold, it is well behind its competitors from Nintendo (about 32 million sold Nintendo 64-systems) and Sony (more than 102 million sold PlayStation consoles).
Family tree
- PredecessorMega Drive/Genesis
- This objectSaturn
- SuccessorDreamcast
Sources and further links
Connections in the collection
Software in the collection
- Sega Saturn Games and Software · 59 titles
In the exhibition concept
- Generation 5 · Area Konsolen 2, Section 9
Mentioned in
Keywords
Acquire the complete collection.
The collection is offered as a whole. The inventory lists show which objects are included.