Thread 714860648

Why did the Saturn fail?

>>714860648 (OP)
too ahead of its time.
that and the dreamcast.
god what I'd do to live in a world where those were the big dogs instead of sony and nintendo.
or those two AND sega instead of xbox

>>714860648 (OP)
customers hadnt been turned into fanatics yet etc etc

back then people took fanservice for granted, I think
mistakenly also believing that arcade culture would also last forever

I think mostly no ambitious exclusive games. Arcade ports are fun but its kind of a turn off if thats all you offer.

>>714860648 (OP)
You posted the reason. The port of The House of The Dead was abysmal.

>>714860648 (OP)
The original sketch of what a Saturn was going to be was a super fucking power 2D games machine. They spent years working in it.
Then Sony showed their hand and they had a console that did real time 3D graphics on it. There's no way the Saturn could release alongside that, SEGA would be laughed out.
So they made a new Saturn with 3D capabilities, but they had to use whatever hardware they had on hand and just put it all together with duct tape. Which is why the Saturn has so many processors working in tandem. This almost made it exceptionally difficult to program for.

In contrast, the Playstation was easy to program for, had extensive documentation and Sony worked closely to help developers. Meanwhile, if you wanted to get the same juice out of the Saturn, you had to split tasks between processors, which is something even modern game developers would struggle with.

And that's just the beginning. You also had
>E3 '94 and the 299 proclamation
>surprise announcement and limited availability on certain stores
>"the Saturn is not our future"
>outright refusal to localize 2D games

It was a more difficult, more expensive machine with a much worse company and structure behind it, which led to lack of software. Over 95% of the library is locked behind Japanese language, it may as well have been a Japan only console.

>>714860648 (OP)
Didn't know what it wanted to be, or rather, it changed its identity the moment the PS1's specs leaked. It was supposed to be a 2D beast with basic 3D components (we're talking, ultra basic 3D), it was changed last minute to compete with Playstation and had 2 different processors for graphics that had to comunicate to use its full potential. There was basically no SDK for third party devs, developing for the Saturn has always been described as a nightmare and so not many games were made for it unless it was Sega directly (and even then, a lot of those games suffered from the complexity of the architecture). It also cost 100$ more than the PS1. The N64 also had its fair share of problems (when it eventually came out, 2 years later) and so everyone flocked to the PS1, allowing it to get even cheaper. It had better marketing, already had a better lineup of games, was easier to develop for, there was basically no reason to buy anything other than a PS1. And quite honestly, unless you're japanese and REALLY love SEGA games, the Saturn kinda sucks, the Dreamcast is already better and even that doesn't compete with the PS1, let alone the PS2.

TLDR: the Saturn was a bitch to work with and had fewer interesting games compared to rhe PS1, also it cost more.

>>714860648 (OP)
too many of it's games never left japan, wish the saturn translation community was as prolific as the psp.

>>714863253
Honestly, same. There's a goldmine of Saturn titles sitting untranslated that could absolutely shine today. Between all the Atlus/SEGA weirdness, experimental JRPGs, and visual novels, the system was absolutely stacked in Japan. It's criminal how many people only associate the Saturn with Nights and Virtua Fighter. If even half the love PSP fans have shown got directed at Saturn, we'd be drowning in ports and translations by now. But I guess dumping a UMD is easier than ripping Saturn discs and dealing with that nightmare of an architecture.

Here's hoping more projects pick up steam. Still waiting on a full Grandia Remix patch, man.

>>714863447
>Still waiting on a full Grandia Remix patch, man.
What's wrong the already existing one?

>>714860648 (OP)
>Hey what if we just didn't ship half the games for the damn thing to the US even though it's our most profitable market?
>Also let's make it stupidly complicated to program for so only our in house developers can figure out how to utilize the hardware just for good measure

>>714860648 (OP)
Because Sega competed with itself and lost

>>714860648 (OP)
what would sega need to compete with consoles today, could they take on the switch?

>>714864000
A thriving arcade market to push their hardware development in a direction that requires a bespoke console to be able to bring that experience home.

>>714863447
>Still waiting on a full Grandia Remix patch, man.
picked up the pc port myself on summer sale.
was nice to see that Sakura Wars 1&2 finally got translated, that series is never going to see the light of day ever again.

>>714863253
>wish the saturn translation community was as prolific as the psp
There's quite a few translated Saturn games, no?
Policenauts is a banger.

>>714864000
The R&D costs are prohibitive, and it's a very expensive gamble considering the titanic effort required in order to wrestle every little bit of market share. Everyone knows console fans are deeply entrenched in their ecosystems, moving them is no easy feat.

>>714860648 (OP)
Sega's only success was the Genesis and that was a complete fluke

>>714866627
>There's quite a few translated Saturn games, no?
Dragon Force II
Shining Force III scenarios 2 & 3 (and the premium disc)
Grandia
Arcana Strikes
Baroque
Princess Crown
Sakura Wars 1&2
Silhouette Mirage
Waku Waku Puyo Puyo Dungeon
Vandal Hearts

Just off the top of my head.

I really hope the Saturn port of Chaos Seed and Terra Phantastica get translations at some point.

>>714866798
The SMS also did fine outside of North America.
The Saturn was the leading horse during Gen 5 in Japan, for almost the entirety of it. Only at the very end, did the Playstation overtake it in Japan.

>>714866898
I really need to go back and play some of these.

>>714866898
I forgot Bulk Slash, Tactics Ogre and Ogre Battle. The former is in a lot of people's top ten for the console and the latter two are the best versions of those games.

>>714860648 (OP)
esoteric hardware and minimal effort to help third parties navigate it meant they had practically zero quality third party titles, and their first party games were almost all arcade ports that nobody outside of Japan gave a shit about.

No joke there are precisely three 3D mascot Platformers for the system; one of them (Croc) was a multiplat, and the other was a JP-exclusive tie-in to some kiddy anime about a penguin. that was a serious fuckup.

>>714861661
>Over 95% of the library is locked behind Japanese language, it may as well have been a Japan only console.
It's a shame, given that the Saturn managed to be a relatively strong contender in Japan. I mean, sure, it had a boost in being cheaper domestically and releasing before the PSX, but it nevertheless was able to compete with and beat machines like the N64. I know the Saturn is THE console of what-ifs, but shit, honestly so much could've been changed if it was just $50 cheaper and actually localized the games.

>>714864000
A windows handheld branded as Gamegear 2 would be awesome. The form factor alone would probably looks better than xbox offering
But then again, Sega would probably baked in denuvo into the hardware....

>>714870476
>Sega would probably baked in denuvo into the hardware....
Sega, hire this man!

>>714860648 (OP)

It stopped watching over us