Had Sonic Xtreme released, would it have sold more Sega Saturns?

>>11807685 (OP)
It looked like a complete joke next to Mario 64 and Crash. It probably would've killed the Saturn even harder.

No, but a 3D Sonic game in 1994/1995 would've changed everything.
It would've been the standard for 3D platforming and 3D transitions, not SM64.
It would've been a landmark title for all time.
It would've gone down as one of the best selling Sonic games in history.
It would've jumpstarted the Saturn in America and ensured it would be in tons of homes for the years to come.

Instead........... they made a game about a
flying
gay
clown

>>11807685 (OP)
>Had Sonic Xtreme released, would it have sold more Sega Saturns?
There is a chance but it depends on how fun the gameplay is. If they could get something vaguely approaching the gameplay of Sonic Adventure's Sonic stages on Saturn, a solid game, 7-10 Zones with 2-3 Acts plus a Boss fight stage, then I think it would have been a hit even if it looked a bit ratty.
Also when they could release it matters, in 97 it would be hard pressed to move the needle significantly, in 96 it would have been a much bigger deal, especially earlier in the year and would have moved millions of consoles but in 95... that is where it could really make a difference. As an early / launch pack-in, 10 million more US sales, a few million more European and a few hundred thousand more Japanese sales. If Sega was smart, they would have started development on this game with a dedicated and top notch team in late 93.
The biggest boon an early and good 3D Sonic game would give to the Saturn is 3rd party developer confidence. If a console is selling well early then it doesn't matter how weak or hard to program for it is, if coding for it is like crawling through broken glass then they will stock up on band-aids and anti-septic and then get to it.

>a 3D Sonic would have saved the Saturn

Like it saved the Dreamcast ?

>>11807821
>Like it saved the Dreamcast ?
Dreamcast didn't need saving, Sega did. They needed the Dreamcast to be such a runaway success that it paid off all their massive debts from the Saturn bombing, when it was just regular successful they were screwed. They entered 5th gen on top of a mountain, they entered 6th gen buried up to their neck.

>>11807979
>They entered 5th gen on top of a mountain
In alternate history world, maybe.

>>11807992
No, in this one, they came off of 4th gen with a shit ton of money both from their successful Genesis console and arcade business, that is a pretty good position to be in when releasing a 5th gen console... so long as they don't fuck it up with overly expensive to manufacture, underperforming hardware competing against their own last minute Genesis add-on and launching without their mascot and at a very high price...

>>11807685 (OP)
Absolutely, regardless if it was good or not.Half the reason the Saturn sold like shit in the west, was because SoJ did not respect the franchises that the west loved on the Genesis. Im glad Sega did do experimental new stuff, but they should have thrown a bone to Genesis/MegaDrive fans with continuation of IPs people loved mixed in.
At best we got:
-Shining Force 3, of which only the first part released outside of Japan
-a follow-up to Beyond Oasis, a fairly late release for the Genesis
-a Golden Axe game that was a fighter and not a beat-em-up

It didnt even have to be a Sonic game, it could have been Streets of Rage 4, Golden Axe 4, probably even fucking Vectorman 3. They had to do SOMETHING to get dedicated Genesis players to jump over to the new hardware and Sega did jack-all to do it when they desperately needed to early into the systems lifespan. Sonic Xtreme could have been hot-garbage, but you slap that in as a pack-in-game and guarantee they would have seen more systems sold in the west.

>>11808005
Phantasy Star V could have been a huge hit like FFVII was, they were stupid for sleeping on that one. Shinobi X may have its fans but I feel they squandered that one. Also they shouldn't have wasted Star Wars Arcade, Doom and Knuckles Chaotix(fix it for Saturn) on the 32X nor waste time on the Virtua ports.
>a Golden Axe game that was a fighter and not a beat-em-up
This makes more sense when you realize it was made for the Sega STV arcade board which was basically just a cartridge Saturn. Basically all you need to do to get it to work on the home console is convert it for discs so home ports were a zero effort affair.

https://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=711
>Golden Axe 4
Hell, just port Golden Axe: Revenge of Death Adder. That would have killed in 95.
>Streets of Rage 4
IMO, should have made this for the STV, then drop an arcade perfect port.
> They had to do SOMETHING to get dedicated Genesis players to jump over to the new hardware
Are you telling me Clockwork Knight isn't enough? Deploy the gay flying clown.

Had the Saturn came with an accessory that gives you the best orgasm in history, would the system have sold more?

>>11808029
I actually forgot about Shinobi X. That was probably the closest major IP coming over from the Genesis that SoA could have used to draw in players to the Saturn, but then it also had the handicap of being a 2D style game in the era of pushing for 3D.

>>11808040
N64 came with a rumble pack and it sold 3x what the Saturn sold.

>>11808005
There was Shinobi Legions too, as well as Shining the Holy Ark as a follow up to Shining in the Darkness

>>11807685 (OP)
If it came out in the state it was in circa E3 1996 it likely would not have saved the Saturn and damaged the reputation of the Sonic brand given how unfavorably it compared to Mario 64 or Crash Bandicoot. It likely would not have stopped Sonic Adventure from being made and revitalizing the franchise though.

The game looked worse than Sonic 3d on Genesis. There's a reason it was cancelled
The thing is, Sega did have a good 3d Sonic on Saturn - it's called Sonic R

Xtreme should have been salvaged as a PC exclusive like the head dev wanted, seeing as Sonic did well on that platform at the time, and Travelers Tales should have been given the cash to flesh out Sonic R into something akin to an on-rails action game or the sonic stages from Adventure, and keep the racing as a multiplayer mode.

>>11808040
Demo disc and an scart cable was all I had got for teh furst month

The Saturn didn't need saving, the orientation video games took in the mid 90's did, and the Saturn tried but casuals and movie games won anyway.

>>11808429
What are you on about, the Saturn had a bunch of “movie games”. Even fucking Shinobi X was about 60% live action cutscenes.

No. Saturn was doomed to be a failure from the start due to sega focusing on the japanese market. A market where sega always failed. If they focused on the western market and cooperated on saturn released they could have avoided the 32x and had another genesis situation where it sold 10x more in the west than japan. Dumb sudoku mentality ruined the company

>>11807685 (OP)
It would have come out and looked like a 32X game.

>>11808465
Saturn did pretty well in Japan though? Do you just absentmindedly take bits and pieces of info and make it up as you go along?

>>11807685 (OP)
Yes

>>11808476
He never said it bombed in Japan, the point the anon was making is that Sega’s fanbase was much larger in the West, they would have had a much easier time getting Western gamers interested in their console if they had made any attempt to do so. Instead, they focused on the smaller and less interested Japanese market because not being successful in their country hurt their pride as nips. I’m sure they’re real proud about the 5 million Saturns they sold in Japan when they could’ve sold 10 million in America if you just released a Sonic, or anything really.

>>11808476
No you're just being retarded. Saturn didn't even break 6 million units in japan while genesis sold nearly 20 million in US alone vs sega selling under 4 million mega drive in japan. If they didn't focus on japan they could have sold 30-40 million saturns or more. Don't reply to my posts when you are an ignorant faggot.

>>11808476
I didn't mean it bombed in japan. But that it's success was a fraction of the western success of the genesis/megadrive.

>>11808512
Thanks anon. I meant that they failed in the japanese market before so focusing on it for saturn was a mistake.

I’ve noticed that a lot of Sonicfags have a seething hatred of the Saturn.

>>11807992
Compared to their expectations megadrive/genesis was a huge success. It was pretty close to SNES numbers (like 2/3) and there was no real competition besides them at that point. Sega didn't get shit on until they had to compete with sony.

>>11808631
You are just noticing that western sega fans hate saturn. Only zoomers like saturn because they were introduced to it in an era where many of the best games were fan translated.

>>11807685 (OP)
>would it have sold more Sega Saturns?

No, because Sega was not producing more Sega Saturns, they wanted to end production as early as possible due to high costs. In fact they already stopped chip production in 1997 (open up any 1998 made Saturn and look at the chip timestamps, the custom chipset will be dated to late 1996, only things like RAM or the BIOS will be dated to 1998 - at best you may have the cost-reduced chipset parts dated 1997, but everything else will be 96 at most).

>>11808005
SoA pitched Eternal Champions 3 and Comix Zone 2 and both got shot down by SoJ.

>Streets of Rage 4
This would've sold the fucking console so hard. Die Hard Arcade and Guardian Heroes were both VERY heavily hyped beat em ups, even Fighting Force was too and that game got completed and canned in the last second (it was very popular on PSX and PC).

>>11808476
>Saturn did pretty well in Japan though?
It did pretty well compared to the Megadrive, which is to say that it actually sold a few million units this time, but it was outsold ten to one by the competition.

>>11807685 (OP)
Why are there so many Sonic-obsessed autists, when arguably, only SA1 was a great game out of the bunch?

>>11808002
In short and simple terms - Sega got fucked mainly because SoA wanted to keep Genesis alive for longer since it did so well and they succeed to force the Japanese branch to pool money into releasing 32X... Right as Saturn was announced.
Pure incompetence.

>>11808676
Genesis WAS alive and was printing money, unlike the Mega Drive in Japan. They needed at least a few years just to sell their existing stock. Keeping it alive for that much was the right choice.

Saturn retailed in Japan for $499. SoA argued that it would be impossible to sell in the USA for that much. They were right. It didn't even sell at $399, and Sony got them by the tail by selling at $299.

32x was a good idea on paper IF the Saturn was not being made next to it. Saturn was done much more incompetently in several ways.

The Saturn… is saved.

>>11807717
>>11807757
I legit fail to see the actual problems, isn't this gameplay style exactly like in Bug! and Pandemonium 2?

It just hurts because the system is starved of the kind of platformers everyone craves for it

>>11809103
Yes, games that, while fun, looked like a joke on a technical level compared to Mario 64 and Crash

>>11807685 (OP)
No idea, but I still wish it had come out, I love 90's 3D platformers and I love Sonic, not having a proper 3D Sonic on Saturn has always bummed me out, even if Sonic X-Treme had been mediocre, I feel like it would've been that mediocre title I can find a lot of fun in, instead of those that are just dull and forgettable.

>>11809140
Pandemonium was huge when it came out.

>>11809226
Not Pandemonium 2, which came out after Mario 64 and Crash and was heavily criticized for being too familiar compared to those games.

The gameplay we did get already looked better than shit like Chaotix and Sonic Labyrinth/Blast.

>>11809307
>already looked better than shit like Chaotix
Chaotix looks fine, the gameplay was just too experimental (read: bad) and it was on a dead system.

>>11807685 (OP)
Yes, but at the cost of Sonic's franchise, because the game looked like fucking shit and didn't compare to Crash or SM64.

>>11807685 (OP)
Xtreme as we know it would've just sunk Sonic with the Saturn sooner then it would've saved it. Maybe if we had Sonic Adventure on the Saturn before mid-'96 it could've given the Saturn sufficient momentum to last the entire generation but that's not really a certainty either.

>>11810841
This.

Saturn was doomed from the get go thanks to SEGA's poor reputation, thanks to the SEGA CD and especially the 32x, it's odd architecture making it a pain to programm for, being underpowered and expensive to make, everything about the Saturn was a big mistake, except the controller of course, which is still peak. SEGA should've given the Genesis support for longer, similar to how a lot of the late SNES library is great, no stupid add-ons, and then release something similar to the Dreamcast, but not as powerful of course, in 1995 or 1996.

>>11807717
This, it's like something a madman would make. Who the fuck would want to play Tetrisphere as a platformer

>>11811538
Its a cool concept and I wish something like it had been on the Virtual Boy to really emphasize the field of depth.