We have discussed why Dreamcast failed; why did SEGA SATURN fail?

[CJ]

Looking back as a kid I'm surprised I had no desire to get a Saturn, given how big my eyes got everytime a new console came around (was always quick to trade old games to upgrade). It was just too confusing trying to keep up with Sega CD/32X; and to be honest.. I was sick of seeing that damn Ecco the Dolphin game on the demo screens at Blockbuster

 

[Ed MOTHEREFFING G]

Looking back as a kid I'm surprised I had no desire to get a Saturn, given how big my eyes got everytime a new console came around (was always quick to trade old games to upgrade). It was just too confusing trying to keep up with Sega CD/32X; and to be honest.. I was sick of seeing that damn Ecco the Dolphin game on the demo screens at Blockbuster

I wanted one, strictly because of the 2D fighter ports especially Xmen vs. SF, Marvel vs. SF and Marvel vs. Capcom. I think it had an awesome SF3 port too. I was ready to import them too.

My pops was like lets ride out this playstation boy

 

[The G.O.D II]

I remember my cousin worked at one of those funco lands stores and they got like 5 Saturns in store the day of the E3 announcement. He said him and his coworkers bought 3 of them and they sold the other two. They didn't receive anymore shipments for months

 

[Ed MOTHEREFFING G]

I remember my cousin worked at one of those funco lands stores and they got like 5 Saturns in store the day of the E3 announcement. He said him and his coworkers bought 3 of them and they sold the other two. They didn't receive anymore shipments for months

good lord

 

[The G.O.D II]

And outside of the Panzeer Dragon RPG and Virtua Fighter 2( the first port was terrible), their library was absolutely terrible.

 

[NZA]

sega had tarnished its name a bit by then. i had a sega cd and few of the good games were ever advertised to me back in those days. i was really young so i relied more on marketing then than i do now. i was left with a bad impression of sega then, and 32x didnt help either

also, the saturn was bad at 3d, and at that time, there was always this sense that progress had to be monumental. they went from carts to CDs in the 16 bit era which meant that full motion video was hot (which is the only reason i got a sega cd) then the next step was supposed to be polygons. n64 had the controller for 3d. add to that the abrupt launch and you end up with a console that is doomed for the western market. it went on to have a good time in japan and ended up with a ridiculously great amount of 2d arcade titles from fighters to shmups. some day i plan to start collecting saturn stuff.

 

[Kodie]

Naw. It was 300 and basically outsold the 4 month head start Saturn at its launch. I think it caught on huge the next year though when games like TR, RE, and crash came out

Fair enough. Might've just been anecdotal in that case.

 

[Knicksman20]

All good answers bruhs but what really killed it was the US branch refused to port the Japanese games to America. Idiot Bernie Stolar who ran Sega of America back then made that decision & it hurt the console bad because it was thriving in Japan still but languishing here in the US. Some of the best games were Japanese RPG's & Stolar didn't think the public wanted to play those games

Grandia
Sakura Taisen/Wars
Shining Force III

Those are just a few I remember we didn't get here

 

[Rekkapryde]

• First 32 Bit console
• Established fanbase from Master System and Genesis
• Established franchises
• Ports of HUGELY successful arcade games (sega rally, virtua fighter, and I think timecop and HOTD)
• Expandable Ram which was packaged with

Cons

• $100 more than PSX at launch [but they had the brandname, sony didn't]
• Complex hardware to code for
• Sonic X-Treme was scrapped

For those of us who were around then, explain why A.) saturn failed, and B.) why you didn't buy saturn

3rd console curse.

 

[Knicksman20]

Blazing Heroes
Dark Stalkers III
Radiant Silvergun
Burning Rangers made it but a US addition is rare.
Guardian Heroes -US version is rare

Here are some more I remembered. Saturn had a great catalogue. Too bad most at that time didn't hit US soil.

 

[Lord Beasley]

same reason i didn't get a 3DO or PS2 @ launch. moms wasn't paying over 2hunna for a console so by the time saturn dropped, psone did as well. so moms got it for the cheap since it was crushing bldgs.

 

[smoove157]

they had a christmas bundle for saturn that i got. came with virtua fighter, virtua cop, and i wanna say Daytona USA.

all the arcade ports were very dope, but there were issues with the other genres.

sports was lacking, only sports game i remember having was this -

then, on playstation, resident evil and tomb raider were out, but we had to wait MAD LONG for the saturn ports. i wanna say resident evil 2 was already out by the time part 1 came to saturn.

 

[-DMP-]

If your parents bought or allowed you to get a swag Saturn they failed you.

Even when I begged moms for that and a n64 she got me a ps1. I was like

Then I was like that night:

Them pizza hit demo disks got burned for hours

-DMP-

 

[Ed MOTHERFUCKING G]

All good answers bruhs but what really killed it was the US branch refused to port the Japanese games to America. Idiot Bernie Stolar who ran Sega of America back then made that decision & it hurt the console bad because it was thriving in Japan still but languishing here in the US. Some of the best games were Japaese RPG's & Stolar didn't think the public wanted to play those games

Grandia
Sakura Taisen/Wars
Shining Force III

Those are just a few I remember we didn't get here

Hell even capcoms games had issue coming to america. Meanwhile sony embraced it and some of their biggest hits were japanese dev

 

[Knicksman20]

they had a christmas bundle for saturn that i got. came with virtua fighter, virtua cop, and i wanna say Daytona USA.

all the arcade ports were very dope, but there were issues with the other genres.

sports was lacking, only sports game i remember having was this -

then, on playstation, resident evil and tomb raider were out, but we had to wait MAD LONG for the saturn ports. i wanna say resident evil 2 was already out by the time part 1 came to saturn.

That was when NBA Live was the only b'ball game back then. I was a fan of the NBA In the Zone series with 2 being the best for me