The Sega Saturn - What Happened?
Вставка
- Опубліковано 13 тра 2024
- Use my code MCMUSCLES to get $5 off your delicious, high protein Magic Spoon cereal by clicking this link: sponsr.is/magicspoon_mcmuscles
➤ BECOME A VIP (and see early, AD-FREE videos): / mattmcmuscles
➤ MY NEW GAMEPLAY CHANNEL: rb.gy/uau7y4
➤ SUBSCRIBE: / mattmcmuscles
➤ TWITTER: / mattmcmuscles
Edited By: / treylar
SkeleMatt and DD thumbnail art By: / donwoka
Intro By: / 2manysnacks and / littlevmills
Sponsored Ad Edited by: / guarascia
SOURCES:
Time Extension - Tom Kalinske Explains Why He Left Sega Of America www.timeextension.com/news/20...
IGN - IGN Presents the History of SEGA
web.archive.org/web/201208241...
The Guardian - Sega Saturn: how one decision destroyed PlayStation's greatest rival
www.theguardian.com/technolog...
Sega Lord X via UA-cam - Fact or Fiction and the Sega Saturn
• Fact or Fiction and th...
Wikipedia - List of Sega Saturn games
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
Computer and Video Games [vol. 184, pg. 8] - Sega in Shock merger with Bandai!
archive.org/details/Computer_...
Kotaku - When Sega Wanted to Take Over the World (and Failed Miserably)
kotaku.com/when-sega-wanted-t...
sega-16.com - INTERVIEW: MICHAEL LATHAM (HEAD OF SOA OMEGA GROUP)
www.sega-16.com/2005/02/interv...
sega-16.com - INTERVIEW: STEVEN KENT (AUTHOR)
www.sega-16.com/2006/05/interv...
GameIndustry.biz - Is Sega the next Atari?
www.gamesindustry.biz/is-sega...
Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation [Blake J. Harris, pg. 536]
Game Data Library
sites.google.com/site/gamedat...
MUSIC:
Bulk Slash OST - M.I.S.S. Member Scene
Fighters Megamix OST - Character Select
Bulk Slash OST - Stage 7 - Blau
Bulk Slash OST - Stage 5 - Rot
Fighters Megamix OST - Opening Theme
Fighters Megamix OST - Select Your Fighter
Fighters Megamix OST - Theme of Chicago
Fighters Megamix OST - Theme of Tokio
Fighters Megamix OST - Ending B ~ Virtua Fighter Ending Ver. II
Bulk Slash OST - Stage 3 - Braune
Bulk Slash OST - Stage Select and Briefing
Bulk Slash OST - Stage 1 - Gruen
Bulk Slash OST - Title Theme
#whathappened #mattmcmuscles #segasaturn - Ігри
![UPGRADING Other Players Builds Live - [Armored Core Requiem]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/MG619adT6Sc/mqdefault.jpg)
Use my code MCMUSCLES to get $5 off your delicious, high protein Magic Spoon cereal by clicking this link: sponsr.is/magicspoon_mcmuscles
Sega should've kept fighting like Nintendo and Xbox.
Matt, to make this video.....you didn't stop playing your SEGA Saturn, did you?
YOU MUST PLAY! UNTIL YOUR FINGERS BREAK! _UNTIL YOUR FINGERS BREAK!!!!_
*_SEGA SATURN, SHIRO!!!!_*
Dude you have to do sonic 4
How about an episode on Argonaut? The story of this studio's downfall even has ties to Super Mario 64
Have you done a video yet on pc egine/ turbografix
The Sega Saturn is like that girl from high school that you had so much in common with but never talked to, and you didn't realize it until it was too late.
True especially since the Sega Saturn was a sexy console with no personality until you import the games from Japan I would love a Sega Saturn collection if only Sega would get off there lazy ass and do it!
Somehow, it is just now when I read your comment that I feel the same😢
For me, it's like the girl you had a childhood crush on that moved away.
@@SEMIA123 now i´m sad.
Sony seems to be that nerd who had a crush on two well known students. They were in a relationship with one for a few months before getting dumped for being falsely accused of a gold digger and outright rejected by the other. Then they grew up to be a successful (although arrogant) knockout.
My favorite thing about the Sony "$299" story was that supposedly he had a whole speech written and ready to go, but when he saw how badly Sega was going to screw this up, he just said "$299", and walked off.
Biggest mic drop in history, and funny enough Sony recaptured that moment with the ps4 reveal.
@@jonathansalazar4630 exactly what i thought of after seeing that
@@jonathansalazar4630 "This is how you share your games on PS4"
@@reikiradja8030 that video is forever legendary 🤣
@@jjay350 while yes sony had a really bad start with the ps3 launch no doubt but the difference is that they did managed to turn it around and the ps3 did become successful, and redeem themselves with the ps4.
A rare case of SEGA regretting what it does that Nintendon't: Infighting.
Nice!
SEGA of America was afforded the kind of autonomy Nintendo of America never was. Even though the Mega Drive's best market was where it was called the Genesis instead, SEGA's Japanese HQ thought they knew best. And they probably did...for the Japanese market.
Sega of America's second worst enemy was Nintendo. Sega of America's worst enemy was Sega of Japan.
@@ShadowEl Man, Sega Japan and their pride almost sunk the entire company
Sega of Japan's pride caused all of it. Genesis was doing great in the US at the time. Even Kalinske said it still had some life in it left. They didn't even need the 32X or CD add-ons.
I worked in a pawn shop in the 90s and you could not give the Saturn away. We bought about 20 of them and we thought we were winning because we had a pretty extreme low-ball policy......and in the end, we lost. Despite marking them down to absurdly low prices, they sat on the self until the shop went out of business in 2000
Meanwhile, collectors today kick themselves for not buying one when they were that cheap. I remember the GB Micro being in a similar situation. In the late 2000s you could barely give them away; now they're a cult classic collectible.
This is so true seen consoles for $50 in box with 5 games no one bought them ever
I knew one kid who had a Saturn here in the UK. One. And he barely played it.
Compare that to the previous generation, where apart from two kids who owned the SNES, everybody else I knew who had a games console had a Mega Drive.
Saturn was also a very hard console to pirate games, no one wanted it.
Man I would have wanted a saturn for such a low price if we would have known how they would have ended up becoming. Thankfully though I was still able to get a saturn for a good price off of ebay years ago, so it wasn't like I was shit out of luck, but man I feel bad for people who want to get into the saturn now. While it's not terribly expensive or anything (depending on which model you get), it's definitely up there now.
One of the biggest take aways I get from Sega up to the fall of the Dreamcast is how much self sabotaging Sega of Japan was because of how much they did not like Sega of America despite their contributions to the company. Sega America was a major part of why Genesis and Sonic took off in the west like they did and why Sonic has been more popular here than in Japan, yet Sega Japan constantly treated them poorly when it was primarily their own decisions that ended up biting them
Major issue was that the Genesis/ Mega Drive was not as successful in the Japanese market and Sega of Japan was infuriated with the overseas success of the console. They were single-mindedly obsessed with wanting the Saturn to perform well in Japan thus asserting more influence on the overseas handling of the console's launch and sales. Yes, the Saturn had more better sales in Japan than the Mega Drive, even coming second place by outselling the Nintendo 64. But this came at the cost of Sega's international reputation as such that it eventually led to their exit from the hardware market.
Fun fact: in addition to turning down sony, thus leading to the playstation, sega japan also turned down a potential chipset for the saturn...that ended up in the N64.
They also ended up meeting with Microsoft and had talks about windows on the dreamcast, microsoft buying sega entirely, or putting dreamcast games on the xbox. Those also fell through.
Sega essentially had a hand in creating all three of their competitor's platforms.
Envy is a helluva drug
@@RXdash78 I think the Dreamcast used WindowsCE. I haven't verified this and last I heard it was when PSO was new. So I might be completely wrong. But if so then at least something came from their Microsoft talks.
@@RXdash78 Windows is on the DC though. It wasn’t very good for game development. I think only Sega Swirl used it
I feel bad for Tom Kalinske. After being forced to make decisions he KNEW were stupid all while having all his suggestions immediately chucked and flushed down the toilet with absolutly no pondering whatsoever, I can't blame him for leaving.
The dude should have been controlling all of Sega. They would still be a big player in the console business if had been given the opportunity.
@@darthgamer9861 The curse of being an American showing up in a Japanese company.
come on, Sega of America released the 32x.
@@manoo2056 Only because Sega of Japan forced them to design and make it. Sega of America wanted the next Sega console release to be disc based. They didn't want the 32x to exist at all.
@@darthgamer9861SOJ had a vendetta against SOA for some ungodly reason
Sega: Let’s pull all support for the Saturn and try not releasing any video games for a year and a half til the Dreamcast.
Also Sega: Why are we losing money?
To elaborate on Stolar's horrible policies on localization: He restricted the releases of JRPGs because they were too niche, which at the time WOULD have seemed like a good idea, but the policy immediately backfired because it drove away several third-parties to Sony (including Working Designs), and then FF7 would immediately cause a boom in the western market for JRPGs.
then again, this was the same guy who canceled a revival of a popular series simply because he never heard of it, so obviously it's kinda par for the course for them
I've also heard he wasn't keen on 2D gaming, which may not have been huge at the time in the West but still kept a lot of good games from crossing over.
@@darthgamer9861 wasn't pokemon the one that caused rpgs to take off and rise
what if pokemon came to the west way sooner in 1997
R.I.P Bernie Stolar
@@strangesonicfan9204 Fuck Bernie Stolar. Just because someone is dead doesn't mean they deserve respect.
The Saturn saga is a fall from grace of Shakespearean proportions, and it’s all the more tragic because Sega had no one to blame but themselves for literally every terrible decision made along the way
The Saturn did well in Japan. 2nd place. There are hundreds of games for the thing. It did alright in much of Europe too. SEGA didn't have the finance to compete against Sony and MS, who could throw money away for longer.
@@danwarb1 Sega did well in Europe because they were more established in the continent than Nintendo, plus more and better PAL releases though Sony still wiped the floor with them.
People have no idea how many European exclusives or temporary exclusives Sony gave the PAL region, most with proper 50Hz - a trend that gave them dominance over the region for over 2 decades. I think it would be worth its own video eventually, only the wildly successful Nintendo consoles like the Wii, 2DS or Gameboy managed to put a dent on that dominance for a short period of time.
It's just shocking to me how both SEGA and especially Nintendo who mostly negleted the region didn't invest more in Europe. SEGA had a chance to make it its stronghold if it wasn't for all the insane decisions from Japan.
@@danwarb1 while the Saturn did good numbers in Japan, I think we shouldn't ignore how bad it performed in other territories. SEGA actually managed to dominate some foreign markets like Brazil and other South American countries, but as someone who grew up in the late 90s, I've never seen a Saturn or knew anyone who had one, the PSOne managed to overtake all of Latin America, but even Nintendo managed to remain relevant because, unlike Sony, they did have official retailers in some LatAm countries, with commercials airing on television and then Pokémon gave Nintendo a small boost in popularity. But SEGA faded almost overnight, except for all those clone Genesis consoles that are still sold to this day.
@@danwarb1 Sony sold 21 million PSX consoles. Saturn was like 5.8 million to Nintendo’s 5.4 so yeah 2nd but they got blown out
@@michaelmartino16 in the end, I think the PSOne sold over 100 million units, the N64 33 million and the Saturn barely over 10 million. Obviously Sony was the big winner from the 32/64-bit generation, but I've heard that despite the Nintendo 64 selling less than their previous consoles they did have a good attach rate of games and they actually had some of the best-selling games annually in the U.S. (the N64 biggest market), so I would say the Saturn was on a far distant third place. Don't know if I should bring portable consoles as well, SEGA dropped their support for the Game Gear in 1997, I don't know if they ever tried to make an improved version or if they were planning a successor
My brothers and I saved up our allowances and bought a Saturn pretty much right after it’s release. We had our fair share of fun with it before it died. Street Fighter Alpha, Panzer Dragoon, Virtua Fighter 2 and Virtua Cop 2, Resident Evil, And my favorite game, Nights: Into Dreams. A handful of other games were fun too. Not a bad system for the time. I know, as an adult how hard it was to make games for, but as a teen at the time, I got my money’s worth.
Sega people say their favorite system was Saturn. So many classic games.
Yeah, the Saturn had a pretty decent library, tho.
Nights was my jam. I wish I had access to more of the Saturn library back then, but I was like 5. All I have left is Daytona USA, Nights, and Astal.
@@GeebusCrust Daytonaaaaaaaaaaa!!!
@@6sKi6z6 Rooooolling STAAAAAAAAAAAART!
The "£299" moment at E3 will always be hilarious. Sega were their own worst enemy
The reason that Sega of Europe was able to produce Sonic R so quickly is because it was going to be another racing game with vehicles before it was changed into a Sonic game.
I can't find where saw this, but it seems this was really Sony showing from the beginning of Playstation how to ride the hype machine, since this price difference was a lot smaller than it seemed to be, if not nonexistent.
I read (or maybe it was a video here on YT) somewhere the Saturn was bundled with a second controller and a copy of Virtua Fighter. Meanwhile, the PS1 came with just the one controller.
So, quality of the game aside, to get a equivalent package with the PS1, one would need to buy a game and an extra controller separately, pushing the price of the console closer to, or even reaching the 399$ mark.
Add in a memory card to the mix, something the Saturn didn't necessarily need thanks to it's internal storage, and now the PS1 is (probably) more expensive than the Saturn.
Sony did a lot of 'work' with retailers and 3rd party studios to hobble the Saturn.
@@danwarb1 Tom Kalinske fought hard to get the Sega Genesis into Wal Mart and after the rushed launch of the Saturn, Wal Mart dropped Sega.
@@danwarb1 Nintendo tried to stay top dog back in the 90s too. Stores were afraid to sell game consoles made by the competition.
The fact that the Saturn had online features is VERY impressive for that time.
Facts
Japanese consoles had been playing with network features for a whole generation at that point, SNES has the Satellaview cartridges, Sega had Seganet
When you look at what Japan got for the Saturn, you would think this console would be really successful. I just feel the Saturn had the potential just like the Dreamcast did, but if the Saturn never failed, we probably wouldn't have gotten the dreamcast as early as we did.
It was. It outsold the N64 there.
Your right but the Dreamcast was too little too late even though the Sega Dreamcast was Sega best console in my opinion does anybody know why there's know Sega Saturn mini or Dreamcast mini it's easy money for god sakes!
@@danwarb1 it was definitely not successful as a whole, and Sega of Japan had a big part in squandering its potential success outside of Japan
The whole relationship between their japanese and american branches was the reason the Saturn did so poorly in the USA.
At the time, SoJ were a bit bothered by how the american branch were pretty much telling them what to do and modelling their way of thinking, the american branch were also constantly burning too much money and were responsible of creating mountains of debts to SEGA.
Saturn's VDP2 providing infinite planes for free (resource-wise) was a really good idea for early 3d gaming. When used correctly environments on Saturn look massive, while PS1 and N64 often looked cramped and foggy due to maxing out polygon use
The Sega Saturn STILL REMAINS a bit of an enigma to me, believe it or not.
Everyone I knew AND THEIR GRANDMA was rocking with the Genesis when I was growing up.
Hell, I even knew people who had like the Sega CD, the 32X, and the Turbografx-16.
I DIDN’T KNOW a single person who had the Sega Saturn.
Same, here in Argentina the Genesis was a popular console, but I've never seen or met anyone who had a Saturn. The PSOne became the most popular console in the late 90s here, but there were a small group of people who had a N64. It was as if the Saturn never existed because the Dreamcast was actually kind of popular, it was expensive but you could actually find the console, games and accessories, but for the Saturn
My ex-brother in law had one
@@pablocasas5906
Dude, SAMEEEE (that’s interesting with the bit about Argentina cuz I heard Sega became SUPER POPULAR down there in South America back in the 80s/90s since Nintendo pretty much wholesale IGNORED the region and I’ve been recently seeing a Brazilian woman who had a mutual acquaintance that I asked about this and he seemed to confirm it as well).
It really speaks to just how BADLY Sega was doing “behind the scenes” by the time Dreamcast launched because I KNEW SO MANY PEOPLE PERSONALLY that went out and bought the Dreamcast only for it to stop being officially supported after ONLY 2 YEARS.
@@jaythomas468 the thing about SEGA in South America was that many of the consoles were actually clones or bootlegs, but SEGA did have some official distribution in Argentina and Brazil thanks to Tec-Toy. From what I heard, Tec-Toy did distribute the Saturn in Brazil, but it was too expensive and the PlayStation took over the market very quickly, despite Sony not distributing the PS1 officially, almost all of the consoles were sold in the gray market and the software were almost always pirated copies. As I said, Nintendo did have official distributors in Latin America, there was an official Nintendo magazine, a TV show in Mexico and, unlike SEGA and Sony, they did air commercials in television, which at least gave them some visibility.
I also finally saw a Saturn with my own eyes in a game store a few years ago, it was displayed on a glass box alongside some other classic consoles like an NES and an Atari 2600, but it wasn't for sale, which says a lot since the same store had other consoles like a PSOne, N64, GameCube and GameBoy Color for sale.
Out of every single person I knew as a kid the only one who had a Saturn at their house was one kid I knew. The rest all either had n64's, snes, genesis, pc's, ps1 etc.
Tom Kalinske: Let's team up with Sony. Both of us together could become a next-gen threat to Nintendo.
Sega of Japan: No way. Sony has no experience with video game hardware.
Sony: Well then...
*a year later*
Sega of Japan: Well, damn.
Tom Kalinske: Told you that was bad business. Have fun on the sinking ship.
*Tom resigns*
Having read Console Wars: Sega Japan was the sole architect of their downfall.
The Japan branch was becoming jealous of the US Branch's success and started restricting what they could do. Tom Kalinske had been in talks with Silicon Graphics (who did the graphics for the N64) to develop the successor to the Megadrive/Genesis, and Sega of Japan just shot him down.
That's a big oooffff.
Having read console wars, you've only read the Sega of America perspective. That book is more subjective than running around naked in a school
@@drunkensailor112 It's true that the book is primarily from the Sega America perspective, and there were definitely other factors at play, but to me that particular moment sticks out because they effectively kneecapped themselves right at the start of the race to make the next gen console, things could have been very different.
heck Tom apparently gave Silicon Graphics Howard Lincoln's contact info (Nintendo of America) when he knew they weren't gonna do business.
32X was Sega of America's idea
@@ssppeeaarr Yeah Sonic Adventure was actually originally meant for the Sega Saturn, And as you said, Sonic Jam's 3D Hub World was a leftover of what they had done for said saturn version before they moved development to the dreamcast.
But having a brand new 3D sonic game on the saturn definitely could have help the saturn a bit, and it's a shame that with all the situations that was going on behind the scenes, such a game never came to fruition.
Hindsight maybe 2023, but it feels so frustrating seeing Sega receive SEVERAL potential golden opportunities to grow their brand, only for them to be squashed by incompetent upper management.
Tale as old as time. Song as old as rhyme.
Edit: don't know why it highlighted your name, @@ssppeeaarr, but I was trying to respond to someone else on another thread. UA-cam being UA-cam, I guess. Disregard this.
Did you not watch the video? He literally revealed that Hayao Nakayama and Sega of Japan were the ones who made the screwball decisions that torpedoed the Saturn in the west. Sega of America and Tom Kalinske originally planned to release it in Sept with a much better selection of games at launch. Sega of Japan stupidly decided to force them to launch it four months earlier with barely any games and piss off all of the major retailers by blindsiding them. Of course it did better in Japan - it literally catered to the Japanese arcade scene. It flopped hard everywhere else, and it is universally regarded as a failed system across the board.
@@ssppeeaarr Thanks for understanding. Both sides dropped the ball big time. Saturn had the potential to be so much more, but petty infighting doomed it from the start. America didn't want to listen to Japan, and Japan allowed its anger to boil over. In the end, it's the Sega fans like you and I that lost out on what should've been a great system.
Unfortunately the biggest problem for Sega in general is the Sega of Japan just started to castrate SOA. Also not understanding the gaming market. It's a shame because they could have been a massive powerhouse in the gaming industry.
From what I can recall of that time part of the reason Sega became more draconian was because they were popular everywhere else but there home country with Nintendo taking that crown and Sega wanted to claim it. Hence why all there crazy descions regarding the Saturn's design which has been speculated on, such as for example it was made more programmer friendly towards Japanese programmers then American ones which Tom noted at one point.
The coding was actually shit everywhere. its just easier if you knew how to make arcade games or were sega itself. But the petty jealousy of Sega of Japan toward Europe and US was VERY true and what led to a lot of the decisions you said. the extra "3D" chip was actually in response to the Playstation being better at 3D than Saturn was.
@@lordxmugen i already made a reply to the same comment you replied , please take a lot at it as it has much detailed information
If Sega worked with Sony on the PlayStation Nintendo would have died after the GameCube because Sega PlayStation 2 would have laid the smackdown on that overrated GameCube candy ass!
Someone's mad
I don't think Sega in Japan was directly in competition with Nintendo, otherwise their software output would not have been so heavily arcade focused, and targeting older gamers. It was really Sega of America that wanted to beat the king by being just like the king
As someone who dropped out of gaming in his teens I just wanted to say I’ve learned so much about the gaming industry and history from your videos! Thank you!
Welcome back 2 the fold brother😂😂😂😂
@@G.L.999 I played mostly anime games and Pokémon, and school started to get too busy for me.
Tom and his guys won the west for Sega and Japanese suits were like "We can't trust you. We know better."
I think it's pretty ironic that the average Saturn game's looks have aged a lot better than the average PS1 game's. Since it was a 2D console first and foremost, its sprites were big, colorful, and full of tons of animation frames. With that 4MB card (Or an Everdrive with the RAM expansion) the Saturn can play some pixel-perfect arcade conversions.
I disagree. Most comparisons between Saturn & PS1 games show that PS1 games look better, even today, with better transparency effects for example. WipeOut 1&2, Tomb Raider, Symphony of the Night...
@@armorvil Bad examples. Tomb Raider was an early title that failed to take advantage of the hardware (and in any case received an updated Japan-only version that fixed some of its issues), while the WipeOut ports were both developed after Sony acquired Psygnosis. Symphony of the Night was a ported by a team inexperienced with Saturn hardware and had no contact with the developers of the PS1 original, and in any case was rushed to release without optimisation work because Konami feared a dip in sales the longer it spent in development as the Saturn was on the way out.
Graphical issues on original PS1 models were rampant, including affine texture warping (which was rare in properly-coded Saturn titles due to differences in polygon rendering), and lots of tearing and dithering. Prior to later models like the PS1 Slim, gradient banding issues were common as well, which again was rare in well coded Saturn games. And for better examples, look at the two following:
Street Racer - one of those rare, properly coded western titles, which takes full advantage of what the VDP2 chip has to offer. The Saturn version has a skybox, where the cloudscape casts shadows on both the ground layer and the kart sprites (this effect is completely absent on the PS1), and the kart sprites themselves cast their own half-transparency shadows on the ground (whereas the PS1 kart shadows are opaque). As the Saturn doesn't need to waste extra CPU cycles to calculate the kart sprites and background planes, the VDP1 is freed up to render more 3D and 2D objects on the track, making them busy and detailed in contrast with the rather barren PS1 tracks. Speaking of the background, it has more layers on the Saturn, which are also more detailed. Some tracks like the spooky night time one have additional transparency effects on top of everything else, like the mist that rests just above the ground. And in addition to all of that, the Saturn version boasts richer and more vibrant colours. All of this, and it matches the PS1 version in resolution and performance.
Virtua Fighter 2 - compared to Tekken 3, VF2 has a slightly smaller polygon count. To compensate, character animation is more detailed (VF2 has characters whose mouths can move, while Tekken 3 faces are simple, mostly static textures). Aside from that, Tekken 3 is one of those games that suffers from tearing and gradient banding (unlike VF2) and Tekken 3 runs at a lower resolution. Backgrounds are much nicer in VF2, which takes full advantage of the VDP2's infinite background planes. The Saturn's ability to stretch simple textures almost infinitely enabled it to simulate texture filtering (despite both the Saturn and PS1 technically lacking that feature), leading to smoother and cleaner stage background textures. And again, Virtua Fighter 2 can do all of this and still match Tekken 3 in performance.
And that's just two examples. You could look at Dead or Alive (which is even more impressive than VF2) or Grandia, which both comfortably outclass their PS1 versions. As for other 3D fighters, Last Bronx, Fighting Vipers and Fighters Megamix are more impressive than any PS1 fighter. And then you can throw in other games like Shining Force III, or Burning Rangers with its highly detailed character models and crazy lighting, or Panzer Dragoon Saga. All of this for a system that was killed off halfway through its lifespan and seven years before the PS1's discontinuation, and so lacked the benefit of late-gen titles that really pushed the system to its full potential. The only glimpses we can see of what late Saturn games could have been is with the footage of the cancelled versions of Shenmue and Virtua Fighter 3, which easily outdo anything that was released for the system, and by extension far beyond what could ever be achieved on the PS1.
It was not a 2d console first and foremost. You don't know what you're talking about.
@@dukeofhmph6348 You just fiuked armoville in the ass, he deleted his youtube account ,lol
Got to love 90's SEGA infighting.
I would love to see a video of the NEC PC-FX. NEC’s ill-fated successor to the PC-Engine that failed so hard in its home country, it caused NEC to exit the gaming market in its entirety.
@@markofthewolvessucks8930 Agreed. Zenki FX comes to mind.
supergrafx too. Nec fiuked up
Loved playing Street Fighter Zero 3, X-Men vs Street Fighter, Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter, Vampire Saviour, and Pocket Fighter on the Saturn.
These sort of episodes really show that for a time, Sega's biggest enemy was Sega, huh?
Definitely. Plus the Dreamcast suffered from the looming ps2.
My uncle got a Saturn that Christmas. I’m only a few years younger than he so we played this like it had the secret to alchemy until New Year’s Day. Amazingly it still is my favorite
As someone who grew up during the SNES-Genesis console war, Sega’s fall from grace was truly incredible. They were on top of the world in the early 90s and gave it all away to Sony and Nintendo.
I was around 5 or 6 years old when the Dreamcast was launched, I knew about video games because I used to see some shows on TV about them, but as a child I thought Sony, Nintendo and SEGA where like this three companies that would be around forever competing with each other, but then when I was in elementary I saw the news that SEGA would dropped out of the console business, and I didn't know what to feel, I had played a lot of Genesis games at a friend's house, but it felt weird seeing Sonic on the GameCube just a year after it came out on DC, but I think I got used to it pretty quickly. I don't know how it must have felt for people who grew up playing since the Mater System and the Genesis, I think it would be like if today Microsoft would announce that they would stop making the Xbox
I've been enjoying all your videos and going through backlog of them; great work!
Guardian Heroes was the reason I got a Saturn back in the day..speedy blue mascot, Ecco..😅😂 well played , sir
You should totally do an episode on the localization journey of Magic Knight Rayearth on the Saturn. That is an insane story in itself.
The most expensive saturn game right ?
I was aware of the Saturn when it first came out. I had a choice to make, go with the saturn or wait for the nintendo 64. But one day my mom started telling me about something called a playstation and how her co-workers said that going to be the console to get. I had decided to ask for the saturn for christmas of 1995 but instead i asked for playstation based on all the things my mom was told. I forgot all about the saturn for many years after that.
Well that was a very interesting story about the Saturn lifetime, I didn't knew that Sony wanted a collab with Sega and it was also rejected.
No wonder of why Sony was a big enemy for Nintendo and Sega with the PlayStation, it was technically a monster that both of them created themselves without realizing, lol!.
But I think it was for the best.
The Gaming Historian did a series on the three worst mistakes ever made by each of the various video game companies. In his Sega video he listed their pulling out of the deal with Sony as their second biggest mistake they ever made. The first being the Saturn launch. For Nintendo it was their biggest however.
Sony was the MS of the late 90s. Buying up and destroying a lot of great studios.
Sony's issue with Nintendo was the LICENSING of the CD add on tech for the Nintendo PlayStation. If Nintendo went along with Sony, Nintendo would ONLY make money on the cartridges, while Sony had the CDs. There was NO WAY Nintendo (or ANYONE for that matter) taking that deal. Sega's issue with Sony coming to help them with that tech was mostly Sega seeing Sony as "small fry" and "too young" in the gaming business to do anything. Obviously that killed them in the end.
Sega also had an opportunity to use the tech that ended up in N64. Square was initially planning to release the next Final Fantasy on Saturn. We're in the timeline where Sega made all the wrong decisions
@@gc3k huh when did square ever approach sega?? from what i read they were hardcore nintendo fanboys n loyal. n nintendo giving them that same respect to use one of their most beloved and iconic IP mario. for snes mario rpg. they had a good bond until the 64 era.... when square was making ff7 and decided to go for cd rom tech for their game and vision. thats where all the bad blood started. so they were forced to go to sony and with their ps1.
i dont remember them considering the saturn...lol but if they did thats interesting.
but square tried to desperately change nintendos mind to make 64 a cd based console. but nintendo wouldnt budge on that and square sadly parted ways with them... they wanted to make ff7 for nintendo tho. imagine history if that happened. also if sony and nintendo didnt part ways and nintendo
playstation was a thing instead of n64 and psx.
oh well. sony proved themselves as a legit gaming company tho and still remains in the game today. they sure came back hard to bite back sega
and nintendo. i miss sega being in hardware tho. sega consoles were special...
RIP saturn n dc
"Guardian Heroes" doesn't get enough love. As an old school Sega fan, it breaks my heart to learn about how they just dropped the ball.
@@Candle_Calmness I guess I must have gotten lucky then. Despite reading about it in a 96 issue of Gamefan, I picked it up used on a whim in an Exchange in the Mid West. I still remember the blue wad of gum that stuck the pages of the manual together. Best impulse buy of my life. I ruined the disk by accident during a move and had to spend 80 bucks on a brand new replacement. Definitely worth the money. Amazing gameplay, design work, and soundtrack. One of my favs to this day.
Rpg mixed with beat-em up gameplay created a new genre, real innovative, alot of Saturn games were innovative in fact
My user name comes from one of my very first exposures to 32-Bit gaming: Astal. I was used to Genesis level graphics and was not ready for a game with stunning visual, orchestrated music and real voices and cut scenes. Astal left a mark on me that will never leave, even if I'm old enough now to admit it's not the best at all.
Always glad my first 32-Bit console was the Saturn, as my dad had an UNCANNY ability to choose stellar rentals for me while I was at school. I eventually moved on to the PS1 and N64, but much love for this console!
It's funny. The genesis was my side console when I was a kid, it was great but I was die-hard Nintendo. I got a Saturn when they were being purged from stores and I absolutely loved it. Easily one of my favorite consoles, I bought another back in 2009 and got a Satiator last year. It's the console I play the most these days. So many games to discover and great fan translations for RPGs. It's such a fantastic console.
Wow, Matt. Real bold to make a 20 minute video about Sony saying “299” at E3.
I read the Console Wars book that details Kalinske's time at Sega.
There was a lot of infighting between Sega of Japan and America well before the Saturn came along, but by the time it did, SoJ had become pretty bitter and resentful of SoA, and seemingly decided they were taking their company back. They made a lot of unilateral (and ultimately foolish or detrimental) decisions, and SoA had no choice but to go along with it, while SoJ absolutely refused to consider any other input or entertain any other ideas.
It led to things like the 32X, the botched Saturn launch, a lot of arguing over the lore of the Sonic franchise, and the later years of Sega after a lot of senior employees had left.
Someone else had an interesting video that pointed out that Tom Kalinske was ACTUALLY heavily respected by the higher-ups at SOJ.
The PROBLEM CAME IN where SOA started killing it in the States while SOJ floundered, causing leadership to then verbally (and ALLEGEDLY, physically) beat up on the middle management at SOJ, asking them why TF they were all so incompetent and couldn’t accomplish the things that Kalinske was over in the West.
Naturally, this led to A LOT of SOJ managers beginning to HATE and RESENT this Tom Kalinsk guy that they had NEVER MET but were always being compared AGAINST by THEIR BOSSES over at SOJ.
So, a lot of infighting occurred from SOJ employees who simply hated Tom Kalinske’s guts and were envious of the success that SOA had under his leadership.
@@jaythomas468 what was the video called
There's a very cool inteview by Hideki Sato, the man behind the Saturn creator, and how it came to be. Even in Japan, Sega was a very divided company with no support within.
I'm so happy to have another exciting and fascinating What Happened episode to brighten our Saturn-Day! 😁
The Saturn is a great console for Japanese games. It is literally chuck full of hundreds of amazing Japan-only games that were never ported to the west. You just have to get either a Japanese Saturn or modify a western one to play them.
100%. A good chunk of those games have been translated too.
I think the funniest aspect of my Saturn collection is that all I wanted in the 6th grade was Burning Rangers back in 98 and later found it's super rare. I still have it too
21:29 that's an episode I'm waiting for, 9 years, 3 developers, and at the end miraculously actually came out in a mediocre, but playable state
Sega was truly the WCW of video games
You ain't wrong.
my favorite SEGA SATURN game was IRON STORM, a WWII turn-based war simulation/strategy game, part of the larger DAI SENRYAKU series. Very few of these installments were released in the US, I can only think of this one, and Dai Senryaku VII on the PS2/Xbox.
Iron Storm was a surprisingly huge game for this system, with dozens of historical battles you could command well-researched land, air, and sea units from maybe a dozen nations. There were three long campaigns with diverging paths and tech trees: depending on your performance, you could rewrite history and get bonuses in other battles, skip some events entirely, and even participate in fictional battles based on real plans and including documented late-war experimental weaponry, such as the ground invasions of Britain, America, and Japan, and even a post-war clash between Germany and Japan in India. You could probably spend a hundred hours in this game before you have finished and seen every battle in the game, and by then your sega saturn is probably falling apart and you need to find a new one at an estate sale.
My dad would play this game all the time when I was a little kid. It was quite a complex game for me to get a grasp on, but I do remember playing it a ton up into my early teens. It's still one of my favorite games of all time.
Dai Senryaku goes so hard. A few years ago an updated version of Dai 8 Perfect, kind of the greatest version, was released on steam fully on english. If you like the series youll love it.
Sega not self-sabotaging challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)
*clears throat*
Two-ninety-nine.
We've been waiting for a Saturn video and Matt has delivered!
Damn, the number of unlocalized Sega Saturn games is *absurd* ! 😦 I’m genuinely curious to know more about some of those titles, because I feel like there would be at least one game that would capture my interest (like “Princess Crown” the game that would help establish Vanillaware). Speaking of large numbers of titles that were never released outside of Japan, I wonder if that weird period in the 2000s and early 2010s where Nintendo of America was very particular about what was localized, resulting in a lot of adventure games and RPGs not seeing an official release and culminating in Project Rainfall, could result in a future “What Happened” or something like it.
While not perfect Sony did manage to bring over more games from Japan then Sega and that was one of the reasons I bought a PS1 over the Saturn and Sony also had a ton of great Psynosis games (Wipeout. Colony Wars, GPolice, Rollcage all fantastic games
I've played fan translations of Saturn games but my problem with them is they're good games, maybe great but save for Panzer Dragoon Saga none have that amazing game feel.
Saturn finished 2nd in Japan and has a huge library. Saturn games tend to stand up a little better from that era, especially the 2d stuff. There are some standout 3D games to like Panzer Dragoon Zwei and Orta.
FYI - Orta was an XBOX exclusive, but the Saturn definitely had other nice looking 3D games!
LOL i think you mean Panzer SAGA....i always mix up saga and orta though, so no biggie!
Did this show not used to be called "Wha Happun" or am I just having a Mandela effect?
Nah it did
What happened to the Saturn? Sega. Sega happened. And also Bernie Stolar, but mostly Sega.
It really is nuts how much in-fighting there is in the tech industry, instead of understanding that multiple facets of one company are working towards a common goal and should help each other.
19:44 "Can you imagine-" Yes, yes I can, because I was that kid back in 1997. I was fortunate enough to have a Nintendo 64 as well so I had *some* stuff to play, but the Saturn was the generation I got really disillusioned with Sega, and having been a literal life-long fan at that point it was enough that I almost threw in the towel on gaming in general despite aforementioned N64. Then the Dreamcast was announced, complete with Sonic Adventure, and I was ecstatic, and I have very fond memories of that console's incredible library. Then it flopped and Sega left hardware and I was ready to swear off gaming altogether over it, *again*.
I got plenty of exposure to the PSX through my best friend, and I'm grateful I got to experience such childhood defining games as Resident Evil 2, Final Fantasy VII, Silent Hill and Metal Gear Solid alongside him. When he got a PS2 in 2001 and had no need for his PSX thanks to backwards compatibility, he gave it to me for free. As generous as that was and grateful I am for it, it was a genuine shock and a half when I started scooping up various used games and inexpensive Greatest Hits releases and realized just *how bad* I missed out due to my ill-fated decision to ask for a Saturn instead of a PSX for Christmas back in the day. Like, I played those earlier mentioned titles and wondered why Saturn couldn't get anything like that, but I had no idea what having such a vibrant library was like due to the Saturn's failure in the west and the N64's first-party heavy catalog. Imagine how *apoplectic* I was when I began reading up on the history of the Saturn on the internet and realized how absolutely screwed we were in the west compared with Japan's large and varied library.
The experience swore me off the console warrior crap and made me a more discerning gamer to avoid getting trapped again. It paid off when I opted for the PS2 first and the Gamecube 2nd when the sixth generation started proper (sorry Dreamcast), then again when I opted for the 360 over the PS3 for most of that generation (I had a Wii, everyone had a Wii), and finally when I bought a PS4 for Bloodborne and, well, that game was worth the console alone, and I had switched to being a PC-centric gamer by that point anyway. Now I struggle with the opposite problem of the Saturn days: too many games and not enough time, money or motivation to tackle even a fraction of them! How times change.
Your videos are always interesting and insightful windows into the reality of game development and the modern entertainment industry in general, and I love watching them even when it covers a topic I have wasted far too many hours digging into on my own over the years. This was one of those, and man, "can you imagine" really slapped me back in time.
WCW and Sega have so much in common in terms of rise and fall and both died in 01 (btw I know Sega is still around but their a shell of their former self)
*Backstage Politics
*Stuck in the pass and not moving forward
*Bitterness
*Lack of management or having one that could control the asylum
*Spending more of what they have and loosing more than earning
*And till this day books and podcasts talk about the Rise and fall and not of them admitting the blame or swabbing the blame towards others
Lol I seriously was getting WCW vibes watching this video and thought too how much Sega was basically making the same type of mistakes WCW did. Hell like Sega, WCW was able to overtake their major competitor and become the top dog of their brand till they immediately screwed it all up
@@TheSoundwaveprime exactly man they are so similar and the fact both lost against the competition and lack of ideas and insane backstage politics alongside other out of touch players and both surprisingly went under in freaking 01 it’s so weird yet not surprising
So that makes Sega Japan the SWO?
Ill say another example I feel works in this comparison is also Don Bluth and his studio. In the 80s him and his studio sent Disney running for their money and at times surpassed Disney, but by the turn of the century, things were much more different. Point is its pretty wild how that sort of scenario of smaller entity in po culture inspired by or taking after bigger entity becomes popular and eclipses them at a point only to fall down from that pedestal and become defunct or a second fiddle to the thing you once were winning against. Interesting that these three happened in the 90s early 00s too.
Hah! This is great and all too accurate. They gave us the highest highs and lowest lows as kids/teens in the 90's.
As much of a disaster everything around the Saturn was, the console brought us some amazing games I will still look back fondly on. The console came at a bad time, ill-equipped to handle the future. And the western launch was an absolute freaking disaster. But I still love the Saturn and the untold hours I spent playing some of the exclusives late at night when I didn't have to go to school.
You mean the Japanese games you imported because most of the American games absolutely sucked
The western launch was an absolute disaster because Japan forced them to release it four months earlier than it was supposed to release. Had they stuck to the original western plan of releasing the system in September, then it would've launched with a much better line up of games, and they would've still had the goodwill of every major retailer instead of stepping on everyone's toes with an idiotic, last minute decision to completely screw everyone over.
Also I think the first T-JRPG with a 3D battlefield came on Saturn first : Blazing Heroes (also called Riglord Saga in Japan and Mystaria : the Realms of Lore in Europe). It was released in July 1995 while Vandal Hearts 1 on the PS1 was released in October 96 and Final Fantasy Tactics in June 97. I loved that game, even though the framerate sucked and gave you a headache after a couple hours lol Very interesting open-world experience that allows you to fight "random" battles, with an addicting way of learning new abilities. There was even terraforming in it since you could dig holes or create hills. The game that introduced me to the genre and made me fall in love with it. A hidden gem imo. Too bas Sega didn't realize that westerners could enjoy RPGs - they never bothered releasing the sequel overseas.
@@armorvil Sorry to bother you again, but the first was actually Powers Kingdom (or Guardian War, if you prefer) on the 3DO, which released in June 1994.
We need a Saturn mini.
Assuming anyone can figure out how to reverse engineer the bloody thing.
@Lion's Gaming Den As long as it has Magic Knight Rayearth, Burning Rangers, Legend of Oasis and Sonic Jam, I'm DOWN.
whenever I hear that Sega Playstation story, and how SoJ killed it on the vine, I can't help but feel second hand frustration for SoA.
7:00 The difficulty of programming for the Saturn is extra tragic considering that the MD/Gen was great for programmers. Running on two of the most common computer-grade CPUs around, it was super-easy for studios to jump onboard and produce reasonably good games quickly. That was a big part of how it had such a strong software lineup in its first year(s), especially in the US.
I got my Saturn when it was really marked down, for like $50. But what really unlocked its potential was when I visited a Babbage’s store that carried import games. Eventually I had X-Men vs SF, Marvel Super Heroes vs SF, Vampire Savior, and King of Fighters ‘97, all arcade-perfect thanks to the RAM cart and a US/Japan conversion cart. Clearly the Saturn’s failure was a grievous series of management errors, but what a huge shame so many quality titles didn’t make it to the west.
I love this console and the community surrounding it is outright amazing. So much so that Bulk Slash, a 3d render robot shooter game by Hudson soft that is quite good and sadly never saw the light of day outside of Japan got a recent fan localization with full translation, English voice acting and even enabled twin-stick support originally hidden within the code by the developers themselves, the absolute mad lads. With Saturn emulation being more stable than ever, MANY great gems that never made it to the west finally getting some recognition like the surprising great Groove on Fight and some others getting released on other platforms like Cotton 2 and Boomerang, Guardian Force an Radiant Silvergun. This is a great time to be a Saturn fan. Saturn WAS our future.
I remember that Phil Harrison talked about the time he worked for Sega during the 90's and he wanted to show Sega what people perceived them as, which is basically a senile grandfather that people used to like but they don't remember why they even like them in the first place. And the executives thought he was lying and that thought Sega was still a beloved company. And he said that was the point he realized that Sega's history as a console manufacturer was over. Too bad that Phil Harrison didn't realize that he was falling into the same trappings as Sega years later with the PS3, Xbox one and Stadia.
@@darthgamer9861 Japanese game companies seems to never listen or cooperate with western companies, even if they own them. Like Square-enix Europe was basically still Eidos, just with a different name. And the Japanese side never allowed them to use their IPs or use their resources they had. Like for example ask Nixxies to port Final fantasy XV to PC.
I feel the Saturn could've been somewhat successful over here in the US had Bernie Stolar let a lot of these games get localized . The Saturn had a bunch of JRPG's that weren't localized, and during that late 90s era of FF7 and the discovery of anime through Toonami, I feel like Sega could've used that niche to their advantage over here.
Other franchise histories?
Bomberman. It needs to be done.
I didn’t have every system as a kid. But I was hyped when I got the Saturn for my 14/15 bday. X-men children of the atom street fighter alpha . It was a 2/d beast! Vf2
Oddly one of my favorite systems of all time. I hold a special kind of nostalgia for that scrappy system.
Nights into dreams will always be a top 5 greatest game of all time for me.
Man. If they had just waited until it was SUPPOSED TO LAUNCH, it might have had a chance in the States!!
I really love the Saturn software and while much didn't make it here, it was still so great to continue playing series I played on the Genesis by importing games (Langrisser/Warsong, the full Shining Force 3 series, etc) and the shooters and fighting games were incredible. If only we got Phantasy Star 5...
The amusing thing about the Saturn is the fact that it is pretty much a game console with a built-in arcade motherboard(thus making arcade conversions an easy task). Thus, because the arcade scene in Japan was still thriving at that time, they got quite a few games we never got in America, like Radiant Silvergun. Sure, that particular game did got a release here many years later, but still...
Will never get rid of my Saturn, Dreamcast, or og Xbox, gave me the best gaming memories I've ever had : D
My favorite retro system. I do believe I have it emulated on every device that is capable of running it. My handheld purchases did and still do depend on whether they can run the Saturn properly.
Sega is definitely the best case study of why your company needs to be on the same page.
May I ask what Saturn emulators are good? I should see about getting into some.
What emulator are you using?
Saturn has such a complicated hardware that emulating games is a pain in the ass.
@@DavideGendo I use Mednafen and Yaba Sanshiro cores of Retroarch, depending on the game.
@@amtraklover I use Mednafen and Yaba Sanshiro cores of Retroarch, depending on the game. On Android, I use Yaba Sanshiro 2.
Segata has risen again!
I used to import Japanese games for my Saturn. I had all of the Marvel/Capcom fighting games at home.
It's crazy how important Sega of America was in Sega's success, only for Sega of Japan to completely handicap & ignore them after achieving that success.
Seems Sega & Nintendo have a lot in common. When on top, they get complacent & make a ton of dumb decisions... thinking they can dictate to the market what THEY want, rather than listen to what fans want. Ultimately, success is often followed by failure, unable to maintain momentum between generations.
I absolutely love my Saturn. Didn’t even grow up with it. Grew up with n64, but the nostalgia or just warmth of the kinds of games the Saturn has. Is absolutely amazing, it’s my favorite way to play quake, and I’m one of the few or only that like the doom Saturn port. Such great party games. Just wish I knew more people who could enjoy it as much as me.
I agree with you 100%. I didn't buy my Saturn until 2015. However, today I play my Saturn as much or more than any other console. I love the space shooters, fighting games, and cool 2 D platformers such as Astal and Nights in Dreams. Of Course really enjoy me some Baku Baku as well. So glad I took a chance on the system.
The Sega Saturn's a console I have a lot of respect for and sure had some neat stuff. Who knows how well it could have done if there'd just been a killer app for the Western market to latch onto?
Also, it's kind of a weird suggestion for an episode, but the story of the Japanese tactical RPG Tear Ring Saga, basically the original "developer of popular game series leaves company to basically make it himself" is really bizarre, doubly so if one counts Berwick Saga, that really weird follow-up.
I'd love to see this as a Fire Emblem fan
@@mylifeisadumpsterfire5194If i'm not mistaken Tear Ring Saga is to Fire Emblem what Xenogears and Xenosaga are to Xenoblade Chronicles, right?
To this day SEGA's worst enemy has been SEGA themselves
ERROR GAME RESET, Yoko Taro's New Mobile GAME put SEGA as its main antagonist
@@markofthewolvessucks8930 having good Sonic game dosent mean they wont make dumb desicions in the future
If Sega of America told us to play Sega Saturn, maybe we would've listened.
I love console videos like these, as going back to history I grew up with is some how a wonderful feeling. Could that be a series for you to explore, Matt? Going back on the history of consoles that maybe aren't disasters? Like how despite the uphill battle the PS1 helped Playstation become the arguably biggest brand in gaming ever? Your narration makes these videos my ultimate stress relief and I would love to see you cover both the good and the bad of gaming history.
I only remember seeing a Saturn at a cousin's house I didn't know it was made by Sega so I got excited since I loved the Genesis, so the first thing I asked my friend to do was pop on Sonic 2 into the Saturn via its cartridge expansion slot, he sadly said he tried it and it doesn't fit or work, most of my interest on the console dropped to the floor, I than asked him if he had any 3d games for the thing since I liked the 64 and ps1 3d games, he excitedly popped out Knights into dream, Daytona and Virtua fighter to show off what the console could do, but my interest fell through the floor, I was hoping to see something like a 3d sonic or other 3d platformer/shooter game but nah, I think he tried to show off upcoming and other games via a magazine but I had no interest in the console at all after that, he perked up when I said if something like a Super Gameboy existed for the Saturn to play genesis games so went to a few local stores to ask around, sadly we got nothing, but he had his hopes up that Sega will make an attachment like the Sega cd or 32x to play older cartridge games that sadly never came out.
Sega itself is worthy of its own What Happened.
I love my Sega Saturn, I bought it way back in the later 90's at Toys R Us. I got the bundle pack that had Virtua Fighter 2, Daytona USA, and Virtua Cop. It also had Demos of Sega Rally and Nights. Not only that but I bought Street Fighter Alpha 2 which was still popular at arcades at the time. As time went on I built my collection to include Guardian Heroes, Radiant Silvergun, Capcoms Marvel Superheroes, X-Men vs Street Fighter, Marvel vs Capcom. I can't say enough about how awesome a 2D console the Saturn is.
We were robbed of so many good Japanese Saturn games that remained there in Japan, Bernie Stolar was one of the worst to have happened to Sega at the time.
I would say Nakayama was the one who sank that ship. Bernie just said what everyone was thinking. Remember, this is THE SAME SEGA OF JAPAN that pissed off Peter Moore (before he would go to for Xbox and then EA later) SO BAD, he famously told the interpreter to tell them he said "Go f#$& yourself" over the Dreamcast debacle. To which the interpreter said "They don't have a word for that Mr. Moore." And then he said "Oh they KNOW what I said." Shit was CRAZY over there.
yep
Eh even without Stolar the Sega Saturn was already struggling in the USA with the complicated hardware. Stolar also pushed to make Sonic X-treme happen but Yuji Naka said no. And Stolar was also responsible for Launching the Dreamcast before he got fired. So yes and no. Stolar was like that one strict father that did a lot of wrong but did something right in the end. He's kinda the anti hero of Sega tbh.
Stolar was an ass, sure, but it costs a lot of money to localize games, especially text and speech-heavy games like RPGs. With the Saturn's other failures, I doubt many more games would have come over because the ROI of selling to such a small install base wasn't worth it. Same thing happened to the Turbografx, especially once the CD came out.
@@strangesonicfan9204he matched energies if anything he did 😂😂
I was talking to some people who I trust in regards to the Saturn's 3d capabilities and they were mentioning that if you had a god tier programming team working on a super high budget Saturn game vs a PS1 team with the same level of skill and budget theoretically the Saturn team would return the better looking 3d game. The issue was that a team that could do that was extremely rare and by the time ANYONE could even attempt such a game the Saturn had performed poorly enough that there was no way they could justify the budget which would be required.
And it really wasnt helped by the fact that the Saturn dev kits were quite shoddy, a lot of developers took one look at the tools and were like "What the hell are we supposed to do with these?" For instance one of the main tools which was supposed to help devs make 3d games had practically 0 documentation so nobody used it.
People like to mention things like lack of DVD player as big reason for the Dreamcast floundering but my personal opinion is that the early abandonment of Sega Saturn in the West/etc probably played a big role in the Dreamcast's problem. Like I wanted a PS2 because of the positive experience with the PS1, which was still fresh on my mind while as a kid I mostly ended up forgetting the Saturn.
(I mean I'm generally "team SOA" but Stoler really messed it up imo)
Sega's death is a topic I find fascinating and it truly is impressive how much they just completely fucked themselves over when it comes to the system. The hiring of Bernie Stolar and how damaging he was is almost understated here, which is impressive. The man's absolute refusal to bring over JRPGs was made right before and during Final Fantasy VII's MASSIVE success and after JRPGs had largely made money for Nintendo in the SNES/Genesis days, completely blunting the possibility of riding Sony's momentum. This is especially true since Nintendo had totally dropped the ball on a system that could run JRPGs well, essentially eliminating the third competitor in that sphere.
Why didn't they release something like Grandia outside of Japan? That was nearly a year into FF7's existance, and had critical acclaim. Publications like GameSpot were getting Japanese imports to review it and talk about how good it was! It proceeded to only get brought over by Sony and by all accounts be a success. The Lunar series is another obvious one, also being localized on Playstation instead and according to Working Design having "strong sales". And while not bringing over some or even a good chunk of Japanese games at the time made sense, you really have to consider the entire gaming portfolio and how the Saturn was getting lambasted for lacking games. Releasing some of those games not only would have given the Saturn more of a unique identity, but built more of an actual reason to buy a Saturn. Radiant Silvergun in particular, that one feels particular surprising given Treasure's track record and the ease of bringing it over. Just bring over some extra games to fill out the library at least.
All that said it's hard not to think Sonic not being on the platform wasn't, in my opinion, the main reason it didn't succeed. The surprise launch did a TON of initial damage, but Sonic was always THE reason Genesis units moved. Sales numbers are hard to gauge, but every single sales metric we DO have suggests 3 of the top 4 best selling Genesis games were Sonic titles and that they generally dwarfed all other Genesis software sales (a serious problem with the Genesis that Sega never was able to fix). Even if they had to just release a new 2D Sonic, it is the kind of thing that will move consoles in North America at the time if it is new and looks good. I bet they would have moved millions of units just with Sonic, which even if it doesn't "save" the Saturn after the launch would allow the bleeding to be stemmed a lot.
But of course even outside of their marquee franchise, a bunch of OTHER franchises all skipped. I think this is an underrated point throughout the video. No new Streets of Rage, no new Phantasy Star, only a single Treasure game coming out for their system and being brought over despite Guardian Heroes' success. Why did Silhouette Mirage only come out on Playstation years later? Radiant Silvergun as mentioned. Hell, Mischief Makers went to Nintendo 64, though there's more due a new dev team and familiarity with it. Shinobi got one game for the system and a divisive one to boot. No sequels or the like to the games considered more unique that provided the Genesis with its counterculture appeal: No new Comix Zone (or something like it), ToeJam & Earl (IIRC Sega kinda screwed over the devs and made them later jump ship), Ristar (which was critically successful but launched at the wrong time, perfect for the follow-up console to make a strong sequel), sure the Saturn version of Symphony of the Night is inferior but it could have helped out (and with the translation work already done on the PS1 version it would not be as costly). Thunder Force V released on the Saturn a year earlier than PS1, yet PS1 was the only one that got an english release despite the fact it would not need a lot of work to come over. How about Rocket Knight Adventures? That's a series that could have been cool in 3D!
Obviously the above has a lot of problems (look at how many are more arcade-y experiences for example and many were divisive to begin with because the Genesis struggled with software), but it sure would have been better than...nothing. And a lot of them could have trailed off a Sonic game easily.
And I think everyone would agree with Matt's point about SoA getting the short end of the stick and it being a big deal as Sega of America was the only reason the Genesis was successful (it flopped in Japan by comparison, being 3rd place in the console market there). Given that he hadn't directly failed yet, Nakayama should have listened to his own words with Kalinske: "I hired you to make the decisions for Europe and the Americas, so go ahead and do it." If they just didn't go with the 32X and had gotten to go all out on the Saturn to begin with (and not damage the consumer's trust in the process), we could have gotten a healthier number of Sega of America games that would have truly bolstered the roster. Hell, even just moving Knuckles' Chaotix from a 32X release to being a Saturn release (with more time to remove bugs) that would satiate fans until a new Sonic game would give the Saturn a punchier start!
Anyway I've gone on and on, but seeing topics like this always fascinat me, and I could even go on more (Sega should have released a Game Gear sequel). This was a fun and informative video Matt, good as always! Keep it up!
@@itsshauta You know what that's fair. Big mistake on his part.
Man considering the reply seems to be Gone now, I wonder the veracity of it.
Sega of Japan did had some reasoning behind how suddenly they didn't let Kalinske out if his way during the Saturn.
While he positioned Sega Genesis in a very sweet spot in the USA, he did at the cost of mountains of debts and that's something that most japanese companies avoid to do at all cost unlike the american business mentality of spending everything in the hope of profit.
If Sega didn't fool around with the Sega CD and the 32X and just went straight from the Genesis to the Saturn I think we could very well still have Sega consoles to this day
So glad your still making great content been watching for years keep up the great work
I feel like so much of SEGAs problems can boil down to; "a jealous neighbor constantly trying to one up you, but genuinely having no ideas of their own."
Question. Has there ever been another time where a company shadow dropped an entire console?
Maybe the original NES counts since it was advertised as a one-off toy at first?
@Trey Allen Yeah, I find it hilarious that the NES had only like 8 games for almost its first entire year. I was doing a playthrough of NES games in chronological order and noticed that. No one was expecting it to take off like it did.
@@tinkerer3399 Eh, given the state of the NA gaming market at the time, I can't say I really blame Nintendo for playing things cautiously to make sure their early success wasn't just a fluke before going all in on the territory as they eventually would.
Glad you mentioned that the console thrived in Japan. I feel like that's one aspect of the Saturn's history most English-speaking sources basically neglect. And as a fan of arcade games in general, it was definitely my favorite platform of that generation (although the PS1 wasn't a slouch in that department when they had Namco backing them up, and the N64 had some good Midway jank).
The 3D processor on the Saturn was a big issue for ports because it worked with quads and not triangles. This meant models had to be basically remade to work properly. The logic had been that it could mean more detailed objects for more modest processing overhead but it made modelling things more complex than it needed to be and in a triangle focused industry meant most extant 3D models just weren't compatible. Incidentally this 3D processor was made by some little indie outfit named NVidia. Wonder what ever happened to them?
One of less known Saturn titles outside Japan is Deep Fear, a Survival Horror game developed by own SEGA. In my case, it was the 1st Survival I did play ever. On those years I was just looking for japaneses games unreleased outside japan to use with the Action Replay cartridge. Ir was finally resleased at west, but the japanese version already was dubbed on english.
A friend of mine getting a Sega Saturn was the main reason why I got myself a PlayStation. Saturn was the first disk system I ever saw in my life, so I wanted one myself. I didn't want to be the same, so I got the "new" PlayStation. (And by got, i mean i BEGGED my mother for it.) The rest is my video gaming history, lol.
Been waiting for this one
Hi, love you're work, thank you!
My friend had a Saturn and that bug game when I was young. I always enjoyed it but never got very far.
I've always been curious is something went on during the development of "Alpha Protocol". I really enjoyed the game, but the number of bugs I ran into really marred the experience. Great job as always and hope you are well!
Mid 90's Sega is just a sad story
Hey kids, remember when Sega made consoles... Probably not, it's been that long now.
I got a Saturn in... probably early 1996 I think. I was in the military and had no internet. I had just gotten to my permanent duty station and saw the Saturn sitting there in the MCX and thought well shoot, I had loved the Genesis so buying the next gen Sega console was a no-brainer. I had no clue that something called the Playstation was coming out.
We still had a ton of fun in the barracks playing Virtua Fighter 1 and 2 and even Daytona trying to beat each others times. Then later that year I moved on to PC Gaming and completely missed out on the PlayStation. At the time though, the Saturn was pretty awesome, even if it was just a few games that made it so.
Not to mention, it left us with possibly the greatest mascot in the history of ad campaigns.