As an Asian player I can briefly explain why the SEGA Saturn can still stand in Japan. It was the transition period of 2D to 3D games and a lot of great 2D fighting titles were available in arcade market. One of them is SNK's the King of Fighter Series. They were massively hit in arcade centres in Asia. To master the fighting skills, every frame counts. Besides expensive Neogeo AES cartridges and long loading time of the CD version, SEGA Saturn version of the KOFs and other SNK and Capcom 2D titles were the best choice of the time. Furthermore, a lot of Japanese titles were suiting tastes of Asian players, like Sakura Taisen, that the SEGA Lord X was mentioned; a lot of SEGA arcade ports so that you can play SEGA Model 2 titles at home, a lot of 2D games port better on Saturn than the PS1; Some publisher like Game Arts (Grandia and Gungriffon) and Treasure (Guardian Heroes) publish their title on SEGA Saturn only. Of course, the Final Fantasy 7 and the Dragon Quest 7, the most anticipated JRPG titles, Bio Hazard 1 & 2, etc. were leading Playstation to win the console war, but in Japanese market, we wont say Saturn was a failure. For my point of view, if I want to buy (or collect) 2D games, I would buy the Saturn version, in fact those games were much expensive than the PS1 version in the 2nd hand market. For 3D games, I would choose Playstation version without doubt. Sometimes I just wonder what if SEGA adopt all-region policy (allowing JAP games run on US version of SEGA Saturns), would the situation of Saturn in western market a little bit better.
However, the 5 best-selling titles on Saturn in Japan are in 3D, obviously in Japan as elsewhere, players wanted 3D games. "For my point of view, if I want to buy (or collect) 2D games, I would buy the Saturn version, in fact those games were much expensive than the PS1 version in the 2nd hand market. For 3D games, I would choose Playstation version without doubt. " It would be a shame because there sometimes more successful 2D ports on PS1 like Dracula X or In the Hunt and on the contrary more successful 3D game versions on Saturn like Mass Destruction, Mechwarrior or duke nukem 3D for example. it's not so manichean.
No, it wouldn't change too much if Sega made Saturn region free. Why? Because most Americans (even people in general) can't read nor understand Japanese.
@@crossy44 I do feel that there are a lot of Saturn JP only titles that can be played with little to no knowledge of Japanese, basically most action games and whatnot, though. But as an RPG enthusiast I am trying my best to learn Japanese vocab and grammar and giving online dictionaries a good work out to play some of the better JP only stuff though (and also some of the more infamous games, Ancient Roman on PS1 anyone?), that's how devoted I am.
Japan didn’t see video games as a “toy” like we did. When buying games on EBay today, it’s evident that the excellent care taken in the discs and cases in Japan is vastly superior compared to the U.S.
Right? I bought a used white PSP when I was there and it was in immaculate condition, as was every other used system I saw in every other store. Please excuse the travel brag...
I would argue that the Japanese videogame market actually DID grow as an offshoot of the toy market. Toy, game, and card companies played a huge role in the early growth of the Japanese game industry. But there are many, many Japanese adults who honor and treasure the inner child in each of us, the part of us that wants to play and have fun with toys and games. So they take care of their childhood game collections just like they would take care of book or art collections, and many keep playing and collecting in the same way as adults. It's weird: in the west we have millions of videogamers, but so many of them won't admit they're channeling their inner child, and in the end only go for gritty games that prove videogames (like comic books) are an "adult" pursuit. And then these same western gamers don't take good care of their stuff. Totally different attitude.
@@sonicmania9993 I can't even argue with that, I just got a CIB Lethal Enforcers for Super Famicom with the boxed Player 2 Konami Justifier... almost mint condition 👌.
Here in Chile, the genesis had a good marketing, even a tv show called "sega mania" where you call and play through the phone, But the Saturn was "invisible", i remember see one on a mall with Nigths on a tv once and nothing more, there wasnt marketing, no one talked about the saturn, i recently bought a japanese saturn, good hidden gems, i played BUG!, Guardian Heroes, Astal and Panzer Dragoon
Yeah, but sadly the Sega Genesis was a failure in Chile, the SNES was most popular. It's a same that never played the Sega Genesis, my fathers had a Genesis before that i born. (March 30, 2000) and at end, my first console was the PS1 that i love. But the Saturn has some interesing gems that i want play and the Fighting Games Ports Perfects. i hope haved a some day a Japanese Sega Saturn Console, especially Capcom games.
In Brazil, the Saturn was relatively successful, it was even manufactured under license from Tec Toy here. It's not hard to find one and games for a long time were easy to find. The same piracy that helped the Playstation, helped the Saturn. I've owned over 150 pirated Saturn games myself.
I have been to Japan a few times, the last time was last fall. Every time I went game hunting, I found Saturn games everywhere. Every store that sold retro games would have a healthy supply of Saturn games, and Super Potato decorates their aisles of Saturn games with Segato Sanshiro. So yes, the Saturn was successful and is well regarded in Japan. The same is true for the PC Engine, though to a lesser extent IMO. If anything, Dreamcast is a bit overlooked in Japan.
According to vgchartz, Japan purchased 66% of the Saturn consoles worldwide, but only 28% of the Dreamcast consoles. A lot of the Japanese Saturn owners felt burned ... they wanted Saturn to continue, and couldn't reconcile themselves with Sega ditching them. Dreamcast was (briefly) quite big in western Europe, and I remember a decent buzz around 9.9.99 in North America as well, at least at the specialty gaming stores. But that sure didn't last...
@@sonicmania9993 Yep. In fact, Saturn games are more common than any other Sega console at retro game stores in Japan. Dreamcast gets the least amount of shelf space. And I'd always find Game Gear games, I'm guessing GG did OK there as well. I guess that's why GG micro is only coming to Japan.
I lived in Japan for a number of years and went flea market hunting every weekend. This was at the time when the PS2/Gamecube/DS Lite were current gen. So I have a fairly good idea about what was common around that time at least. NES, SNES, N64, Gameboy/Color, GBA, Sega Saturn: all extremely common. NES and SNES probably the most, but there was tons of Saturn stuff everywhere PC Engine, Genesis, Game Gear: not rare but less common, Genesis especially Neo Geo Pocket, Wonder Swan: more than you might expect Sega Master System/MKIII, anything from Atari or Microsoft: basically never And a lot of people were dumping their Dreamcasts at the time. I bought four Dreamcasts just to get the spare controllers...
@@AnthonyFlack Yes Atari was very rare, but it did show up every now and then. Also, while less common, I would end up seeing small collections of 3DO games at most retro stores. I picked up some while I was there.
@@edwest2263 - I definitely saw all of that stuff in the stores, but those are my observations about what was common in the flea markets. The vast majority I would say was NES, SNES, Gameboy, N64 and Saturn. Saturn games were more common than Playstation 1 games for sure (I forgot to mention PS1).
I see so many people who weren't even born yet talking about how Saturn would have been so successful in the West if all those Japanese 2D games were brought over and how the Saturn was a more powerful 2D powerhouse etc etc. I mean, probably most of us can appreciate the 2D games the Saturn had and it's 2D capabilities today. However, the reality in the mid 90s was that most of us didn't want more 2D games. We were moving on and 3D was the here and now and perceived as the future of gaming. It's pretty common knowledge that PlayStation and N64 were both built from the ground up as 3D machines. Also, development on the PlayStation was far easier than it was on the Saturn. The stars were aligned for the PlayStation's success I get that many of that era's 3D games haven't aged well but in the 90s they were cutting edge. It's what the market wanted. It's what most (not saying all) gamers wanted. It's what was selling and being heavily marketed and the Saturn just didn't have the right software do to many reasons to win the hearts and minds of the gamer looking for the best 3D experiences at the time. Even myself gravitated to the PlayStation early on and eventually even got the N64 not giving the Saturn a Second thought until it was in the discount bin at the local Game Shop. Great Video, I enjoyed it very much
raine happy Did the same. Held on to the megadrive until N64 but after a little while, I traded it for a PS. Gran Turismo changed everything for me! I never wanted a Saturn... Until recently. 😂
I certainly enjoyed the gems of early PSX (Twisted Metal, Jumping Flash) but they felt janky and unrefined, whereas the Saturn's 2D offerings felt like perfect games that innovated on 16 bit formulas (Guardian Heroes, Capcom 2D fighters). I was in Junior high at the time and I don't ever recall anyone having an explicit bias against 2d games, hell Pokemon came out and thats all anyone (not me) was playing for a bit. So anecdotally your premise of gamers wanting to move on to the future of 3D doesn't hold water. Sega just had like 7 big factors against them, and not releasing several of their best titles state side was one of them. I also think Sega undercut Nintendo in a way all through the early 90s to make them not the zeitgeist anymore, but then also Sega made themselves look "Greedy and Stupid" with the 32X and Saturn Launch, and basically kicked open the door for Sony to come in to be the cool kid.
@@Harkness78 I was in Junior High at the time myself and didn't know anyone still interested in new 2D games on home console. The talk in the lunch room was PlayStation and to a lesser extent Nintendo 64 and who had the better 3D Graphics. Again, 3D Graphics is what the marketing was pushing. It's where the industry was rapidly shifting. It was the new big thing to push. That and CD's to a lesser extent. You had good 3D Graphics or you didn't. Saturn wasn't even part of that discussion 99% of the time unless it was mentioned as having bad Graphics in comparison not to mention the lack of comparable titles over all
I was obsessed with Street Fighter. It baffles me that Capcom didn't release a Street Fighter CPS1 Collection at launch for Saturn. That game and Virtua Fighter would have been a huge success. Also, Capcom took too long to get going. I had my Saturn about a year and NOTHING from Capcom. I got bored of waiting and swapped it for a Neo Geo CD. I did regret it when the good games started coming (Darius Gaiden, SF Zero).
This generation was the last time I owned all the major systems. The Sega Saturn, Sony Playstation, and Nintendo 64. The third party releases did end up pushing me to Sony's console at the time for my game purchases but today my Saturn game collection remains mostly complete whereas my PS1 and N64 games are limited to my favourites of the system. You're right that sales don't equal quality and it's a genuine shame that Sega messed up so badly, they drove themselves out of the hardware market.
@MultiTarded Not having a proper Sonic game was very odd and why wasn't Streets of Rage/Bare Knuckle 4 a Saturn title? It was almost as if Sega was embarrassed about the franchises that got them their success in the 16 bit era.
FFVII was the defining moment of that console generation, cementing Sony's dominance. All that took place after was a fight for second place between Nintendo and Sega. FFVII would have been Nintendo's to lord over the competition, had they not insisted on sticking with cartridges.
I know in my personal experience, FF7 turned me from not caring much about the Playstation, to an owner overnight. In fact, for quite a while, FF7 was the only game I owned for the console.
Nintendo wasn't technically capable of producing a CD product themselves; Sony was(which was why Sony was able to get away with selling such expensive tech at the $299 price point and still be profitable). The only reason Sega got a CD based format was because they had to buy such parts from other companies capable of producing such tech; which in turn resulted in the Saturn being so expensive at its launch. It was expensive at launch yes and at the same time, Sega was losing over $100(if we're including tax) off of each unit sold. Nintendo has a History of not wanting to sell such expensive products; especially if it meant selling it at a loss like Sega and many other before them had a habit of doing. If I'm to share a quote that Ken Kutaragi(father of the PlayStation) had said to Hideki Sato(president of Sega's former hardware division at the time) in late 96, it could basically be summed up like this: "Hideki-Chan(Kutaragi refers to him using the "Chan" diminutive), Hideki-Chan, you guys at Sega don't stand a chance against us here at Sony. Let me ask you something; where are you guys getting your processors from? Where are you guys getting your format from? The answer's right in front of you. You're buying them from Hitachi, your buying them from Yamaha, you're buying them from JVC! What about your CD rom hard-drives and dev kits? You guys are buying EVERYTHING"! Continuing on: "By buying and selling from Hitachi and JVC, those two companies are the ones profiting off the Saturn with your name on it! To put it simply, you guys buy everything; and you can't make anything yourselves. We here at Sony can make everything ourselves, including custom parts and our own sound chips. We have our own factories"! Simply put, Nintendo didn't have much choice in their case. It was either risk everything financially like Sega and others before them did, or take a shot in the dark with what you can make in house and hope for the best from there!
@@G.L.999 That's exactly what Sega's problem with the Saturn is, it's not the games, or even the console's architecture that is questionable, but the manufacturing costs that make Sega less competitive against Sony. It's the same with the Dreamcast for that matter.
I got the Playstation version of X-Men VS Street Fighter for 20 bucks, not the price when it skyrocketed. I got a Saturn now so I'll just import it or burn it.
Just started my collection a few months ago, don’t know what took me so long its already one of my favorites. I even acquired a copy of panzer dragoon saga already.
@@Official_Switchel 5 month isn't that bad regarding how unappreciated Saturn was. It took me 7 years to like the Playstation 1 and that was a popular console.
I remember my cousin getting his Saturn in 96. I loved the system, Dayton USA and Sega Rally Championship are still some of my favorite games. I love my Saturn and I still play it.
The Saturn, a console where the Japanese side of it's software was extremely strong, while it's western software library was not so good. That is why of my 55 owned Saturn games, a majority of them are Japanese games, because Japan has more of what I want for the console.
The Saturn tried to out Playstation the Playstation in the US. Meaning Sega of America tried to market it as a 3D first machine to the same age demo as PS1. Which turned out to be a complete disaster. Sega's marketing would always try to pit the Saturn directly against the PS1 again and again, and the Saturn lost. Every. Single. Time. While Sega was the cool kid by trashing the competition during the 16-bit days, the strategy completely backfired against the PS1. It made the Saturn look even worse, because it was clearly inferior to the PS1 when they would go head-to-head. Sega looked like a has-been, just bitching and whining about the competition after screwing over consumers with the 32X and Sega CD. The ads are still cringeworthy. Never trash your competitors after you've damaged your own brand image... Nintendo was smart, and carved out a market segment where they didn't compete directly with the PS1. Younger demo. Party games with 4 player co-op. Hell, even cartridges differentiated it, because some gamers loathed CD load times. Kind of crazy to think that was true, given how much worse load times in games are now compared to the 90s LOL. Anyway, Nintendo made some smart moves even though they lost a lot of market share at the time. A lot of people I knew growing up owned a PS1 and N64 because they were seen as being different enough. No one cared about the Saturn, because it was seen as an inferior wannabe copycat of PS1. Nintendo continues this strategy to this day by coming up with ways to differentiate themselves from the competition. Sometimes it fails terribly (Wii U), other times it is insanely successful (Wii, Switch). It has been a risky but successful strategy for a long time now.
88oscuro I guess in retrospect it seems that way because the 32x was a second add-on. The more expensive add-ons, the more it seems like all of them are just trying to short term milk the consumer base of the genesis.
X-Men vs Street Fighter was the reason why I got mine and then promptly started importing almost nothing but Japanese games. So many great titles never made it over here but man, those Capcom ports were epic.
As always your insight is fact based and quite rich. Fortunately, my love for The Saturn and The Playstation were initially built on their Japanese 2D libraries and the "strict" dismissal Sony placed on such games in the states. I never loved these machines for sales or pushing polygons. They were both 2D monsters as well, something too often understated.
The message presented throughout this video (and summarized at the end) is one that many, many people need to learn. I'll never understand hating a platform based off hardware units sold. We're all gamers, why can't we just play what we want?
I so wished that the Saturn would ve been the runaway success that the Playstation was, here in the US. Played much of Nights into dreams, Daytona USA, Virtua Fighter 2, and Tomb Raider. I also preferred the Saturn controller to the PS1 controller. Such a sad shame..
I got my Saturn on the cheap from Toys R Us when it was losing steam in the US, but I didn't unlock its full potential until I found a couple of import games at my local Babbage's. I ended up with 4 import games for it: X-Men vs SF, Marvel Super Heroes vs SF, Vampire Savior, and King of Fighters '97. With the 4MB RAM upgrade cart, these games were basically arcade-perfect and I played the hell out of them all. Vampire Savior on Saturn is still the best release of Darkstalkers 3 (IMO), and it remains my favorite fighting game ever.
I was born in Japan in 1987 and I didn't get to own a 32 bit console until as late as 1997 so I kinda missed out on the initial hype that the gospel of the 32 bit created in its inception days but wow I'm amazed to see how your take on the Japanese gaming scene in the mid to late 90s sounds totally spot on and aligns with my own experiences as an avidish game kid in that era. Here are a couple of things I'd like to mention to compliment your excellent analysis. From my point of view going so far as to say that the Sega Saturn trounced N64 in Japan sounds kinda misleading or exaggerated at best. Being an 8-year-old in 1996 I viewed Saturn as a console geared towards a bit more mature target audience than myself whereas N64 felt like tad too childish for my taste so although I got N64 my main console was PlayStation all along. Nevertheless I believe N64 was definitely more popular in my age group than Saturn was as I had a number of friends who owned N64 but Saturn was basically reserved for their older siblings. I barely remember having seen one in person, to be honest. In regards to the PS vs Saturn arena, not only did Sony get the huge popularity boost from FFVII, we also cannot stress enough how big of an impact the announcement of Dragon Quest VII had on its sales numbers. DQ as a franchise was and has always been arguably even more popular and influential than Final Fantasy in the Japanese console market and Sony gaining Enix' allegiance with DQVII on their console was seen by many people including myself as the last straw, establishing Sony as the indisputable winner in that generation. Kooky TV ads featuring Segata Sanshiro was amusing and all but seriously I doubt it helped Saturn stay commercially afloat that much, if at all. With that said however, Saturn actually did have considerable presence even in its later years. Or at least that's the impression I got as a kid. I'd like to emphasise the significance of dating sims on Saturn that contributed to its niche appeal to teenage and older gamers. It has often been completely overlooked by Western game critiques and video essayists but dating sims were a legit part of Saturn's rich game library. Although as a prepuberty kid I didn't get around to actually playing that sort of game back then, I remember they were heavily pushed in the gaming magazines I used to pore over so I can vouch for the fact that they were as relevant as they are today. Overall I'd rather say Saturn was a moderately successful and fairly competent console in Japan. I think it's safe to say it was more popular than Genesis/Mega Drive was in its home country but I haven't got any statistics to support my argument so take my words with a grain of salt. One anecdotal piece of evidence is that I was once quite baffled when I first learned Genesis had enjoyed a huge success in the US because in my then parochial view Super Famicom completely obliterated Mega Drive whereas Saturn fared much better and longer against Playstation despite its eventual defeat. Edit: typo Edit2: word choices
How big was Virtual-On in Japan? Among the hardcore/import folks in Europe, it was a big deal. It was really weird for us to see the Saturn, which had a better library, not be embraced by the mainstream. FF7 and DQ7 were indeed game changers.
@@madspunky Unfortunately I wasn't hot on the arcade where Virtual-On was apparently a phenomenon. Looks like players got really, really good and competitive at the casuals' expense, like following the path other hardcore fighting games had taken.
@@nomadicmonkey3186 Makes sense. Having grown up in Europe, where both Sega Master System and Mega Drive destroyed both NES and SNES at the time, it was odd to see how much Saturn had failed in perspective. PSX was everywhere, whereas Saturn had a rather short shelf life, and as far as I understand it was the first popular Sega console in Japan? I personally liked Dreamcast more as a console, but unfortunately it didn't do much better. It's funny for us also to think of SNES as the king of RPGs at the time, since we barely got any of them... CRPGs were much more popular at the time here, anyway. I guess not much has changed really.
That had to be crazy to see how successful the Genesis was. How was it viewed in Japan? Did people who owned a Mega Drive get painted a certain brush. Like oddball gamers, hardcore or maybe people who owned it were wealthy and could afford every system.
I second this observation of "age appropriateness" of saturn and N64 as someone born in 1987 but in the midwest USA. There was sort of more mature air to disc based system and game library. funny as i got older in my teens i bought a saturn from an older friend with panzer dragoon zwei, sort of highlighting this maturity difference.
Every time I buy a Saturn game from japan it’s always in great shape with the spine card in in and the disks barely having scratches or smudges. When I buy a USA Saturn game it’s usually all scratched up with the case being cracked and the manual ripped up. The Japanese for the most part take care of their games that they buy or bought years ago which is why I stick to buying my Saturn games strictly from japan
I feel that at the time, gaming was still seen as a very childish hobby in the U.S., where as in Japan, gaming was seen in a much different way, the same way as any other hobby. People just treated their games like toys back then, and its destroyed the play-ability of the games today, its sad really.
Steve Steve in japan all second hand games are perfect condition even for 100¥, with manual, even stickers and everything you had when you bought is as new
So much of Sega I never knew and still don't understand. When I always go back to add to my retro collection. Especially sega. I go to your channel and truly learn about the hard and software. In short. Thank you for all your hard work. You are using one of your talents to full potential!
I absolutely bought my Saturn for Virtua Fighter and VF 2. Was really looking forward to Legend of Oasis and Darkstalkers, too. VF Remix was amazing, btw.
I think something similar has happened recently with the PS Vita, with some people saying it was a smash hit in Japan and for that reason it got a lot of third party support from them. It wasn't , it sold just below 6 millions there, which was enough for some companies to keep supporting it until the Switch came out, but it sold way worse than the PSP and also than the 3DS, a very similar case to the Saturn you are mentioning.
And like the Saturn, expect the U.S. games to be fucking expensive as all hell in the future... I mean you can see already see it with games like Shovel Knight and Persona 4. I should've bought Persona 4 like 2 years ago when it was like 20 bucks at my local GameStop... Fucking bullshit yo...
🤦♂️ Why'd you have to go there? The Vita was one of my most cherished platforms, I wanted it to succeed so badly. I'll never get rid of it though, just like i'll never get rid of my Saturn or Dreamcast.
Great video as always! I've been in love with your channel and content these months, and decided to buy a JP Sega Saturn for my brother's birthday. We had a lot of fun playing Virtual-On, Burning Rangers and Magic Knight Rayearth! This is one of my best purchases ever.
Bernie Stolar completely destroyed what was left of the Saturn and Sega fanbase. He had actually campaigned to stop Japanese games from coming out on the PS1 at his time at Sony and this came out from the head guy at Working Design. To be fair even by 1996 when Kalinske was still in charge of Sega of America it felt like they had no idea what to do and releasing great japanese games never crossed their minds
Yeah, he hated Japanese games. He had a no jrpg policy for the Dreamcast(the few that were imported was when Moore took over, whom would go on to be the one to convince square to bring final fantasy to Xbox)
Sega of America did not change their mindset until late PS3 /early PS4.Look how they boycotted Yakuza games,Sakura Taisen series and other franchises for being too japanese. Sega of Americs mindset was frozen in the Mega Drive era and did not envolve. Japanese Sega was much more then Sonic + Sport games + Arcade racers.
Fun fact: Sega released in West only 3 homemade JRPG games / series in 2001-2021: Skies of Arcadia, Valkyria Chronicles and bunch of mediocre Shining / Phantasy Star games. Before 2001 they also released only 3 series in West: Phantasy Star, Dragon Force, and Shining Force. Alll of them were developed by same team. That's all. This was also one of reason why Sega bought Atlus in 2013 (they said ,,we don't have good RPG's''), but on other hand that was mean ,,fuck you Overworks / Sega WoW'' (the only one Sega Japan JRPG developer left at the time). They were merged with Team Sonic after sabotage sales of Valkyria Chronicles 4, and now they are forced to milking only Phantasy Star 2 New Genesis.@@carlosaugustodinizgarcia3526
I am a Sega fan since the master system, i am from germany and i was always jelous that japan getting the most and better games. But when it comes to the master system i was lucky, we getting more games than the rest of the world.
My love for the Sega Saturn has always been based on what a great system it is. Its downfall was mostly down to a plethora of bad management decisions by Sega, before and during the consoles life span, the botched US release probably being the biggest. the Saturn & PS1 are so closely matched it demonstrates perfectly how having a great product doesn't equal success on its own.
The fact is by the 3rd quarter in the year 2000 the sega saturn in Japan in total from November 1994 to Sept 2000. It sold 10.36 million units in Japan, even while the dream cast was out and doing well. In the sales department the saturn out sold the DC 2 to 1. If the saturn wasnt rushed, and sega redesigned instead of blindly slapping on extra 3D chips acting off emotions alone not knowing what that would do to what the saturn was capable to do. Worked with people with little experience to get those rookie developers in the game. Things would have been diffrent. Who knows maybe one day, someone will redesign and sell us a saturn the past generations had hoped for. Sega saturn by 2000: 16,700,000 units PS1 by 2006: 103,000,000 units
Sega Saturn of Japan was, Is and will always be my favorite console. Period. I'm still collecting today. I always Get them from Japan because of how they take special care of the games. Just like me.
A correction on VF's influence on the original PlayStation's archtecture - It did not change the course on its hardware design. It was far too late in the process seeing as how it eas released 12 months after the original Virtua Fighter. Developers and third parties in 1993 were pessimistic about 3D development as the field wasn't figured out yet and games would take a lot more time, money and engineering to complete. However, after VF came out, third parties in Japan finally saw the potential of polygons and lined up for PlayStation licenses and SDKs. So Virtua Fighter didn't make Sony realize what the future of gaming is going to be, it confirmed that their novel PS1 design represented the next big thing in gaming.
Saturn has aged gracefully and has garnered more popularity in the west, albeit a cult following, as time went on. Now that I'm exploring the saturn library I can see why. To some extent I even prefer saturns library over the ps1. Both have strengths and weaknesses, but sega to me has always succeeded where gaming matters most: having fun.
I loved my Saturn. It was my favorite console. I had an adapter cartridge that fit into the slot on the top which allowed it to play Japanese Saturn discs. My favorite was Fighting Vipers and it featured a really badass unlockable fighter, PEPSI-MAN!
One of the major factors for me and many of my friends to not get a Saturn back in the day, was actually Sega's ruined 32X campaign and all of the lost trust (and money) in Sega. I grew up during the 16bit age, just a little bit to late for the 8bit consoles, owning a SNES, while my best friend got a Sega Mega Drive. We enjoyed both systems during that time. I got a Mega Drive myself at the end of it's days, while the SNES was still in the golden days from my perspective. My best friend got the 32X add on, while I aimed to get the two Sega add ons (Mega CD and the 32X) a bit cheaper in used condition at some later point in time, still beeing busy getting more awesome games for the two original 16bit consoles and also working on it, to convince my mom to get a Nintendo 64 at release. Our plan (or better my plan) was to continue our complementary friendship with the N64 and 32X. I changed my mind for my 32X plans after I realised the whole debacle concerning the 32X, while my best friend (and other friends at school) were super pissed on Sega for making them waste so much money on that pice of sh*t. I guess their parents were in rage too. Their budget got wasted on that and none of them were able to get the Saturn at release. They either decided to wait or to not get it at all at this point. Their trust in Sega products was seriously damaged and I remember only hardcore Sega fans, or the ones that dodged the bullet of the 32X, to even talk about the Saturn. To accidentially get a trash game was already annoying as hell and a huge waste of money, but to waste so much money on the 32X, while none of the promised new games came out and the whole thing got dropped so quickly by Sega, was on another level. I got my N64 and was happy at first with the new tech, but beeing addicted to JRPGs and strategy RPGs, something was missing on that platform, that got me nervous. At this point basically everyone was talking about the Playstation and it's games. After the release of Final Fantasy VII, other awesome JRPGs like Suikoden and the massive popularity of the Playstation, I got mine. I only know a big brother of a friend who got a Saturn, and even he switched to Playstation after the release of the Resident Evil games.
Glad you made it through your 'youngmanhood.' I too made bad decisions that destroyed my life up to that point. Gaming has always been a great anchor for me as well.
Hi there! As a Import Gamer from back in the day i can say that both Consoles had so much more to offer when you had your Import Games from Japan. I really liked this Episode. Thank you!
I agree with you. Popularity and quality are 2 different things. I much prefer VF2 over Tekken 3, or Dragon Force over FF7, even though they sold less. Even now, my favorite games are not the top selling games.
@@FloridaEbikes so much bullshit. At least 60% were optimised on saturn. Pal format is superior in color and has higher resolution. I take Sega rally pal over any other version
@Daishin no Dōro no the pal format has a better color result on itself. It wasn't the new format for nothing. It was superior. And optimised games made use of the resolution
Virtua Fighter is still my favorite game on the saturn! i know its not the best game and definitly not the most good looking game on the system but when the music starts it always puts a smile on my face!
I want to thank you for your great and informative videos. I enjoy your rather slow style over hyperactive alternatives. I check your every video even if the content is not the most interesting to me because of your style and output. Thank you and may you continue. Sega fan from 1972.
Excellent video! Back in the days, I got an import Saturn from Japan. I live in Ireland, we have a coastal town that had a great arcade and housed all of Sega's top machines, Daytona,VR and VF etc. There is no doubt in my mind that this made me want a saturn soooo much and was willing to pay the high import price. Still own it to this day and still working fine....great console, great games and great memories!!!
Sega Saturn was my true love, when it came to playing on consoles. No other product ever filled my little room with more magic, than it did. I don't care in 2020, how well it did back then, what i will always keep, are my fond memories with Panzer Dragoon Saga, which I hunted for days in my hometown, grabbing the very last (and maybe only) copy in a store, that still exists now. So many hours VF2 vs my best friend, so many hours daytona, mystaria, the first US imports, the first japan imports... and i still play that old fucker nearly every week till today!
20:34 Oh man you are hitting me in the feels with that kickass outro SLX. 100% true words man, thanks for putting that out there I don't understand that either. Having personal experience with said "art" helps alot, and when you don't have it as many don't with the Saturn, it's easy to fall prey to bias and sales #s. Sales certainly does *correlate* with quality but it absolutely does not dictate its quality on its own.
This was a fantastic video SLX. Great job here, and kudos to your research and efforts. I now have a clearer set of eyes on the big picture of the Japanese gaming scene of the mid-to-late 90s. Definitely read Nomadicmonkey's comments below on his take on the scene from a Japanese youth's perspective too. I knew that FF7 was massive here in the states but dear god was I unaware that it also blew away Japan as well.
I'm so glad you touched on the subject of game sales! Some of the best games out there have had low sales, and many of these reasons can be for marketing failures, release date being wrong, maybe it doesn't relate to everybody like it Call of Duty game or something like that. But it doesn't mean it's a crappy game or anything like that I can be an amazing game even if it didn't sell well!
So much this. It saved Sega in the 16 bit era and killed them elsewhere. It *almost* saved the Dreamcast but Sony's marketing destroyed them just as Sega was digging themselves out of their hole.
That's only partially true. The real moral of the story here is: When you have endless millions upon millions of dollars you dont have to be a game maker, you can just buy exclusivity to the games everyone wants and become #1.
@DemonSlayer ByKnight This 100% the PS2 had broader market appeal than just gaming. Any console that launched in a window to compete with the PS2 would have been crushed without a DVD Drive. if the gamecube had launched in 00 it would have died too
@DemonSlayer ByKnight Yeah I'm sure the 2001 game release schedule had absolutely nothing to do with it. Only highly acclaimed sequels to some of the biggest hits on the Ps1 which had at least 70+ million owners willing to upgrade by that point. Ya know...MGS, Final Fantasy and Gran Turismo? Also GTA III, Twisted Metal Black, Ace Combat 4, Armored Core 2, Ridge Racer V, Tekken T, and new IPs like Devil May Cry, Jak &D, Maximo Ghosts 2G, Dark Cloud, Timesplitters etc. Software momentum that only continued with each passing year + Ps1 back compat. Yep just dvd and price nothing more nothing less indeed lol.
Many people who (still) own a WiiU claim its a diamond covered in shadows coming from bad decisions. I think the same can be said about the Saturn and the Dreamcast which both have amazing games each for their own but those were easily beaten by the powerhouse the PS1 and PS2 was. Back then, going for "the wrong" console was rouge, in hignsight I feel like those who can still find excitement from those games now have more amazing titles to choose from than ever.
Great vid. I never got the Saturn due to all negatives I’d heard at the time and the over use of polygon games out me off gaming for several years until getting back into retro gaming. I’d love to see a Saturn mini some day which includes games from the Japanese library
When I first saw a video of Gran Turismo on the demo disc in 1997, it was over. I would swap all N64 and SS library for that game alone, and I did, at least in intent. +20 years later and I have a PS4 with only 1 game... GT Sport. Sony got this one down to a T.
Awesome video I learned alot. Love your takes and videos. Just got into saturn and you have quiet a few saturn videos. There are not alot of people who have saturn videos.
Being from Quebec, Canada, I think we just never got that console around. I’m a little young being born in 98 but even my mom who had the genesis and the Snes never heard about the Saturn. I was always very curious about it having been a fan of both ps1 and n64 despite my age and your channel delivers each time ! I really like that console nowadays, probably better than the n64
I think the problem Saturn had was it banked too hard on too few games. Like it's launch being entirely dependent on Virtua Fighter initially worked for them, but as time went on, and Sony built up easily one of the greatest lineups in the history of game consoles, with Nintendo following suit soon after, it felt like Sega just couldn't keep up. I mean, you can't feel too bad about being beaten by Final Fantasy VII, everybody got beat by Final Fantasy VII. But I think the fickleness of Sega when faced with that situation was really the final nail in the coffin for them. If they had stuck it out with Saturn, and tried to get a killer app on Saturn that could rival the competition in 97 instead of abandoning ship at the first sign of trouble, maybe the story would be a little different.
Agree, Sega should have kept working to make great games anticipating what the market would enjoy, following the lead of Playstation. They did try again with Dreamcast, whose three years of games were awesome, yet this time they failed in the west AND Japan. The real Sega nuts loved them all, but maybe it was fatigue on the part of lukewarm Sega fans, tired of all the consoles and add-ons of the 90s. It made Sega look weak & fickle compared to PS1 and incoming PS2 that were both 7-year consoles. Sony made better business decisions and had deep enough financial reserves to stick in the game long-term.
I had only a few games for the saturn. VF2, MK Trilogy,Fighters MegaMix and Daytona were my favs. Also had Panzer Dragoon, Shining Wisdom, Mystaria, Virtua Fighter 1, Virtua Cop 1 & 2, and only a couple others
PS1 gave wonderful performance in Ridge Racer. SS Daytona pop up gave an weak 3D image to customer. Sega did the correct things in Dec95 with 3 Ace titles, then FF7 is announced on Jan96. This is a huge impact. Mar96, Resident Evil released, PS1 has already won.
I really do love the Saturn with all my heart from the brilliant 2D sprite games of street fighter alpha to the the amazing 3D world of nights into dreams, and yeah I’m not afraid to Admit as Sega fan, when it came to Sony’s machine I loved games such as final fantasy and twisted metal, metal gear solid, xi sái and many other wonderful titles, but after years later, I looked at the Saturn closely on what made a truly spectacular machine and you were right lord x you shouldn’t love a gaming machine just because of high sales, you should love it for the brilliant art of Expression no matter what game it is and that’s why I truly love the Saturn on how much art you can Beautifully create with your wildest imagination.
This is one of your best videos ever Sega Lord X. I will not explain why because i would sit here for a few hours. Keep up the great content. Back in 1995 i had to make a choice: A. Getting a Sega Saturn B. Getting a PS1 I bought a Sega Saturn now 25 years later i look back and i realize i made the right decision by purchasing the Saturn instead of a ps1.
The Playstation also had a sprite warping issue in 2D games, not just it's memory. That same thing that causes it's textures to warp in 3D? That also happens to their 2D game sprites. It's minor but visible.
@@retractingblinds It does have the problem, please look it up on UA-cam. As the sprites for a PS One is a texture on square made out of two triangles, it has the same warping effect. It's not something deal breaking though... but it is there. I'll try to look up some examples for you. Here you go: ua-cam.com/video/XaP8S2VPS50/v-deo.html As mentioned it is very minor. Also early in the stage were the bubble is spawned around Mega man? You'll also see it. The bubble looks like it is slightly warped. Like mentioned, not a deal breaker... but it was an issue. PS: There are those that start a fanboy war over it. And say it is a "emulation issue". It's not, but again, it is very minor and 99% of the time you'd not notice it AT ALL.
That was a good and oddly sobering vid. It made me sort of regret not importing Saturn games. However, I also feel like I missed out quite a bit on not owning a PSX and just bumming off friends' systems. Keep up the good work man.
Somber, passionate, yet realistic. Great research and retro coverage of a bygone era. No rose Saturn goggles here but still loyal to the console. Thanks for the Sega Saturn PlayStation port information. Other than Capcom fighting games, I haven't looked into it but now I have something to do this morning. Thanks
Great video. Never owned a Saturn (don't think I've actually even seen a Saturn in real life) but from everything I've read and seen of the console, I think I would have liked it had I bought one in the 90s.
I also don't get why people have to romanticize things in order to justify their preferences. There's nothing wrong with liking a console that failed commercially or that has hardware design flaws. People also tend to romanticize the Dreamcast in a similar way stating baseless things like the DC hardware being supposedly more powerful than the PS2 (this misconception generally comes from the DC having more VRAM when in fact it's actually a huge bottleneck due to how the PVR2/CLX2 addresses VRAMl) I love the DC for it's library and played the thing since day one (still have my VA0 japanese unit) regardless of its hardware limitations and at the same time love the PS2, XBOX and GC for what each one has to offer.
I agree with you -- love the Saturn and Dreamcast as my favorites, but also love almost every console ever released for its great library of games (whether large or small, general or niche). I think that there is something primal in wishing the thing we like the most would succeed. Loving Sega consoles is a bit like being a West Ham United supporter -- supporters know their team is 'the greatest' and worth backing as their favorite, but are always a bit jealous of the rich teams like Liverpool, Man Utd or Chelsea who have the money to buy world-class players and field the teams they do. It actually takes some 'romanticizing' (to borrow your term) to remain a supporter of West Ham for years and years...
Really glad to hear you were able to get your life back on track and shift directions, however not every one does. To those out there on a dark path, spiraling, look for local community help, also there is Sega Saturn Emulation which you can get into if you can't locate actual hardware.
Sega Saturn also beat Nintendo here in Portugal. But here we were Segaland, Mega Drive was a massive hit as was Master System, unlike in Japan where both failed. Saturn was also beating PS1 until they killed the console with lack of support.
One interesting bit of trivia I'm not sure if you've covered is the Saturn's relationship with Neon Genesis Evangelion, one of Japan's biggest nerd loves. During production and airing in 1995, SEGA and Gainax had a deal where, during the run of the series, Eva games would only release on Saturn, and this is even referenced within the show when Asuka stays at Hikari's as her mental health declines, as she plays what sounds like Panzer Dragoon using what's clearly a Saturn controller. Obviously, this deal didn't do much for either in terms of sales, but it's kinda neat IMO, plus it spared the world from the god awful Nintendo 64 Evangelion game for a couple years.
you should do a video like this about why the megadrive kinda failed in japan and even the turbografx16 (that "doesn't exist" in the rest of the world) sold more.
The PS is by no means a waste of time for 2D. It has Castlevania:Chronicles, Symphony Of The Night, R-Types, Gradius Gaiden, to name some of my favourites. It also has a much better 2D resolution range than the Saturn.
If you read comments by Martin Edmondson, you get an understanding of why developers embraced the Playstation for 3D,rather than the Saturn, within 24 hrs of getting a development kit, they had rotating textured polygons running, within 48 hrs the first model led car.
It wasn’t a “bastion of success” but as Sega’s most successful domestic console it’ll always hold a special place in Sega’s history for the Japanese and fans of the system. Anyway, Mel … when are you coming on the SegaGuys RetroPod to chat with us? We’re on a hiatus just now but are coming back soon, so drop me an email when you think you’ll have a window to record with us. PS: loved that closing argument about sales, absolutely spot on. In a strange way, the Saturn’s failure makes it somewhat more alluring, I was proud to back it then and I’m proud to play it still today.
The only 2D games that looked just as good on the PS1 as on the Saturn; were any game that was 24bit and under sprite based. Neo Geo, CPS1 and under (with some CPS2 games that were not overly complicated). Games which had sprites that were more cartoon and handrawn; usually exceeded on the Saturn with the Ram cart ( non Ram cart games looking the same on both consoles, with more load times on PS1for SNK games). At some point; companies just stopped trying to put 2D games on the Saturn; in favor of the more successful PSX. It was interesting to see how the trends changed. Totally noticed how Final Fantasy 7 changed the tides dramatically for PSX. Really enjoyed this video.
Once again, really well made video! I think the reason why sales figures are so easily brought into the discussion regarding merits of certain platform is that the experience is still to a certain extent tied to the success of the platform, although a good game (which is highly subjective) is a good game whether it sold 1 or 10 million units. But the truth is that successful platforms bring in more developers and more quality games. In movies or most other art forms situation isn't like that, because they are mostly platform agnostic formats (perhaps the Bluray/HDDVD war was the only exception for a short while, because these platforms were supported by different studios thus making movie releases platform dependent). Because of the platform dependency of video games and personal investment to certain platform, there is also of course fanboyism out there and that causes arguments and discussion easily derailing to comparing sales figures or technical capabilities, because every fanboy needs to be right, of course. It causes sugarcoating the failures and shortcomings and highlighting or even making up the successes or strengths of the platform where one has invested and is tied to a certain extent. For SEGA, Nintendo, Sony or any other video game company, it is still ultimately just business, though. Ironically, with Dreamcast, SEGA didn't made IMO many actual mistakes (based on how I see the story from "Service Games: The Rise and Fall of SEGA" book). Company just ran out of money and couldn't put similar effort in marketing (creating positive HYPE) and pushing the platform forward than its competition. Eventually SEGA needed to pull the plug from the system, so it could save itself. Truth is that pretty much every video game platform in the history has something to offer at least from a hobbyist perspective. If not a plethora of good game titles, then at least some interesting story how it became to be and why it failed and in many cases there are interesting personalities behind the systems or some groundbreaking idea that was perhaps just too early for the time. Obscurity and failure can be really interesting in itself. SEGAs history is such a roller coaster ride from the 80s to early 2000s, so that alone makes the systems and ecosystems built around them interesting at least to me, not to mention all the great games produced for them, of course. From business stand point of view SEGA story is ironically more that of failures (MD/Genesis was their only true worldwide big success and even it failed in Japan). It is still only failure from the business stand point of view and everyone should enjoy SEGA systems and games, or any other system for that matter, for what it can offer to you. Just like movies.
Still blows me away people were so hard for 3D games that generation and in retrospect they look bad compared to the 2D games of that era. (and even some of the games of the 16bit era too)
God bless Japan for keeping the Saturn alive and seeing the potential that the Saturn had. I’m glad it outsold N64 in Japan. It deserved it. Sega won Japan, but lost everyone else. What a great arcade system. Glad to see that people now know that the media was wrong about the Saturn. it was quite powerful for its time. It’s like a Neo Geo. Thanks to Japan, I can now buy a Saturn for a somewhat cheap price. The Saturn has a charm that the Neo Geo doesn’t for me. I’m glad it did well in Japan. Saturn has several hundreds of good games and tons of awesome arcade games that looked and ran better than on PS1. Although PS1 sold the most in Japan, the Saturn didn’t fail there. It was more popular than the N64. It was successful, but PS1 was a massive success. It succeeded in being a good system. The PS1 had tons of shovelware and cheaply and lazily made garbage for it. You don’t really see that with Saturn. Many Saturn games are unique and was better on it than PS1. However, the PS1 and N64 did have some great games that many should try. PS1 did better 2D than SNES ever could. 2D games on PS1 are decent enough. N64 had some good Nintendo games. The arcade ports that PS1 had are close to the arcade originals. Street Fighter Alpha 2 on PS1 was miles better than the one for SNES, although the SNES version was good for the hardware. There are some unique games on PS1, but the Saturn library seems more unique due to a lack of shovelware and high amount of special games.
I haven't followed your channel enough so I don't really know if or how much of a Sega fanboy you are. I know about the channel and I have seen several of your reviews of games. But this video impressed me. That you are so objektiv that you say what's good about competitors like Sony is really nice of you, even if I was a really big Saturn-boy back then and hated Playstation in all of its lifespan. But like others I had to realize that Sega lost the fight and bought a Playstation 2. This video is in fact so good that I will now start to subscribe and I see that you made several other interesting videos in tha last couple of years that interest me. Would be great if you do a video about Dreamcast in Japan too, and if it's popular and fulfilling for you, perhaps older Sega systems as well. I'm starting to believe that the Game Gear was really popular in Japan too. Thanks
I bought a PS1 when Final Fantasy VII was announced, but after playing Guardian Heroes for 15 minutes at my local game store, I got a Saturn the next day. 1996 and 2D games made Saturn my favorite, even though I had all three by the end of the year.
As an Asian player I can briefly explain why the SEGA Saturn can still stand in Japan.
It was the transition period of 2D to 3D games and a lot of great 2D fighting titles were available in arcade market.
One of them is SNK's the King of Fighter Series. They were massively hit in arcade centres in Asia.
To master the fighting skills, every frame counts.
Besides expensive Neogeo AES cartridges and long loading time of the CD version, SEGA Saturn version of the KOFs and other SNK and Capcom 2D titles were the best choice of the time.
Furthermore, a lot of Japanese titles were suiting tastes of Asian players, like Sakura Taisen, that the SEGA Lord X was mentioned; a lot of SEGA arcade ports so that you can play SEGA Model 2 titles at home, a lot of 2D games port better on Saturn than the PS1; Some publisher like Game Arts (Grandia and Gungriffon) and Treasure (Guardian Heroes) publish their title on SEGA Saturn only.
Of course, the Final Fantasy 7 and the Dragon Quest 7, the most anticipated JRPG titles, Bio Hazard 1 & 2, etc. were leading Playstation to win the console war,
but in Japanese market, we wont say Saturn was a failure.
For my point of view, if I want to buy (or collect) 2D games, I would buy the Saturn version, in fact those games were much expensive than the PS1 version in the 2nd hand market.
For 3D games, I would choose Playstation version without doubt.
Sometimes I just wonder what if SEGA adopt all-region policy (allowing JAP games run on US version of SEGA Saturns), would the situation of Saturn in western market a little bit better.
I couldn't agree more about the thoughts about how the console could have done if it wasn't region locked.
I call the Saturn my poor man's Neo Geo.
However, the 5 best-selling titles on Saturn in Japan are in 3D, obviously in Japan as elsewhere, players wanted 3D games.
"For my point of view, if I want to buy (or collect) 2D games, I would buy the Saturn version, in fact those games were much expensive than the PS1 version in the 2nd hand market.
For 3D games, I would choose Playstation version without doubt.
" It would be a shame because there sometimes more successful 2D ports on PS1 like Dracula X or In the Hunt and on the contrary more successful 3D game versions on Saturn like Mass Destruction, Mechwarrior or duke nukem 3D for example. it's not so manichean.
No, it wouldn't change too much if Sega made Saturn region free. Why? Because most Americans (even people in general) can't read nor understand Japanese.
@@crossy44 I do feel that there are a lot of Saturn JP only titles that can be played with little to no knowledge of Japanese, basically most action games and whatnot, though.
But as an RPG enthusiast I am trying my best to learn Japanese vocab and grammar and giving online dictionaries a good work out to play some of the better JP only stuff though (and also some of the more infamous games, Ancient Roman on PS1 anyone?), that's how devoted I am.
Japan didn’t see video games as a “toy” like we did. When buying games on EBay today, it’s evident that the excellent care taken in the discs and cases in Japan is vastly superior compared to the U.S.
Right? I bought a used white PSP when I was there and it was in immaculate condition, as was every other used system I saw in every other store.
Please excuse the travel brag...
Maybe they don't have Cheetos in Japan...
🤣
I would argue that the Japanese videogame market actually DID grow as an offshoot of the toy market. Toy, game, and card companies played a huge role in the early growth of the Japanese game industry. But there are many, many Japanese adults who honor and treasure the inner child in each of us, the part of us that wants to play and have fun with toys and games. So they take care of their childhood game collections just like they would take care of book or art collections, and many keep playing and collecting in the same way as adults. It's weird: in the west we have millions of videogamers, but so many of them won't admit they're channeling their inner child, and in the end only go for gritty games that prove videogames (like comic books) are an "adult" pursuit. And then these same western gamers don't take good care of their stuff. Totally different attitude.
@@sonicmania9993 I can't even argue with that, I just got a CIB Lethal Enforcers for Super Famicom with the boxed Player 2 Konami Justifier... almost mint condition 👌.
@@scramblesthedeathdealer Sah-WEEET!!
Here in Chile, the genesis had a good marketing, even a tv show called "sega mania" where you call and play through the phone,
But the Saturn was "invisible", i remember see one on a mall with Nigths on a tv once and nothing more, there wasnt marketing, no one talked about the saturn, i recently bought a japanese saturn, good hidden gems, i played BUG!, Guardian Heroes, Astal and Panzer Dragoon
Same deal in Argentina, impossible to find one, though the PS1 in particular was everywhere. Marketing and distribution channels mostly
same here, I jump from Sega Genesis to Ps1, then to Dreamcast, resently I also get a japanese Saturn with many fighting games, I simply love it
Yeah, but sadly the Sega Genesis was a failure in Chile, the SNES was most popular.
It's a same that never played the Sega Genesis, my fathers had a Genesis before that i born. (March 30, 2000)
and at end, my first console was the PS1 that i love.
But the Saturn has some interesing gems that i want play and the Fighting Games Ports Perfects.
i hope haved a some day a Japanese Sega Saturn Console, especially Capcom games.
Igual aquí en Venezuela. Se promocionó poco en la TV Nacional....
In Brazil, the Saturn was relatively successful, it was even manufactured under license from Tec Toy here. It's not hard to find one and games for a long time were easy to find. The same piracy that helped the Playstation, helped the Saturn. I've owned over 150 pirated Saturn games myself.
I have been to Japan a few times, the last time was last fall. Every time I went game hunting, I found Saturn games everywhere. Every store that sold retro games would have a healthy supply of Saturn games, and Super Potato decorates their aisles of Saturn games with Segato Sanshiro. So yes, the Saturn was successful and is well regarded in Japan. The same is true for the PC Engine, though to a lesser extent IMO.
If anything, Dreamcast is a bit overlooked in Japan.
According to vgchartz, Japan purchased 66% of the Saturn consoles worldwide, but only 28% of the Dreamcast consoles. A lot of the Japanese Saturn owners felt burned ... they wanted Saturn to continue, and couldn't reconcile themselves with Sega ditching them. Dreamcast was (briefly) quite big in western Europe, and I remember a decent buzz around 9.9.99 in North America as well, at least at the specialty gaming stores. But that sure didn't last...
@@sonicmania9993 Yep. In fact, Saturn games are more common than any other Sega console at retro game stores in Japan. Dreamcast gets the least amount of shelf space. And I'd always find Game Gear games, I'm guessing GG did OK there as well. I guess that's why GG micro is only coming to Japan.
I lived in Japan for a number of years and went flea market hunting every weekend. This was at the time when the PS2/Gamecube/DS Lite were current gen. So I have a fairly good idea about what was common around that time at least.
NES, SNES, N64, Gameboy/Color, GBA, Sega Saturn: all extremely common. NES and SNES probably the most, but there was tons of Saturn stuff everywhere
PC Engine, Genesis, Game Gear: not rare but less common, Genesis especially
Neo Geo Pocket, Wonder Swan: more than you might expect
Sega Master System/MKIII, anything from Atari or Microsoft: basically never
And a lot of people were dumping their Dreamcasts at the time. I bought four Dreamcasts just to get the spare controllers...
@@AnthonyFlack Yes Atari was very rare, but it did show up every now and then. Also, while less common, I would end up seeing small collections of 3DO games at most retro stores. I picked up some while I was there.
@@edwest2263 - I definitely saw all of that stuff in the stores, but those are my observations about what was common in the flea markets. The vast majority I would say was NES, SNES, Gameboy, N64 and Saturn.
Saturn games were more common than Playstation 1 games for sure (I forgot to mention PS1).
I see so many people who weren't even born yet talking about how Saturn would have been so successful in the West if all those Japanese 2D games were brought over and how the Saturn was a more powerful 2D powerhouse etc etc. I mean, probably most of us can appreciate the 2D games the Saturn had and it's 2D capabilities today. However, the reality in the mid 90s was that most of us didn't want more 2D games. We were moving on and 3D was the here and now and perceived as the future of gaming. It's pretty common knowledge that PlayStation and N64 were both built from the ground up as 3D machines. Also, development on the PlayStation was far easier than it was on the Saturn. The stars were aligned for the PlayStation's success
I get that many of that era's 3D games haven't aged well but in the 90s they were cutting edge. It's what the market wanted. It's what most (not saying all) gamers wanted. It's what was selling and being heavily marketed and the Saturn just didn't have the right software do to many reasons to win the hearts and minds of the gamer looking for the best 3D experiences at the time. Even myself gravitated to the PlayStation early on and eventually even got the N64 not giving the Saturn a Second thought until it was in the discount bin at the local Game Shop.
Great Video, I enjoyed it very much
I still had Genesis. It was cheaper than all the other systems at the time and still had good games. But I got N64 for Super Mario 64.
raine happy Did the same. Held on to the megadrive until N64 but after a little while, I traded it for a PS. Gran Turismo changed everything for me! I never wanted a Saturn... Until recently. 😂
I certainly enjoyed the gems of early PSX (Twisted Metal, Jumping Flash) but they felt janky and unrefined, whereas the Saturn's 2D offerings felt like perfect games that innovated on 16 bit formulas (Guardian Heroes, Capcom 2D fighters). I was in Junior high at the time and I don't ever recall anyone having an explicit bias against 2d games, hell Pokemon came out and thats all anyone (not me) was playing for a bit. So anecdotally your premise of gamers wanting to move on to the future of 3D doesn't hold water.
Sega just had like 7 big factors against them, and not releasing several of their best titles state side was one of them. I also think Sega undercut Nintendo in a way all through the early 90s to make them not the zeitgeist anymore, but then also Sega made themselves look "Greedy and Stupid" with the 32X and Saturn Launch, and basically kicked open the door for Sony to come in to be the cool kid.
@@Harkness78 I was in Junior High at the time myself and didn't know anyone still interested in new 2D games on home console. The talk in the lunch room was PlayStation and to a lesser extent Nintendo 64 and who had the better 3D Graphics. Again, 3D Graphics is what the marketing was pushing. It's where the industry was rapidly shifting. It was the new big thing to push. That and CD's to a lesser extent. You had good 3D Graphics or you didn't. Saturn wasn't even part of that discussion 99% of the time unless it was mentioned as having bad Graphics in comparison not to mention the lack of comparable titles over all
I was obsessed with Street Fighter. It baffles me that Capcom didn't release a Street Fighter CPS1 Collection at launch for Saturn. That game and Virtua Fighter would have been a huge success. Also, Capcom took too long to get going. I had my Saturn about a year and NOTHING from Capcom. I got bored of waiting and swapped it for a Neo Geo CD. I did regret it when the good games started coming (Darius Gaiden, SF Zero).
This generation was the last time I owned all the major systems. The Sega Saturn, Sony Playstation, and Nintendo 64. The third party releases did end up pushing me to Sony's console at the time for my game purchases but today my Saturn game collection remains mostly complete whereas my PS1 and N64 games are limited to my favourites of the system.
You're right that sales don't equal quality and it's a genuine shame that Sega messed up so badly, they drove themselves out of the hardware market.
@MultiTarded Not having a proper Sonic game was very odd and why wasn't Streets of Rage/Bare Knuckle 4 a Saturn title? It was almost as if Sega was embarrassed about the franchises that got them their success in the 16 bit era.
the lack of competitiveness led them to leave the hardware market
FFVII was the defining moment of that console generation, cementing Sony's dominance. All that took place after was a fight for second place between Nintendo and Sega. FFVII would have been Nintendo's to lord over the competition, had they not insisted on sticking with cartridges.
I know in my personal experience, FF7 turned me from not caring much about the Playstation, to an owner overnight. In fact, for quite a while, FF7 was the only game I owned for the console.
Nintendo wasn't technically capable of producing a CD product themselves; Sony was(which was why Sony was able to get away with selling such expensive tech at the $299 price point and still be profitable). The only reason Sega got a CD based format was because they had to buy such parts from other companies capable of producing such tech; which in turn resulted in the Saturn being so expensive at its launch. It was expensive at launch yes and at the same time, Sega was losing over $100(if we're including tax) off of each unit sold. Nintendo has a History of not wanting to sell such expensive products; especially if it meant selling it at a loss like Sega and many other before them had a habit of doing.
If I'm to share a quote that Ken Kutaragi(father of the PlayStation) had said to Hideki Sato(president of Sega's former hardware division at the time) in late 96, it could basically be summed up like this: "Hideki-Chan(Kutaragi refers to him using the "Chan" diminutive), Hideki-Chan, you guys at Sega don't stand a chance against us here at Sony. Let me ask you something; where are you guys getting your processors from? Where are you guys getting your format from? The answer's right in front of you. You're buying them from Hitachi, your buying them from Yamaha, you're buying them from JVC! What about your CD rom hard-drives and dev kits? You guys are buying EVERYTHING"!
Continuing on: "By buying and selling from Hitachi and JVC, those two companies are the ones profiting off the Saturn with your name on it! To put it simply, you guys buy everything; and you can't make anything yourselves. We here at Sony can make everything ourselves, including custom parts and our own sound chips. We have our own factories"!
Simply put, Nintendo didn't have much choice in their case. It was either risk everything financially like Sega and others before them did, or take a shot in the dark with what you can make in house and hope for the best from there!
@@G.L.999 That's exactly what Sega's problem with the Saturn is, it's not the games, or even the console's architecture that is questionable, but the manufacturing costs that make Sega less competitive against Sony. It's the same with the Dreamcast for that matter.
The franchise that did it for me was Resident Evil. The moment I saw my friend playing it on Playstation, I wanted a Playstation.
Solely because they got XvsSf, MvsSf, and SfZ3 makes it sooo much better than the US release.
I got the Playstation version of X-Men VS Street Fighter for 20 bucks, not the price when it skyrocketed. I got a Saturn now so I'll just import it or burn it.
@@rainehappy7097 yeah import versions aren't that expensive from what I remember. Also get SF anniversary!
I like the white Saturn too. Radiant Silvergun stands the test of time. Marvel Vs. Capcom would have been awesome on Saturn.
@@atomiswave2 the controller was built for Capcom fighters. So natural for the button placement. Pretty much one to one with the arcade sticks.
I love PS1 but yes, the the ps1 versions are inferior...hey, at least we got Tekken 3.
Saturn is more than a console it's a lifestyle.
Yep having a Saturn it's like having an old VW beatles. It's a players philosophy, it's a fucking lifestyle !
Just started my collection a few months ago, don’t know what took me so long its already one of my favorites. I even acquired a copy of panzer dragoon saga already.
@@Official_Switchel wow the NA release?
@@hi_tech_reptilez Yep. Admittedly i’ve never spent that much on a game so its already the crown jewel of my entire game collection.
@@Official_Switchel 5 month isn't that bad regarding how unappreciated Saturn was. It took me 7 years to like the Playstation 1 and that was a popular console.
I remember my cousin getting his Saturn in 96. I loved the system, Dayton USA and Sega Rally Championship are still some of my favorite games. I love my Saturn and I still play it.
The Saturn, a console where the Japanese side of it's software was extremely strong, while it's western software library was not so good. That is why of my 55 owned Saturn games, a majority of them are Japanese games, because Japan has more of what I want for the console.
The Saturn tried to out Playstation the Playstation in the US. Meaning Sega of America tried to market it as a 3D first machine to the same age demo as PS1. Which turned out to be a complete disaster. Sega's marketing would always try to pit the Saturn directly against the PS1 again and again, and the Saturn lost. Every. Single. Time.
While Sega was the cool kid by trashing the competition during the 16-bit days, the strategy completely backfired against the PS1. It made the Saturn look even worse, because it was clearly inferior to the PS1 when they would go head-to-head. Sega looked like a has-been, just bitching and whining about the competition after screwing over consumers with the 32X and Sega CD. The ads are still cringeworthy. Never trash your competitors after you've damaged your own brand image...
Nintendo was smart, and carved out a market segment where they didn't compete directly with the PS1. Younger demo. Party games with 4 player co-op. Hell, even cartridges differentiated it, because some gamers loathed CD load times. Kind of crazy to think that was true, given how much worse load times in games are now compared to the 90s LOL.
Anyway, Nintendo made some smart moves even though they lost a lot of market share at the time. A lot of people I knew growing up owned a PS1 and N64 because they were seen as being different enough. No one cared about the Saturn, because it was seen as an inferior wannabe copycat of PS1.
Nintendo continues this strategy to this day by coming up with ways to differentiate themselves from the competition. Sometimes it fails terribly (Wii U), other times it is insanely successful (Wii, Switch). It has been a risky but successful strategy for a long time now.
@@edwest2263 wouldn't say genesis cd addon was screwing customers. Don't know why people thrash it. It's one of the best console addons in history.
88oscuro I guess in retrospect it seems that way because the 32x was a second add-on. The more expensive add-ons, the more it seems like all of them are just trying to short term milk the consumer base of the genesis.
@@joejoejohnson8310 maybe. But there are some really cool games that got beautiful FMVs and auido thanks to the space the cd gave.
@@88oscuro I love the Sega CD myself. But it definitely damaged Sega's brand back in the day.
The Japan Saturn’s fighting game ports are the reason I bought a Japanese Saturn.
Straight up!
Fighters and shmups are the backbone of the system, and so few of them came west...
X-Men vs Street Fighter was the reason why I got mine and then promptly started importing almost nothing but Japanese games. So many great titles never made it over here but man, those Capcom ports were epic.
Same!
For me it was Radiant Silvergun but I sold that game a couple of years ago. Now I want the Cotton games instead.
The Saturn is my favorite system of all time! And that's the way it will always be in my heart!
As always your insight is fact based and quite rich. Fortunately, my love for The Saturn and The Playstation were initially built on their Japanese 2D libraries and the "strict" dismissal Sony placed on such games in the states. I never loved these machines for sales or pushing polygons. They were both 2D monsters as well, something too often understated.
The message presented throughout this video (and summarized at the end) is one that many, many people need to learn. I'll never understand hating a platform based off hardware units sold.
We're all gamers, why can't we just play what we want?
I so wished that the Saturn would ve been the runaway success that the Playstation was, here in the US. Played much of Nights into dreams, Daytona USA, Virtua Fighter 2, and Tomb Raider. I also preferred the Saturn controller to the PS1 controller. Such a sad shame..
I got my Saturn on the cheap from Toys R Us when it was losing steam in the US, but I didn't unlock its full potential until I found a couple of import games at my local Babbage's. I ended up with 4 import games for it: X-Men vs SF, Marvel Super Heroes vs SF, Vampire Savior, and King of Fighters '97. With the 4MB RAM upgrade cart, these games were basically arcade-perfect and I played the hell out of them all. Vampire Savior on Saturn is still the best release of Darkstalkers 3 (IMO), and it remains my favorite fighting game ever.
SEGA Saturn 1994-forever
I was born in Japan in 1987 and I didn't get to own a 32 bit console until as late as 1997 so I kinda missed out on the initial hype that the gospel of the 32 bit created in its inception days but wow I'm amazed to see how your take on the Japanese gaming scene in the mid to late 90s sounds totally spot on and aligns with my own experiences as an avidish game kid in that era. Here are a couple of things I'd like to mention to compliment your excellent analysis.
From my point of view going so far as to say that the Sega Saturn trounced N64 in Japan sounds kinda misleading or exaggerated at best. Being an 8-year-old in 1996 I viewed Saturn as a console geared towards a bit more mature target audience than myself whereas N64 felt like tad too childish for my taste so although I got N64 my main console was PlayStation all along. Nevertheless I believe N64 was definitely more popular in my age group than Saturn was as I had a number of friends who owned N64 but Saturn was basically reserved for their older siblings. I barely remember having seen one in person, to be honest.
In regards to the PS vs Saturn arena, not only did Sony get the huge popularity boost from FFVII, we also cannot stress enough how big of an impact the announcement of Dragon Quest VII had on its sales numbers. DQ as a franchise was and has always been arguably even more popular and influential than Final Fantasy in the Japanese console market and Sony gaining Enix' allegiance with DQVII on their console was seen by many people including myself as the last straw, establishing Sony as the indisputable winner in that generation. Kooky TV ads featuring Segata Sanshiro was amusing and all but seriously I doubt it helped Saturn stay commercially afloat that much, if at all.
With that said however, Saturn actually did have considerable presence even in its later years. Or at least that's the impression I got as a kid. I'd like to emphasise the significance of dating sims on Saturn that contributed to its niche appeal to teenage and older gamers. It has often been completely overlooked by Western game critiques and video essayists but dating sims were a legit part of Saturn's rich game library. Although as a prepuberty kid I didn't get around to actually playing that sort of game back then, I remember they were heavily pushed in the gaming magazines I used to pore over so I can vouch for the fact that they were as relevant as they are today.
Overall I'd rather say Saturn was a moderately successful and fairly competent console in Japan. I think it's safe to say it was more popular than Genesis/Mega Drive was in its home country but I haven't got any statistics to support my argument so take my words with a grain of salt. One anecdotal piece of evidence is that I was once quite baffled when I first learned Genesis had enjoyed a huge success in the US because in my then parochial view Super Famicom completely obliterated Mega Drive whereas Saturn fared much better and longer against Playstation despite its eventual defeat.
Edit: typo
Edit2: word choices
How big was Virtual-On in Japan? Among the hardcore/import folks in Europe, it was a big deal. It was really weird for us to see the Saturn, which had a better library, not be embraced by the mainstream. FF7 and DQ7 were indeed game changers.
@@madspunky Unfortunately I wasn't hot on the arcade where Virtual-On was apparently a phenomenon. Looks like players got really, really good and competitive at the casuals' expense, like following the path other hardcore fighting games had taken.
@@nomadicmonkey3186 Makes sense. Having grown up in Europe, where both Sega Master System and Mega Drive destroyed both NES and SNES at the time, it was odd to see how much Saturn had failed in perspective. PSX was everywhere, whereas Saturn had a rather short shelf life, and as far as I understand it was the first popular Sega console in Japan? I personally liked Dreamcast more as a console, but unfortunately it didn't do much better. It's funny for us also to think of SNES as the king of RPGs at the time, since we barely got any of them... CRPGs were much more popular at the time here, anyway. I guess not much has changed really.
That had to be crazy to see how successful the Genesis was. How was it viewed in Japan? Did people who owned a Mega Drive get painted a certain brush. Like oddball gamers, hardcore or maybe people who owned it were wealthy and could afford every system.
I second this observation of "age appropriateness" of saturn and N64 as someone born in 1987 but in the midwest USA. There was sort of more mature air to disc based system and game library. funny as i got older in my teens i bought a saturn from an older friend with panzer dragoon zwei, sort of highlighting this maturity difference.
Every time I buy a Saturn game from japan it’s always in great shape with the spine card in in and the disks barely having scratches or smudges. When I buy a USA Saturn game it’s usually all scratched up with the case being cracked and the manual ripped up. The Japanese for the most part take care of their games that they buy or bought years ago which is why I stick to buying my Saturn games strictly from japan
I feel that at the time, gaming was still seen as a very childish hobby in the U.S., where as in Japan, gaming was seen in a much different way, the same way as any other hobby. People just treated their games like toys back then, and its destroyed the play-ability of the games today, its sad really.
Steve Steve in japan all second hand games are perfect condition even for 100¥, with manual, even stickers and everything you had when you bought is as new
I collect PC games and I think that same mentality may be why they are usualy, generaly speaking, in much better condition then say a PS1 or 2 disc.
Same here.
That’s Japanese culture in general for you. It’s why they can have nice things.
So much of Sega I never knew and still don't understand. When I always go back to add to my retro collection. Especially sega. I go to your channel and truly learn about the hard and software. In short. Thank you for all your hard work. You are using one of your talents to full potential!
I absolutely bought my Saturn for Virtua Fighter and VF 2. Was really looking forward to Legend of Oasis and Darkstalkers, too. VF Remix was amazing, btw.
I think something similar has happened recently with the PS Vita, with some people saying it was a smash hit in Japan and for that reason it got a lot of third party support from them. It wasn't , it sold just below 6 millions there, which was enough for some companies to keep supporting it until the Switch came out, but it sold way worse than the PSP and also than the 3DS, a very similar case to the Saturn you are mentioning.
As a Saturn fan and a Vita fan, I strongly agree! Two amazing game libraries that never sold enough games to enough people ... weird.
I’m still super salty over how Vita got butchered. I truly cherish the system.
And like the Saturn, expect the U.S. games to be fucking expensive as all hell in the future...
I mean you can see already see it with games like Shovel Knight and Persona 4. I should've bought Persona 4 like 2 years ago when it was like 20 bucks at my local GameStop... Fucking bullshit yo...
🤦♂️ Why'd you have to go there? The Vita was one of my most cherished platforms, I wanted it to succeed so badly. I'll never get rid of it though, just like i'll never get rid of my Saturn or Dreamcast.
@MultiTarded I have read multiple times that it was atcually a great succes in Japan, but cool if you haven't, not everyone says that.
Great video as always! I've been in love with your channel and content these months, and decided to buy a JP Sega Saturn for my brother's birthday.
We had a lot of fun playing Virtual-On, Burning Rangers and Magic Knight Rayearth! This is one of my best purchases ever.
Virtua fighter was the reason I saved enough money when I was little to buy a Saturn at launch. I remember how excited I was. Great video
Bernie Stolar completely destroyed what was left of the Saturn and Sega fanbase. He had actually campaigned to stop Japanese games from coming out on the PS1 at his time at Sony and this came out from the head guy at Working Design. To be fair even by 1996 when Kalinske was still in charge of Sega of America it felt like they had no idea what to do and releasing great japanese games never crossed their minds
Yeah, he hated Japanese games. He had a no jrpg policy for the Dreamcast(the few that were imported was when Moore took over, whom would go on to be the one to convince square to bring final fantasy to Xbox)
Sega of America did not change their mindset until late PS3 /early PS4.Look how they boycotted Yakuza games,Sakura Taisen series and other franchises for being too japanese.
Sega of Americs mindset was frozen in the Mega Drive era and did not envolve. Japanese Sega was much more then Sonic + Sport games + Arcade racers.
Fun fact: Sega released in West only 3 homemade JRPG games / series in 2001-2021: Skies of Arcadia, Valkyria Chronicles and bunch of mediocre Shining / Phantasy Star games. Before 2001 they also released only 3 series in West: Phantasy Star, Dragon Force, and Shining Force. Alll of them were developed by same team. That's all. This was also one of reason why Sega bought Atlus in 2013 (they said ,,we don't have good RPG's''), but on other hand that was mean ,,fuck you Overworks / Sega WoW'' (the only one Sega Japan JRPG developer left at the time). They were merged with Team Sonic after sabotage sales of Valkyria Chronicles 4, and now they are forced to milking only Phantasy Star 2 New Genesis.@@carlosaugustodinizgarcia3526
VF2 is such a marvelous port on Saturn!
You are my "go to" SEGA informer. They were the best but forgotten somehow.
"This is Virtua Fighter!"
"Sega! This is the sixth time you've shown Virtua Fighter in class!"
If only there was a 6th Virtua Fighter! We can hope...
I am a Sega fan since the master system, i am from germany and i was always jelous that japan getting the most and better games. But when it comes to the master system i was lucky, we getting more games than the rest of the world.
My love for the Sega Saturn has always been based on what a great system it is. Its downfall was mostly down to a plethora of bad management decisions by Sega, before and during the consoles life span, the botched US release probably being the biggest. the Saturn & PS1 are so closely matched it demonstrates perfectly how having a great product doesn't equal success on its own.
The fact is by the 3rd quarter in the year 2000 the sega saturn in Japan in total from November 1994 to Sept 2000. It sold 10.36 million units in Japan, even while the dream cast was out and doing well. In the sales department the saturn out sold the DC 2 to 1. If the saturn wasnt rushed, and sega redesigned instead of blindly slapping on extra 3D chips acting off emotions alone not knowing what that would do to what the saturn was capable to do. Worked with people with little experience to get those rookie developers in the game. Things would have been diffrent. Who knows maybe one day, someone will redesign and sell us a saturn the past generations had hoped for.
Sega saturn by 2000: 16,700,000 units
PS1 by 2006: 103,000,000 units
Excellent, honest and unbiased as usual. One of my favorite channels right now.
Sega Saturn of Japan was, Is and will always be my favorite console. Period. I'm still collecting today. I always Get them from Japan because of how they take special care of the games. Just like me.
Ps1 is better overall
A correction on VF's influence on the original PlayStation's archtecture - It did not change the course on its hardware design. It was far too late in the process seeing as how it eas released 12 months after the original Virtua Fighter.
Developers and third parties in 1993 were pessimistic about 3D development as the field wasn't figured out yet and games would take a lot more time, money and engineering to complete. However, after VF came out, third parties in Japan finally saw the potential of polygons and lined up for PlayStation licenses and SDKs.
So Virtua Fighter didn't make Sony realize what the future of gaming is going to be, it confirmed that their novel PS1 design represented the next big thing in gaming.
Saturn has aged gracefully and has garnered more popularity in the west, albeit a cult following, as time went on. Now that I'm exploring the saturn library I can see why. To some extent I even prefer saturns library over the ps1. Both have strengths and weaknesses, but sega to me has always succeeded where gaming matters most: having fun.
I loved my Saturn. It was my favorite console. I had an adapter cartridge that fit into the slot on the top which allowed it to play Japanese Saturn discs. My favorite was Fighting Vipers and it featured a really badass unlockable fighter, PEPSI-MAN!
The Saturn was my first system. It will always hold a good chunk of my favorite memories as a kid. Virtua Fighter is how I got into fighting games
One of the major factors for me and many of my friends to not get a Saturn back in the day, was actually Sega's ruined 32X campaign and all of the lost trust (and money) in Sega. I grew up during the 16bit age, just a little bit to late for the 8bit consoles, owning a SNES, while my best friend got a Sega Mega Drive.
We enjoyed both systems during that time. I got a Mega Drive myself at the end of it's days, while the SNES was still in the golden days from my perspective. My best friend got the 32X add on, while I aimed to get the two Sega add ons (Mega CD and the 32X) a bit cheaper in used condition at some later point in time, still beeing busy getting more awesome games for the two original 16bit consoles and also working on it, to convince my mom to get a Nintendo 64 at release. Our plan (or better my plan) was to continue our complementary friendship with the N64 and 32X.
I changed my mind for my 32X plans after I realised the whole debacle concerning the 32X, while my best friend (and other friends at school) were super pissed on Sega for making them waste so much money on that pice of sh*t. I guess their parents were in rage too. Their budget got wasted on that and none of them were able to get the Saturn at release. They either decided to wait or to not get it at all at this point. Their trust in Sega products was seriously damaged and I remember only hardcore Sega fans, or the ones that dodged the bullet of the 32X, to even talk about the Saturn.
To accidentially get a trash game was already annoying as hell and a huge waste of money, but to waste so much money on the 32X, while none of the promised new games came out and the whole thing got dropped so quickly by Sega, was on another level.
I got my N64 and was happy at first with the new tech, but beeing addicted to JRPGs and strategy RPGs, something was missing on that platform, that got me nervous. At this point basically everyone was talking about the Playstation and it's games. After the release of Final Fantasy VII, other awesome JRPGs like Suikoden and the massive popularity of the Playstation, I got mine. I only know a big brother of a friend who got a Saturn, and even he switched to Playstation after the release of the Resident Evil games.
Glad you made it through your 'youngmanhood.' I too made bad decisions that destroyed my life up to that point. Gaming has always been a great anchor for me as well.
Hi there!
As a Import Gamer from back in the day i can say that both Consoles had so much more to offer when you had your Import Games from Japan. I really liked this Episode. Thank you!
Your videos come at a time of great stress in my life. God bless you SLX
I agree with you. Popularity and quality are 2 different things. I much prefer VF2 over Tekken 3, or Dragon Force over FF7, even though they sold less. Even now, my favorite games are not the top selling games.
Love the video. Very true about popularity and the choices people make based on it. Play what you love.
Japan always gets the best games. In the UK we always got the short end of the stick. Less games and 50hz D:
@@FloridaEbikes so much bullshit. At least 60% were optimised on saturn. Pal format is superior in color and has higher resolution. I take Sega rally pal over any other version
50 hertz does suck but it was more a problem of lazy ports where they would slow the games down just to compensate for the frequency.
@Daishin no Dōro no the pal format has a better color result on itself. It wasn't the new format for nothing. It was superior. And optimised games made use of the resolution
@@FloridaEbikes you have eyes but no brain... you have no idea what you are talking about :)
@@drunkensailor112 You really must be crazy, or you're just trolling.
Virtua Fighter is still my favorite game on the saturn! i know its not the best game and definitly not the most good looking game on the system but when the music starts it always puts a smile on my face!
I want to thank you for your great and informative videos. I enjoy your rather slow style over hyperactive alternatives. I check your every video even if the content is not the most interesting to me because of your style and output. Thank you and may you continue. Sega fan from 1972.
Thanks, man. Appreciate the message. :)
A video about SEGA's history always make my eyes water!
Excellent video! Back in the days, I got an import Saturn from Japan. I live in Ireland, we have a coastal town that had a great arcade and housed all of Sega's top machines, Daytona,VR and VF etc. There is no doubt in my mind that this made me want a saturn soooo much and was willing to pay the high import price. Still own it to this day and still working fine....great console, great games and great memories!!!
Sega Saturn was my true love, when it came to playing on consoles. No other product ever filled my little room with more magic, than it did.
I don't care in 2020, how well it did back then, what i will always keep, are my fond memories with Panzer Dragoon Saga, which I hunted for days in my hometown, grabbing the very last (and maybe only) copy in a store, that still exists now.
So many hours VF2 vs my best friend, so many hours daytona, mystaria, the first US imports, the first japan imports... and i still play that old fucker nearly every week till today!
Product lol
@@sinistermetro2048 english is not my mother tongue, i apologize, if it sound weird from time to time.
@@Kiran24 lol its all good 👍
20:34 Oh man you are hitting me in the feels with that kickass outro SLX. 100% true words man, thanks for putting that out there I don't understand that either. Having personal experience with said "art" helps alot, and when you don't have it as many don't with the Saturn, it's easy to fall prey to bias and sales #s. Sales certainly does *correlate* with quality but it absolutely does not dictate its quality on its own.
This was a fantastic video SLX. Great job here, and kudos to your research and efforts. I now have a clearer set of eyes on the big picture of the Japanese gaming scene of the mid-to-late 90s. Definitely read Nomadicmonkey's comments below on his take on the scene from a Japanese youth's perspective too. I knew that FF7 was massive here in the states but dear god was I unaware that it also blew away Japan as well.
The Saturn...will always be the greatest and my favorite system ever!!!
Still waiting for Guardian Heroes 3.
I'm so glad you touched on the subject of game sales! Some of the best games out there have had low sales, and many of these reasons can be for marketing failures, release date being wrong, maybe it doesn't relate to everybody like it Call of Duty game or something like that. But it doesn't mean it's a crappy game or anything like that I can be an amazing game even if it didn't sell well!
And there we
have it. Fantastic and informative for a Saturn noob like myself, great stuff!
Moral of the story for you entrepreneurs out there: consumers are stupid. Marketing is king.
So much this. It saved Sega in the 16 bit era and killed them elsewhere. It *almost* saved the Dreamcast but Sony's marketing destroyed them just as Sega was digging themselves out of their hole.
That's only partially true. The real moral of the story here is: When you have endless millions upon millions of dollars you dont have to be a game maker, you can just buy exclusivity to the games everyone wants and become #1.
@DemonSlayer ByKnight This 100% the PS2 had broader market appeal than just gaming. Any console that launched in a window to compete with the PS2 would have been crushed without a DVD Drive. if the gamecube had launched in 00 it would have died too
@@atolm1 No, that's the story of Epic Games.
@DemonSlayer ByKnight Yeah I'm sure the 2001 game release schedule had absolutely nothing to do with it. Only highly acclaimed sequels to some of the biggest hits on the Ps1 which had at least 70+ million owners willing to upgrade by that point. Ya know...MGS, Final Fantasy and Gran Turismo? Also GTA III, Twisted Metal Black, Ace Combat 4, Armored Core 2, Ridge Racer V, Tekken T, and new IPs like Devil May Cry, Jak &D, Maximo Ghosts 2G, Dark Cloud, Timesplitters etc. Software momentum that only continued with each passing year + Ps1 back compat. Yep just dvd and price nothing more nothing less indeed lol.
Many people who (still) own a WiiU claim its a diamond covered in shadows coming from bad decisions.
I think the same can be said about the Saturn and the Dreamcast which both have amazing games each for their own but those were easily beaten by the powerhouse the PS1 and PS2 was.
Back then, going for "the wrong" console was rouge, in hignsight I feel like those who can still find excitement from those games now have more amazing titles to choose from than ever.
Great vid. I never got the Saturn due to all negatives I’d heard at the time and the over use of polygon games out me off gaming for several years until getting back into retro gaming. I’d love to see a Saturn mini some day which includes games from the Japanese library
Love your videos Sega Lord! Keep up the amazing content!
When I first saw a video of Gran Turismo on the demo disc in 1997, it was over. I would swap all N64 and SS library for that game alone, and I did, at least in intent. +20 years later and I have a PS4 with only 1 game... GT Sport. Sony got this one down to a T.
Yes, there was nothing like it in 1997! Not even on PC!
Also you add ridge racer type 4. It was game over afterwards.
Awesome video I learned alot. Love your takes and videos. Just got into saturn and you have quiet a few saturn videos. There are not alot of people who have saturn videos.
Being from Quebec, Canada, I think we just never got that console around. I’m a little young being born in 98 but even my mom who had the genesis and the Snes never heard about the Saturn. I was always very curious about it having been a fan of both ps1 and n64 despite my age and your channel delivers each time ! I really like that console nowadays, probably better than the n64
I think the problem Saturn had was it banked too hard on too few games. Like it's launch being entirely dependent on Virtua Fighter initially worked for them, but as time went on, and Sony built up easily one of the greatest lineups in the history of game consoles, with Nintendo following suit soon after, it felt like Sega just couldn't keep up. I mean, you can't feel too bad about being beaten by Final Fantasy VII, everybody got beat by Final Fantasy VII. But I think the fickleness of Sega when faced with that situation was really the final nail in the coffin for them. If they had stuck it out with Saturn, and tried to get a killer app on Saturn that could rival the competition in 97 instead of abandoning ship at the first sign of trouble, maybe the story would be a little different.
Agree, Sega should have kept working to make great games anticipating what the market would enjoy, following the lead of Playstation. They did try again with Dreamcast, whose three years of games were awesome, yet this time they failed in the west AND Japan. The real Sega nuts loved them all, but maybe it was fatigue on the part of lukewarm Sega fans, tired of all the consoles and add-ons of the 90s. It made Sega look weak & fickle compared to PS1 and incoming PS2 that were both 7-year consoles. Sony made better business decisions and had deep enough financial reserves to stick in the game long-term.
I had only a few games for the saturn. VF2, MK Trilogy,Fighters MegaMix and Daytona were my favs. Also had Panzer Dragoon, Shining Wisdom, Mystaria, Virtua Fighter 1, Virtua Cop 1 & 2, and only a couple others
PS1 gave wonderful performance in Ridge Racer. SS Daytona pop up gave an weak 3D image to customer.
Sega did the correct things in Dec95 with 3 Ace titles, then FF7 is announced on Jan96. This is a huge impact.
Mar96, Resident Evil released, PS1 has already won.
The Saturn only had one good holidays in 95 and it went downhill the next year
I really dig these videos. Definitely binge worthy. Keep up the great work
I really do love the Saturn with all my heart from the brilliant 2D sprite games of street fighter alpha to the the amazing 3D world of nights into dreams, and yeah I’m not afraid to Admit as Sega fan, when it came to Sony’s machine I loved games such as final fantasy and twisted metal, metal gear solid, xi sái and many other wonderful titles, but after years later, I looked at the Saturn closely on what made a truly spectacular machine and you were right lord x you shouldn’t love a gaming machine just because of high sales, you should love it for the brilliant art of Expression no matter what game it is and that’s why I truly love the Saturn on how much art you can Beautifully create with your wildest imagination.
This is one of your best videos ever Sega Lord X.
I will not explain why because i would sit here for a few hours.
Keep up the great content.
Back in 1995 i had to make a choice:
A. Getting a Sega Saturn
B. Getting a PS1
I bought a Sega Saturn now 25 years later i look back and i realize i made the right decision by purchasing the Saturn instead of a ps1.
The Playstation also had a sprite warping issue in 2D games, not just it's memory. That same thing that causes it's textures to warp in 3D? That also happens to their 2D game sprites. It's minor but visible.
It didn't have this problem with the sprite mode. Only with 3D textured polygons.
@@retractingblinds It does have the problem, please look it up on UA-cam. As the sprites for a PS One is a texture on square made out of two triangles, it has the same warping effect. It's not something deal breaking though... but it is there.
I'll try to look up some examples for you.
Here you go:
ua-cam.com/video/XaP8S2VPS50/v-deo.html
As mentioned it is very minor. Also early in the stage were the bubble is spawned around Mega man? You'll also see it. The bubble looks like it is slightly warped. Like mentioned, not a deal breaker... but it was an issue.
PS: There are those that start a fanboy war over it. And say it is a "emulation issue". It's not, but again, it is very minor and 99% of the time you'd not notice it AT ALL.
@@DehnusNorder you need to get your eyes checked. That wraping issue only exists in 3d games.
I bought a Saturn in japan the game library is amazing ! I enjoy it a lot
Great video and that closeout is one i can't agree more with!
Awesome vídeo, man. I hope you do similar videos about Saturn in the other regions.
Thank you so much for the videos you keep pushing out. Love them! Great work!
That was a good and oddly sobering vid. It made me sort of regret not importing Saturn games. However, I also feel like I missed out quite a bit on not owning a PSX and just bumming off friends' systems. Keep up the good work man.
Somber, passionate, yet realistic. Great research and retro coverage of a bygone era. No rose Saturn goggles here but still loyal to the console. Thanks for the Sega Saturn PlayStation port information.
Other than Capcom fighting games, I haven't looked into it but now I have something to do this morning. Thanks
Sobering not somber
Here's a reference for psone shumps and some were on the sega Saturn as well
Great video. Never owned a Saturn (don't think I've actually even seen a Saturn in real life) but from everything I've read and seen of the console, I think I would have liked it had I bought one in the 90s.
Thanks for sharing this nugget of video game history. I was geeking out over this.
Great video, definitely makes me rethink my views of that era a little bit.
I also don't get why people have to romanticize things in order to justify their preferences. There's nothing wrong with liking a console that failed commercially or that has hardware design flaws.
People also tend to romanticize the Dreamcast in a similar way stating baseless things like the DC hardware being supposedly more powerful than the PS2 (this misconception generally comes from the DC having more VRAM when in fact it's actually a huge bottleneck due to how the PVR2/CLX2 addresses VRAMl)
I love the DC for it's library and played the thing since day one (still have my VA0 japanese unit) regardless of its hardware limitations and at the same time love the PS2, XBOX and GC for what each one has to offer.
I agree with you -- love the Saturn and Dreamcast as my favorites, but also love almost every console ever released for its great library of games (whether large or small, general or niche). I think that there is something primal in wishing the thing we like the most would succeed. Loving Sega consoles is a bit like being a West Ham United supporter -- supporters know their team is 'the greatest' and worth backing as their favorite, but are always a bit jealous of the rich teams like Liverpool, Man Utd or Chelsea who have the money to buy world-class players and field the teams they do. It actually takes some 'romanticizing' (to borrow your term) to remain a supporter of West Ham for years and years...
Love your vids man. They are all so thoughtful and informative.
Really glad to hear you were able to get your life back on track and shift directions, however not every one does. To those out there on a dark path, spiraling, look for local community help, also there is Sega Saturn Emulation which you can get into if you can't locate actual hardware.
Sega Saturn also beat Nintendo here in Portugal. But here we were Segaland, Mega Drive was a massive hit as was Master System, unlike in Japan where both failed.
Saturn was also beating PS1 until they killed the console with lack of support.
One interesting bit of trivia I'm not sure if you've covered is the Saturn's relationship with Neon Genesis Evangelion, one of Japan's biggest nerd loves. During production and airing in 1995, SEGA and Gainax had a deal where, during the run of the series, Eva games would only release on Saturn, and this is even referenced within the show when Asuka stays at Hikari's as her mental health declines, as she plays what sounds like Panzer Dragoon using what's clearly a Saturn controller. Obviously, this deal didn't do much for either in terms of sales, but it's kinda neat IMO, plus it spared the world from the god awful Nintendo 64 Evangelion game for a couple years.
you should do a video like this about why the megadrive kinda failed in japan and even the turbografx16 (that "doesn't exist" in the rest of the world) sold more.
Nice touch on that Fighting Vipers music (Bahn's arena).
The PS is by no means a waste of time for 2D. It has Castlevania:Chronicles, Symphony Of The Night, R-Types, Gradius Gaiden, to name some of my favourites. It also has a much better 2D resolution range than the Saturn.
Yeah gradius is such an underrated game
Also castlevania rules
I just got a white Saturn about 2 weeks ago. I have Super Robot Wars F & F Final, Saturn Bomberman, and Rockman X3.
If you read comments by Martin Edmondson, you get an understanding of why developers embraced the Playstation for 3D,rather than the Saturn, within 24 hrs of getting a development kit, they had rotating textured polygons running, within 48 hrs the first model led car.
It's weird because Virtua Fighter isn't even a top 50 or top 100 title imho...but it got that system sold deep into the Japan market
It wasn’t a “bastion of success” but as Sega’s most successful domestic console it’ll always hold a special place in Sega’s history for the Japanese and fans of the system.
Anyway, Mel … when are you coming on the SegaGuys RetroPod to chat with us? We’re on a hiatus just now but are coming back soon, so drop me an email when you think you’ll have a window to record with us.
PS: loved that closing argument about sales, absolutely spot on. In a strange way, the Saturn’s failure makes it somewhat more alluring, I was proud to back it then and I’m proud to play it still today.
Your intro music is so good!!
The only 2D games that looked just as good on the PS1 as on the Saturn; were any game that was 24bit and under sprite based. Neo Geo, CPS1 and under (with some CPS2 games that were not overly complicated). Games which had sprites that were more cartoon and handrawn; usually exceeded on the Saturn with the Ram cart ( non Ram cart games looking the same on both consoles, with more load times on PS1for SNK games). At some point; companies just stopped trying to put 2D games on the Saturn; in favor of the more successful PSX. It was interesting to see how the trends changed. Totally noticed how Final Fantasy 7 changed the tides dramatically for PSX. Really enjoyed this video.
Great to find this video now. Thank you.
Once again, really well made video! I think the reason why sales figures are so easily brought into the discussion regarding merits of certain platform is that the experience is still to a certain extent tied to the success of the platform, although a good game (which is highly subjective) is a good game whether it sold 1 or 10 million units. But the truth is that successful platforms bring in more developers and more quality games. In movies or most other art forms situation isn't like that, because they are mostly platform agnostic formats (perhaps the Bluray/HDDVD war was the only exception for a short while, because these platforms were supported by different studios thus making movie releases platform dependent). Because of the platform dependency of video games and personal investment to certain platform, there is also of course fanboyism out there and that causes arguments and discussion easily derailing to comparing sales figures or technical capabilities, because every fanboy needs to be right, of course. It causes sugarcoating the failures and shortcomings and highlighting or even making up the successes or strengths of the platform where one has invested and is tied to a certain extent. For SEGA, Nintendo, Sony or any other video game company, it is still ultimately just business, though. Ironically, with Dreamcast, SEGA didn't made IMO many actual mistakes (based on how I see the story from "Service Games: The Rise and Fall of SEGA" book). Company just ran out of money and couldn't put similar effort in marketing (creating positive HYPE) and pushing the platform forward than its competition. Eventually SEGA needed to pull the plug from the system, so it could save itself.
Truth is that pretty much every video game platform in the history has something to offer at least from a hobbyist perspective. If not a plethora of good game titles, then at least some interesting story how it became to be and why it failed and in many cases there are interesting personalities behind the systems or some groundbreaking idea that was perhaps just too early for the time. Obscurity and failure can be really interesting in itself. SEGAs history is such a roller coaster ride from the 80s to early 2000s, so that alone makes the systems and ecosystems built around them interesting at least to me, not to mention all the great games produced for them, of course. From business stand point of view SEGA story is ironically more that of failures (MD/Genesis was their only true worldwide big success and even it failed in Japan). It is still only failure from the business stand point of view and everyone should enjoy SEGA systems and games, or any other system for that matter, for what it can offer to you. Just like movies.
Still blows me away people were so hard for 3D games that generation and in retrospect they look bad compared to the 2D games of that era. (and even some of the games of the 16bit era too)
Great point at the end, personally I thought both systems had there plus and minus. At the end of the day if you are a gamer then why not like both.
God bless Japan for keeping the Saturn alive and seeing the potential that the Saturn had. I’m glad it outsold N64 in Japan. It deserved it. Sega won Japan, but lost everyone else. What a great arcade system. Glad to see that people now know that the media was wrong about the Saturn. it was quite powerful for its time. It’s like a Neo Geo. Thanks to Japan, I can now buy a Saturn for a somewhat cheap price. The Saturn has a charm that the Neo Geo doesn’t for me. I’m glad it did well in Japan. Saturn has several hundreds of good games and tons of awesome arcade games that looked and ran better than on PS1. Although PS1 sold the most in Japan, the Saturn didn’t fail there. It was more popular than the N64. It was successful, but PS1 was a massive success. It succeeded in being a good system. The PS1 had tons of shovelware and cheaply and lazily made garbage for it. You don’t really see that with Saturn. Many Saturn games are unique and was better on it than PS1. However, the PS1 and N64 did have some great games that many should try. PS1 did better 2D than SNES ever could. 2D games on PS1 are decent enough. N64 had some good Nintendo games. The arcade ports that PS1 had are close to the arcade originals. Street Fighter Alpha 2 on PS1 was miles better than the one for SNES, although the SNES version was good for the hardware. There are some unique games on PS1, but the Saturn library seems more unique due to a lack of shovelware and high amount of special games.
"due to the lack of shovelware"
pffft nice joke there
We know you love the Sega Saturn XD !!!!!
I love Sega and your videos.
Greetings from Buenos Aires
X!
👋
I haven't followed your channel enough so I don't really know if or how much of a Sega fanboy you are. I know about the channel and I have seen several of your reviews of games. But this video impressed me. That you are so objektiv that you say what's good about competitors like Sony is really nice of you, even if I was a really big Saturn-boy back then and hated Playstation in all of its lifespan. But like others I had to realize that Sega lost the fight and bought a Playstation 2.
This video is in fact so good that I will now start to subscribe and I see that you made several other interesting videos in tha last couple of years that interest me. Would be great if you do a video about Dreamcast in Japan too, and if it's popular and fulfilling for you, perhaps older Sega systems as well. I'm starting to believe that the Game Gear was really popular in Japan too.
Thanks
I bought a PS1 when Final Fantasy VII was announced, but after playing Guardian Heroes for 15 minutes at my local game store, I got a Saturn the next day. 1996 and 2D games made Saturn my favorite, even though I had all three by the end of the year.