Saturn Why did the Saturn fail?!

[Ikagura Ikagura]

Nintendo may have been able to help but they said they did not want to. In fact the chance was indeed there and they spat in the faces of loyal retro gamers of the future. Only Sega deserves retro gamer loyalty. Nintendo is pants. They knew it. They know it. Just had less expenditure on development.

I'm sorry but didn't Sega just remove their entire Genesis library in modern supports?

 

[ThunderBoy]

Too much addons in 16Bits era

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

Too much addons in 16Bits era

The Saturn had addons? And 16-bits era? Aren't you thinking of the Genesis?

 

[Graves Ruinwalker]

Another huge point why the saturn failed was that it was only marketed and sold in America and Japan .

In europe , nobody knew , said or had an Sega Saturn . While the megadrive had a good impact in europe , the Sega CD and 32X wasnt there and Sega never actually pushed the european market so much until they put the Dreamcast out and gave europe some Sega-love again .... but with rather bad results .

They could atleast give the europeans the Saturn too which maybe saved Sega and could establish in europe much better but sadly they let Nintendo and Sony dominate the european market with the N64 and Ps1 while slipping into Failure after Failure .

Especially in britain was Sega a huge phenomenon , while in germany it was more towards Nintendo but not a huge lead overall .

 

[Deleted member 612095]

What a pity about the console but I also think there is enough choice you don't need them.

 

[PhaseJump]

At the time, Sega was releasing hardware add ons with barely any games to justify their cost. They ruined the trust in their brand.

They showed up with the expensive Saturn, it had weird marketing that was borderline disgusting. Nothing around the depressing looking 90s edgy try-hard late Gen X bullshit zeitgeist made anybody want to buy the hardware.

It was as if they were all chasing some bleak post-grunge/post apocalyptic/heroin junkie MTV edgelord bullshit. Dark futuristic nihilistic crap marketing with no impressive games to back any of the weird stuff up.

Nintendo was on better footing because SNES was still valuable and the N64 was all hype. There was trust that they would deliver again. The Playstation was better because it was practical, cost reduced, and Sony's brand was still awesome. They created a better market for developers, delivered a variety of new 3D games, and they switched to normal jewel cases that everybody prefered.

Sega killed themselves. They ran out of the money required to convince people to buy their hardware and software, they couldn't afford to continue to have a retail presence by buying back all the unsold Genesis CD 32X & Gamegear stock.

They could never compete with so many other players in the market, and as soon as Microsoft showed up with intentions on entering, Sega needed to get out of the way.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

and as soon as Microsoft showed up with intentions on entering, Sega needed to get out of the way.

Sorry but why Sega had to get out of the way for Microsoft? There could've still been 4 competitors in the field.

Nothing around the depressing looking 90s edgy try-hard late Gen X bullshit zeitgeist made anybody want to buy the hardware.

And in retrospect I kinda miss the 90's zeitgeist compared to what we're getting now. We went full 180° with self awareness, humour and overly wholesome things around games in the late 15 years.

It was as if they were all chasing some bleak post-grunge/post apocalyptic/heroin junkie MTV edgelord bullshit. Dark futuristic nihilistic crap marketing with no impressive games to back any of the weird stuff up.

I don't recall that in the Japanese released games.

Nintendo was on better footing because SNES was still valuable and the N64 was all hype.

Yet the 64 wasn't a big commercial success.

and they switched to normal jewel cases that everybody preferred.

Who's everybody? The older cases were much better and I'd even argue that the Genesis plastic ones were much more solid when many jewel cases got easily broken (at least they were easy to replace but still).

 

[MistarerX]

Sega Saturn card cases are my personal passion. One must admit they are fragile and the production standards did vary (mostly good) but in terms of feel and function they are perfect. Like books. I might suggest (now with reproductions being possible on a possibly higher level of quality) that every game no matter what console deserves an issue in one of these PAL style SS card cases. My main reason? Its the fact they can carry a pretty substancial manual. Fan projects aimed at filling out SS manuals with all the tips and tricks, being what I want to see. Sure they will be unsuitable for anything on cartridge. But really who want to perpetuate those? I'm on a Satiator for my Saturn. Most people with original hardware are favouring suchlike. All we need to represent a game is a ROM on a SD in a neat holder of some decription. EMP proof for the preservation aspect. Yea!

 

[nobitakun]

That's actually why Treasure doubled down on making Mischief Makers as sprite-based N64 game. They really didn't like what they saw on the Saturn.

Honestly, they made the right choice, Mischief Makers looks wonderful with sprites and the gameplay wouldn't be as good being 3D. Radiant Silvergun is another example, but they could manage pretty well with Rakugaki Showtime. The game is ugly as hell but it's a lot of fun :)

 

[PhaseJump]

Sorry but why Sega had to get out of the way for Microsoft? There could've still been 4 competitors in the field.

Sega was broke. It couldn't afford to compete as it was. Another company with the resources to lock up retail space and developers would have killed them entirely.

And in retrospect I kinda miss the 90's zeitgeist compared to what we're getting now. We went full 180° with self awareness, humour and overly wholesome things around games in the late 15 years.

90s marketing was bleak and different. Only Sony had the software to back it up and keep everybody happy.

I don't recall that in the Japanese released games.

On Saturn we saw surreal and weird shit, talking heads more than gameplay or art work. Nothing upbeat was showcased. The games weren't there in the marketing as often as the nonsense around them.

Yet the 64 wasn't a big commercial success.

They were still more successful than Saturn before it even launched. It had Mario hype drip fed to the media, it was all hypothetical and it still crushed the Saturn by comparison, because Sega never delivered on anything that was a big deal to home console gamers.

Who's everybody? The older cases were much better and I'd even argue that the Genesis plastic ones were much more solid when many jewel cases got easily broken (at least they were easy to replace but still).

Everybody. Retailers that had to deal with them. Home consumers who listen to music cds already. People had jewel cases and home storage for them. Long boxes were cracking easily in shipping, took up more space, and had a higher cost.

Easy to replace broken jewel cases, as you said. Why? Because they were the standard everybody used.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

Only Sony had the software to back it up and keep everybody happy.

You mean the Lynch ads? That was just a flex to say they could hire a movie director for a console ad and not showing the actual games.

On Saturn we saw surreal and weird shit, talking heads more than gameplay or art work. Nothing upbeat was showcased. The games weren't there in the marketing as often as the nonsense around them.

The Japanese ad campaign was entirely superior I agree but then again I also think that Japanese ads in general are better.

Sega was broke. It couldn't afford to compete as it was. Another company with the resources to lock up retail space and developers would have killed them entirely.

The original Xbox wasn't a success either. Maybe it would've been confusing for consumers to choose between too many different companies and consoles.

They were still more successful than Saturn before it even launched. It had Mario hype drip fed to the media, it was all hypothetical and it still crushed the Saturn by comparison, because Sega never delivered on anything that was a big deal to home console gamers.

Sega was mostly an arcade game maker.

Everybody. Retailers that had to deal with them. Home consumers who listen to music cds already. People had jewel cases and home storage for them. Long boxes were cracking easily in shipping, took up more space, and had a higher cost.

Easy to replace broken jewel cases, as you said. Why? Because they were the standard everybody used.

Yet when the 6th gen happened they went back to plastic DVD shaped cases which were better.

Even if they're easy to replace I'd rather not have to replace it in the first place.

 

[PhaseJump]

You mean the Lynch ads? That was just a flex to say they could hire a movie director for a console ad and not showing the actual games.

Sony had the games in every genre, and new niche ones like Twisted Metal. It was bending over backwards to take on Nintendo. Sega was too busy doing nothing right that would attract customers.

The Japanese ad campaign was entirely superior I agree but then again I also think that Japanese ads in general are better.

It never failed in Japan. It failed everywhere else. That's the point here. They went stupid and weird with the 90s crap in the western marketing. It wasn't an upbeat console with toys for kids that you would expect to go pick up. It was just fucked up. The whole decade was like that with everything.

Nintendo was established and had expectations. Playstation not so much, but they had games people got excited for to survive any weird marketing. In the west, Sega didn't have anything going on but Sonic being MIA, a bunch of weird ads, and expensive hardware that didn't impress anybody. They pissed off everybody with poorly supported Sega CD and 32X already.

They were pandering products to late-Gen X and early Millennials that were all about the surreal and jaded bullshit. The 90s was a dumpster fire of dismissive sarcasm and attitude in the west.

The original Xbox wasn't a success either. Maybe it would've been confusing for consumers to choose between too many different companies and consoles.

The original Xbox was successful enough in the wake of PS2, the most successful console. It brought better looking and performing games, a lot of PC style games over to consoles for the first time. Hard drive storage. Xbox Live became successful.

Sega was mostly an arcade game maker.

Which helped bury them when quick arcade style games weren't what people wanted to put money into at home. Especially after SCD and 32X had Sega taking money and running with no games.

Yet when the 6th gen happened they went back to plastic DVD shaped cases which were better.

The jewel cases were a standard thing everywhere by the early 90s, dvd cases were standard a decade later. They were widespread physical media standards that could be handled, shipped, displayed, stored at home alongside movies, etc.

Sony used long boxes at the beginning of Playstation, but somebody with brain cells figured that whole thing out pretty quickly.

Even if they're easy to replace I'd rather not have to replace it in the first place.

Right. Which is why the new standard took off for DVD movies, and PS2 made it happen for consoles.

Long jewel cases for Sega CD and Saturn were garbage that too up too much space, were too fragile or broke too easily, and they likely cost more to use.

 

[MistarerX]

At least we can all agree Sega Saturn looks best when it is done right. I wish there were more game like SFIII. That is nealry perfect just a few tweaks here and there and its the only kind of game I want to play.

EDIT: Alongside the mystical Souykyuu Gurentai over there of course. Another one that needs a whole series. Granted that was arcade - but the SS release was really done nicely.... PSX need to put in a new ship to hope to improve. Hehe. But yea got to love PSX for being easy to emulate!

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's icon TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24]

I’ve been refreshing and I’ve come to a consistent narrative that makes enough sense: SEGA’s own issues with mismanagement. The Saturn was able to take advantage of the popularity of Virtua Fighter in Japan. There was still a hunger for beautiful 2D games in Japan, so the Saturn was able to take that. There was a hunger for old games to be re-released in Japan, so the Saturn was able to take that too.

None of these things translated to the U.S. and that would be fine if U.S. SEGA was competent and HUNGRY, but they were neither in 1995. They had gotten to the top, so their bite was gone. They never had a large eye for quality, and nearly all the games they published and developed for Saturn were disappointing. And they never found a hook or a niche to fit the Saturn into with the U.S., so the system got hit with a damaging first impression it could never walk off because the company behind it didn’t even believe in it.

Worldwide? The wider landscape of Asia liked the Saturn for some of the same reasons Japan did, while also selling it as a Video CD player that could play games on the side in some territories.

Europe suffered from the same issues that the states did, but also suffered from a massive Sony bias and ad campaign that totally dominated everything. I’ve seen stories of stores pushing the PlayStation and looking at you weird if you went to buy a Saturn. If you were on the fence about which system to buy, how do you think you’d react?

Brazil has me stumped, because it was still the TecToy method that had brought SEGA success beforehand. My assumption is just that it was actually too expensive for that region, where the common household is more poor, so it was hard to make a ton of buzz with still being very expensive.
(Unrelated, but shoutouts to TecToy for bringing over the Japanese translucent and white models. Best looking Saturns right there.)

Saturn was at the right place and the right time for the regions it did well in. For other regions, it lacked a hook to call its own, and fell to its doom because the company behind it didn’t believe it could succeed. Video game systems, sadly, live and die off of marketing and the perception that they’re somehow special. Saturn failed to get that buzz, or outright had it stolen by Sony in some regions. It’s really tragic how hard SEGA failed the Saturn, not the other way around.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

There was still a hunger for beautiful 2D games in Japan, so the Saturn was able to take that.

It's curious how Sega and Sony pushed 3D yet 2D was still appreciated in Japan.

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's icon TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24]

It's curious how Sega and Sony pushed 3D yet 2D was still appreciated in Japan.

Both things can be true. Japan, from what we know, was just as hungry for 3D as the rest of the world! But the difference lies in how the market didn’t dismiss games for not being 3D. As a whole, the market wasn’t as easily won over by shallow flashiness.

Sadly, that’s not the case in the U.S., and you have several infamous examples of games selling well that weren’t very good but were carried by some hook. And being a larger/more spread out region, it wasn’t as feasible for a niche game to gain an audience when it would have to be sent to so many stores in so many places that are so different and isolated from one another. The region is, quite literally, built different.

Sales, impact, all of that matters less nowadays. Systems are no longer competing. They can all be emulated on one device, so we get to see their game libraries in the most raw form. Saturn is finally able to just… be. Have banger games. Show that it has a vibe all its own. And even back in the hardware itself, the system is a very different approach from what the popular 32-bit option was, so it stands out. And in a good way, as Saturn’s expense meant a stronger build quality for their drives than the PS1. The Saturn is finally free to be itself, and that’s garnered it far more fans than it ever had during its commercial run.

We shouldn’t lament the system’s financial woes. We should celebrate the great games it was able to give us in the time it had. We should celebrate the surreal, space-y vibe that much of the library seems to radiate. We should celebrate the beautiful 2D art and animation it was able to show. We should celebrate the unique look and feel its 3D games brought us. We should celebrate the amazing controller it comes with and the many amazing add-on controllers you could find which all boasted beautiful build quality.

We should celebrate the Saturn, because we as a collective have been neglecting it for far too long.

Post automatically merged: Jun 30, 2025

(And to all those who have been championing the system and its games since the 90’s, you get to tell the rest of us a big “I told you so” -w-)

 

[tonyhoro]

Tom Kalinske and Bernie Stolar.​

 

[Segadude113]

Saturn was good in Japan. It had better exclusives over there. But there were games that ended up becoming hits on the Playstation that originated on the Saturn. Saturn got better Capcom ports too. What hurt it wasn't the marketing. It was the price, the rushed launch, and the lack of a exclusive Sonic game that was able to compete with Nintendo like when the Sega Genesis went against the Super Nintendo. The N64 wasn't even a thing yet, they had all the time in the world. I don't blame Tom Kalinske for it. He got stuck with it and it forced him to step down. No I blame Sega themselves for not wanting to wait or drop the price in fear of Sony. Hubris? Greed? Maybe. Could be a combo of all of those things. Playstation was cheaper, had the same 3rd party support even if it was slightly worse, not enough people knew the difference though to compare them. The average consumer didn't care as long as they could play it. Then Sony came in swinging with Crash and Spyro. Sega had NiGHTS, but they couldn't decide on Sonic to focus it all on one single game. Yuji Naka was needed. That to me is why we got Sonic R instead of a Saturn version of Sonic Adventure even though he ended up working on that and moving it to the Dreamcast. Sonic R was a racing game by Traveler's Tales. Sonic 3D Blast was a slight upgrade to the Genesis version but with 3D special stages, and Sonic Jam was the Genesis collection with a 3D tech demo. Sonic Xtreme had such a messy development that it never got finished and Sega disbanded the development team over it. Could have been Sega of Japan being jealous of Sega of America. I doubt it would have saved the Saturn in the west though. Sega needed better planning. They were shooting every which way without aiming at anything. Add that to the add-ons like the Sega CD and Sega 32X which were expensive and required owning a Genesis to work on top of being a pain to set up and required multiple plugs which made Sega sell their own power strip. It got out of hand real fast. Good games but geez.

 

[fake-kun]

Because Sega was and still is filled with incompetent people.

 

[Netra]

From what I remember it was more expensive than the competition.
Saturn didn't have a good number of games at launch and Sega didn't do much to promote it outside of Japan.

From what I've read or heard Sega didn't provide much information to western developers or they only provided documentation in Japanese. And the last but more important problem: they don't localize Japanese game library into English (let alone other languages).

 

[kuroninneko]

When I was a kid I had a saturn but every store had a tiny selection of saturn games and a huge selection of playstation games. Also no main sonic game was an issue. I would just play the 3d segment of sonic jam and wish it was an entire game.

 

[Segadude113]

I'm sorry but didn't Sega just remove their entire Genesis library in modern supports?

Ah but there exists physical Sega Genesis collections on PS2, PSP, PS3, XBOX 360, XBOX One, PS4, and Switch. Some titles in them vary, but they are mostly the same. You should be able to find them used online or in used game stores for dirt cheap. Nobody outside us hardcore nuts want them.

 

[Segadude113]

Sega had a bunch of good games that they still refuse to bring back. A lot of them are in need of the HD treatment!

 

[Morgana Veil]

I think one of the biggest reasons the Sega Saturn failed was because of how it was launched and marketed. Sega kind of shot itself in the foot by rushing the console to market in North America a year before the PlayStation and Nintendo 64. That early release meant they didn't have enough time to build hype or establish a strong foothold before the competitors arrived with more polished products and bigger 3rd party support.

Sony and Nintendo had already secured a lot of big partnerships, which meant the Saturn ended up with a pretty limited library of compelling games. Plus Sega's own marketing was a bit inconsistent to say the least. Sometimes they hyped the Saturn as the "hardcore" 2D machine, but then they also pushed it as a 3D console, which confused the average buyer. Sony was positioning the PlayStation as a 3D gaming platform, and it sat better with developers and players.

Another factor was the internal confusion at Sega. They were trying to appeal to multiple audiences the hardcore gamers, arcade fans, and casual players without clearly defining what the Saturn was best at. This made it harder for uninformed people to see why they should pick the Saturn over the more established Nintendo or the rising PlayStation.

And manufacturing and pricing issues didn't help. The Saturn was kind of expensive, and its architecture made it difficult for developers to make games for, which led to fewer high quality titles. And poor timing, weaker 3ed party support, confusing messaging, and some internal fuck ups created a perfect storm that ultimately led to its downfall.

Yes, commercially the Saturn was a failure. A lot of things are factored into this, but as a system just looking at it from this standpoint, it wasn't really. It has a good library of games and most of them, if not all, are really fun and interesting at least the ones I have played. And anything people fondly remember and are still talking about some 30 years later wasn’t a total failure.

At least not to fans and retro gamers like ourselves.

 

[secreto7]

I think one of the biggest reasons the Sega Saturn failed was because of how it was launched and marketed. Sega kind of shot itself in the foot by rushing the console to market in North America a year before the PlayStation and Nintendo 64. That early release meant they didn't have enough time to build hype or establish a strong foothold before the competitors arrived with more polished products and bigger 3rd party support.

Sony and Nintendo had already secured a lot of big partnerships, which meant the Saturn ended up with a pretty limited library of compelling games. Plus Sega's own marketing was a bit inconsistent to say the least. Sometimes they hyped the Saturn as the "hardcore" 2D machine, but then they also pushed it as a 3D console, which confused the average buyer. Sony was positioning the PlayStation as a 3D gaming platform, and it sat better with developers and players.

Another factor was the internal confusion at Sega. They were trying to appeal to multiple audiences the hardcore gamers, arcade fans, and casual players without clearly defining what the Saturn was best at. This made it harder for uninformed people to see why they should pick the Saturn over the more established Nintendo or the rising PlayStation.

And manufacturing and pricing issues didn't help. The Saturn was kind of expensive, and its architecture made it difficult for developers to make games for, which led to fewer high quality titles. And poor timing, weaker 3ed party support, confusing messaging, and some internal fuck ups created a perfect storm that ultimately led to its downfall.

Yes, commercially the Saturn was a failure. A lot of things are factored into this, but as a system just looking at it from this standpoint, it wasn't really. It has a good library of games and most of them, if not all, are really fun and interesting at least the ones I have played. And anything people fondly remember and are still talking about some 30 years later wasn’t a total failure.

At least not to fans and retro gamers like ourselves.

I always enjoy your explanations and the interesting info you share.

Since you like technical stuff and are interested on Saturn and other old machines and games, if you like I want to invite you to Ymir's discord server (the new and next best Saturn emulator, it's rapidly approaching Mednafen and will be like some kind of Duckstation quality and feature wise).

The dev is great and there are other devs and techincal people helping and testing it.
I'd be glad to see you there if only to take a look.

Here's Ymir's page and there is the invitation link to Discord.

GitHub - StrikerX3/Ymir: Sega Saturn emulator

Sega Saturn emulator. Contribute to StrikerX3/Ymir development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com