In the shadow of the PlayStation: 30 years of the Sega Saturn

Contents

In the early 1990s, the Mega Drive from Sega and the Super Nintendo went head to head. Nintendo was ahead in its home country of Japan, but the Mega Drive was strong in Europe and the USA. Sega USA wants to keep the console (called Genesis there) alive longer with two combinable attachments: a CD drive called Sega CD and the 32X, which offers more power, more colors and more sound. Sega Japan, on the other hand, is pushing for a successor in order to stay ahead of Nintendo: The latter's Nintendo 64 doesn't arrive until June 1996. In the end, they do both: the Mega Drive is upgraded; and its successor, the Saturn, is released at the same time.

It was an exciting time. A few days after the Saturn, Sony launches the PlayStation. The two 32-bit consoles turn everything on its head. Instead of 2D, now 3D. Instead of cartridges, now CD-ROMs. In this country, you can only cheer from afar for the time being: both devices are not due to come to Europe until a year later. News is not yet available from the news ticker or YouTube, but from monthly magazines. Nevertheless, you can already exchange information electronically via mailboxes, FidoNet, Usenet or, very smartly, via Compuserve. Screenshots are also available; and with luck, the retailer will have received a VHS cassette with moving images.

The games

Many games for the Saturn are from Sega itself and are based on successful arcade versions. Among the titles that shaped the console at the time and are now considered classics are certainly these:

• "Virtua Fighter": the arcade machine success is one of the Saturn's launch titles. Instead of 2D like "Street Fighter" before it, the fighting game features 3D models made of colored polygons. The successor a year later uses textures on the models and motion capturing.

• "Saturn Bomberman": Considered one of the best implementations of the series. Up to 10 players compete against each other in front of one screen. This is made possible by multitaps, adapters that allow six gamepads to be plugged into each of the two controller ports.

• "Nights into Dreams": The colorful platform game from the Sonic team could pass for "Sonic". It is also available in a bundle with an analog controller.

• "Tomb Raider": Lara Croft experiences her first adventures ... on the Saturn: Developer Core Design is closely associated with Sega and previously developed exclusive games for the Sega CD, among others. The versions for DOS and PlayStation come several weeks later.

• "Daytona USA": An arcade racing game based on the popular arcade title.

• "Sega Rally Championship": Another machine conversion. One of the first rally games and one that simulates different driving behavior depending on the surface.

• "Sonic Jam": A compilation of the Sonic games from the Mega Drive, embedded in a three-dimensional lobby. Not yet the Sonic 3D you'd hope for.

• "Panzer Dragoon": A fast-paced rail shooter (in which you move through the levels as if on a rail) with 3D real-time calculation.

• "Radiant Silvergun" by Treasure: A shoot-'em-up for the arcade that only appears in Japan, but is becoming an international insider tip.

• "Shining the Holy Ark": The Saturn is less famous for its role-playing games; but they do exist; like the sequel to the Mega Drive game "Shining in the Darkness", part of the long-running Shining series.

The Saturn also comes with all kinds of accessories such as steering wheels and a modem, keyboard and mouse for surfing the web and for some online games.

Promising start

There are only five games to start with, but the launch in Japan goes well. By the end of 1994, Sega had sold 500,000 consoles; Sony only 300,000. It is said that Sega did not initially have Sony in its sights with its PlayStation. It is only one of several competitors, alongside the 3DO, the CD-i and other CD-based consoles. But it is off to an unexpectedly strong start. And the real competitor, Nintendo, is still to come.

Sega and Sony want to enter the US market (which is larger than Japan) with their 32-bit machines in September 1995. To get a head start on Sony, Sega surprisingly announces the immediate release of the console at the (first) E3 in June 1995, for 399 dollars. In hindsight, this was certainly a mistake, as there was neither an attractive range of games on offer, nor were the retailers prepared for this – and they reacted badly.

And Sony takes the wind out of Sega's sails just an hour later with a single word: "299". A great moment in marketing. US boss Steve Race is asked to come to the front for a "short presentation", says just this word and leaves. "299". 100 dollars less than Sega. Incidentally, Nintendo only presents – – the Virtual Boy at E3 1995.

The Saturn comes to Germany on July 8, 1995 at a price of 750 Deutsche Mark. The PlayStation – follows on September 29 for 599 Deutsche Mark.

Reasons for the failure

As a kind of home version of the vending machine games so popular in Japan, the Saturn does well in Japan, overtakes the sales of the Mega Drive and is retrospectively regarded as the most successful Sega console in Japan. But internationally, the Saturn is a flop. The PlayStation ended up selling ten times as many units (and the Nintendo 64 three times as many).

It's not just the higher price. There were many factors that prevented the Saturn's success, including the confusing alternative of Mega Drive with Sega CD and 32X.

• The console is technically powerful, but instead of a strong and fast processor, there are two RISC chips from Hitachi. And all kinds of secondary processors. Developers found it difficult to exploit the performance, especially to control both processors in parallel, especially as there was a lack of a proper developer kit at the beginning and games had to be developed in assembler.

• This gave the Saturn the image of a console designed primarily for 2D, while the PlayStation appeared more advanced.

• Sony launches a huge marketing campaign to introduce its first console. Even though the manufacturer has little to do with games so far, everyone knows the name of the inventor of the Walkman.

• Sony secures the support of countless developers, in Japan, for example Namco (Sega's fiercest competitor in arcade machines) and Square, who become unfaithful to Nintendo with "Final Fantasy VII".

When the Nintendo 64 arrived in 1996, Sega pulled the emergency brake and concentrated on a successor: Dreamcast was released just four years after the Saturn, in 1998. A number of projects that were started for the Saturn were only released for Dreamcast. This is one of the reasons why there is no decent Sonic game for the Saturn. Even though the Saturn sold slightly better than the Dreamcast, in retrospect it is probably Sega's least well-known console. However, it still has a loyal fan community to this day. A popular point of contact is the SHIRO! project with a website, podcast and even a print magazine.

(mki)