Sega Saturn – What the Hell Happened?

When Sega was preparing the launch of the Sega Saturn console they were arguably one of the largest gaming companies around. They were coming out of the 16-Bit wars against Nintendo, which by the end was a pretty close tie (the only quantative outcome of that war was that NEC lost). The Sega Genesis was hot, the Sega CD was for all intents and purposes better than the 32X which some argue Sega should have never released. Even though Sega had a few stumbling missteps towards the end of the 16-Bit war, they were coming out of it, in many respects, quite well off.

Sega had developed studios directly tied to creating new CD-ROM based games for the Sega CD, they had a strong showing in the arcades, and their upcoming hardware, the Saturn, was to face off against industry newcomer, Sony. Up till this point, Sony had only worked on “some” hardware such as sound chips provided for the Super Nintendo. They had yet to enter the full-fledged hardware market. Sega was in position to control the fledgling 32-bit market before it even started in full swing (I know, there was the 3DO and the Atari Jaguar out already but we all know how those ended up). As history would show us, Sega very much under estimated the level of understanding Sony had of the gaming industry.

Let’s revisit Sega’s early days for a moment so that we may better understand their missteps with the Sega Saturn (and later the Dreamcast). Sega came to North America with an 8-Bit console they called the Master System. I know I catch a lot of flack for saying it was not a success. Since success is a relative term it is going to mean something different to each person thinking about it. For me, the Sega Master System (SMS) was not a success. What the SMS did bring gamers was Alex Kidd (many titles), Phantasy Star, and many Sega arcade games ported for play at home (not understanding the power of exclusivity Sega licensed many of these games to Tengen who released them on the Nintendo Entertainment System. With the Sega Genesis, Sega was determined to not make the same mistakes again.

With the Genesis, Sega was in position of fighting a newcomer to North America – NEC. In Japan NEC was the big dog, of sorts. In North America, they floundered quite hard, misunderstanding the market was one of their biggest mistakes. Sega capitalized on their troubles from the SMS days, followed Nintendo’s lead and tied up third party developers via contracts – though they were not able to arm wrestle as much out of third parties as Nintendo could achieve. The Genesis was different.

Titles were hitting store shelves regularly, fans were happy and things were going well because Nintendo had not yet entered the 16-Bit market and NEC was unable to find their head in the hole in the ground they stuck it in. Life was good for Sega.

As Nintendo made plans to enter the 16-Bit market, Sega hired a new advertising agency and was about to take direct advertising to a new level. Featuring head to head comparisons between Sega’s titles and those of Nintendo’s new Super Nintendo went well. Having a new mascot was also a big boost for Sega as Sonic the Hedgehog probably single handedly helped propel Sega to the same level, at least in the eyes of fans, as Nintendo.

Sega seemed to have arrived. They had the marketing thing down, they had sponsorships, licenses, and companies were knocking down the door to develop for the Genesis. It probably helped that the Genesis was based on a Motorola 68000 CPU so anyone programming on Atari ST or Commodore Amiga computers was already quite at home here.

Sega took Nintendo head on with titles like Vectorman, Gunstar Heroes, Sonic, X-Men, and many more. If you wanted to play sports titles then you had to have a Genesis as Sega was picking the right names and signing them at the right time. Some were a miss but for the most part, Sega had sports in the bag. They went head to head with Electronic Arts (EA) for a long time in the sports arena and in many instances, took home the gold.

Sega was living the dream. Even their Sega CD add-on was seeing more success as time went. Sega spent millions on CD-ROM game development studios for instance. Then the Sega 32X happened and things started going downhill. This is the point where I can point to single handedly being the moment when Sega lost touch with the fans. Stay with me here.

The 32X had some interesting games. Titles that should have been on the Saturn at launch including, Metal Head, NBA Jam Tournament Edition, After Burner, Primal Rage, Space Harrier, Spider-Man: Web of Fire (good luck finding that one for less than the value of a Kidney on the black market), Virtua Racing Deluxe, WWF Raw, WWF Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game, Star Wars Arcade, Zaxxon’s Motherbase 2000, World Series Baseball, and finally Shadow Squadron.

The Sega 32X was that console that should never have been released. Simple. Sega lost their vision. This is what I think caused them to launch the Saturn a good five to six months early – something many claim to be a BAD move and I happen to agree for assorted reasons.

Sega didn’t think through the early launch of the Saturn. For instance, they didn’t tell third parties they were doing this so NO ONE had games ready till closer to the previously announced launch date. This left early adopters in a bad position as they had just a couple of games to play for that LONG period of time (six months with no new games is indeed a long time). I remember this vividly – visiting my local Electronics Boutique where I was on a first name basis with most of the staff (I had a subscription style account for many genres of games on certain platforms for instance). I was there the day the Saturn went on sale. I remember pacing, thinking about it, remembering the coverage in Gamefan magazine. Listened to the sales staff bring up that they were completely caught off guard by the launch and not to expect much till later that year as far as new games. I passed at this point because by the time I did decide to buy the console they only had one game left in stock and I remember not being a fan of it, or knowing much about it and a $400+ investment to find out was not in my future.

The Saturn launched with a handful of games:
Clockwork Knight
Daytona USA
Panzer Dragoon
Pebble Beach Golf Links
Virtua Fighter
Worldwide Soccer: Sega International Victory Goal Edition

Okay, here is where I feel the problems for the Saturn start to compound. We are talking about a console that launched at $400. The 32X was less than $200 but required the $100 Genesis to run, so you have a $300 “combo” console that had better games (as listed already), never mind the bad taste in the mouth of gamers that bought into and then saw the Saturn launch not too long after. The point is, the 32X should never have been released and those games that were released on it should have been launch titles for the Saturn.

Imagine, if you will, a world where Sega did not release the 32X and instead put the effort they did in that, now not released platform, into the Saturn. Imagine if the Saturn had launched with the original six games Sega did launch with but then every couple of weeks, trickle out a couple of those former 32X titles? Imagine, I seem to like that word, if say Star Wars Arcade and WWF Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game were released within one month of the launch. Then following those up, say we got Space Harrier and Zaxxon’s Motherbase 2000, keep this up until the third parties could catch up and bring their Saturn games out.

Now, Sega was known for arcade ports so this is where I they continued to multiply their problems. Sega should have had programmers hard at work porting their arcade games, the PR/licensing department securing rights to other arcade games, and overall, presenting a more powerful front to gamers. Imagine had Sega licensed some Capcom arcade games such as Final Fight, even Street Fighter II. What if Sega had swung an exclusivity deal with SNK for their Neo Geo home ports?

The biggest screw-ups I can think of Sega committed at the time, besides those listed immediately above, is their lack of belief in their own games from the Genesis days. Compilations would have done quite well on the Saturn, especially for those five-long gamer starved months. A Sonic collection did finally make it out (should have been BEFORE the Playstation launched) and we did get an arcade compilation by Working Designs’ “Spaz” label (again, should have had that out BEFORE the Playstation launch and from Sega themselves). Sega should have had arcade compilations that featured Shinobi, Dynamite Duke, Midnight Resistance, etc. Other collections that should have been released would have featured puzzle games (Columns being the head runner there), action games (Vectorman 1 and 2, Alex Kidd, Gunstar Heroes, etc) and keep going this way till we have a ton of collections out. Fans would have ate those types of releases up as most of these games would have been LONG out of print and not readily available for purchase on Sega Genesis (remember, Ebay is quite a while away from taking over the Internet).

Sega was just never able to capture the proverbial “lightning in a bottle” that they wanted. Their marketing was just too far off. Blue tinted men and women taking up the majority of the page with small screenshots floating around them just weren’t breaking registers at stores with sales. Sega also was not making the moves that would have counted in their favor with the Saturn either. They never brought over the 4-Meg RAM expansion cartridge which kept Capcom from being able to bring over to North American gamers titles like X-Men vs Street Fighter and SNK was unable to bring some of their more demanding home ports for King of Fighters games here either.

When Sega did make a good move (Legend of Oasis, Shining Force III Part One, Dark Savior, Shining the Holy Ark and Gungriffon to name a few) they would let the momentum die. Fans had to translate Shining Force III Part Two and Three themselves and we never got Fantasy Star V, or a remake of any of the previous ones for that matter on Saturn (or Dreamcast or PC or well you get the idea). I am not knocking Nights but rather than getting all artsy with game development, Sega should have been focusing on what brought them to the dance first, then go surreal with games second. Not having a Saturn original Sonic, Phantasy Star, Alex Kidd, Vectorman, etc is pretty unforgivable.

Sega put their foot in their mouths many times with the Saturn and it cost them support from companies like Working Designs (who ported updated versions of Lunar 1 and 2 to Playstation instead) and Capcom (who did bring many of their arcade games to the Playstation, even in crippled form). Sega was losing touch with reality and it was showing in the games they could get released on their platform. Rather than becoming a recluse and refocusing on arcade games with compilations, updates, etc, Sega just kept plugging along until they abruptly killed the Saturn – destroying quite a bit of good faith with gamers and industry veteran companies like EA (who would cite this untimely demise as their reason to not support the Dreamcast later).

Maybe, just maybe, the 32-Bit wars would have ended slightly different had Sega not screwed the Saturn launch with the launch of the 32X prior. I don’t really have a problem with the early launch of the Saturn, it was a GOOD move on Sega’s part. Where they messed up was not having a plethora of games ready to follow in the five months or so till the Playstation made its debut. Sega could have controlled the market for at least a little while. Maybe we would have seen a change in the market thusly setting Sega up for continued success. Then again, gamers may have turned their backs on Sega as just rehashing their history - like they do now with the compilations that are released on nearly every platform that will play them. For me, I like to think had Sega done half of this stuff they would have been better off – I know I would have been more likely to have purchased the console sooner (I picked it up, I think the next year, it has been awhile). I love the Saturn, it is a great console, I just wish more gamers would have discovered it back then.