The joint SEGA-SONY hardware system - Sega of America and Sony tried to team up

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Originally Posted by Guntz

inb4 christuserloeser

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Nah, I think I'm getting too old for this. I have done my therapeutic venting since I joined this forum. I'm pretty much healed right now. And I think a lot of missing puzzle pieces have turned up by now thanks to some recent interviews here at Sega-16 and I even got to see some of my speculations confirmed.

I agree with old man and sheath that we again have to deal with the same old accusations on how stupid Sega /of Japan supposedly was and that is that. Who cares how great of a machine Saturn really was and how SoA and SoE had no idea how to sell it in the West, and perhaps more importantly: how everyone underestimated Sony and what a terrific job they did at selling PlayStation. Saturn fell behind from day one and never caught up again. The problem never was the hardware.

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Originally Posted by Christuserloeser

Nah, I think I'm getting too old for this. I have done my therapeutic venting since I joined this forum. I'm pretty much healed right now. And I think a lot of missing puzzle pieces have turned up by now thanks to some recent interviews here at Sega-16 and I even got to see some of my speculations confirmed.

I agree with old man and sheath that we again have to deal with the same old accusations on how stupid Sega /of Japan supposedly was and that is that. Who cares how great of a machine Saturn really was and how SoA and SoE had no idea how to sell it in the West, and perhaps more importantly: how everyone underestimated Sony and what a terrific job they did at selling PlayStation. Saturn fell behind from day one and never caught up again. The problem never was the hardware.

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Repped.

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Originally Posted by Christuserloeser

Nah, I think I'm getting too old for this. I have done my therapeutic venting since I joined this forum. I'm pretty much healed right now. And I think a lot of missing puzzle pieces have turned up by now thanks to some recent interviews here at Sega-16 and I even got to see some of my speculations confirmed.

I agree with old man and sheath that we again have to deal with the same old accusations on how stupid Sega /of Japan supposedly was and that is that. Who cares how great of a machine Saturn really was and how SoA and SoE had no idea how to sell it in the West, and perhaps more importantly: how everyone underestimated Sony and what a terrific job they did at selling PlayStation. Saturn fell behind from day one and never caught up again. The problem never was the hardware.

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I do think it was mostly a marketing issue. Sega of America apparently lost a real leader in Scot Bayless shortly after the 32X's very successful launch. I suspect that Sega of America was new enough that seeing a very energetic character like Bayless bail out hurt the organization as a whole. I also suspect that rumbles of Sega of Japan canceling the 32X, Genesis and Sega CD that were being leaked to the press by mid 1995 hurt the organization even more.

The issue wasn't necessarily that SoA didn't know how to market the Saturn. I suspect that nobody with any power was very interested in the company anymore and were too busy finishing up their previous efforts and finding jobs elsewhere.

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Originally Posted by Christuserloeser

Nah, I think I'm getting too old for this. I have done my therapeutic venting since I joined this forum. I'm pretty much healed right now. And I think a lot of missing puzzle pieces have turned up by now thanks to some recent interviews here at Sega-16 and I even got to see some of my speculations confirmed.

I agree with old man and sheath that we again have to deal with the same old accusations on how stupid Sega /of Japan supposedly was and that is that. Who cares how great of a machine Saturn really was and how SoA and SoE had no idea how to sell it in the West, and perhaps more importantly: how everyone underestimated Sony and what a terrific job they did at selling PlayStation. Saturn fell behind from day one and never caught up again. The problem never was the hardware.

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I think this analysis is flawed because the issues with the hardware (how hard it was to program for, not quite as good 3d as the PS1) were key behind some of the media skepticism that helped the Playstation win... and more importantly, the Saturn's over-complex hardware was the reason why it cost so much to make, and THAT was definitely one of the keys to Sony's victory in 1995. The games were one part (and Sony had more games Westerners wanted), the price was another.

But anyway, yeah, it's quite clear now that Sega of America never liked the Saturn... but saying that the hardware had nothing to do with it is wrong, their main reasons for disliking it were BECAUSE of the hardware. So no, I think that the flawed hardware Sega of Japan insisted on caused many of Sega's problems that generation.

You certainly are right that Sony sold its system much better, but I do think Sega of America would have tried harder if they'd had better hardware; from the beginning they thought that the Saturn was the wrong system for the US (and Europe too, I believe), and that undercut the system; that attitude led towards Bernie Stolar, ultimately, I think. I don't think we can ever answer exactly how much of that skepticism was accurate, and how much of it was a self-fulfilling prophecy (ie Sega losing because they didn't try?), though. I mean, it happened as it did, can we really tell how much of it was one and how much was the other, afterwards? That'd be pretty difficult I think. There were probably some of each involved... but the flawed hardware was central to a lot of the systems' problems. The existence of the 32X created most of the rest of them, I think. I mean, the Saturn didn't have enough games early on, but Sega had had a bunch of teams working on 32X games... more games early on could have been a big help to the Saturn.

(Oh, and yeah, everyone certainly massively under-estimated Sony, agreed.)

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Originally Posted by Da_Shocker

Kalinske lies way to much.

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Yep lies and spins too much and will never ever admit he got it and call it wrong

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. Kalinske was nothing more that a used car salesman.

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Yeah you couldn't make it up . Knocking the N64 for going with Carts and then praising the 32X for doing the same . Mind you Tom now says he wasn't happy with the Saturn or its Tech - What happend to that 2 page hand written letter by TOM praising the Saturn, its Games and its tech Tom that you did . Lies and Spin for the king of spin


Lets face it with out Sonic or John Madden he would have been nothing - that's what sold the Mega Drive in America not Tom.

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Originally Posted by A Black Falcon

Saturn's over-complex hardware was the reason why it cost so much to make, and THAT was definitely one of the keys to Sony's victory in 1995.

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Agreed, the price played a huge role as well which indeed could have been avoided if the hardware was just slightly simpler (or if they were ready to take a loss). They clearly must have envisioned a much longer adoption rate, kinda like Sony did with PS3.

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Originally Posted by A Black Falcon

But anyway, yeah, it's quite clear now that Sega of America never liked the Saturn... but saying that the hardware had nothing to do with it is wrong

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Yes, it is. I oversimplified. My point was that Saturn as it was had a real chance back then. It was an excellent hardware for its time.

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Originally Posted by A Black Falcon

I mean, it happened as it did, can we really tell how much of it was one and how much was the other, afterwards? That'd be pretty difficult I think. There were probably some of each involved... but the flawed hardware was central to a lot of the systems' problems. The existence of the 32X created most of the rest of them, I think.

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Yeah, not easy to really find out who did what when and why. It's really easy to blame this one part of the company for the entire thing when it's quite obvious the other part was involved as well. I think everything just came together: the mistakes they did accumulated over time.

In the end Sega had as bad a rep [in the West!] when Sony entered the market as Nintendo had when Sega launched the Genesis.

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Originally Posted by A Black Falcon

I mean, the Saturn didn't have enough games early on, but Sega had had a bunch of teams working on 32X games... more games early on could have been a big help to the Saturn.

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In fact they were working on MD/G, GG/SMS, SCD, 32X, Saturn, and arcade games.

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Originally Posted by sheath

I also suspect that rumbles of Sega of Japan canceling the 32X, Genesis and Sega CD that were being leaked to the press by mid 1995 hurt the organization even more.

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We do know that they didn't cancel anything until 1996 (two years after Saturn's launch, and two years prior Dreamcast), and it only applied to the Japanese market anyway (reliable sources for this are all over the forum).

While I personally would have loved to see more Japanese MD games, it certainly came way too late for Saturn.

And it's not like they released those games over here anyway.

Here again, the Saturn had no dearth of software early on. More games would have just gotten lost in the mainstream mix, like High Velocity did already. It is interesting that the Genesis and Sega CD were only canceled in Japan by 1996, but that effectively killed them here as well as the 32X.

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Originally Posted by sheath

Here again, the Saturn had no dearth of software early on.

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The problem here is perspective. Again, Sony did an excellent job at providing PlayStation with the best possible software line up: In Japan we got Namco with Ridge Racer and Tekken, but also Gunner's Heaven aka Rapid Reload, Jumping Flash! and Battle Arena Toshinden. In Europe we got Wipeout, Destruction Derby, Discworld, Lomax, Lemmings 3D and Mickey Mania, in the US we got Mortal Kombat 3, and DOOM. DOOOOOM! *thunder roaring* - Some really high profile games here.

Let's have a look at what software Sega provided to Saturn fans in its first 12 months:

Bug! Sega Saturn 1995 Sega North America Yes
Clockwork Knight Sega Saturn 1995 Sega North America Yes
Cyber Speedway Sega Saturn 1995 Sega North America Yes
Daytona USA Sega Saturn 1995 Sega North America Yes
High Velocity: Mountain Racing... Sega Saturn 1995 Atlus North America Yes
Mansion of Hidden Souls, The Sega Saturn 1995 Sega North America Yes
Panzer Dragoon Sega Saturn 1995 Sega North America Yes
Sega Rally Championship Sega Saturn 1995 Sega North America Yes
Shinobi Legions Sega Saturn 1995 Vic Tokai North America Yes
Virtua Cop Sega Saturn 1995 Sega North America Yes
Virtua Fighter Sega Saturn 1995 Sega North America Yes
Virtua Fighter 2 Sega Saturn 1995 Sega North America Yes
Virtua Fighter Remix Sega Saturn 1995 Sega North America Yes
Virtua Racing Sega Saturn 1995 Time Warner North America Yes
Wing Arms Sega Saturn 1995 Sega North America Yes
World Series Baseball Sega Saturn 1995 Sega North America


Virtua Fighter 1, Daytona USA, Bug! and Clockwork Knight had to compete with the PlayStation games I mentioned earlier and failed miserably to do so in the eyes of the public. The only game that was technically solid was Clockwork Knight. The others looked really rushed with lots of bugs and pop ups. The visual quality (or lack thereof) made Saturn look like an Atari Jaguar in comparison to what was available on PlayStation. The rushed nature of these games without a doubt was the result of the 32X resource drain.

Note how there's no Sonic game (i.e. no Knuckles Chaotix), no DOOM (32X got a port), not even a proper port of Virtua Racing (Virtua Racing Deluxe) which instead got outsourced to Time Warner (?) and released at the end of 1995 instead of being a (low budget) launch title.

The few hidden gems on that tiny list of exclusive Saturn games were only hidden gems because they did not get any attention by marketing: Shinobi Legions wasn't even published by SoA for whatever reason. High Velocity was VERY impressive back in the day and proved beyond a doubt that Saturn's Daytona USA port was a rushed job and not the result of inferior hardware. Yet, it got no attention back when it got released. Oh, and speaking of no attention: Panzer Dragoon would have made an excellent pack-in game at launch if you ask me.

The real highlights here are Virtua Figher 2 and Sega Rally but those didn't come out until Christmas 1995 and early 1996 in Europe. The hype train for PlayStation was unstoppable at that point in time.

From my 15 year old at the time it failure seemed fairly simple. First off when it came out no one knew it was out I freaking mean no one. Its like they dropped off at the few retailers as an afterthought. Secondly the price was far to high. There were some games of course like that were amazing like Panzer Dragoon but not enough. A few months later the VF/Daytona Vs Toshinden/Ridge Racer really made Sega look stupid at the time as unfair as that argument looks now.

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Originally Posted by Iron Lizard

First off when it came out no one knew it was out I freaking mean no one. Its like they dropped off at the few retailers as an afterthought.

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In Europe it got released four weeks earlier than initially planned I think. No one knew it even existed here either. No TV campaign, nothing.

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Originally Posted by A Black Falcon

I think this analysis is flawed because the issues with the hardware (how hard it was to program for, not quite as good 3d as the PS1) were key behind some of the media skepticism that helped the Playstation win... and more importantly, the Saturn's over-complex hardware was the reason why it cost so much to make, and THAT was definitely one of the keys to Sony's victory in 1995. The games were one part (and Sony had more games Westerners wanted), the price was another.

But anyway, yeah, it's quite clear now that Sega of America never liked the Saturn... but saying that the hardware had nothing to do with it is wrong, their main reasons for disliking it were BECAUSE of the hardware. So no, I think that the flawed hardware Sega of Japan insisted on caused many of Sega's problems that generation.

You certainly are right that Sony sold its system much better, but I do think Sega of America would have tried harder if they'd had better hardware; from the beginning they thought that the Saturn was the wrong system for the US (and Europe too, I believe), and that undercut the system; that attitude led towards Bernie Stolar, ultimately, I think. I don't think we can ever answer exactly how much of that skepticism was accurate, and how much of it was a self-fulfilling prophecy (ie Sega losing because they didn't try?), though. I mean, it happened as it did, can we really tell how much of it was one and how much was the other, afterwards? That'd be pretty difficult I think. There were probably some of each involved... but the flawed hardware was central to a lot of the systems' problems. The existence of the 32X created most of the rest of them, I think. I mean, the Saturn didn't have enough games early on, but Sega had had a bunch of teams working on 32X games... more games early on could have been a big help to the Saturn.

(Oh, and yeah, everyone certainly massively under-estimated Sony, agreed.)

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Agreed on all points.

I also reiterate that Sonic Xtreme's biggest problem was that it started development on 32X , and imagine the hell STI was going through having to port their baby to completely different hardware with a totally different architecture and design. Having to shift all resources to another platform is problematic especially if you don't know how to probably design for it.

This was a RED flag right here that should have told STI the project was DOOMED. Xtreme should have been axed in 1995. Peter Morewic's Sonic Pool project had the potential to become something neat had STI understood that this Project had better shot of making it off the drawing board because it was developed from the ground up on Saturn hardware.

Good points in post 38 as well Christuserloeser.

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Originally Posted by A Black Falcon

I think this analysis is flawed because the issues with the hardware (how hard it was to program for, not quite as good 3d as the PS1) were key behind some of the media skepticism that helped the Playstation win... and more importantly, the Saturn's over-complex hardware was the reason why it cost so much to make, and THAT was definitely one of the keys to Sony's victory in 1995. The games were one part (and Sony had more games Westerners wanted), the price was another.

But anyway, yeah, it's quite clear now that Sega of America never liked the Saturn... but saying that the hardware had nothing to do with it is wrong, their main reasons for disliking it were BECAUSE of the hardware. So no, I think that the flawed hardware Sega of Japan insisted on caused many of Sega's problems that generation.

You certainly are right that Sony sold its system much better, but I do think Sega of America would have tried harder if they'd had better hardware; from the beginning they thought that the Saturn was the wrong system for the US (and Europe too, I believe), and that undercut the system; that attitude led towards Bernie Stolar, ultimately, I think. I don't think we can ever answer exactly how much of that skepticism was accurate, and how much of it was a self-fulfilling prophecy (ie Sega losing because they didn't try?), though. I mean, it happened as it did, can we really tell how much of it was one and how much was the other, afterwards? That'd be pretty difficult I think. There were probably some of each involved... but the flawed hardware was central to a lot of the systems' problems. The existence of the 32X created most of the rest of them, I think. I mean, the Saturn didn't have enough games early on, but Sega had had a bunch of teams working on 32X games... more games early on could have been a big help to the Saturn.

(Oh, and yeah, everyone certainly massively under-estimated Sony, agreed.)

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It's not flawed at all. Look at how difficult it was to program for the PS2 yet it had the most 3rd party support by far compared to the DC, X-Box, and GCN. And it dominated that generation. Developers don't care about if a system is difficult to program for or not just what kind of market penetration does it have.

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Originally Posted by Da_Shocker

Kalinske is the same guy that berated Nintendo for going with carts for the N64 then in the same interview saying how great the cart based 32X was. Kalinske was nothing more that a used car salesman.

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Those are two entirely different scenarios. Using a cart-based add-on to extend the life of a five-year-old, cart-based console makes sense. Using cartridges for a brand new console that would be the company's future when the entire industry is going optical doesn't.

And I don't think you can really blame Kalinske for the "used car salesman" approach. What the hell was he SUPPOSED to say? "Our hardware sucks"? OF COURSE he's going to talk positive. You guys need to go read the things Howard Lincoln was saying during the 16-bit era. If you don't like Kalinske's comments, you'll HATE Lincoln's.

Oh and, this article is awesome, but we broke most of this news seven years ago. :p

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Originally Posted by Melf

Those are two entirely different scenarios. Using a cart-based add-on to extend the life of a five-year-old, cart-based console makes sense. Using cartridges for a brand new console that would be the company's future when the entire industry is going optical doesn't.

And I don't think you can really blame Kalinske for the "used car salesman" approach. What the hell was he SUPPOSED to say? "Our hardware sucks"? OF COURSE he's going to talk positive. You guys need to go read the things Howard Lincoln was saying during the 16-bit era. If you don't like Kalinske's comments, you'll HATE Lincoln's.

Oh and, this article is awesome, but we broke most of this news seven years ago. :p

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Well the thing is that carts are still expensive though and Sega's plan was for the 32X to last well into 1998. And some of the shit he says he sounds liek he is outright lying. We offered the PSx and N64 hardware buy SoJ said no lol.