Hideki Sato on the Sega Saturn (incredible new interview)

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Originally Posted by Sik

Also I could imagine Sega actually considering 4x at that point but for some reason didn't end up panning out.

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Perhaps, although I do wonder if it was a speculative guess on someone's part seeing as quad speed drives were the new hotness for '94. The re-writeable CD thing also sounds like a pie in the sky concept; CD-RW didn't exist yet, and a CD-R or magneto-optical drive would have been exorbitantly expensive at that time.

There's also the issue that it wouldn't take long before somebody figured out how to use it to by-pass the Saturn's DRM.

I wonder if they mixed it up with the floppy drive? Apparently Sega was planning on it for the Saturn since early on (though it didn't end up coming out until 1996). Those are rewriteable disks technically, after all :​P

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Originally Posted by Sik

I wonder if they mixed it up with the floppy drive? Apparently Sega was planning on it for the Saturn since early on (though it didn't end up coming out until 1996). Those are rewriteable disks technically, after all :P

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The Floppy drive was pictured in the Saturn manual with the launch machine in 1994, so it was planned very early in and I bet that's where the rewritable info came from, not doubt in a miss translated bit of text; like I'm sure that the Saturn add on the cart was nothing more than some getting the wrong bit of translation from the planned 4-Meg Cart. A SOJ soruce did tell EDGE mag that the Saturn was looking to have a 4X speed drive, but I bet that was dropped due to costs.

Those are two new ace avatars, Alec and Blades.

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

The Floppy drive was pictured in the Saturn manual with the launch machine in 1994, so it was planned very early in and I bet that's where the rewritable info came from, not doubt in a miss translated bit of text;

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Not a mistranslation, Beep explicitly said "rewritable CD-ROM". I'm guessing that Sega said "rewritable disk" and Beep extrapolated it to mean CD (・＿・)

EDIT: also to note, both "disc" and "disk" in Japanese are written as "ディスク", so magnetic vs optical confusion is more likely to happen.

The manual for launch Saturns also listed a HDD.

Jesus how did I miss this shitstorm of a thread.

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Originally Posted by Sik

Most of the points in that table there are a literal translation of the table from Beep! a couple of posts earlier. Yes, even the rewriteable CD part.

Also I could imagine Sega actually considering 4x at that point but for some reason didn't end up panning out.

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The point is, in retrospect, GameFan did a much better job of getting accurate Saturn information to its readers than EGM did, and sooner, directly from Beep!

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Originally Posted by parallaxscroll

The point is, in retrospect, GameFan did a much better job of getting accurate Saturn information to its readers than EGM did, and sooner, directly from Beep!

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GameFan was great in this regard. They had a whole section for news from Japan and would sometimes have interviews with Japanese developers.

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Originally Posted by Gryson

GameFan was great in this regard. They had a whole section for news from Japan and would sometimes have interviews with Japanese developers.

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Yup, and it's awesome that every issue of GameFan has been archived: https://archive.org/search.php?query...eSorter&page=2

Gryson, is there any way you could translate Sato's comments on 3Dfx & Black Belt vs PowerVR & Katana/Dreamcast ?

Would be much appreciated.

Off topic... but, does anyone else feel like normal text now looks left-slanted after reading so much right-slanted text?

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Originally Posted by parallaxscroll

Yup, and it's awesome that every issue of GameFan has been archived: https://archive.org/search.php?query...eSorter&page=2

Gryson, is there any way you could translate Sato's comments on 3Dfx & Black Belt vs PowerVR & Katana/Dreamcast ?

Would be much appreciated.

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Eventually... I'm working on some other things now (stay tuned!).

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Originally Posted by WarmSignal

Off topic... but, does anyone else feel like normal text now looks left-slanted after reading so much right-slanted text?

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:nod:

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Originally Posted by Gryson

Eventually... I'm working on some other things now (stay tuned!).

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If you keep feeding us, we'll never leave you alone!

I'm shocked this thread didn't somehow devolve into Genesis vs SNES again.

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Originally Posted by Gryson

Eventually... I'm working on some other things now (stay tuned!).

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Excellent, can't wait!