N64/PS1/Saturn/DC sales - US NPD

[gamevet]

While that is true, I do think they could have done something with 1997 after the holiday season. It seems like by 1997 they just gave up and the E3 fiasco was the final nail in the coffin. Putting out games throughout 1999 had to have been a better option over nothing for a whole year and a half until the Dreamcast came along. Hell I remember people thinking Sega was dead and not making consoles anymore throughout that period.

I think 1997 was a very solid year for Saturn software, even with publishers dropping off. The only problem was that the software wasn't selling, and you can see just how bad it was, when I could walk into Best Buy during February of 98 and have a bunch of great games on the cheap.

http://www.shinforce.com/saturn/Releases1997.htm

This link shows the list of games that were at E3 in 97. Most of those titles did make it to retail.

[j_factor]

Well, it does seem that the only RPGs that got released after he came on board were the 3D ones made by Sega, and not all of them at that. Yeah MKR got released, but Working Designs got the ok to do that back around 95/96.

I don't think Stolar was blocking third-parties from releasing them, though. I'd only blame him for games like Sakura Taisen and Riglord Saga 2 not coming out here (and of course, the rest of Shining Force III). And I guess indirectly for Lunar and whatever else WD had up their sleeves.

For what it's worth, Devil Summoner was slated for a US release. The supposed reason for cancellation was that they had a hard time translating some of the speech. The Lunar games also were planned, but personally canceled by Vicky.

Anything by Konami was never coming out here; Konami USA only very minimally supported the Saturn. The Langrisser games would've been nice, but those weren't coming out here regardless of system. I might have liked some of the Falcom games, but they never had a publisher.

I think 1997 was a very solid year for Saturn software, even with publishers dropping off. The only problem was that the software wasn't selling, and you can see just how bad it was, when I could walk into Best Buy during February of 98 and have a bunch of great games on the cheap.

Arguably, the software wasn't selling because the hardware wasn't selling, because it wasn't being promoted anymore at all. After Q1 '97, SoA really made no effort to sell the Saturn.

[gamevet]

Arguably, the software wasn't selling because the hardware wasn't selling, because it wasn't being promoted anymore at all. After Q1 '97, SoA really made no effort to sell the Saturn.

Sega was trying to promote the games, with offers like the Buy 2 Get 1 free ads they had in gaming magazines. They also had a 2 page spread in the May issue of Gamefan promoting Fighters Megamix. Television wise, they couldn't compete with the bombardment of ads that Sony and Nintendo had.

6 months of flat sales for the 1st half of 1997 was more than enough evidence for Sega to realize their console was toast. Especially when you don't see the N64 and Playstation having bad months during that same time period. There's a point when a console becomes a self selling product and word of mouth becomes bigger than any ad campaign; Sony had it, Nintendo had it and Sega's console was that other game box. It would have taken quite a stellar lineup of games to dig the Saturn out the hole that the competition was burying it in.

[j_factor]

The Three Free Games pack-in had sold 1 million systems, including half a million in the month of December alone. They replaced that winning formula with... nothing.

[gamevet]

The Three Free Games pack-in had sold 1 million systems, including half a million in the month of December alone. They replaced that winning formula with... nothing.

That promotion started in November and was supposed to end on December 26th, 1996. Sega continued that promotion until May, 31, 1997, but it didn't help.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Well, the PS1 and N64 sales slope down after the holidays too. Not to the same level, but they still slope down. While a lot of those titles did release, a decent amount of the ones lost were key titles.

Saying Saturn isn't our Future really was the final damning comment. The better thing to say would have been "We have a system in development, but don't expect it for another 2-3 years. Until then our focus is on the Saturn." That would have at least instilled some confidence in the system.

[gamevet]

Well, the PS1 and N64 sales slope down after the holidays too. Not to the same level, but they still slope down. While a lot of those titles did release, a decent amount of the ones lost were key titles.

Every console does that, except for the hard to meet demand PS2 that sold as fast as it hit retail during its first year.

The N64 and Playstation were selling 100k to 200k every month, during 1997, while the Saturn wasn't even registering on the charts.

I don't see a huge loss of key titles, based on the 1997 E3 list. Lunar was a niche title, the stuff from Gremlin Interactive was nothing worth noting, Wild 9's was an okay title and the biggest loss looked like Capcom's Dungeons & Dragons Collection and Dark Stalkers 3.

Saying Saturn isn't our Future really was the final damning comment. The better thing to say would have been "We have a system in development, but don't expect it for another 2-3 years. Until then our focus is on the Saturn." That would have at least instilled some confidence in the system.

The average consumer had no clue about that announcement. Even if they did, they had already made up their minds that the Playstation and N64 were the must-have consoles.

[A Black Falcon]

Every console does that, except for the hard to meet demand PS2 that sold as fast as it hit retail during its first year.

The N64 and Playstation were selling 100k to 200k every month, during 1997, while the Saturn wasn't even registering on the charts.

Yeah, it dropped to zero thanks to Bernie not caring (before, during, or after E3). A Sega more interested in selling the Saturn would surely have seen better results.

I don't see a huge loss of key titles, based on the 1997 E3 list. Lunar was a niche title,

As Vic has said, Lunar SSSC for PS1 managed to reach #1 on the sales charts, and outsold much bigger-budget titles like Grandia. SSSC sold legitimately well. It's a somewhat niche title, but not quite as niche as you suggest, particularly not then.

He's also said that releasing it on PS1 was right because it grew the games' market, but he might have done both, Saturn first then PS1 later, if not for Bernie and such.

the stuff from Gremlin Interactive was nothing worth noting, Wild 9's was an okay title and the biggest loss looked like Capcom's Dungeons & Dragons Collection and Dark Stalkers 3.

Obviously a Sega actually trying to sell the Saturn would have been working before E3 to get a better list there; a company about to say "Saturn is not our future" naturally would not exactly be putting in the effort.

The average consumer had no clue about that announcement. Even if they did, they had already made up their minds that the Playstation and N64 were the must-have consoles.

There are a lot of problems with what you've been saying in this thread, but how about I start with a few.

-During Bernie Stolar's time at Sega, in order to lose less money, he fired a lot of people. Sega of America shrunk dramatically, and it'd already started shrinking before he arrived, on top of that. The problem was that Sega had grown during the Genesis years, but after blowing things so badly with Saturn, suddenly they had all this stuff and were losing money... but the problem is, by gutting the company, they didn't just save money, but they greatly reduced the number of Western titles the system would have. I've said this before, how after the early period the Saturn sees a dramatic decrease in the number of Sega-published, Western-developed, games. Basically Sega abandoned the model that Kalinske had pioneered to success, and it helped lead them to even greater failure.

-And on that note, Bernie Stolar of course didn't care at all because all he wanted was to kill his only source of revenue, but Sega's extremely thin release list in the second half of 1997 could have been helped had Sega had more developers and external relationships still. Of course, they'd gotten rid of almost all of those, so aside from Sonic R there was almost nothing. I listed earlier how weak Sega's list of games from late 1997 was, versus Sony and Nintendo, so I won't again, but they weren't even close. The big late 1997 Japanese games, like Grandia and Shining Force III Scenario I, likely could not yet have been ready, but they could have come up with something had Sega (ie Bernie) not been firing most of its staff at the time. Would it have worked? Quite possibly not. But nothing is worse than something.

-For instance, after Sonic X-Treme missed holiday 1996, the game was cancelled and the team shut down and fired. They could instead have had something for late 1997, either X-Treme or maybe that other Sonic game they'd prototyped. And how about the Bug!/Bug Too! team at Realtime Associates? They didn't work with Sega again after the second game in late 1996. And teams that Sega had been working with on Genesis were dropped, instead of trying to continue with them. Kalinske's focus on lots of Western titles, in addition to Japanese ones, had worked. Continuing it could not have saved the Saturn, but it could have sold more consoles. Would it have been worth it cost-wise? Why knows; Sega seems to have thought not at the time, but it was likely yet another of their many bad decisions.

- You are, quite simply, wrong about people not knowing that Sega had abandoned the Saturn. That information got out there. People knew, either because they heard about it, or because information about Saturn simply stopped coming, since Sega had stopped caring. Sega had almost no holiday bump in 1997, as the chart on pg. 1 shows, because they'd abandoned their console and people had gotten the word. Had Sega still been trying, still had developers (in the West) actually working on Saturn games, actually still been working as hard as they could to sell Saturns, they would have had a holiday bump. That there was next to no bump is the proof that people knew the Saturn was dead. Living systems see a big bump around Christmas. Look at how the PS1 and N64 both hit new highs that holiday season, and then both peaked in December 1998. I know I said this earlier, but giving up less than a third of the way into the generation, and before it had peaked, wasn't just a sign of weakness and failure, it was a big mistake. People made up their minds that the PS1 and N64 were the must-have console, certainly, but Sega helped that along by abandoning the Saturn in June 1997.

-And on that note, Sega's extremely limited shipments of many late Saturn titles didn't exactly help -- obviously they were trying to just meet what they thought demand was, but demand was only that low because they'd killed the system in the first place. Self-defeating prophecy there.

Etc.

[quote]

Sega was trying to promote the games, with offers like the Buy 2 Get 1 free ads they had in gaming magazines. They also had a 2 page spread in the May issue of Gamefan promoting Fighters Megamix. Television wise, they couldn't compete with the bombardment of ads that Sony and Nintendo had.

6 months of flat sales for the 1st half of 1997 was more than enough evidence for Sega to realize their console was toast. Especially when you don't see the N64 and Playstation having bad months during that same time period. There's a point when a console becomes a self selling product and word of mouth becomes bigger than any ad campaign; Sony had it, Nintendo had it and Sega's console was that other game box.

Certainly, by 1997 Sega had messed things up so critically terribly that they probably were already doomed. But giving up, shutting down, and letting consumers forget about you for almost two and a half years is quite obviously the exactly wrong thing to do if you want to succeed... but that was Bernie's plan. Kill Saturn, wait for Dreamcast. Try to push Japan to launch DC sooner. This did not work, and left him with a massive empty gap. Going from "Saturn is not our future" to the DC release might be the longest gap ever; only Atari's 5200 to 7800 gap comes close, for companies which stayed in the console business.

Abandoning Saturn in 1997 also turned Sega's few remaining hardcore fans against them, a loss which did incalculable damage. Hardcore fans matter. They buy a lot of stuff, and help push the narrative with other fans. After E3 '97, "Sega kills systems early and doesn't matter anymore" was the story, and there was little disagreement.

I mean, of course if you want to give the Saturn a chance at actual success in the West, you need to go back to 1994 and start by never releasing the 32X, and then continue by not launching Saturn early. Even then it would likely have finished third, but it wouldn't have been nearly as bad of a blowout loss, I think. But while in our 1997 Sega could not save the Saturn, they could have sold a million or two more systems in 1997-1999, kept their name out there, defied the "Sega kills consoles early" narrative that the Genesis/32X/GG/Sega CD cancellations had created, and probably made more money than they did, too.

Basically, Sega of America let its Saturn hate, which it had had since the beginning but got even worse under Bernie Stolar, blind it into acting unbelievably stupidly.

It would have taken quite a stellar lineup of games to dig the Saturn out the hole that the competition was burying it in.

Sure, that's true, but trying might succeed, while giving up leads to sure failure. Sega chose the latter route.

[j_factor]

The N64 and Playstation were selling 100k to 200k every month, during 1997, while the Saturn wasn't even registering on the charts.

Right, because Sega weren't really putting any effort into selling it. Saturn sales declined by 65-70% for the year of 1997 compared to the previous year. That's not a natural decline, that's a serious fuck-up. Saturn was certainly never going to catch up to Playstation and N64, but there's no reason they couldn't have maintained similar numbers.

[Vector2013]

Sega and the ancient Roman Empire have a lot in common. Spread out too much too quick with different leaders, eventually east and west separation in things, tried living off their past glory and still thought they were # 1 but in the end, got took out by their once allies (Sony was once Sega and Ninteno ally) the vandals, I mean Sony. Because the vandals, I mean Sony had 1 focus. Like the Roman Empire, I mean Sega, had once in the Genesis. What was the exact Genesis of Sega's Exodus is a debate in 32 X thread too. Sony became the new power, and Sega and Nintendo were shown what finally being in the shadows to somebody else felt like.

Remember this date Knuckles, May 11th 1995, we will show most of Earth the Saturn. It's out now you know.



"The fallout was soon measurable. By September, the Saturn has only moved approximately 80,000 units -- although those slow sales were due in part to limited supply as well as the prohibitive price tag. Sony quickly eclipsed those numbers by selling over 100,000 units at launch and never looking back after the first holiday season of the 32-bit generation. SEGA's gambit failed."

[A Black Falcon]

Right, because Sega weren't really putting any effort into selling it. Saturn sales declined by 65-70% for the year of 1997 compared to the previous year. That's not a natural decline, that's a serious fuck-up. Saturn was certainly never going to catch up to Playstation and N64, but there's no reason they couldn't have maintained similar numbers.

Right. And remembering that 1997-1999 were the peak of sales for the N64 and PS1, Saturn could have sold several million more systems had people at Sega been in charge who actually wanted to sell the system. I know that in Japan the first-party library started drying up in the second half of '98, and stopped that December, but still there were a few, such as parts 2 and 3 of Shining Force III, and a bunch of Sega Ages stuff (could have been several more of those collections)... and not to mention third party games, which there surely were some major ones of Sega could have released here in the 1997-1999 timeframe had they actually wanted to sell Saturns. How about US releases of Willy Wombat and Bulk Slash, for instance? Those are games which should have come here! Magical School Lunar!'s another one, and Soukyugurentai and Radiant Silvergun, and the Lunar remakes, a wider release of Daytona USA CCE Netlink Edition (since it's actually Circuit Edition, the most complete version of Saturn Daytona!), and of course those Western-developed titles they should have been making which I talked about in my last post. How about some sports games for instance? Sega of America published a bunch of Western-made football and baseball games for the Genesis, but none for Saturn, mystifyingly. Well, there were a couple of hockey games, but that's about it (apart from Sega of Japan baseball and soccer games). Uh, make NFL games for Saturn, Sega. All those soccer games aren't exactly going to sell many US Saturns. And if they'd managed to market Grandia well, maybe it could have kept selling too, who knows. And on that note, Burning Rangers should have been a hit as well... I mean, it's a Sonic Team 3d platformer, but it sold almost nothing! Of course they only SHIPPED nearly nothing, but still, that could have done well, I think. Or at least decently.

Obviously you also release the 4 meg cart, Darkstalkers 3, at least one Vs. game, etc. as well. Perhaps even SFA3, if the Saturn could be kept alive that long (it'd need a lot faster turnover than the 10 month delay between Japanese and US release on the Dreamcast... given its August 1999 Japanese release date, even the 4-month wait for the US PS1 version would be pushing it...) Addons won't sell great, but the Saturn's hardcore fans would appreciate it, and it'd give the Saturn something it clearly does better than PS1: 2d fighting games, which were still popular. Fading, but still popular.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

And honestly the RAM carts I wouldn't really see as an add-on. Especially if they handled them the way Japan did by bundling them with games that required them.

And honestly Sega could have probably held out on the Japanese release of the Dreamcast for at least 1 more year since the Saturn actually was doing well there. That would have given more time to get the DC launch ready for Japan and more first party Saturn releases in 1998/1999. We might have actually seen the cancelled ports of VF3 and Sonic the Fighters had they done that. Heck at that point they could have released Shenmue Part 1 on the Saturn and Part 2 as a Dreamcast launch title.

[zetastrike]

Wasn't the premature cancellation of the Saturn in Japan a big factor in why the DC flopped there?

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Possibly, but I think the bigger issue was the awful launch they had there and Sony having the PS2 right around the corner.

And honestly if Sega had waited another year I wouldn't be surprised if the Dreamcast would have then been slightly enhanced with things such as a DVD drive or more RAM.

[A Black Falcon]

What about fall '99 in Japan, Christmas in the US... or the other way around? They needed a new system more in the US than Japan, after all.

Now, this would require more software for the Saturn, but they kind of needed that anway; looking at Sega's release list again, it really fades in the second half of 1998. Towards holiday '98 Nintendo had Ocarina of Time and Banjo-Kazooie, Sony had Metal Gear Solid and other stuff, and Sega had... uh... Shining Force III Part 3, Dragon Force 2, Deep Fear midyear, and not a whole lot else? That's two strategy games, a sadly somewhat niche genre on consoles (most strategy game fans then played PC games), and one game that would not have matched RE2, which released in Dec. '97 in Japan/Jan. '98 in the US. Even had we gotten all of Sega's major titles of 1998 in the West, they'd still have needed major help from Western development to save that holiday season, with a lineup that thin, unless the DC had been pushed back and Sega of Japan had done a bit more on Saturn.

I consider 1998 the best year ever for game releases, and some of the best PC, N64, and PS1 games ever made released that year, but Sega... after a good start in the first few months of the year, they pretty much fell apart.