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A TRIBUTE TO THE SEGA SATURN - by Mr Biffo

21/2/2017

41 Comments

 
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Stay with me here; my memories of how I became a Saturn owner are a trifle vague. You see, there's a point around the mid-90s, when I was writing about games for Digitiser, where everything becomes a bit of a blur.

​Getting games for free, getting games machines for free... they become less significant events in life, than if - say - you'd blown a quarter of your monthly income ordering a Mega Drive from the Special Reserve catalogue, even though you were a teenage father living with his parents, and were meant to be saving for your own home, and ohhhh... didn't your mo-mah and po-pah tell you just how irresponsible you were being by wasting money on video games...?!

What I do remember is this: I definitely had an import Sega Saturn, and I'm pretty sure I didn't pay money for it, and I'm pretty sure that Sega hadn't given it to us. Where we got it from, I've no idea, but we definitely got a freebie - no way could I have afforded the six hundred quid that importers were asking for Japanese versions. I remember this, because I recall bringing it home from work all excited, and only then realising that a) I didn't have the right sort of plug, and b) Just that really.

I had to go out the next day to buy what was then called a "step-down converter", which - I discovered - cost around sixty quid that I really didn't have. I could've asked my Teletext bosses to buy one on expenses, but it was readily apparent that they barely tolerated Digitiser at that stage, so I had to dip into my own barren pocket.

Although, as it transpired, finding one anywhere in my local vicinity proved almost impossible - and the one I did eventually buy, from a shop which sold everything from World War 2 gas masks to various types of nozzles, was the size of a VW Beetle.

When I did finally get the Saturn powered up, I discovered I could only play games in black and white. You know: like in olden times.
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BIZARRELY BOTCHED
By the time Sega announced the Saturn, Digitiser was on-side again. A new PR guy had worked hard to make up for the bewildering hostility of his predecessor, and it helped that we actually liked the look of Sega's next-gen machine.

Alright, it was a bit of a featureless black slab - and everyone agreed that the metallic champagne-coloured demo units were far nicer, and the logo looked like a tapeworm curled around a squash ball. However, we were prepared to put the messy final days of the Mega Drive, and its tawdry fling with the 32X, behind us. A new era, a new Sega. We were optimistic.

What a shame then that the Saturn had one of the most bizarrely botched launches in video game history.

A surprise US release - months ahead of the previously-stated launch date - was announced at a press conference by Sega's CEO Tom Kalinske. In fact, as he spoke, the Saturn was already in the hands of select US retailers, he told them, on a day which was dubbed awkwardly as "Saturnday". It's hard to know whether scholars of Roman history were applauding or face-palming.

While this surprise launch might've appeared like a stroke of genius, giving Sega a massive head start on Sony's much-hyped PlayStation, as well Nintendo's next machine, it upset many US retailers who weren't informed about the 30,000 Saturns being shipped to their rivals. So irritated were some, that they refused to stock Sega products from that point onwards. 

The surprise launch backfired in other ways, when Sony was able to undercut the Saturn's launch price for its PlayStation, by a fruity $100. The European launch was also brought forward to the summer, taking the market - and, indeed, Sega Europe - by surprise. Consequently, it hit stores with virtually no publicity. 

When Sega did get its act together, it mostly targeted young adults with its marketing - continuing the trend of ageing up every successive generation of hardware with its audience; the Master System was aimed at kids, and the Mega Drive was aimed at adolescents. Just as well Sega got out of the hardware game, as now they'd be selling their machines to octogenarians. Perhaps with a built-in stoma bag.

In the face of all that, the early launch wasn't enough to give the Saturn the edge. Within days of its autumn release, the PlayStation had sold more units than the Saturn had managed in the previous five months.

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BLOWN AWAY
Hey! Here's something I can tell you: when I first played on the Saturn, even in black and white, I was genuinely blown away. My first Saturn game, as with most - because it was a pack-in game - was Virtua Fighter.

​The impact of it was massive; to my eyes, it was a near-perfect home version of a game that had already been stunningly advanced when it had appeared in the arcades.

When the Saturn reached the UK in the summer of 1995, the other launch titles also impressed - Clockwork Knight was a cute side-scrolling platformer, and Daytona USA - while riddled with pop-up, and lacking in frame rate - was a playable and addictive port of the arcade game.

I attended a Sega presentation which previewed what was coming up - Bug! looked good, and even the snippet we saw of Sonic X-Treme, while somewhat on the muddy side, suggested the Sega mascot was going to make a solid debut in 3D. 

Indeed, we might've remained impressed, had the PlayStation not been lurking on the horizon. There was no more stark demonstration of the gulf in capabilities between the two systems than their respective race 'em up launch titles.

​As much as I had enjoyed Daytona USA, there was little denying that the PlayStation's Ridge Racer, as a tech demo, blew the Saturn out of the water. For all intents and purposes, that was game over for Sega's beleaguered Mega Drive follow-up.

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SONY BOY
Sega may have made mistakes, but it was Sony that really killed the Saturn. The 1996 release of the Nintendo 64 - and Super Mario 64 - put the final boot in.

Everything to do with the PlayStation was spot-on, and Sega simply couldn't compete with an aggressive Sony, and the company's huge marketing budget - around five times what Sega had allocated to the Saturn. Additionally, Sony positioned itself as particularly attractive to third-party developers and publishers, by undercutting its rivals.

While Nintendo impressed with Super Mario 64, as a demonstration of what its new console could do, it didn't help that Sega cancelled Sonic X-Treme.

​Their flagship character's only proper appearance on the Saturn (providing you don't include the Mario Kart-esque riffs of Sonic R, or the Mega Drive compilation Sonic Jam) came in the form of Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island - an isometric nonsense that could've been handled by the Mega Drive.

THE FINAL FAILURE
The commercial failure of the Saturn - it sold fewer than 10 million units worldwide (less than the Wii U!!!) - lead to lay-offs and resignations at Sega, and put the company into last place globally, with a meagre 12% share of the overall games market. Emergency price-cuts and the release of high-profile games, demonstrating new graphical capabilities, did nothing to lift the Saturn's chances. 

Frankly, the Saturn deserved better.

For all its faults as a system, it was decent hardware - the joypad was the best there had been at that point - and it played host to some of the most startlingly original games ever seen; Burning Rangers, Guardian Heroes, Sega Rally, Virtua Cop, Nights Into Dreams, Fighters Megamix, Panzer Dragoon and Tomb Raider (developed with the original intention of being a Saturn exclusive, before becoming synonymous with the PlayStation). What's more, it should've been the beat 'em up connoisseur's console of choice. 

And yet, the ultimate legacy of the Saturn is the Sega you see today - anaemic, flailing, a shadow of its former self. Its final roll of the hardware dice, coming just three years after the Saturn launch, would be more confident, more assured - but prove to be too little too late.

FROM THE ARCHIVE:
A TRIBUTE TO THE MEGA DRIVE - BY MR BIFFO​
41 Comments
Bruce Flagpole
21/2/2017 10:20:34 am

In the 'Blown Away' section the vague memories seem to have given way to confusion. Or did Digi get the dreamcast really early? :P

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Mr Biffo
21/2/2017 10:28:59 am

EVERYBODY STOP TELLING ME THIS!!!!±

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Scott C
21/2/2017 01:47:07 pm

Mr Biffo, just to let you know that a Brexit voter has hacked your comments account!!!!±

Biscuits the lovely character
21/2/2017 11:14:38 am

See also the "For all its faults as a system..." pazza (paragraph). Perhaps Biffo has always confused the name of these systems, or perhaps he can barely contain his excitement, being as he is able to write about those weird LCD controller add-ons for the Dreamcast after all this time

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Flip Slop
21/2/2017 10:28:15 am

Hmmm, I feel there may be a few continuity errors in this piece. I'm almost convinced you didn't intend to reference Dreamcast at any point, but there it is, looking right at me.
Great piece though, although ironically I never owned a Saturn and had a much deeper passion for the DC.

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MR BIFFO
21/2/2017 10:29:15 am

SHUT UP NOW!

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Andrew Gillett
21/2/2017 10:31:53 am

You've written Dreamcast instead of Saturn in quite a few places

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Andrew Gillett
21/2/2017 10:34:06 am

We insist that you now refer to all consoles as Dreamcasts in future articles.

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Mr Biffo
21/2/2017 10:40:19 am

Ha ha...

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Darren link
21/2/2017 10:38:52 am

The Sega Saturn was expensive. Then I remember there being this expansion thing and an add-on that would let you read VideoCDs.

Compared to the PlayStation, the Sega Saturn just felt shoddy - yes Virtua Fighter was good fun, but there was just something "off" about the whole thing. I remember getting excited about Nights and the fancy controller that was released with it to play the game, but there was a certain magic lacking from the console and its games to keep me drawn to it.

Now the Dreamcast, now there's a console that deserved better...

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Nights into Turds
21/2/2017 10:45:57 am

Stupid console. No good games. Awful to code for; processors that hated each other. Dreadful Virtua Racing port. Nights was totally overrated and merely the refuge of the deluded in playground arguments.

No proper Sonic game.

Clockwork Knight was quite good, but somehow not as good as Toy Story on the sodding Mega Drive.

Also was it just me, or was the cable on the revamp of the pad just waaay too short?

Owning this heap of piffle was horrible, horrible days.

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Elvo
21/2/2017 10:49:00 am

Nights overrated? More like under appreciated. Best thing Sonic Team did excepting Samba de Amigo

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Nights into Turds
21/2/2017 11:17:25 am

It was really good, but my point is that it's been sort of lionised because it was literally the only above-decent game on the machine.

Also, you've clearly forgotten Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg, which apart from anything else came with a free download for a polyphonic ring tone. Now THAT was progressive.

Fauntleboy
21/2/2017 11:24:05 am

Nights was revolutionary and felt amazing back in the day, flying around was incredible. Billy Hatcher is a middling Gamecube game I sort-of don't regret renting that time...did they also do the also-mediocre-but-strangely-lauded Zak and Wikki?

Nights into Turds
21/2/2017 11:44:45 am

I was yanking your chain about Hatcher. Not sure about Zak and Wikki (was Capcom I think? They definitely published it) but ex-Sonic Teamers at Artoon did the risible Blinx The Timesweeper on Xbox. Around the same time as making a totally bland Yoshi's Island sequel on DS, I think.

Wow, I'm feeling really angry about games today.

Bauntlefoy
21/2/2017 12:16:40 pm

You should start a youtube channel where you adopt a ridiculous 'angry' character and pretend to be angry in several interminable videos

Elvo
21/2/2017 02:57:12 pm

The only 'above decent' game?

Frank Chickens
21/2/2017 11:01:53 am

Decent hardware?

The twin processors made it a swine to program for which coupled with the poor programming tools lead to developers going to the PlayStation as it was easier.

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Mr Biffo
21/2/2017 11:02:58 am

Well... a nice joypad anyway.

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Darth Tinder
21/2/2017 11:49:13 am

I can vouch for the build quality of the Saturn - I once watched my school mates attempting to destroy one with a pitchfork, which bent. It also dented the tree it was thrown against.

As much as that sounds like damning faint praise, I do think the system deserved better and it's a product of the way things were at Sega at the time (apart from the arcade side of things, which seemed largely immune and was always excellent).

Otter
21/2/2017 12:23:07 pm

'I can vouch for the build quality of the Saturn - I once watched my school mates attempting to destroy one with a pitchfork, which bent. It also dented the tree it was thrown against.'

This might be the best sentence in digi2000 comments so far

Darth Tinder
21/2/2017 02:16:51 pm

Oh, and I just remembered that I last saw that Saturn under my mate's bed and it was pretty much intact, except inside the CD drive he'd written "IF YOU STEAL THIS YOUR (sic) A RETARD" in Tippex.

The tree as far as I know is still standing.

DEAN
21/2/2017 04:34:15 pm

LOL - yep, best comment I've read!

Im Not Here
11/5/2017 07:19:40 pm

It still had decent hardware, the sound was amazing, the 2d capabilities exceptional, and the controllers were good.

3d was problematic, but could still match most of the playstation towards the end - it just took far too long to reach that point (using different polygons, and texture mapping craziness, was more of a problem than the processors, the processor issue was mostly fixed by Sega coders fairly early).

The problems unfortunately caused too much damage to the console early, and were not overcome fast enough, but the hardware had plenty going for it.

Also I am late to the article, as you may have guessed if you actually see this.

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Wicked Eric
21/2/2017 11:51:00 am

Due to brainwashing by the sega mags I was reading at the time I was that poor kid who asked for a Saturn instead of a Playstation, so I reflexively feel the need to defend its honour to this day.

I loved my Saturn. It had its own distinctive catalogue, largely thanks to Sega's arcade dominance at the time.

There's loads of games I remember fondly: Virtua Cop 1 & 2, House of the Dead, Sega Rally, Daytona Championship Edition, Manx TT, Virtua Fighter 2, Fighters Megamix, Virtual On, Nights, Exhumed, Tomb Raider, Legend of Thor, Shining Force 3, Enemy Zero, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Wipeout 1 & 2097, Die Hard Trilogy, Panzer Dragoon Saga...

It wasn't a bad catalogue by any means but in the cold light of 2017 I'm willing to concede that I maybe should have saw through the sega mag propaganda and plumped for a PS1 like everyone else (or a PSX as everyone called it at the time for some inexplicable reason).

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Elvo
21/2/2017 02:53:02 pm

You weren't the only one. I'd been out of games for sometime and wanted to get back in to it. I called a games shop and asked what to go for and they said it was down to whether I wanted to play ridge racer or Sega rally. I'd been impressed by Sega rally on a big screen somewhere so decided to go for that. It was always a problem as people are reluctant to get to know the controls. Same happened with my game cube (when everyone had ps2). I'm not fussed though, it makes me feel like I'm cooler than my mates and that's what's important

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Wariospeedwagon
25/2/2017 08:50:05 pm

Yep. My parents backed Sega too. I liked it well enough, but we got it so late in the machine's life that we could no longer purchase memory cartridges locally in Tasmania, so we couldn't save our games! Coupled with the fact that Mum misread the instructions and thought you could get epilepsy from gaming for longer than 1 consecutive hour meant that i hardly clocked anything on it. I was awesome at the first 4 levels of Tomb Raider though.

The family were BIG fans of Sega Worldwide Soccer 97. Don't really hear much about it anymore but it was great fun back in the day.

Spiney O'Sullivan
22/2/2017 08:35:42 am

What, no Burning Rangers on that list?

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Elvo
21/2/2017 01:01:47 pm

What about all the great 2d shoot em ups and import beat wm ups? That was where it was at on Saturn for me

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Darth Tinder
21/2/2017 02:08:39 pm

The Saturn had a 10-player Bomberman game too, didn't it? I can't hate on a console that has that going for it.

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Elvo
21/2/2017 02:47:27 pm

It did indeed. Would have got one of all my mates weren't playing on a PS1 somewhere

Jim
21/2/2017 04:16:57 pm

My favourite console ever, worth mentioning that the original European controller was terrible, they moved over to the Japanese one later on in its life cycle, or something.

I had the ten player bomber man with multitap, and the 50 60hz switch for importing games like radiant silver gun, I even unlocked death tank by destroying all the toilets in Duke nukem. I really was that cool!

Without the Saturn I never would have got into game development, and would probably be doing something rubbish as a career instead, so it gets plenty of love from me x

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Clive peppard
21/2/2017 05:28:09 pm

I only ever knew one person that had a dreamcast (Saturn) and i remember loving Sega Rally, enjoying Panzer Dragoon and hating Virtua Fighter cos i always lost.

This is the sum total of my experience here.

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Dirty Barry
21/2/2017 11:04:12 pm

The ungnified slow death of the Saturn at the hands of the PS1 marks a big change for the worse jn gaming imo.

Sony was so good at advertising and being trendy, the Saturn never got a fair crack of the whip. Saturn had the best beat em ups and was the best at 2D games, but above all it had the quirkiest games. Something like Nights, in which you take on the role of an asexual harlequin flying through a surreal dreamworld just isn't the sort of thing you see any more. The world of gaming is worse off as a result. No doubt there are indie games as weird and wonderful as Nights, but a triple A title of that nature with it's own pad? Sega were taking a real artistic risk going for something like that.

Similarly the Dreamcast deserved better, such a great selection of incredibly original games with new concepts. Shenmue, Jet Set Radio, Seaman etc etc.

I was primarily a SNES and NES guy, but the Saturn converted me to Sega for two generations, leaving me very nostalgic about Sega. Shame the Dreamcast 2 never happened.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
22/2/2017 08:38:51 am

To be fair, the Saturn was indisputably worse at 3D, which probably would have killed it in the west anyway.

Though as a big Sega fanboy in the 90s, I would have found it hard to admit that...

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Dirty Barry
24/2/2017 10:17:06 am

Yeah, for some reason, despite the success of their 3D arcade games, Sega thought 3D would be a passing fad.

In hindsight I'd argue that the 3D of the 32 bit era was quite hideous on both consoles. Something like Street Fighter Alpha on Saturn has aged much better and is generally more pleasant to look at than Virtua Fighter or Tekken imo.

It comes down to what games you like, I've just become aroused at the thought of how good the Saturn was at 2D beat em ups.

dexterity michael
22/2/2017 09:35:50 am

I don't think I agree with the 'quirk' claim: revolutionary as the flying around was, Nights' world and character design is very kid-safe and unremarkable. Didn't playstation launch with a full 3D platformer (very rare at the time) in which you play a robotic rabbit?

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Dirty Barry
24/2/2017 11:42:18 am

Michael "that's just, like, your opinion man".

Kid friendly or not, Nights was a platformer without platforms, a score attack game and even had the A-life which made the music change according to how well you treated the nightopians/mepians - so it had a sort of musical god game element as well.

The quirkiness and originality of many Saturn games shone through. It didn't stop at Nights, Burning Rangers, Panzer Dragoon and many others were delightfully weird. Not to mention the Japanese imports.

When I think of PS1, I think of sports games, metal gear solid, destruction derby etc etc. The Saturn was an acquired taste, a connoisseur's console. The PS1 was favoured by those lads with their tracksuit bottoms stuffed into their socks, remember them?

Kelvin Green link
23/2/2017 07:35:27 pm

I loved the Master System and the Mega Drive so when the Saturn came around I... bought a PlayStation.

I remember that I couldn't decide between the two consoles and that it was -- of all things -- the PlayStation's black discs that swayed me. A ridiculous reason to make a choice, but it turned out to be the right one.

In hindsight, I'd obviously gone off Sega to some extent otherwise I would never have even considered a PlayStation. I think it may have been Sega's unconvincing attempts to upgrade the Mega Drive.

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Vincent Vega
20/3/2017 05:05:06 pm

i think your import saturn came from "computer games" shop on goldhawk road, shepherds bush. (joke)

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JameelPerkins
8/10/2022 01:54:51 am

I wish sega saturn was on switch online sega family please help out. ?

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