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Most impressive 3D-Games for the Sega Saturn

  • Thread starter SpongebobSquaredance
  • Start date
I seriously doubt the Saturn would be able to handle Banjo-Kazooie with the same detail, draw distance and frame rate as the N64 version. That game was released in 1998, the same year the Saturn was discontinued. But even as a late game it wouldn't be possible i think. Even if the Saturn would last 3 more years, i still wouldn't believe it could. Not without huge sacrifices.

TBF the PS1 likely couldn't of done a Banjo-Kazooie either, but the Saturn did have the benefit of the 1 MB and 4 MB RAM cartridges, and Sega had plans for a Saturn SVP-style cartridge upgrade (it was at least in some stages of prototyping). Banjo-Kazooie is an example of a game, though, where we don't have a lot of equivalents on Saturn to fairly compare it to, because that game got AAA funding through Rare & Nintendo, whereas Sega was already scaling back budgets for a lot of 1P games due for 1998 in 1997.

Again, I think the 3D bonus world in Sonic Jam shows something at least on the level of Mario 64 would've been possible; expecting something like BK on Saturn with that level of texture detail may've been a bigger challenge, though there is the Saturn Shenmue demo (apparently running on a stock Saturn with no extra cartridges) that has a pretty high level of detail and fidelity for a demo.

The closest the Saturn came to that quality was the 3D area in Sonic Jam. But that was a much smaller map that felt like a technical demo. It would have to be something like Sonic-R, with a very short draw distance. Even the venerable Nights has very low environmental detail and it still has an extremely low draw distance. There's also that Penguin platform game that looks very similar to Mario 64 (a launch title for N64) but again, it has smaller levels, shorter draw distances (but still better than Nights and Sonic-R) and a more "boxy" design.

Yeah, I touched on the 3D area in Sonic Jam earlier, and Sonic R does provide a pretty good view into what a 3D Sonic potentially could've looked like on Saturn as well. But the thing here is you're using games from as early as 1996 (NiGHTS) to compare against a mid-late 1998 N64 game. Two more years meant a lot of extra time to learn the hardware and ramp up budgets, something Banjo-Kazooie benefited from.

As for Banjo-Kazooie, I'm not sure if even the PS1 would be able to handle that game, it does have some nice 3D free-roaming platformers but i don't remember anything with the same 3D detail density.

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In a lot of ways Banjo-Kazooie was an outlier for N64 games WRT texturing; there's still some of that soft blurring present but it's nowhere near as abrasive as on earlier N64 titles or even some of the games that came after BK's release. It also doesn't suffer from N64's trademark fog, either.

Maybe in terms of anti-aliasing and some aspects of texture mapping you couldn't recreate BK on PS1, and you'd probably also have more framerate drops and more load times obviously, but I think games like Spyro 2 showed that some form of that type of platformer could be done on PS1 if it was smartly designed. We don't have as many examples to draw from on Saturn but again, with aspects of the games you mentioned like Sonic Jam, Sonic R, etc., I think some form of a BK-style game could've been done on Saturn as well.

I mean hey, a lot of people though stuff like RE2 was literally impossible on N64 but Angel Studios made it happen against all odds. Many thought fast-paced 3D FPS was impossible on Saturn but Labotomy made it work with games like Powerslave/Exhumed. Can't put anything past extremely talented devs.

Not sure if anyone saw the video on 4 times the 32x beat the Saturn, but also through that I found this, which basically goes into how Virtua Racing on the Saturn ended up not being the definitive port, highly recommended!:



Pretty cool channel; lots of interesting details in some of the longer game reviews you usually don't see mentioned too often. Jenovi's one of the few other channels I've seen bring up some of those obscure type of details WRT Sega at the time.
 
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Bernie Stolar gets all the hate from Sega fans and almost all of it comes from that infamous EGM interview. In fact, Saturn was already desd in the US by that point. The hardware was losing money (Sony’s price drop to $199 just killed them),

Was it? Try watching one of the Jenovi videos on Sega consoles, he provides data showing how Saturn was ultimately profitable for Sega from 1994 to 1998. Yeah, they did some "questionable" things (like intentionally limiting system production numbers for book-cooking purposes), but Saturn didn't lose Sega money.

Marketshare? Absolutely. But not money.

the software was losing money, there were no breakout hits and the gaming public had already moved on.

This is an EXTREMELY Western-focused view on the system; Saturn software made a ton of money in Japan, and it had a higher attach rate than the PS1 and N64. Virtua Fighter was literally a cultural phenomenon in Japan during the Saturn era, certainly in terms fo fighters. Even in America, the Saturn had bursts of big sales during the holidays, for both 1995 and 1996.

You're oversimplifying the market performance of the platform when it's much more nuanced and lots of it smacks in direct opposition of what I can only call a foggy recollection on your part.

It was a PSX-N64 world by Summer 1997.

Again, in the West perhaps. But in Japan the Saturn still held on pretty well post-FFVII's release, and well into 1998. And part of the reason sales dropped sharply by Summer 1997 was because of...Bernie Stolar. The guy you are ironically capping for ;).

The real villain of the story, the man most responsible for Saturn’s early demise in the Us, was not Stolar. It was Tom Kalinske. He’s the ine who crippled the company with years of poor management, overspending on too many hardware projects, farming out critical franchises to outside developers and never bringing them in-house, and a series of terrible decisions in 94-95 that guaranteed Saturn would fail. You wanna blame someone? Kalinske’s your guy.

How does this make any sense? Kalinski's the one who urged Sega of Japan to put Sonic in as the new pack-in game. He's the one that helped set up Sega Technical Institute (where Mark Cerny worked at on Sonic 2, fun fact). He's the one who warned Sega of Japan to not release Saturn in May and hold on for September 2nd, instead.

Sega CD was a Sega of Japan decision as they wanted to compete with the PC Engine CD and not get left behind; Kalinski's only mistake on that front was whoring out FMV titles and not importing more of the genuine titles from Japan. 32X is a very messy story because even if the American side were pushing for the design, Sega of Japan egged them on and supported it despite knowing full well they were working on the Saturn and HIDING it from the American side until much later.

Let's not even get on the fact that it was Sega of Japan that cancelled a Streets of Rage 4 (yes, Core Design did a prototype that'd become Fighting Force, but Core were an up-and-coming dev at that time obviously, i.e Tomb Raider) and a sequel to Eternal Champions. Plans for a Saturn Vectorman (Vectorman 3) were also shelved. Again, all of those decisions? Sega of Japan, and Bernies Stolar had no issue playing along because he was ready to move on to Dreamcast by the time he got to the company!
Bernie Stolar gave you Panzer Saga. He gave you Shining Force 3. He bought Visual Concepts and gave you 2K Sports. He gave you the 56k Dreamcast modem. He gave you the 9/9/99 launch lineup. You’re welcome.

Yeah, and he also denied Western gamers a lot of Japanese imports, including chapters 2 and 3 of Shining Force 3, various Capcom titles, Sakura Wars, etc. And he also had no objections to taking Sega off the radar for a full year before Dreamcast came out, killing a lot of their brand presence in retail along the way.

You're only proving that he had no intentions of seriously salvaging Saturn in the West, he was in for Dreamcast but that came at the expense of Saturn (and that might've arguably hurt Dreamcast in the long run too).

Also, if you’re really looking for someone to blame for Saturn’s “failure,” then start pointing fingers at the gamers. What idiots would pass up Dragon Force, Guardian Heroes, Shining Force 3, the Panzer Dragoon Trilogy, the Lobotomy Trilogy, the Sega Sports 98 lineup, Nights, Burning Rangers, all those Sega arcade hits? Seriously?! The only videogame that sold over 200k copies was Madden 97. Even Virtua Fucking Fighter 2 couldn’t crack 180,000 copies.

Well, probably those who saw very little advertising for those games because a certain platform holder was scaling back on adverts. Sega did not give any of the games you mentioned any heavy adverts. In fact, funny bit about Panzer Dragoon Saga; they KNEW gamers were desperate for copies so they...trolled them with a face cut-out advert and basically mocked gamers for not being able to find copies to buy. This was through the SoA side of course, after Bernie was in charge.

Gamers in the West would've been more wiling to buy the games if Sega of America bothered to advertise them. Unfortunately by the time Stolar got in, advertising budgets were severely cut back and soon enough TV adverts just outright died, they cut those off altogether. Things went over quite better in Japan thankfully, but that's what happens when you have a corporate branch actually build up effective advertising and give ad pushes for new games (plus get product placement in popular films, tv shows and anime of the era).

There’s yer answer. Pure and simple.

It's really not xD.
 
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Daniel Thomas MacInnes

GAF's Resident Saturn Omnibus
Graphics is art and tech.

wdc just looks empty and boring.


World Driver Championship on N64 has been mentioned a couple times on this thread, which is interesting because I recently wrote a review for an upcoming book project. The visuals are excellent, one of the very best for the system. The car models, track details, lighting effects and smooth frame rate are all sublime and one really has to admire Boss Studios for their dedication. The widescreen mode isn't very practical, but as a technical showpiece w/o the need for the RAM expansion, it's quite a feat.

My one major complaint about this videogame is one that's all too common with N64 racing games: the vehicle physics and handling are a bit of a mess. It's not nearly as bad as something like Multi Racing Championship, Roadsters Trophy and V-Rally Edition 99 (all games I reviewed, all bloody terrible to play), but there's still too much fish-tailing and the tires feel like they're sliding on ice. It aims for a simulation style in that you must hit turns at the proper speed, yet cars bounce off one another like pinballs, and there were so many times where a cheap hit would just send my car spinning wildly.

It's one of those videogames where if you were a kid and it was all that you had, you would just hunker down and stubbornly learn how to play, and would eventually become pretty good at it. And there's no denying there's a genuine thrill in racing that perfect lap where you hit all the turns with just a touch of powersliding. But it's very hit-and-miss and there were too many times I'd just spin out or slide everywhere and it became very annoying. I get the sense the software team wanted it both ways, Gran Turismo and Ridge Racer, and that's a hard needle to thread. I came away rating the game a 5/10, but do honestly respect those who enjoy it, and to repeat, I've played far worse on the console.

All that said, yeah, the game looks crazy good.
 

lachesis

Member
Technically speaking - I find Virtua Figher 2 being the most impressive on Saturn.

Artistically though - Panzer Dragoon Zwei is my choioce. It's one of the few 3d Saturn games that I made my jaw drop due to the art direction. During that era, I was still holding onto 2D games, as a lot of 3d games just felt so... rough, but Panzer Dragoon Zwei was a welcome eye-opener for me.
 

nkarafo

Member
World Driver Championship on N64 has been mentioned a couple times on this thread, which is interesting because I recently wrote a review for an upcoming book project. The visuals are excellent, one of the very best for the system. The car models, track details, lighting effects and smooth frame rate are all sublime and one really has to admire Boss Studios for their dedication. The widescreen mode isn't very practical, but as a technical showpiece w/o the need for the RAM expansion, it's quite a feat.

My one major complaint about this videogame is one that's all too common with N64 racing games: the vehicle physics and handling are a bit of a mess. It's not nearly as bad as something like Multi Racing Championship, Roadsters Trophy and V-Rally Edition 99 (all games I reviewed, all bloody terrible to play), but there's still too much fish-tailing and the tires feel like they're sliding on ice. It aims for a simulation style in that you must hit turns at the proper speed, yet cars bounce off one another like pinballs, and there were so many times where a cheap hit would just send my car spinning wildly.

It's one of those videogames where if you were a kid and it was all that you had, you would just hunker down and stubbornly learn how to play, and would eventually become pretty good at it. And there's no denying there's a genuine thrill in racing that perfect lap where you hit all the turns with just a touch of powersliding. But it's very hit-and-miss and there were too many times I'd just spin out or slide everywhere and it became very annoying. I get the sense the software team wanted it both ways, Gran Turismo and Ridge Racer, and that's a hard needle to thread. I came away rating the game a 5/10, but do honestly respect those who enjoy it, and to repeat, I've played far worse on the console.

All that said, yeah, the game looks crazy good.
5/10 is a bit harsh. It is a demanding game though. And most of the game is locked behind those demanding events that you have to clear in one go. I wish there was an option for a racing line that shows you where to brake and how much.

Graphically it's unmatched but it does suffer from some bad lighting choices, especially the night tracks. There are some areas where you can't see where you going. Playing on an emulator at higher resolution makes it easier, thankfully.
 
I call bullshit here. You don't add a second CPU like this an call it a day. If they did, it was in the very early days, and did not change anything for anybody. Doing this entirely changes the PCB and tools/libraries you have to provide. 32X was already built with the same dual CPU. A ton of arcade hardware from had dual, even triple CPUs (Power Drift).

They had in mind to put two CPUs and two VDPs, and that's it. They needed the two VDPs to offer good capabilities for both 2D and 3D (which Nintendo and Sony both ran away, targeting only 3D). Dual CPUs was something common for Sega, even the MegaDrive has two CPUs as it includes the Z80 from the Master System.
Go here http://pubs.iir.hit-u.ac.jp/en/pdfs...&cid[]=9&cid[]=10&cid[]=11&s=dd&ppc=20&page=2 and read the full interview with Sato-san. And no SEGA didn't just add a 2nd SH-2 call it a day (even though that on its own adds far more processing) SEGA looked to move from Saturn's previous spec of 4,000 sprites to double them and then add even more hardware sprites

Have a look at the very 1st tech spec's leaked by SEGA and it was only ever meant to have one 32bit RISC Hitachi CPU running at 27 Mhz
 
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Daniel Thomas MacInnes

GAF's Resident Saturn Omnibus
Returning to the main topic, I thought I would post some screenshots of "impressive 3D games" for Sega Saturn. This does not necessarily mean "3D graphics that are better than Sony & Nintendo" or "the absolute cutting edge," because that's just a waste of time. These are examples that I think show off the hardware and still impress me today.

Most of these photos were taken by me with an iPhone or iPad aimed at a Trinitron CRT or Bravia HDTV, and some were captured directly from Youtube videos. Let's see if you can recognize them all, and hopefully there will be one or two new discoveries for you. Each of these games comes highly recommended--obviously, you should buy a Saturn if you don't already own one. In fact, I think it should be your main console, but that's because I'm a crazy old person who's in early stages of Alzheimer's. Enjoy!


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Madden NFL 98: The best US football game for Sega Saturn and one that still plays very well.


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Wipeout XL: Released in Japan and PAL territories as Wipeout 2097. Fairly expensive & rare but looks fantastic. Analog control supported.


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Resident Evil: Survival horror classic that hasn't aged a day, and I say it's just as good as the PSX original.


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J.League Go Go Goal: Tecmo arcade soccer game runs at 60 fps and sharp resolution (possibly 480?) that looks breathtaking in action.


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World League Soccer 98: Saturn's best soccer game? Spectacular visuals & presentation. Just wait until you see the crowds in the stadium stomping.


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J.League Jikkyou Honoo no Striker: Konami arcade soccer game that reminds me of the 16-bit ISS classics. Super detailed & smooth 30 fps.


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Pebble Beach Golf Links: Ya know what? I love this game & don't care about the haters & the pixely trees. It's worth it for Stadler & the elevator music.


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Steep Slope Sliders: Snowboarding classic with legendary course designs & controls that perfectly anticipate Tony Hawk. Love it, love it, love it.


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Shining Force 3 Trilogy: Adventure epic that shows off Saturn to its fullest. Everything just looks glorious, polished, pristine.


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Sega Ages: Galaxy Force 2: Outstanding translation of legendary arcade classic, some of the best 3D sprite graphics you'll ever see. Kudus, Appaloosa!


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Grandia: I'm just going to leave this animated clip from Grandia here. Those VDP2 water effects have never been replicated anywhere before or since.


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Virtua Fighter Kids: Cutesy version of VF2 boasts 480/60 high-res visuals & impressive facial animations. Games like this was Saturn's bread and butter.


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Tomb Raider: To heck with the haters, I say TR on Saturn looks great, especially the high contrast lighting & amazing water effects.


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Jonah Lomu Rugby: Terrific rendition of rugby that's fast, furious & looks great. It has a strong SWOS groove and that's only a good thing.


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Mobile Suit Gundam Side Story Trilogy: Fantastic mech shooter, blazing speed & action, plays like Virtual On as a 3D shoot-em-up. Love it!


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Sonic Jam: Sonic World: Glorified tech demo that uses all the Saturn's hardware tricks, as well as paving the way for Sonic Adventure.


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NHL All-Star Hockey 98: Sequel to NHL Powerplay 96, they're both excellent hockey games for Gen-5. Nice mo-cap animation & player models.


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K-1 Fighting Illusion: Kickboxing sim with highly impressive 3D arenas plus lighting & shading effects. And it plays well. A really good showpiece.


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Gungriffon: Game Arts really outdid themselves with this killer mech shooter. Weighty, powerful, visually dazzling. Sequel is also worth playing.


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Virtual On: Mech arena fighter just blazes. Action is relentless, furiously tense & packed with wild explosions. How did AM3 pull this off?!


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NBA Action 98: The original 2K basketball game from Visual Concepts that still looks and plays great. Kobe's first videogame cover, too.


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Bulk Slash: Anime-styled mech shooter from the studio who gave us Gate of Thunder. A cult Saturn classic & great showpiece for the hardware.


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Thunder Force 5: What's to say? It's Technosoft's final masterpiece & one of Saturn's finest show-off games. Curb-stomps the PSX version.


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Dark Savior: Isometric Action-RPG from the creators of Landstalker. Highly impressive use of polygons & bitmaps to create immersive 3D worlds.


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Panzer Dragoon Saga: What else is there to say? It's Panzer Freaking Saga. That's all you really need to know.


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Panzer Dragoon Zwei: This might be the best technical 3D showpiece for Sega Saturn. The water stage alone remains unsurpassed, then or now.


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Shining the Holy Ark: Best dungeon crawler of its era, a richly detailed & involving world you'll love to explore. Love the art design.


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Wipeout: Visuals are slightly below PSX original, but the controls & vehicle collision physics are better. Great sense of speed & motion, great fun.


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The House of the Dead: Crazy hard but crazy fun and you're grateful for the trip. Get over your whining over the Minecraft textures and enjoy the ride.


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Virtua Cop 2: Honestly, I have no idea how Sega AM2 pulled off this Saturn conversion. Those cats ran with Hitachi Assembly code in their bones.


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Radiant Silvergun: That's "Radiant Fucking Silvergun" to you, mister, and don't you ever forget it. That's the game's full name and it fits like a glove.


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Powerslave: Lobotomy Trilogy Part One. The greatest 3D adventure not named Zelda, Metroid or Goldeneye. "Can't Doo Three Dee?" Seriously?! Do this.


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Duke Nukem 3D: Lobotomy Trilogy Part Two. Fast & furious, tough as nails, gritty & smooth just where it needs to be. You can still play online matches.


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Quake: Lobotomy Trilogy Part Three. Sensational use of lighting, mood & dread. So much better than N64 version that it makes your teeth hurt.


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Worldwide Soccer 97/98: Premier soccer franchise on Saturn, boasting smooth 30fps speed & sublime animation. Still looks & plays like a dreamboat.


(...to be continued...I need to go to sleep...)
 

Daniel Thomas MacInnes

GAF's Resident Saturn Omnibus
5/10 is a bit harsh. It is a demanding game though. And most of the game is locked behind those demanding events that you have to clear in one go. I wish there was an option for a racing line that shows you where to brake and how much.

Graphically it's unmatched but it does suffer from some bad lighting choices, especially the night tracks. There are some areas where you can't see where you going. Playing on an emulator at higher resolution makes it easier, thankfully.

The gamma setting makes nighttime driving possible, but at the cost of having all the graphics washed out. It's one of those weird compromises and I just wish the color balance had been properly set at the start, or more lighting effects added, but that would probably push the N64 hardware too far.

As for a tough review score, I will point to the Gamespot review, with which I largely agree. But I do understand that WDC has its dedicated fans.
 
Yes, this is part of the reason Kalinske advised Sega Japan to team up with Sony. They could have split the loss on the hardware, and raked in the profits from the software! Sega of Japan was too stubborn and prideful to see the bigger picture.
It's utter crap. For one thing in the 1990s SONY America didn't do any R&D at all while SONY Japan was locked into a deal with NCL and not SEGA and after NCL 'stabbed' SONY in the back. Norio Ohga said that SONY should go its own way and chart its own course. Sorry to crush Tom's lies but SEGA never had access to the PS hardware



SEGA were given access to the Lynx, M2/Bulldog, and N64 chipsets mind
 
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I remember looking through a brochure for the Saturn back in the day and being dazzled by the look of its games. Never got one though.

Currently, browsing its library, I see a lot titles being kinda wild and "out there". It makes me kinda miss that modern games don't apply that kind of namesake anymore.

Looking at these videos posted here just makes me think it actually aged kinda well overall. It even looks like it was ahead of its time in some places.
 
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Ozzie666

Member
Never under estimate Americas need for a true Sonic successor on Saturn.
$399 or $299 depending on which side your talking about.
Early Release, pissing your allies off
No development tools.
No documentation
In fighting.
32X, Sega CD.

The hardware it self, if all the above was corrected, was capable enough to have been successful and competitive. Coders would have gotten there in the end. If there was enough sales. Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Deep Fear just to name a few, show it could have gone differently. Would it have been easy? no. Would it have been #1? no. Could it have outsold N64 world wide, probably. Sega may have survived a bit longer or delayed the Dreamcast.

Poor Sega. Politics and hubris, did them in, It wasn't the hardware. Sony was strong enough to survive and turn around their PS3 hubris and stumbles. That is the difference.

Saturn was more than capable and it's potential was left untapped. We only had glimpses.
 
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It's utter crap. For one thing in the 1990s SONY America didn't do any R&D at all while SONY Japan was locked into a deal with NCL and not SEGA and after NCL 'stabbed' SONY in the back. Norio Ohga said that SONY should go its own way and chart its own course. Sorry to crush Tom's lies but SEGA never had access to the PS hardware



SEGA were given access to the Lynx, M2/Bulldog, and N64 chipsets mind

Oh nevermind, it's EDGE #200. Hilarious how they attempt to sound like the victim when they were also guilty of wrongdoing.
 
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Oh nevermind, it's EDGE #200. Hilarious how they attempt to sound like the victim when they were also guilty of wrongdoing.
Yeah EDGE who interview the staff behind the Playstation and SONY were right to feel the victim by NCL.
Nintendo didn't even have the courtesy to tell SONY they were going with Philips when SONY was going to unveil the PlayStation.
 

RAIDEN1

Member
Yeah EDGE who interview the staff behind the Playstation and SONY were right to feel the victim by NCL.
Nintendo didn't even have the courtesy to tell SONY they were going with Philips when SONY was going to unveil the PlayStation.
In the end even the Phillips deal fell through, and what did they get as compensation? Mario and Zelda titles that you wouldn't have seen on the cartridge SNES let alone the SNES-CD....you can only imagine at the time a Zelda and Mario game of the quality that you had on the Nintendo systems, with red-book audio...the CD-I would probably be flying off the shelves! End of the day there is no getting away that the Saturn did Sega no favours at all, yeah the Sega CD wasn't quite as good as it could have been but it was a dam lot better than the 32x in terms of Sales, and Kalinske is on record as saying that he is proud of the Sega CD project as at the time it was a new medium for games to get into...he has no regrets...and even that has untapped potential....in theory had the Sega CD had the capabilities of the 32x straight from the off in 1991/1992 who knows where it would have taken Sega (in a good way..)
 
In the end even the Phillips deal fell through, and what did they get as compensation? Mario and Zelda titles that you wouldn't have seen on the cartridge SNES let alone the SNES-CD....you can only imagine at the time a Zelda and Mario game of the quality that you had on the Nintendo systems, with red-book audio...the CD-I would probably be flying off the shelves! End of the day there is no getting away that the Saturn did Sega no favours at all, yeah the Sega CD wasn't quite as good as it could have been but it was a dam lot better than the 32x in terms of Sales, and Kalinske is on record as saying that he is proud of the Sega CD project as at the time it was a new medium for games to get into...he has no regrets...and even that has untapped potential....in theory had the Sega CD had the capabilities of the 32x straight from the off in 1991/1992 who knows where it would have taken Sega (in a good way..)
Sigh... It's not that NCL dropped SONY or looked to work with someone else, it's how NCL went about it all when SONY was set to publicly announce and show off the PlayStation to the world and after that move SONY did look or want to work with anyone else, so no matter what Tom says or thinks SONY wasn't looking to work with SEGA The SEGA CD was amazing and people should remember it should quite well at the start, all the more amazing given it wasn't that much cheaper than the Saturn in the USA and it was only an add on, credit goes to Tom and Sega America (while SOJ did hardly anything of worth on the system)

Tom did ok in the 16 bit Era but was beyond hopeless in the 32bit era. It was his call to push on and ahead with the 32X, his belive that its price point alone would win the battle with Nintendo and SONY.
 

Redlancet

Banned
its 2021 and delusional sega fans still think the saturn can do better 3d than the psx and the n64? LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
also fuck nintendo,they did their own bed backstabbing sony
 
I can't even name 10 great games (and even the handful everybody keeps quoting are debatable imo).
It's pretty good that you say not even 10, I could not name more than 3 great games for the N64 (and I have to include games I don't even cafe for).

The Saturn has great shooters, fighting games, platformers, some of the best racing games of the time and probably the best jrpg of the generation (pamzer Dragoon saga has to be in the top 5).

In this time period only the PlayStation has more depth and breadth in its library.
 

SirTerry-T

Member
Only if you imported. Domestically the dreamcast spanks the saturn. Import wise its a toss up.
I'm not sure of that to be honest. A Saturn fitted with both a region select and 50/60hz switch was an awesome console. My own Saturn collection back then was probably a 50/50 split between official Pal releases and imports. I had more 4Meg carts than I needed :)
The library was probably larger too... though to be fair the DC library was a shining example of quality over quantity.
 
Hadn't seen that before. Impressive. Done in a way that isn't headache inducing even today.

@ Team Andromeda Team Andromeda never underestimate the weight of the bad decisions that Sega of Japan was making on the regular. If it was up to Sega of America, the Saturn would have been a N64 with a CD-ROM drive.
It's pretty crazy to think how different games would be if SOJ let Tom Kalinske do what he wanted.

No 32x, the Saturn would possibly have had the SGI chipset of the n64 with a disc drive from Sony. Even after that, he was strongly opposed to the US Saturn surprise launch which absolutely killed the Saturn in the US. SOJ and Nakayama seemingly didn't like the fact that SOA was so successful, such a weird time for Sega.
 

Daniel Thomas MacInnes

GAF's Resident Saturn Omnibus
It's pretty crazy to think how different games would be if SOJ let Tom Kalinske do what he wanted.

No 32x, the Saturn would possibly have had the SGI chipset of the n64 with a disc drive from Sony. Even after that, he was strongly opposed to the US Saturn surprise launch which absolutely killed the Saturn in the US. SOJ and Nakayama seemingly didn't like the fact that SOA was so successful, such a weird time for Sega.

Of course, the problem is that you’re only hearing one person’s POV, and his telling of history is very clearly a case of CYA. We never hear from Sega Japan about those days, or what happened from their point-of-view.

If Kalinske had his way, Sega would have used the Motorola 68030 for the Gen-5 chipset. That would have put the console on par with the Atari Falcon, which, needless to say, would have been a catastrophe.

The story about being offered the Silicon Graphics chipset is interesting. It’s important to note that Sega Japan’s engineers took a good look and came away unimpressed and not what they needed. And to be perfectly honest, I agree. The Nintendo 64 had some good features like z-buffering and perspective correction , but there are too many system bottlenecks and everything is just too damn slow. The software struggles with frame rates and everything just chokes.

Could Saturn handle Banjo-Kazooie, someone asked? Ehh, maybe but probably not. Conversely, could N64 handle Sega’s Model 2 arcade games like VF2, Dead or Alive, Virtua Cop 1/2, Virtual On? Hell. No. Not a chance.

ProTip: Yamauchi’s most famous statement about videogames (I’m paraphrasing): “A games console is nothing but a box.” That means two things. One, software is everything. Two, nobody knows what’s inside the box.

Most gamers have NO idea how consoles work or how computers function. This is doubly so in Gen-5, where the machines become extremely complex (even the “easy” PSX uses four or five processors). All the kids ever knew is that Nintendo 64 was “better” because 64 is bigger than 32. That’s it.

The truth is that N64 had some key advantages and strengths over Saturn & PSX, but was crippled by numerous weaknesses as well. In terms of performance, all three are pretty close to even, with each system having their own strengths and quirks.

Bottom line: the SG board would not have magically made Sega more successful in Gen-5. It would have been cheaper to build & sell compared to Saturn (its high building costs were its biggest weakness), but it would not have changed things on the software side, and probably would have resulted in poorer Sega arcade conversions. What made N64 a hit was Mario, Wave Race, Goldeneye and Zelda—games only Nintendo could provide.

The games console is nothing more than a box.
 
Of course, the problem is that you’re only hearing one person’s POV, and his telling of history is very clearly a case of CYA. We never hear from Sega Japan about those days, or what happened from their point-of-view.

If Kalinske had his way, Sega would have used the Motorola 68030 for the Gen-5 chipset. That would have put the console on par with the Atari Falcon, which, needless to say, would have been a catastrophe.

The story about being offered the Silicon Graphics chipset is interesting. It’s important to note that Sega Japan’s engineers took a good look and came away unimpressed and not what they needed. And to be perfectly honest, I agree. The Nintendo 64 had some good features like z-buffering and perspective correction , but there are too many system bottlenecks and everything is just too damn slow. The software struggles with frame rates and everything just chokes.

Could Saturn handle Banjo-Kazooie, someone asked? Ehh, maybe but probably not. Conversely, could N64 handle Sega’s Model 2 arcade games like VF2, Dead or Alive, Virtua Cop 1/2, Virtual On? Hell. No. Not a chance.

ProTip: Yamauchi’s most famous statement about videogames (I’m paraphrasing): “A games console is nothing but a box.” That means two things. One, software is everything. Two, nobody knows what’s inside the box.

Most gamers have NO idea how consoles work or how computers function. This is doubly so in Gen-5, where the machines become extremely complex (even the “easy” PSX uses four or five processors). All the kids ever knew is that Nintendo 64 was “better” because 64 is bigger than 32. That’s it.

The truth is that N64 had some key advantages and strengths over Saturn & PSX, but was crippled by numerous weaknesses as well. In terms of performance, all three are pretty close to even, with each system having their own strengths and quirks.

Bottom line: the SG board would not have magically made Sega more successful in Gen-5. It would have been cheaper to build & sell compared to Saturn (its high building costs were its biggest weakness), but it would not have changed things on the software side, and probably would have resulted in poorer Sega arcade conversions. What made N64 a hit was Mario, Wave Race, Goldeneye and Zelda—games only Nintendo could provide.

The games console is nothing more than a box.
Indeed, hopefully one day we'll get to hear more of the story from the SOJ side of things. The name of the game is the game as Peter Main would say.

While the hardware was tough to work on, if the other things had fallen in line, it wouldn't have been an issue imo. Both the PS2 and PS3 weren't exactly dreams to work on but devs made it work and due to the large market share they bit the bullet and learned how to work on those machines.

The 32X and (to a lesser extent) the Sega CD hurt the Saturn more than the Saturn did, at least here in the states. Combine that with the surprise launch that pissed off a lot of retailers (and fans/parents), Sony's fast start and the looming launch of the N64, it was a perfect storm.
 

DaGwaphics

Member
@ Daniel Thomas MacInnes Daniel Thomas MacInnes I still think the N64 with a CD-ROM drive would have been a winner. The N64 was so gimped by the limited storage available in the cartridges that it's hard to know what was possible with that system. However, devs that took the time to squeeze it could get great results in comparison to PSX (RE2 comes to mind), and without the storage limits the sky would have been the limit. The cheaper manufacturing cost would have been the icing on the cake.

@ EverythingsOverrated EverythingsOverrated I think the 32X was Kalinske's baby, that was a disaster.
 
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Daniel Thomas MacInnes

GAF's Resident Saturn Omnibus
Indeed, hopefully one day we'll get to hear more of the story from the SOJ side of things. The name of the game is the game as Peter Main would say.

While the hardware was tough to work on, if the other things had fallen in line, it wouldn't have been an issue imo. Both the PS2 and PS3 weren't exactly dreams to work on but devs made it work and due to the large market share they bit the bullet and learned how to work on those machines.

The 32X and (to a lesser extent) the Sega CD hurt the Saturn more than the Saturn did, at least here in the states. Combine that with the surprise launch that pissed off a lot of retailers (and fans/parents), Sony's fast start and the looming launch of the N64, it was a perfect storm.

Agreed. Sega fans like to debate the what-ifs on Gen-5 and try to game scenarios where Saturn succeeds, but the unfortunate truth is that, barring any massively successful software hits, Sega was doomed. They never had the hardcore loyalty that Nintendo commands (Genesis was popular for Sonic and Sports) and very few kids who grew up with Sega even knew the Saturn existed. Sega also didn’t have the financial strength to get into a price war against an electronics giant with $30 billion the bank. Sony took massive losses on the Playstation, but it wouldn’t even count as a rounding error. Sega took equal losses on Saturn and it just wrecked them. Under Dreamcast, their finances collapsed and they nearly went bankrupt, if not for Okawa’s personal intervention with his private money.

This is why it was so dangerous that the big boys were getting into videogames. You had Sony, with Microsoft standing on the sidelines getting ready, and talk of Mashushita joining the fight with M2. Nintendo could survive thanks to the strengths of their franchises and super devoted fans, as well as their very conservative business strategies. Sega was far riskier and had almost none of those essential qualities.

The only thing that could have saves Sega was software, and for whatever reason, the kids were just never interested, not with Saturn, not with Dreamcast. Why? I haven’t a clue. Frankly, I think the gamers were outta their damned minds. Just look at all the Saturn videogames I’ve posted and shared. Nothing?! None of these could become a hit?! How is that even possible? We should be playing Panzer Dragoon 15 and Dragon Force 12 by now, all exclusives to the Saturn V system, which would, of course, shaped like a giant rocket. Take that, PS5 skyscraper!
 

DaGwaphics

Member
I know for myself personally, when the DC launch came around, I just skipped it. As an unfortunate owner of the 32x I felt a little burned by the quick discontinuation and the lack of software support. I imagine Saturn owners felt much the same (at least in the states). That combined with Sony putting on a big show regarding the capabilities of the PS2 had to dampen enthusiasm. Probably wasn't much hope for anything Sega could have launched after the failure of both the 32x and the Saturn. Although DC still launched in sellout fashion, so maybe if they had had more units, who knows.

Picked up my DC for $55 new after it was discontinued, it was a great piece of hardware (outside the awful controller).
 
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Daniel Thomas MacInnes

GAF's Resident Saturn Omnibus
@ Daniel Thomas MacInnes Daniel Thomas MacInnes I still think the N64 with a CD-ROM drive would have been a winner. The N64 was so gimped by the limited storage available in the cartridges that it's hard to know what was possible with that system. However, devs that took the time to squeeze it could get great results in comparison to PSX (RE2 comes to mind), and without the storage limits the sky would have been the limit. The cheaper manufacturing cost would have been the icing on the cake.

@ EverythingsOverrated EverythingsOverrated I think the 32X was Kalinske's baby, that was a disaster.

Oh, totally. The cartridge format is easily N64’s worst weakness. CD-ROM would have significantly changed things. Then again, that would have a $200 launch price impossible, and that would have impacted sales. But that would have meant mending fences w/Sony and paying them royalties for the use of CDs, two things Emperor Yamauchi-san would never do.
 

nkarafo

Member
The N64 has some very small texture cache, so games would still be very blurry and the framerate would still be quite low.
Super Mario 64
Turok 1
Banjo-Kazooie
F-Zero X
Mario Kart 64
1080 Snowbarding
Smash Bros
DOOM 64
Wipeout 64
World Driver Championship
Ridge Racer 64
Shadowman
Top Gear Overdrive

These are some of the games i own that have no frame rate issues. F-Zero X and Smash Bros even run at 60fps. I would also add the Zelda games and Waverace since their fps is stable but they are 20fps so i'm not including them.

Of the games i own these are the ones with actual frame rate issues:

Turok 2
Goldeneye
Perfect Dark
Jet Force Gemini

So, forgive me if i don't buy the "N64 has low frame rates" myth. It's not the console's fault if a developer decides to push it beyond it's limits. Which is something RARE was happy to do for most of their games. And again, a lot of Saturn games i played have low frame rates too. I already mentioned Wipeout, which runs at 20fps on the Saturn, i remember how pissed i was about this. Duke Nukem and Quake also run much slower than the N64 ports, probably because they push the console to it's limits.
 

DaGwaphics

Member
Oh, totally. The cartridge format is easily N64’s worst weakness. CD-ROM would have significantly changed things. Then again, that would have a $200 launch price impossible, and that would have impacted sales. But that would have meant mending fences w/Sony and paying them royalties for the use of CDs, two things Emperor Yamauchi-san would never do.

True, who knows if Sega would have been able to match Sony's $299 with a hardware configuration similar to the N64+CD-ROM. It would have been a year earlier, so the hardware would have probably been a bit different in Sega's finished product (maybe they would have altered the memory configuration).
 

SpiceRacz

Member
Only if you imported. Domestically the dreamcast spanks the saturn. Import wise its a toss up.
The domestic Dreamcast library is maybe more consistent in terms of quality. However, the top games on Saturn are better. A lot of them represent the very best of their genre: Guardian Heroes, Shining Force 3, PDS, X-Men vs Street Fighter, Radiant Silvergun, Dragonforce, etc.
 
@ EverythingsOverrated EverythingsOverrated I think the 32X was Kalinske's baby, that was a disaster.
It could be revisionist history, but in the book Console Wars it talks about how Kalinske and Al Nilsen hated the 32X before it was even an add on. They saw it in R&D and were basically like, ya fuck that thing. A year later SOJ hoisted it at them and basically forced them to bring it to market.

I know for myself personally, when the DC launch came around, I just skipped it. As an unfortunate owner of the 32x I felt a little burned by the quick discontinuation and the lack of software support.
My best friend growing up had the whole tower of power Genesis/SegaCD/32X setup and after that their whole family was done with Sega. I'm glad I ended up getting the DC about 4 months after launch. It was a short ride, but it was fun. Super unique experiences like Phantasy Star Online completely changed my perception of what console gaming was.

World Driver Championship
That game is a technical marvel. Still have my copy in my garage somewhere. Too bad Boss Games folded. WDC and Beetle Adventure Racing were probably the two most impressive racing games on the console
 

nush

Gold Member
could N64 handle Sega’s Model 2 arcade games like VF2, Dead or Alive, Virtua Cop 1/2, Virtual On? Hell. No. Not a chance.

That port got cancelled. However there was an internal port of Sega Rally made for the N64, I'd love to see how that looked if it ever got leaked.
 

DaGwaphics

Member
It could be revisionist history, but in the book Console Wars it talks about how Kalinske and Al Nilsen hated the 32X before it was even an add on. They saw it in R&D and were basically like, ya fuck that thing. A year later SOJ hoisted it at them and basically forced them to bring it to market.

I'd never heard that. I'm more familiar with this version:



Who know what the truth is, maybe a blend of the two. Haha.
 
Yeah EDGE who interview the staff behind the Playstation and SONY were right to feel the victim by NCL.
Nintendo didn't even have the courtesy to tell SONY they were going with Philips when SONY was going to unveil the PlayStation.

Feh. It was still a dick move on Sony's part to try and swipe royalties from Nintendo.

Sony trying to act like Nintendo couldn't be trusted in good faith to resume with the deal when Nintendo offered to continue with basically something they had no issue with (Nintendo getting game software royalties, Sony everything else) is rich.
 
@ Daniel Thomas MacInnes Daniel Thomas MacInnes I still think the N64 with a CD-ROM drive would have been a winner. The N64 was so gimped by the limited storage available in the cartridges that it's hard to know what was possible with that system. However, devs that took the time to squeeze it could get great results in comparison to PSX (RE2 comes to mind), and without the storage limits the sky would have been the limit. The cheaper manufacturing cost would have been the icing on the cake.

@ EverythingsOverrated EverythingsOverrated I think the 32X was Kalinske's baby, that was a disaster.
The 64 was not gimped because of cartridges. It’s one of its defining technically superior aspects.

Ps1 could not compete visually with 64s finest, even if we did that cute thing of ignoring psx texture warp and no filtering.

Much more so than more storage, 64 needed a sound chip. If they just made that single change, it would have a domino effect from sound quality to freeing up cart space to improving cpu performance I.e. FPS.
 
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