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[cinnamonandgravy]

the saturn was basically the opposite of the genesis.

genesis was cheap; saturn was expensive.
genesis was easy to develop for; saturn was complicated.
genesis, while relatively underpowered, had good ports; saturn, while being an "8 chip beefcake", had crap ports.
genesis had good sonic games; saturn had crap sonic games.

the saturn was still cool if you afford multiple consoles... but if you could only choose one, between the saturn, playstation, or n64... no way its going to be the saturn.

 

[DaGwaphics]

The Dreamcast launch was actually one the best launches. It was on top for a year or so. Unfortunately, Sega tried to beat the competition to market once again and it was toast when PS2 came out.

DC would have done even worse if it needed to go head-to-head with PS2. Sega couldn't afford to manufacture a console that could compete directly against the PS2 at that point. Best move would have probably been to release it even earlier, if they had enough units to launch in the US the same time as Japan it might have helped.

 

[nush]

no way its going to be the saturn.

I did, had to wait a year for the good games to start to come out and the price to drop. Loved that console.

 

[saturnalian]

Edit, wrong quote

 

[Kev Kev]

Shining Force

shining force 1 and 2 are a couple of my GOATs.

 

[delirium trigger]

DC would have done even worse if it needed to go head-to-head with PS2. Sega couldn't afford to manufacture a console that could compete directly against the PS2 at that point. Best move would have probably been to release it even earlier, if they had enough units to launch in the US the same time as Japan it might have helped.

If they waited until after the PS2 release they could have actually produced a console that could compete.

 

[AJUMP23]

Nintendo got tired of playing with them. Also Sony Playstation.

 

[Bragr]

They didn't have a portable to drag them through the hard times like Nintendo.

 

[DaGwaphics]

If they waited until after the PS2 release they could have actually produced a console that could compete.

Maybe. I agree that it would have been easier for them if they had continued to be the between gen company. Genesis being two years ahead of the Super Nintendo and 3 years after NES allowed them to build a cheaper machine that felt advanced on launch day and was well established before competitive offerings came along. Their successor needed to be a year or two earlier to get established before PS1. DC needed to be earlier still to avoid getting trampled by the PS2 hype machine. Releasing a PS2 like system that was just a bit more powerful in say 2002 or 2003 might have been easier to manage for them. Moore's law was really kicking back then. Nintendo uses that approach a bit now with the Wii U and Switch dodging their big tech competitors.

 

[onQ123]

Playstation happened

 

[Crayon]

 

[BeardGawd]

Sega never seemed confident. They seemed to always be jumping the gun to somehow one up the competition regardless if something was financially viable or even made sense. The 32x, Nomad, Sega CD, etc... were all never fully realized or had glaring flaws. Plus all the external periphals with only a handful of games. They jumped the gun with Saturn with the surprise launch. Dreamcast (my favorite system) was released too early and couldn't get past the hype of the Playstation 2.

A shame because they had great studios and forward thinking games hindered by bad management.

 

[levyjl1988]

Nintendo is a hardware and software company.
SEGA was once both, but then put all their eggs in one basket to be a software company, and even then they cannot make AAA production values that rival Nintendo unfortanetely.

 

[Alan Wake]

It's mind blowing to think of that we have been playing Sonic on other consoles for 20 years while he was on Sega's own consoles for just 10...

 

[Alan Wake]

This says a lot. Saturn wasn't what made Sega lose money, Dreamcast was. The mismanagement leading up to the Dreamcast played a big part, naturally.

Sega financials:

--------Sega Genesis introduced
FY 1989: (7.5 billion yen in operating income)
FY 1990: (13.0 billion yen in operating income)
FY 1991: (17.2 billion yen in operating income)
--------Sega CD introduced
FY 1992: (42.0 billion yen in operating income)
FY 1993: 28.017 billion yen in net income (62.540 billion yen in operating income)
FY 1994: 23.223 billion yen in net income (46.595 billion yen in operating income)
---------Sega Saturn introduced
---------Sega 32X introduced
FY 1995: 14.085 billion yen in net income (31.208 billion yen in operating income)
FY 1996: 5.304 billion yen in net income (29.636 billion yen in operating income)
FY 1997: 5.572 billion yen in net income (31.229 billion yen in operating income)
FY 1998: -35.635 billion yen in net LOSS (13.967 billion yen in operating income)
-------- Dreamcast introduced
FY 1999: -42.881 billion yen in net LOSS (2.088 billion yen in operating income)
FY 2000: -42.880 billion yen in net LOSS (-40.354 billion yen in operating LOSS)
FY 2001: -51.370 billion yen in net LOSS (-52.019 billion yen in operating LOSS)
-------- Sega ends production of Dreamcast and exits the console industry
FY 2002: -17.829 billion yen in net LOSS (14.201 billion yen in operating income)

 

[DragoonWalker]

It was cross cultural internal politics, bad timing, rushed launches and the financial mismanagement like the overunning budget of Shenmue that destroyed Sega, not he quality of their games. Their games were a blast, innovative, and visually dazzling, right up until they went third party.

 

[lh032]

.

 

[sinnergy]

Let it go! We now have PlayStation and Xbox now .. things change .

 

[Dr. Suchong]

And it was the best you could do in 1998, without a doubt.

As for Saturn being rushed, maybe in terms of tools. But in terms of hardware, their intention had always been to merge both 2D and 3D capabilities. And SEGA were well versed in multi-CPU development in the arcades. Many 3D games on Saturn are outstanding for their time by the way.

Team Andromeda could really make the Saturn sing.
I demoed Panzer Dragoon Zwei at Gamestation when I worked there and customers were astounded it wasn't running on PlayStation when they enquired about it.

 

[Dr. Suchong]

This says a lot. Saturn wasn't what made Sega lose money, Dreamcast was. The mismanagement leading up to the Dreamcast played a big part, naturally.

Sega financials:

--------Sega Genesis introduced
FY 1989: (7.5 billion yen in operating income)
FY 1990: (13.0 billion yen in operating income)
FY 1991: (17.2 billion yen in operating income)
--------Sega CD introduced
FY 1992: (42.0 billion yen in operating income)
FY 1993: 28.017 billion yen in net income (62.540 billion yen in operating income)
FY 1994: 23.223 billion yen in net income (46.595 billion yen in operating income)
---------Sega Saturn introduced
---------Sega 32X introduced
FY 1995: 14.085 billion yen in net income (31.208 billion yen in operating income)
FY 1996: 5.304 billion yen in net income (29.636 billion yen in operating income)
FY 1997: 5.572 billion yen in net income (31.229 billion yen in operating income)
FY 1998: -35.635 billion yen in net LOSS (13.967 billion yen in operating income)
-------- Dreamcast introduced
FY 1999: -42.881 billion yen in net LOSS (2.088 billion yen in operating income)
FY 2000: -42.880 billion yen in net LOSS (-40.354 billion yen in operating LOSS)
FY 2001: -51.370 billion yen in net LOSS (-52.019 billion yen in operating LOSS)
-------- Sega ends production of Dreamcast and exits the console industry
FY 2002: -17.829 billion yen in net LOSS (14.201 billion yen in operating income)

God I wish this was some kind of nightmare, I woke up, and SEGA were still going strong.

 

[Dr. Suchong]

I want to play Burning rangers now.

 

[Celine]

Wrong. Saturn was profitable. Dreamcast is the period that put them in debt.

Sega's Consumer segment (console division) was in the red since 1994.
What kept afloat the company were the Arcade operations and Arcade equipment segments.

Meanwhile Nintendo was outprofitting SCE:

 

[cireza]

Sega's Consumer segment (console division) was in the red since 1994.
What kept afloat the company were the Arcade operations and Arcade equipment segments.

Meanwhile Nintendo was outprofitting SCE:

You are pretty much confirming what I was saying. Dreamcast is the console that killed them, Saturn was overall okay.

 

[drganon]

Sega of America and Japan decided that working together was for cucks and fighting each other and taking the company down with them was the true Chad approach.

 

[Celine]

For comparison, the PC Engine sold about 8 million in Japan, and even MegaDrive did about 3.5 million in the region.

That's not true.
In Japan the base PCE has sold 3.77M, the Duo models around 1.00M and lastly the Rom^2 add-on around 1.00M (PCE "CD players" userbase was close to 2M).
Only considering the standalone consoles and excluding the portable units, PCE TV consoles total sales in Japan were around 4.8M units.
Meanwhile Mega Drive has sold 3.58M, Mega CD 0.40M and Super 32X around 0.05M.
PCE outsold the Mega Drive in Japan but not by much.
I'd say the biggest gulf was on the "CD players" front, there the difference was close to 5 to 1.

Shipment data from the manufacturer:

 

[Celine]

You are pretty much confirming what I was saying. Dreamcast is the console that killed them, Saturn was overall okay.

I was questioning the popular belief that Saturn was profitable due to people taking as a proof the overall (non consolidated) company data instead of looking at the specific console segment.
That Dreamcast buried down the company financials even deeper is easily discernable by looking at Sega company reports from those years. No objection on my part.

 

[RAIDEN1]

What happened from 1994? Well the 32x and Saturn happened...and it was enough to undo all the good work Sega had done with the Genesis between 1987 (must have been in development stages that year) and 1993

 

[cireza]

What happened from 1994? Well the 32x and Saturn happened...and it was enough to undo all the good work Sega had done with the Genesis between 1987 (must have been in development stages that year) and 1993

Saturn was a fine console. Only the 32X was unnecessary.

 

[lovetalkgames]

SEGA is a great company that pitted itself against the savants who made early Mario, Zelda, and Metroid. The shift to 3D wasn’t kind to many companies who had previously held their own in the bit era. We point out SEGA for what they did wrong, but considering they made it to the Dreamcast means they did a lot right!

 

[RAIDEN1]

Saturn was a fine console. Only the 32X was unnecessary.

Fine for 2d yeah, but everything else no.....As an example... both Virtua Fighter on the 32x and Need for Speed on the 3DO looked better than the Saturn port of V.F and Daytona USA....in Japan it was Sega's one hit wonder despite the divisiveness the console brought to the company itself....Sega America wanting to go in one direction, Sega Japan the other...

 

[PhaseJump]

Why visit arcades when you can play Tekken at home? 98 was the end of them.

Imagine having no product on shelves while prototyping 2 Dreamcast platforms.

Imagine forcing your flagship RPG studio leave while Final Fantasy 7 just blew the market open for that genre.

Imagine letting Shenmue have a huge budget while the company is falling apart.

Imagine if they went with 3DFX, and better supported PC porting.

 

[Trunx81]

Sega was a creative hardware maker. The Mega Drive Tower proves that. Did it make sense? No. Did the problematic communication between Japan and the US hurt the 32x? Yes. Did the 32x confuse buyers? Yes.

But we have to remember that it was a difficult time for all gaming companies. No one had experience in 3D. For Nintendo, it could have ended the same way. It’s actually a miracle that the N64 did well with all the delay and no CD.

If I recall right, then Sega intended the Saturn to play safe and make it strong on 2D. The Capcom fighting games prove that point. I remember quite well how video game magazines smashed the Saturn because of his interlaced transparency capabilities.

Dreamcast was amazing, though. To bad everyone wanted a DVD player. If you compare Sony and Sega, you see why one failed and the other one triumphed. New company: New breath. Great hardware. DemoCDs on magazines. Amazing marketing. Square support.

 

[Majukun]

stupid management and inability to adapt some key franchises to the new 3d era.

but mostly stupid management

 

[Alexios]

Then they made many of the best games ever, in their library and in general

 

[teezzy]

They peaked with Dreamcast

 

[Oddvintagechap]

They been releasing shitty Sonic games that their fans have been claiming been good, so they kept on rolling.

 

[sinnergy]

They peaked with Dreamcast

They peaked with the genesis ..

 

[Elder Legend]

Wrong, they hit their peak when they released condemned 1.

I miss that game so much. It was such an incredible launch title for 360. I feel that 360 had one of the best and most memorable launches in history. Too bad Condemend 2 was doo doo imo :/


Perfect Dark Zero
Kameo
Condemend
Gotham Racing 3
Call of Duty 2
Amped 3
Ridge Racer 6
Quake 4

 

[cireza]

Fine for 2d yeah, but everything else no.....As an example... both Virtua Fighter on the 32x and Need for Speed on the 3DO looked better than the Saturn port of V.F and Daytona USA....in Japan it was Sega's one hit wonder despite the divisiveness the console brought to the company itself....Sega America wanting to go in one direction, Sega Japan the other...

You have absolutely no clue what you are talking about.

 

[DaGwaphics]

This says a lot. Saturn wasn't what made Sega lose money, Dreamcast was. The mismanagement leading up to the Dreamcast played a big part, naturally.

Sega financials:

--------Sega Genesis introduced
FY 1989: (7.5 billion yen in operating income)
FY 1990: (13.0 billion yen in operating income)
FY 1991: (17.2 billion yen in operating income)
--------Sega CD introduced
FY 1992: (42.0 billion yen in operating income)
FY 1993: 28.017 billion yen in net income (62.540 billion yen in operating income)
FY 1994: 23.223 billion yen in net income (46.595 billion yen in operating income)
---------Sega Saturn introduced
---------Sega 32X introduced
FY 1995: 14.085 billion yen in net income (31.208 billion yen in operating income)
FY 1996: 5.304 billion yen in net income (29.636 billion yen in operating income)
FY 1997: 5.572 billion yen in net income (31.229 billion yen in operating income)
FY 1998: -35.635 billion yen in net LOSS (13.967 billion yen in operating income)
-------- Dreamcast introduced
FY 1999: -42.881 billion yen in net LOSS (2.088 billion yen in operating income)
FY 2000: -42.880 billion yen in net LOSS (-40.354 billion yen in operating LOSS)
FY 2001: -51.370 billion yen in net LOSS (-52.019 billion yen in operating LOSS)
-------- Sega ends production of Dreamcast and exits the console industry
FY 2002: -17.829 billion yen in net LOSS (14.201 billion yen in operating income)

The company was starting to die, the DC just got caught up in that. Consoles were getting more expensive to produce and their operating income was already in free fall as soon as Saturn was discontinued (and the Genesis/MD cash cow was completely dead). DC sold better than any other Sega console out of the gate, but it was the first Sega console that wasn't breaking even. Sega couldn't afford that, but they also couldn't afford to be over priced like they were with Saturn. If they had taken a chance and gone $250 things might have worked out better. But they didn't have DVD and both them and Nintendo were nervous about going further than $199 against the $299 PS2. The gaming only companies couldn't adapt to the heavily subsidized model that the big tech companies were switching too. Likely why GC was Nintendo's last console with competitive hardware.

 

[Danjin44]

 

[Crew511A]

What happened to Sega? The gamers couldn’t recognize greatness when it was staring them in the face, that’s what. Blame the kids.

As for Sega’s “peak,” well, let’s consider the following from the Saturn and Dreamcast eras:

Virtua Fighter (series)
Fighting Vipers
Fighters Megamix
Last Bronx
Virtua On/VOOT
Virtua Cop 1/2
House o/t Dead 1/2
Confidential Mission

Daytona USA/Daytona CE (JP)
Sega Rally 1/2
Manx TT Superbike
Ferrari F355 Challenge
Sega GT
Crazy Taxi 1/2

Decathlete
Winter Heat
Worldwide Soccer 97/98
World Cup France 98: Road to the World Cup
World Series Baseball 98
Greatest Nine 98: Summer Action
NFL 2K (series)
NBA 2K (series)
Virtua Tennis

Sonic Adventure 1/2
Nights Into Dreams/Xmas Nights
Burning Rangers
Chu Chu Rocket
Baku Baku Animal

Phantasy Star Online
Sakura Wars (series)
Dragon Force 1/2
Shining Force Trilogy
Shining the Holy Ark
Wachenroeder
Terra Phantastica
Skies of Arcadia
Shenmue 1/2

Panzer Dragoon Trilogy
Deep Fear
Headhunter


How’s that for a start?

Great list. But Sega was it's own biggest enemy. I remember hearing rumors of some sort of 3D accelerator cart to play Virtua Fighter 3 on Saturn, and my first thought was "Oh man, they're trying to pull this crap again." I'm actually surprised they didn't get any push back for the RAM carts.

Bottom line, Sega's bread and butter was arcade games. There was no excuse for them not to have a console in 1994 that could reasonably resemble their biggest arcade games at the time. The lack of care given the first ports of Daytona and Virtua Fighter shows how out of touch Sega was with what their customers wanted

 

[teezzy]

I miss that game so much. It was such an incredible launch title for 360. I feel that 360 had one of the best and most memorable launches in history. Too bad Condemend 2 was doo doo imo :/


Perfect Dark Zero
Kameo
Condemend
Gotham Racing 3
Call of Duty 2
Amped 3
Ridge Racer 6
Quake 4

Xbox 360 was the best console of its gen. Easily

Such a shame MS got cocky with XB1 and fumbled as hard as they did

They're correcting course now

 

[March Climber]

 

[March Climber]

Xbox 360 was the best console of its gen. Easily

Such a shame MS got cocky with XB1 and fumbled as hard as they did

They're correcting course now

I'd argue that the Xbox 360 had a really strong first 2-3 years, but then around the years 2008 to 2009, things began to flip pretty hard. It also didn't help that Xbox 360 had a weaker showing of exclusives in the second half of it's console generation.

Around the time these ads came out:

Along with the new slim, new PS Plus, a bunch of new exclusives, and the $299 price tag, you started to see the public shift back to PS. They had found that PS1/PS2 mojo again. Sega came really close to that style of comeback with the Dreamcast showing and launch, but they couldn't stick the landing.

 

[Alan Wake]

The company was starting to die, the DC just got caught up in that. Consoles were getting more expensive to produce and their operating income was already in free fall as soon as Saturn was discontinued (and the Genesis/MD cash cow was completely dead). DC sold better than any other Sega console out of the gate, but it was the first Sega console that wasn't breaking even. Sega couldn't afford that, but they also couldn't afford to be over priced like they were with Saturn. If they had taken a chance and gone $250 things might have worked out better. But they didn't have DVD and both them and Nintendo were nervous about going further than $199 against the $299 PS2. The gaming only companies couldn't adapt to the heavily subsidized model that the big tech companies were switching too. Likely why GC was Nintendo's last console with competitive hardware.

If we want a simple answer to why Sega failed it's this: PS2.

Sega didn't have the war chest they would've needed to take Sony on. Microsoft, on the other hand, could afford to lose billions on Xbox and still launch another console. Sadly to me the demise of the Dreamcast and consequently of Sega as a console manufacturer showed that launching a good product just isn't enough. Nothing sells itself.

 

[Esppiral]

By 1994 you mean 2000 right?

 

[cartman414]

Let it go! We now have PlayStation and Xbox now .. things change .

Don't you remember? Sega did what they don't. (Pun was lost without the Nintendo in there.)

Great list. But Sega was it's own biggest enemy. I remember hearing rumors of some sort of 3D accelerator cart to play Virtua Fighter 3 on Saturn, and my first thought was "Oh man, they're trying to pull this crap again." I'm actually surprised they didn't get any push back for the RAM carts.

Bottom line, Sega's bread and butter was arcade games. There was no excuse for them not to have a console in 1994 that could reasonably resemble their biggest arcade games at the time. The lack of care given the first ports of Daytona and Virtua Fighter shows how out of touch Sega was with what their customers wanted

AM2 had their hands tied up with the arcade stuff, so they couldn't even get their input on the system architecture.

 

[SirTerry-T]

Word on the street is that some fker around these parts said the Saturn control pad was rubbish?

I hope they are taking about the first PAL and USA release version.

The Japanese style Saturn pad is The Sistine Chapel Ceiling of control pads.

That D-pad has never been bettered and before all the Sony boys prep up their D-pad based retorts.. you're wrong.

 

[OmegaSpirit32X]

gaming changed and the way we played games changed. Sega were reliant on arcade experiences in the home in ht e early 3d era and games like Daytona and Sega rally were quickly completed.

on the play station we got the arcade experience in games like ridge racer which were much better quality than the Saturn games in terms of graphics and stuff but they also had games like wipeout which were much deeper in expierience

just my opinion

To be fair, they eventually tried competing for more in-depth experiences with games like Panzer Dragoon Saga, Shining Force 3, Sonic Adventure 1+2, Shenmue, Phantasy Star Online, Skies of Arcadia, etc.