Why the Sega Saturn Failed

One of the most discussed topics every time Sega comes up is its failure with the Sega Saturn and its ultimate demise is a home console maker that you can't escape, as these failures would ultimately define Sega for millions of gamers in everyone. Saturn is my favorite console of all time and Sega is my favorite game maker from the 80s and 90s. I say that everything I'm about to say is not without pain, but I feel like to truly love something you have to see it. all its flaws as well as its strengths, so here we go why the Sega Saturn

failed

.

My opinion on this topic is often quite contrary to the normal reasons you usually get, like developing the Saturn hardware was too difficult or the Saturn launching early. or the 32x or retailers hating Sega or even the infighting between Sega of Japan and Sega of America being the calling cards, you get all sorts of reasons for the fall of Saturn and while many of these things certainly hurt Sega I don't believe in any of them killing the Saturn, there has been a lot of successful hardware that was difficult to program and more than one console had a disastrous launch and recovered to a profitable business model.

No, Sega's failure would be much deeper and irreparable than any of these things. it would be something that would be the basis of every successful gaming machine in the history of the console business. Sega

failed

because of their games. To understand my point, you really need to understand what made Sega's Mega Drive on the Genesis as incredibly popular as this console. Considered Sega's only success when it comes to global sales, the Genesis was so popular that it would challenge the same company responsible for the resurrection of console gaming in the mid-1980s, Nintendo, but why was it so popular? the Mega Drive on Genesis and the other Sega systems?

Failures in most regions of the world, the Genesis hardware had been strong for a 1988 release, but was nothing spectacular compared to its contemporaries. I could paint a pretty picture and move sprites nice and fast, but I can't tell. I attributed the success to this alone: ​​the Genesis's sound capabilities were absolutely amazing in the right hands and it would produce many unforgettable music tracks, but then again its competitors could produce a decent tune on their own, so what was it that made the Genesis was so damn hot, it was just their games. Sega had executed a near-perfect game plan with the Genesis, whether by chance or chance. 9 I don't know what I do know is that from day one the Genesis brand in North America, South America and Europe. did everything it needed to do right when it came to gaming.

Sega had built a stable base of arcade and sports games in the system's first two years on the market, providing the launch pad Sonic the Hedgehog needed to explode in popularity. Arcade experiences were exactly what gamers had wanted for the previous 10 years of Hobby games that actually looked and sounded like they came straight from their local arcade. Sports games proved to be one of Sega's strongest moves as mainstream gamers flooded the console to play football, basketball, baseball, hockey. and boxing games by the millions, calling Sega the sports console was ingenious because these games began to become more complex and attract new customers to the business, these customers tended to be older and had more disposable income than the console generation before Sonic the Hedgehog. had provided an anchor for the brand, as well as a magnet for newcomers of all ages to experience something faster and more colorful than anything before it for years.

Sega used their arcade-centric designs to great effect, their shinobi games would be some of the best action efforts of the generation, and Streets of Rage, appearing three times to give beat'em up fans that solved a craving, the The Genesis platform would also produce countless popular licensed games, with everything from Michael Jackson, Batman, Mickey Mouse, Spider-Man, Ghostbusters and Jurassic Park all getting the exclusive treatment for the Sega platform had also attracted countless third parties who were fed up. Nintendo's licensing fees and rules; these developers themselves would dump an avalanche of software on the platform and even Nintendo stalwarts like Capcom Konami and Tecmo would join in to add it.

Genesis' already impressive library, many of these were arcade ports or arcade-style games, as well as solidifying Sega's only sports gaming machine, but it's also the place to enjoy arcade action, the Genesis platform and Mega Drive was an absolute monster. From 1989 to 1994, when almost everything was going in Sega's favor, even their stance on violent games had benefited them, as Mortal Kombat was a big deal on the Sega Genesis with its blood and faithfulness to arcade kills, but Sega too There was a big problem brewing at the time. While Sega of Japan began quietly moving towards a replacement for the Mega Drive in 1993, Sega of America had taken the reins from Genesis and began publishing games themselves, while Sega of Japan had released a near-constant supply of excellent content.

Sega of America was publishing games. everywhere and of quality, although there were some gems. Sega of America began releasing a good number of games that were marginal at best and even terrible at times, games that would fail to be enthralling on almost every level of design. some of the machine's more mundane graphics and gaming sounds, while Tom Kalinske had made some really smart moves during his career, the guy had absolutely no eye for quality game design and the games published by Sega under his direction were some of my worst experiences. However, the Genesis, this was not unique to the Genesis, as Sega of America was responsible for some horrible game designs on the Sega CD, as well as everything from trashy full-motion video games, horrendous sporting endeavors, to attempts at full motion videos even more rubbish, there was no shortage of games in Sega's library, this near constant supply of mediocre games from Sega of America would hurt the Sega brand in these last few years, a crippling turn of events considering Nintendo and its Third parties were barely making headway in the market.

Worse yet, these failed IPs were supposed to be the building blocks of new franchises that Sega could create sequels to in the future, a point I want to make later in this video with the arrival of the Saturn to the Japanese market in 1994. Sega had another problem. Arcade games in development had fallen out of popularity in the West by the mid-1990s and Sega's entire strategy for the Saturn had focused on its arcade business. They thought that versions of games like Virtua Fighter would be the killer app they would need to get the console. took off and had worked in Japan, as the arcade was still very popular there and Sega machines were having success in the West, although gaming tastes had changed and customers expected more from the new generation of consoles, they were releasing over 300 in hardware. and wanted a gaming experience that reflected it, the meager three tracks and two cars of Sega's arcade racing games, a handful of fighters with no story, characters or hidden endings and gun games that ended in 15 minutes were losing out to games with tons of unlockables, deeper stories. and loaded with RPG elements Sega's insistence on bringing home arcade ports that were worth little or no additional content often meant that third-party games designed from the ground up for the home experience simply had more content and things to do, even Namco was very aware of the change.

Sometimes they loaded their arcade games and home versions with tons of hidden story characters, extra modes, and even turned games entirely into new genres, the arcade was dying in the West and Sega was still asking customers to pay $50 for snippets of it. five minute game. Sega has also been the king of the 16-bit sports arena and has released countless wonderful experiences over the lifespan of Genesis games, such as Joe Montana, NFL Football, Evander Holyfield, Real Boxing, World Series Baseball and David Robinson's supreme basketball court, all selling like hot cakes, third parties thrown into the system. of sports games too with prolific sports maker EA doing extremely well on Sega's 16-bit hardware.

I don't know what the hell happened or who the hell it was to blame, but Sega completely lost sight of this on the Saturn in the Maschine surprise. At launch, there were two sports games available in North America, a soccer game called World Wide Soccer Sega International Victory Goal and a golf game called Pebble Beach Golf Links. These were pretty decent games, but the really popular games in North America, NFL football and NBA basketball, were completely absent for over a year, that's right, the most popular sports games during the Genesis' run were not. appeared for over a year on Saturn in the only country they were guaranteed to sell well, you know who had an NFL and NBA game available. shortly after launch, oh yeah, it was Sony Playstation and it gets even worse if you can believe it because when Sega Sports' NFL football game finally came out for the Saturn it was absolute garbage.

NFL 97 was a late game joke. party and a shameful continuation of Sega's excellent Genesis titles; It was a legacy engine from a poor game to begin with and Sega had the nerve to put their Sega sports logo on it and try to sell it on strength. of their brand again Sega of America was worried about having a game to sell instead of having a good game to sell. Sega's sports dominance in the West ended instantly with Saturn and Electronic Arts taking off in 1995 and failing to release a 32-bit John Madden. Soccer game The only place to play North America's most popular sport was on Sony's new console at this point.

You could probably end the video right here and it would have made clear the direction Sega was heading in, but you'd be remiss in doing so, things get a lot worse even from here. Remember what I said earlier about those bad games Sega of America was releasing and how I would get back to them. You see, those bunch of bad Asians don't give him a single sequel on Saturn. The intellectual property would recover from what Sega of America published: there was no green dog, no chalk on man forever, no return of Batman Returns or Fantasia, so not only did they not continue their biggest sports franchises in Saturn right away, but none of the other things on Genesis moved, none of them had been good enough to evolve to a 32-bit version, so what is Sega of America doing to combat the lack of new games on Saturn ?

That's right, my friends, they released even more trash games that would once again make the new Sega platform look terrible, God forbid, they would choose to put resources into some hard-hitting, flashy sports games that would attract the Genesis faithful to No, in Instead, we would have black fire and Ginn war early in Saturn's life. Pouring more gasoline on the pyre that was the Sega Saturn Sega of Japan was not innocent in all of this either, aside from the stupid mistakes made in the design of the hardware and in the launch of the system they were hell-bent on making sure the world forgot about the Sega.

Genesis and Mega Drive once existed, remember all those awesome 16-bit exclusives like Illusion Fantasy Star's Streets of Rage Castle and Ice Watt, none of them continued on Saturn, just imagine the best Genesis experiences and mega drive evolved with deeper stories and gameplay mechanics, perhaps Streets of Rage with random enemies and RPG elements such as being able to upgrade your armor or weapons, perhaps a new Illusion Castle where you can jump into the beautiful backgrounds of a stage and climb forward revealing new enemies in areas to explore imagine a Star fantasy game similar to Final Fantasy 7 with great Saturn backgrounds and 3D characters, even when Sega introduced a franchise they did it with virtually nothing improved, they just copied the mechanics of existing game from an era 16 giving new 32-bit customers had no motivation to try them.

The Genesis had been one of Sega's great success stories, but its entire identity was lost in the transition to Saturn. Virtually none of its best games continued on the Saturn, meaning the company hadn't given 16-bit Sega devotees any real reason. to keep its platforms, Sega would not anticipate the popularity of role-playing games in the West either, the genre had been gaining momentum in the last years of the Super Nintendo and once the PS1 arrived, Sony supported its third parties and promoted them. of thegenre Sega totally and completely kept its pants down during this preparation; Many games of the genre had been released in Japan, but Sega had commissioned almost none of them to be translated into English;

In fact, Saturn RPGs would come to the West largely thanks to companies like Working Designs. Without their hard work bringing these games that Sega considered unprofitable in the West, we would never have gotten things like Dragonforce Iron Stormed Magic Knight Rayearth or Albert Odyssey at that time. Sega had realized that the RPG genre had gone absolutely nuclear in North America and Europe; It was too late for us to get the fruits of that understanding in the form of the Panzer Dragoon saga and the Shining Force 3 games that would be released after the system was all but dead and buried.

Sega had left a virtual cornucopia of RPG content in Japan, but there was no point in translating games for a dead system, ultimately Sega would be a victim of their own creation, they didn't use their 16-bit success as a roadmap for anything after that, none of their popular IPs had continued or evolved for them to fans who had loved the Genesis coming back for more, they lost the sports market almost immediately with the launch of the Saturn, a big blow considering they had owned that gaming segment for 5. years before, relying on games Added to that, this was fine for arcade fans like you and me, but it was a complete turn-off for the average joe looking for longevity for your $50 game.

Add in the misguided resources lost in the Sega CD's 32x development for motion video game development and the recipe was perfect. storm of failures, while Sega was indeed capable of some magical game design, failing to evolve that game design on a large scale across its countless popular IPs had been a huge mistake. The heart and soul of Sega had been arcade games and, like that entertainment platform itself. It had simply run out of steam and Sega had no answers for the cruelty of its new rival. As a dedicated Sega fan, these thoughts and discoveries paint a clear picture of what was wrong with the company in its lack of success, but don't for a second.

I think Sega's mistakes here somehow mean they didn't have good games. Some of the best experiences of the 32-bit generation came from the Saturn. When Sega did something right, it was usually an experience you couldn't get anywhere else. These games would be attractive. The Sega Saturn experience for me is at an almost untouchable level and I can still play our games to this day, but Sega was just one company and their resources simply paled in comparison to what Sony and their arsenal of third-party support could. produce. It really was a case of David versus Goliath.