The SEGA Saturn

Wednesday 14 Jan 2009

Our gaming hobby might be movie like in this day and age, but it is because of consoles pushing the limits by outclassing each other with each new generation that this industry evolves so quickly. Some of you have been with us since the Atari 2600 days in the 70’s and some might have only joined recently without any knowledge of where it all started. Come back every week, as we will be looking at each console and what exactly it did that made us buy into it and how it helped the industry to become the monster we know and enjoy today.

SEGA Saturn

Intro:

As with the previous 16bit generation, SEGA was first out of the gates with their true 32bit console. However, it left a sour taste in the mouths of gamers and developers alike with their arb decisions with those weird add-ons (SEGA Mega CD and 32X) they added to the SEGA Mega Drive (SMD). When the SEGA Saturn (SS) was announced at E3 it was a shock to the public and several developers as they announced that it was actually launch day, that day. If you went to several selected retail stores when leaving the show you could literally go pick up the console. So, SEGA was still continuing with their weird strategy plans because as far as they were aware they only had Nintendo to deal with who was still riding on the success of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Sadly they were in for a rude awakening. They launched the console at a $399 price point with Sony launching the then “new kid on the block” Sony PlayStation at a $299 price point. Things were gonna get very tough.

Look and Design:

The SEGA Saturn was not the most beautiful console. It was black, looked very square and bulky and was quite a heavy console for its time. The normal SEGA features – Power button, reset button and now an eject button for the CD drive lid were all in place. It still only had two controller ports and in the back of the unit you could find the ports you would expect. On the top of the console, behind the CD Drive, was a slot for cartridges. Many believed this was there to play SMD games (making it backwards compatible) but they were sadly very much mistaken. More on that bit later.

The SS controller was basically a combination of the SMD and Super Nintendo Entertainment System controller with six face buttons and two added shoulder buttons, making it quite the all-rounder but still very much a 2D controller. On the controller you would find the “play,” “stop,” “forward” and “rewind” symbols emphasizing that this console could play music and that the controller was made with this in mind. Other than that there was nothing special about the controller. SEGA did, however, later release an official wireless controller which came with its own receiver and would have to be pointed at the receiver to work, but the industry was not quite ready for this just yet.

The Games:

This used to be one of SEGA’s strongest aspects in their business strategies and it seems they had lost the plot at this point. Problem is that the SS hardware was still mainly built around strong 2D support as they envisioned that the next generation would be the real generation to take advantage of 3D.

SEGA never anticipated the onslaught of the PlayStation 1 (PS1). With games such as Wipeout, Tomb Raider and Destruction Derby lunching on both formats and the PS1 versions being far superior (because of the PS1 being designed specifically around 3D technology), all developers flocked to the PS1 instead. This left SEGA with very little to work with or to get people excited about.

Sega Rally was yet again their biggest drawing card as people were all dying to play this arcade game in the luxury of their homes. Apart from it looking terrible, it did play very well and did at least sell several SS consoles.

With them desperately trying to win back some support from their fans they thought it would be best to launch some 3D Sonic titles on the platform…some people are still scarred to this day. The games were absolutely terrible, Sonic Jam, Sonic R and Sonic 3D Blast were all flops. Instead of you running around at breakneck speeds with your blue hedgehog you were looking for parking. It was a sad, sad time for SEGA fans.

So, with them not having any joy with their mascot in 3D and with not as many first party titles to choose from, SEGA had a problem. It’s then that SEGA reinvented themselves and created a pseudo 3D game by the name of Nights Into Dreams. SEGA launched it as a new fresh original title and launched alongside it a controller to take advantage of the 3D aspect of the game, which included one analogue stick (which would carry them into the next generation as well). The game succeeded and it was not long before SEGA released a Christmas edition of the game which continued to sell as well.

However, if there was only one game to look at in this era for SEGA then it would be, without any doubt, Panzer Dragoon Saga. It came on four CD’s and only launched near the end of the SS’s lifespan, which means that only a few copies are available today and that very few people actually got to experience this game as they had long given up on the platform by that time. Their last swansong on this console? Yup.

Add-Ons:

With the SS not selling as well as it should have, had SEGA not messed up the marketing and hardware of this console, it might have had more support for peripherals as this 32/64 generation saw stacks of add-ons making it into homes, but very little on the Saturn.

As mentioned earlier, there was a cartridge slot on the back of the SS which was not for your SMD games but rather for extra memory storage or the CardShark cheats system. In fact, it was mostly useless. SEGA should have gone the backwards compatibility route; it probably would have paid off.

Overall:

SEGA faltered at the end of the 16bit era and brought the luggage with them when they entered the 32bit era – making mistake after mistake. Sony, on the other hand, could do no wrong as even the mighty Nintendo was feeling the punch. Times had changed and SEGA, unbeknown to them, had only one get out of jail card left to rectify their mistakes of the past five years. As for the Saturn, it was most probably the most powerful 2D system ever launched but that is about all that could be said about the console.