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[MikeMyers]

Yeah the Sega Saturn has a great sports line up. It did trip somewhat when it comes to NFL games, but it has a really solid line up outside of that.

Cant never decide if I like J. League Striker or Worldwide Soccer 98 better.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Dungeon Master Nexus, a superb 32-bit update to the beloved Atari ST and Commodore Amiga classic, arrived on Sega Saturn in Japan in 1998 to very favorable reviews. Fans of classic dungeon-crawling adventure games, of which Saturn is blessed, will be thrilled to discover this hidden gem, one among a seemingly endless mountain of hidden gems for Sega’s famously doomed console.

The Japanese language barrier will pose a challenge to newcomers, but veterans of the ST/Amiga original should be able to successfully understand the controls and gameplay, where you assemble a team and lead them through a series of dangerous underground dungeons in search of treasure and adventure.

Everything is rendered in 3D polygons, which puts the game ahead of Shining the Holy Ark, Baroque and Dragon Master Silk, all of which use 3D polys for the environment and 2D sprites for monsters. Wizardry: Llylgamyn Saga offers 3D poly dungeons yet switches to a classic static menu screen for battles (owing to its Apple II roots). As you will notice, only one of these titles was ever released in the West, which would prove frustrating to classic dungeon RPGs, that is, if anyone ever knew that such videogames even existed.

Sega Saturn is the great “lost” videogame console. By this, I mean that not only was it misunderstood or overlooked in its time, but was almost entirely ignored, wished away. Diehard fans will not like to hear this, but this machine was dead on arrival before it even launched, as gamers flocked to the exciting, new world of Sony PlayStation. And once Nintendo 64 hype kicked into full gear, once the almighty Super Mario 64 was seen, Saturn was dead and buried.

Frankly, most gamers in the 90s never knew that Saturn even existed. The kids looked at Daytona USA and Virtua Fighter just long enough to declare that Ridge Racer and Battle Arena Toshinden looked better, cementing Sega’s second-class reputation as the “Can’t Doo Three Dee” player once and for all. Even the mighty Virtua Fighter 2, Virtua Cop and Sega Rally Championship were waved away as a fluke, a lucky break by the only three programmers on Earth who could make Saturn work.

Today, we all ought to know better, especially as the vast (and in many areas, vastly superior) Japanese software library proves this console’s true power. Yet even most dedicated Segaphiles continue to parrot the ancient meme, “Can’t Doo Three Dee.” This is nonsensical to anyone who bothers to look. The problem, of course, is that hardly anyone bothered to look.

And so we have a “lost” games system, forever chained to a poor reputation due almost entirely to misinformed gossip (“Sega forgot to put in the 3D chip”) plus a handful of games that failed to live up to the hype. Everybody loves to pile on the original Virtua Fighter for its glitchy graphics, yet when it comes to the vastly superior Virtua Fighter Remix, a game that looks and plays better than either Toshinden or Tekken? Nothing. Nada. Crickets.

The Meme is everything. The Meme is all. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, his zigzag triangles, his polygon seams and his shoddy frame rates (I’m looking at you, Nintendo 64). Just point back to those Virtua Fighter dropouts and Daytona pop-ins, repeat the mantra, ignore all else.

For those willing to look, here’s Dungeon Master Nexus on Sega Saturn. It looks terrific, plays great (if a bit slow), and deserves an audience. Let’s hope the fansub community can translate this title so everyone can discover its charms.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Here is an excellent video overview of Data East’s Side Pocket 3, a Japanese Saturn from 1997. This entry in the popular pool/billiards sim features 3D polygon visuals, a story mode where square off against rival players…and does this look just like that mansion from Resident Evil? There is also a robust trick shot mode where you can design your own puzzles.

All in all, a very solid presentation that Saturn owners will be happy to show off. It was also released on PlayStation and both versions look identical. Saturn version might run more smoothly, but I’ve only had YouTube videos to compare, so take with the usual grain of salt.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

If Sega Saturn is beloved for anything today, it’s arcade shoot-em-ups. This console represents the last stand for the venerable genre, which would fall out of fashion as Sony disrupted and transformed the videogame industry. By the end of Generation Five, the very word “arcade” was seen as an insult, a put down, rendered obsolete in the face of modern adventure games like Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy.

Largely because of this, these shooters have a timeless quality to them, like dinosaurs preserved in mud the moment the asteroid smashes the ground. It’s a time capsule to a world forever lost in time.

Diehard fans who lament Sega’s departure from the hardware business and dreams of a “Dreamcast 2” completely miss the point. The company was doomed. I repeat: Sega was doomed. There’s no way the company could have survived the Sony onslaught, to say nothing of Microsoft transforming the PC gaming market and planning their own home console (you knew this was coming the second Windows 95 was announced). They don’t have the money, they don’t control their own manufacturing, and they don’t have any guaranteed blockbuster hits.

Nintendo could release a Pokémon game that’s nothing more than an eight-second animated clip of Pikachu scratching his butt and belching out letters of the alphabet. It would sell 20 million copies immediately. Sega has nothing like this.

T-Rex, meet Mister Space Rock, creator of Trinitron, Walkman, Betamax and DVD.

Enjoy your spaceship shooters, kids. Momento Mori.

 

[ACESHIGH]

I am not having any luck trying to run Saturn games on Retroarch. Which is the best emulator and which format do I have to rip the games for them to be recognized once I scan them?

 

[Alexios]

I am not having any luck trying to run Saturn games on Retroarch. Which is the best emulator and which format do I have to rip the games for them to be recognized once I scan them?

Beetle Saturn in RA. You still need the Saturn bios in the RA system folder as with most cores. Bin/cue is most common for Saturn (whether with multiple Track bin files or just 1).

 

[MikeMyers]

If Sega Saturn is beloved for anything today, it’s arcade shoot-em-ups. This console represents the last stand for the venerable genre, which would fall out of fashion as Sony disrupted and transformed the videogame industry. By the end of Generation Five, the very word “arcade” was seen as an insult, a put down, rendered obsolete in the face of modern adventure games like Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy.

Largely because of this, these shooters have a timeless quality to them, like dinosaurs preserved in mud the moment the asteroid smashes the ground. It’s a time capsule to a world forever lost in time.

Diehard fans who lament Sega’s departure from the hardware business and dreams of a “Dreamcast 2” completely miss the point. The company was doomed. I repeat: Sega was doomed. There’s no way the company could have survived the Sony onslaught, to say nothing of Microsoft transforming the PC gaming market and planning their own home console (you knew this was coming the second Windows 95 was announced). They don’t have the money, they don’t control their own manufacturing, and they don’t have any guaranteed blockbuster hits.

Nintendo could release a Pokémon game that’s nothing more than an eight-second animated clip of Pikachu scratching his butt and belching out letters of the alphabet. It would sell 20 million copies immediately. Sega has nothing like this.

T-Rex, meet Mister Space Rock, creator of Trinitron, Walkman, Betamax and DVD.

Enjoy your spaceship shooters, kids. Momento Mori.

Sega was never going to beat Sony, true. I've always wondered how that generation would go had Sony not entered the market.

My thoughts are that the Nintendo 64 globally would have outsold the Sega Saturn, but not to the point where Sega has rush out the Dreamcast.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Sega was never going to beat Sony, true. I've always wondered how that generation would go had Sony not entered the market.

My thoughts are that the Nintendo 64 globally would have outsold the Sega Saturn, but not to the point where Sega has rush out the Dreamcast.

There’s a bit of speculation on where the videogame market would have gone had Sony not invaded with PlayStation. Given that the US industry was in a severe slump 1993-96, turning around only after the launch of Nintendo 64, it’s quite possible that the slump would have continued indefinitely, if not leading into another 1983-style crash.

From the technology standpoint, Sony essentially skipped a console generation with PSX. It was expected that quality real-time polygon graphics were not feasible until the turn of the century, as that tech was very expensive and very difficult to sell for a mass market price, which in those days was $149.

If there is no PSX, the industry tech curve continues along as it had, and Sega’s Saturn Mk.I gets released, the one intended to compete with Atari Jaguar. Nintendo wouldn’t have felt compelled to rush after the Silicon Graphics board in order to compete, and so their console would be weaker than what became N64.

The problem is that long downturn, where gamers were growing tired of saturated genres and wanted something new and revolutionary. After all, they were being promised that for several years with the rose of CD-ROM and multimedia. Without a PlayStation to champion advanced 3D polygon worlds, who else is going to provide the Next Big Thing? Another 2D Arcade generation would have failed, as we can see from sales of 2D videogames dying Gen-5. I don’t think another five years of Donkey Kong Country would have kept things afloat.

And so both Nintendo and Sega would produce entirely different home consoles, as they both scrambled to catch up to Sony, all without breaking the bank. Nintendo could hit that $149 price point with N64, but it required stripping the hardware down to the bone, resulting in those infamous hardware bottlenecks and painfully low frame rates. Sega, however, could not sell Saturn for less than $300 without taking losses, and the ensuing price war by Sony—$299 in September 95, $199 in June 96, $149 in March 97–absolutely destroyed the company. This is why everybody in the company not named Hayao Nakayama wanted out of the hardware business.

In a PSX-free world, Sega’s console would be much cheaper to produce. They wouldn’t be losing $100 or more on the sale of every console, and that might have ensured their survival, if only for a little while longer. But they still had cash flow problems and were barely breaking even with Genesis, despite their success in grabbing half the market away from Nintendo. And they still had the software problem of no popular hits. Sonic was burning itself out (look at sales of Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles as proof), and the Sega Sports brand was a shambles.

The big mystery in all this: Microsoft. They’re still creating Windows 95 and eyeing the living room as their future conquest, as that’s the eternal dream of the digital future. Only now there is no Sony to oppose them. Does that mean Xbox arrives in the late 90s? How do they break into the JP market? Could they consolidate their brand globally the way Sony did? Could they win the support of Western software teams?

And what happens to 3DO and their 64-but M2 console? Does Matsushita release it or do they balk? They never seemed interested in the dream of the “set top box,” but perhaps they felt they couldn’t compete against Sony? Probably not. They weren’t infected with that 1960s utopian dream of the computerized future the way Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were infected.

Basically, there is a power vacuum that is waiting for a large tech giant like Sony to take over. I honestly can’t imagine they’re not entering the market. To put it bluntly, Sony built the PlayStation so they could sell DVDs and Blu-Rays. Without them, MS becomes the most likely candidate, but they have enormous challenges to overcome, particularly the Asian market. Both Sega and Nintendo’s Gen-5 consoles would be notably weaker than Saturn and N64, largely 2D based with limited 3D abilities (think Sega Model 1). Consumers were burning out on the established 2D videogames and wanted something new, but such tech is too expensive to sell at a mass market price, unless you have a major tech giant with an advanced 3D polygon board and billions to spend.

Anyway, a lot of rambling from me. Basically, if Sony PlayStation didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Full video: https://www.filmpreservation.org/sponsored-films/screening-room/1999-a-d#

As a quick follow up to my previous post, here‘s the vision of computers in the 21st Century. This is why the computer wars were fought. This is why Sony and Microsoft got into the videogame market.

The dream was to combine the computer to the television, make it the central hub for the great Digital Convergence. Watch TV and movies, listen to music, shop for goods and food, read the newspaper, read your mail, and, of course, play electronic games. This is the future everyone was fighting to build. And by “build,” of course, we mean “steal.”

Cue up “Pirates of Silicon Valley.”

And then marvel as something truly unexpected happens: Steve Jobs steals the magic box, yanks it away from the television, and attaches it to the portable telephone.

Apple is now worth over $3 trillion.

 

[cireza]

Tactics Ogre has been translated:

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together

This is a complete English patch for the Sega Saturn port of Tactics Ogre. This translation uses the

www.romhacking.net

I will give it a try later this week, but I am expecting some quality work here as it comes from the same people that made the translation/hacking for Vandal Hearts (and it was excellent).

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Hah! You just beat me to the punch.

That’s right, Tactics Ogre is now translated into English. This was expected after its predecessor, Ogre Tactics, was translated for Saturn, and all I can do is smile.

Once again, here’s the link:

https://mega.nz/file/t1NgRARB#y0dNWNDCNhIeDol-ezZ0SekA6aJXXtMxM8KH0ZuIkJ8

 

[IbizaPocholo]

It’s been 25 years!
The original Baroque by Sting Entertainment came out in 1998 for the Sega Saturn and in 1999 for the PS1 It was an absolutely gorgeous, grotesque, surreal, brain-screwing horror action RPG that masterfully concocted Roguelike, dungeon crawler and survival horror elements into a sublime masterpiece that feels like a Shin Megami Tensei fever dream on acid.
Sadly, it was never officially translated outside of Japan. (Only the 2008 remake for the Wii and PS2 got that honor)
But, a few months ago, thanks to the valiant efforts of the ROM-hacking community, we’ve finally blessed with a masterful English fan-translation. So let’s celebrate the long-overdue Renaissance (pun intended) of a forgotten and neglected horror masterpiece!

Chapters
00:00 Part 1: Attack and Dethrone God
06:25 Sponsor
08:01 Part 2: Dungeon Master
18:12 Part 3: Digital Devils
29:07 Part 4: The Rogue to Redemption
37:28 Credits & Indie Showcase

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Good news for Wipeout XL fans. Splash Wave Racing on Twitter hosts weekly competitions for racing videogames, and our beloved six-of techno racer is the newest competition.

Anyone can participate. You simply record the race time on the winter course and the Auricom vehicle (that’s the first one). Take a screenshot of your final times and post them on Twitter, using the hashtag #SplashWaveRacing.

The competition runs until Monday 6PM (BST). Be sure to post your best times and share with the community. Each version of Wipeout XL—PSX and Saturn, NTSC and PAL—is listed separately, and as far as I know, I am currently the only one using the JP Saturn version. Don’t just let me walk away with a trophy, join in!

 

[RickMasters]

Man...I miss my sega saturn.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Update: The original text for this post vanished by mistake, but I just wanted to report that Splash Wave Racing’s competition for Wipeout XL has now ended.
Kudos and thanks to everyone who joined in and shared their best racing times for the winter course.

I was surprised to see that someone else beat my time to win the Saturn (NTSC) category, but I’m also happy just to see others playing the JP version of this game. I’ve started to wonder if I’m the only American Saturn owner who has a Wipeout XL retail disc. So congrats for running a better race.

The next competition will be Sega Rally: desert course, three laps, Toyota Celica (AT). I can’t wait to practice and see if I can reach the same times I could get all those many years ago.

 

[MikeMyers]

There’s a bit of speculation on where the videogame market would have gone had Sony not invaded with PlayStation. Given that the US industry was in a severe slump 1993-96, turning around only after the launch of Nintendo 64, it’s quite possible that the slump would have continued indefinitely, if not leading into another 1983-style crash.

From the technology standpoint, Sony essentially skipped a console generation with PSX. It was expected that quality real-time polygon graphics were not feasible until the turn of the century, as that tech was very expensive and very difficult to sell for a mass market price, which in those days was $149.

If there is no PSX, the industry tech curve continues along as it had, and Sega’s Saturn Mk.I gets released, the one intended to compete with Atari Jaguar. Nintendo wouldn’t have felt compelled to rush after the Silicon Graphics board in order to compete, and so their console would be weaker than what became N64.

The problem is that long downturn, where gamers were growing tired of saturated genres and wanted something new and revolutionary. After all, they were being promised that for several years with the rose of CD-ROM and multimedia. Without a PlayStation to champion advanced 3D polygon worlds, who else is going to provide the Next Big Thing? Another 2D Arcade generation would have failed, as we can see from sales of 2D videogames dying Gen-5. I don’t think another five years of Donkey Kong Country would have kept things afloat.

And so both Nintendo and Sega would produce entirely different home consoles, as they both scrambled to catch up to Sony, all without breaking the bank. Nintendo could hit that $149 price point with N64, but it required stripping the hardware down to the bone, resulting in those infamous hardware bottlenecks and painfully low frame rates. Sega, however, could not sell Saturn for less than $300 without taking losses, and the ensuing price war by Sony—$299 in September 95, $199 in June 96, $149 in March 97–absolutely destroyed the company. This is why everybody in the company not named Hayao Nakayama wanted out of the hardware business.

In a PSX-free world, Sega’s console would be much cheaper to produce. They wouldn’t be losing $100 or more on the sale of every console, and that might have ensured their survival, if only for a little while longer. But they still had cash flow problems and were barely breaking even with Genesis, despite their success in grabbing half the market away from Nintendo. And they still had the software problem of no popular hits. Sonic was burning itself out (look at sales of Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles as proof), and the Sega Sports brand was a shambles.

The big mystery in all this: Microsoft. They’re still creating Windows 95 and eyeing the living room as their future conquest, as that’s the eternal dream of the digital future. Only now there is no Sony to oppose them. Does that mean Xbox arrives in the late 90s? How do they break into the JP market? Could they consolidate their brand globally the way Sony did? Could they win the support of Western software teams?

And what happens to 3DO and their 64-but M2 console? Does Matsushita release it or do they balk? They never seemed interested in the dream of the “set top box,” but perhaps they felt they couldn’t compete against Sony? Probably not. They weren’t infected with that 1960s utopian dream of the computerized future the way Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were infected.

Basically, there is a power vacuum that is waiting for a large tech giant like Sony to take over. I honestly can’t imagine they’re not entering the market. To put it bluntly, Sony built the PlayStation so they could sell DVDs and Blu-Rays. Without them, MS becomes the most likely candidate, but they have enormous challenges to overcome, particularly the Asian market. Both Sega and Nintendo’s Gen-5 consoles would be notably weaker than Saturn and N64, largely 2D based with limited 3D abilities (think Sega Model 1). Consumers were burning out on the established 2D videogames and wanted something new, but such tech is too expensive to sell at a mass market price, unless you have a major tech giant with an advanced 3D polygon board and billions to spend.

Anyway, a lot of rambling from me. Basically, if Sony PlayStation didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it.

You raise some really good points.

On the other hand though, no PlayStation means the Sega Saturn is the most powerful console in 1995 which makes that £400 price point look more justified. Games like Tomb Raider and Resident Evil might have ended up as exclusives too.

Guess it'd just be more of what the 16-bit era is until a bigger player enters the picture.

 

[Alexios]

Princess Crown fan translation thread on romhacking.net finally locked by the moderators (a couple days after my first post there made for that reason). I really hope one of the talented/dedicated translation groups picks it up whether that dude finally admits it's not happening from his end or not.
https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=15979.msg441586#msg441586
I actually had another reply pending responding to the guy that quoted me saying I wasn't sure if the mods would approve that as my first post but I guess everyone knows it's true anyway and suggesting to lock the thread since if it actually releases a demo or the full thing a new one can be made.

 

[Obsidian Ball]

I've got a Sega Saturn, but I am planning to give it away to my sister. I have a few games for it such as D.

 

[Alexios]

Saturn Shiro posted a list of the Pal releases USA never got and I must say I always ignored Krazy Ivan as a random shovelware but after looking up some footage because of this list it might be worth checking out even if it won't be among the very best mech/vehicle combat games on the system.

Every Saturn PAL Game That Didn’t Release in North America

PAL gamers traditionally have been seen as an oppressed group when it comes to missing out on video games that are released in other territories — cough North America cough. So often, they’ve…

www.segasaturnshiro.com

Since it's not Pal optimized as the list says I thought maybe it's viable to get the Japanese version instead of Pal but apparently it's been dubbed to Japanese as you will see in the second video


It's also on PC and PlayStation but it's not some MechWarrior classic I wanna get on the former and while the PlayStation version has the expected advantages the game was apparently somewhat decenty tweaked and enhanced for Saturn with more mechy inertia, spookier darker atmosphere etc.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Princess Crown fan translation thread on romhacking.net finally locked by the moderators (a couple days after my first post there made for that reason). I really hope one of the talented/dedicated translation groups picks it up whether that dude finally admits it's not happening from his end or not.
https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=15979.msg441586#msg441586
I actually had another reply pending responding to the guy that quoted me saying I wasn't sure if the mods would approve that as my first post but I guess everyone knows it's true anyway and suggesting to lock the thread since if it actually releases a demo or the full thing a new one can be made.

I got myself into a bit of trouble a year or two ago for questioning the Princess Crown translation project, which appeared to be stalled and was going nowhere. Somehow, the two guys behind the project felt compelled to comment publicly, and one of them even sent me a short message on Twitter. Yet, here we are, still with nothing to show. It's not going to happen, certainly not from these two. Sorry, kids.

Somebody else just needs to take the reigns on PC and get it done. Fortunately, a former writer from IGN named Anoop Gantiyat created a translation guide and shared it online over a decade ago. It is not a perfect translation, but an excellent resource that has been used by fans over the years. According to a Kotaku article, the only parts missing is the post-game side stories and final ending, but walkthrough tutorials for the side quests were posted online and the ending was translated and posted to GameFAQs.

If anybody out there wishes to take charge of this translation project, I would strongly advise using the Gantayat text as the source, at least until a better translation appears. But we're not talking about Holy Scripture here. What matters is getting it done.

Once again, I should note that these fan translations are all created as a labor of love, without pay or compensation, and as such we should be thankful and respectful for all the work presented by the many talented programmers who work on these projects. Nobody is obligated to translate old videogames, especially on a home console from a lifetime ago. We in the Sega Saturn community have become spoiled rotten at all of these blessings, and finally being able to enjoy all these Japanese Saturn classics is nothing short of miraculous. We must, as always, remain humble and thankful for their valiant efforts. And if a particular videogame project falls apart or stalls, that's fine. Real life concerns must take greater priority and sometimes life just carries you away in a different direction.

I would love to see Princess Crown translated. It's easily the most anticipated Saturn title for an English patch and its omission remains a glaring oversight. But I am confident it will happen, hopefully sooner rather than later.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

You raise some really good points.

On the other hand though, no PlayStation means the Sega Saturn is the most powerful console in 1995 which makes that £400 price point look more justified. Games like Tomb Raider and Resident Evil might have ended up as exclusives too.

Guess it'd just be more of what the 16-bit era is until a bigger player enters the picture.

This topic was brought up in a similar recent NeoGAF thread, and every time Sega is mentioned, all anybody ever wants to talk about is how the company collapsed and how they could somehow still remain in the hardware business today. Short, Short Version: Sega was doomed and there is virtually nothing that could have been done about it. Sega, Atari, Commodore and Spectrum were the dinosaurs. Sony was the asteroid.

Essentially, what happened was that Sony skipped a console generation. PlayStation was significantly more advanced than where the traditional technology curve was going, and it was only possible because the company was worth $60 billion and could afford to spend enormous amounts of money to build that brand. They could take large losses on hardware without breaking a sweat, while Sega's losses on hardware nearly killed them. Heck, by all rights, the company should have gone bankrupt by 2001, and was only saved because Isao Okawa, chairman of the board at CSK invested $500 million of his own personal fortune in order to keep Sega afloat. And, let's be honest, this only happened because he was dying of cancer.

If there was no Sony PlayStation, then Sega's Generation Five console would have used the original "Jupiter" design, which would have been closer to Atari Jaguar in terms of performance, with very powerful 2D capabilities and some impressive 3D polygon capabilities, although not quite at the level of Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter (Model 2 would have been unattainable).

This is all counterfactual, so it's impossible to know how things would have turned out. It's important to note that the US videogame industry was undergoing a severe contraction after 1993, as consumers were becoming bored with aging genres and the market was becoming oversaturated. Gamers wanted something new, something they had never seen before, and yet another console cycle that refines the old 8-bit paradigm of platformers and brawlers wouldn't likely cut it. Simply offering Streets of Rage With a New Hat would not turn the tide. Gamers wanted the new paradigm shift, and none of the older dinosaurs had the money and resources to make that happen.

The stage was perfectly set for Sony to completely sweep away the old order, not just offer new advanced technology, but also redefine the very notion of videogames, moving away from arcades and towards expansive, immersive cinematic worlds. But that shift required at least a couple billion dollars to build, and Sega never had that kind of money. Enter Sony, a consumer electronics giant worth $60 billion. Enter Microsoft, a software behemoth worth more money than God. The dinosaurs were doomed, all of them.

The only major player from the old days to survive was Nintendo, and that was because 1) the company was sitting on billions in cash reserves, 2) they had arguably the single greatest game designer in Shigeru Miyamoto, and 3) they had the most fiercely loyal fans in the world. Nintendo raised a whole generation of children and those kids weren't going anywhere. Even today, nobody commands that level of loyalty.

Anyway, that's enough of this long shpiel. Sega was never going to survive as a hardware company. Best to appreciate what they gave us and enjoy their great consoles for what they were. You have a Saturn and Dreamcast, you don't need anything else in life. You're fine.

 

[MikeMyers]

This topic was brought up in a similar recent NeoGAF thread, and every time Sega is mentioned, all anybody ever wants to talk about is how the company collapsed and how they could somehow still remain in the hardware business today. Short, Short Version: Sega was doomed and there is virtually nothing that could have been done about it. Sega, Atari, Commodore and Spectrum were the dinosaurs. Sony was the asteroid.

Essentially, what happened was that Sony skipped a console generation. PlayStation was significantly more advanced than where the traditional technology curve was going, and it was only possible because the company was worth $60 billion and could afford to spend enormous amounts of money to build that brand. They could take large losses on hardware without breaking a sweat, while Sega's losses on hardware nearly killed them. Heck, by all rights, the company should have gone bankrupt by 2001, and was only saved because Isao Okawa, chairman of the board at CSK invested $500 million of his own personal fortune in order to keep Sega afloat. And, let's be honest, this only happened because he was dying of cancer.

If there was no Sony PlayStation, then Sega's Generation Five console would have used the original "Jupiter" design, which would have been closer to Atari Jaguar in terms of performance, with very powerful 2D capabilities and some impressive 3D polygon capabilities, although not quite at the level of Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter (Model 2 would have been unattainable).

This is all counterfactual, so it's impossible to know how things would have turned out. It's important to note that the US videogame industry was undergoing a severe contraction after 1993, as consumers were becoming bored with aging genres and the market was becoming oversaturated. Gamers wanted something new, something they had never seen before, and yet another console cycle that refines the old 8-bit paradigm of platformers and brawlers wouldn't likely cut it. Simply offering Streets of Rage With a New Hat would not turn the tide. Gamers wanted the new paradigm shift, and none of the older dinosaurs had the money and resources to make that happen.

The stage was perfectly set for Sony to completely sweep away the old order, not just offer new advanced technology, but also redefine the very notion of videogames, moving away from arcades and towards expansive, immersive cinematic worlds. But that shift required at least a couple billion dollars to build, and Sega never had that kind of money. Enter Sony, a consumer electronics giant worth $60 billion. Enter Microsoft, a software behemoth worth more money than God. The dinosaurs were doomed, all of them.

The only major player from the old days to survive was Nintendo, and that was because 1) the company was sitting on billions in cash reserves, 2) they had arguably the single greatest game designer in Shigeru Miyamoto, and 3) they had the most fiercely loyal fans in the world. Nintendo raised a whole generation of children and those kids weren't going anywhere. Even today, nobody commands that level of loyalty.

Anyway, that's enough of this long shpiel. Sega was never going to survive as a hardware company. Best to appreciate what they gave us and enjoy their great consoles for what they were. You have a Saturn and Dreamcast, you don't need anything else in life. You're fine.

I have a response for this, but since I can tell you're sick of this topic, I won't say anything unless you want to take it to PMs.

But yes, I do own a Sega Saturn and a Dreamcast, and that's all I need. Gonna go play some Sakura Wars Columns now.

 

[nush]

Saturn Shiro posted a list of the Pal releases USA never got and I must say I always ignored Krazy Ivan as a random shovelware but after looking up some footage because of this list it might be worth checking out even if it won't be among the very best mech/vehicle combat games on the system.

Every Saturn PAL Game That Didn’t Release in North America

PAL gamers traditionally have been seen as an oppressed group when it comes to missing out on video games that are released in other territories — cough North America cough. So often, they’ve…

www.segasaturnshiro.com

Since it's not Pal optimized as the list says I thought maybe it's viable to get the Japanese version instead of Pal but apparently it's been dubbed to Japanese as you will see in the second video


It's also on PC and PlayStation but it's not some MechWarrior classic I wanna get on the former and while the PlayStation version has the expected advantages the game was apparently somewhat decenty tweaked and enhanced for Saturn with more mechy inertia, spookier darker atmosphere etc.

List is missing the other Dragonball Z game that was France/Portugal exclusive.