Questions about Sega Saturn

I was kidding. Hell, I edit every post at least three times to fix typos and moronisms. You just need a bit more time/posts to unlock edit options.

 

I see, all of a sudden you are not living up to your nickname or your "uber-troll" moniker, then

 

If that were true I'd be long gone hahaha

 

What is your intention on this question?

That the old print magazine information is not credible because it's not online? Language barrier? Or lack of interest to look up the documented info in other forums?

And in your arguments you don't take into account the impact it had in derailing that generation.

I've merely provided a solution that is often missed when people talk about Sega Saturn technology game soft potential being that Sega of America created this problem by requesting it to have the SH2s, to be 3d and be an addon.

The consequences were wasting millions in marketing and development or game dev time and effort.

This is a speculative analysis that can only be made when you analyze how the 32X affected the Saturn.

Sega was being spread too thin and 32X as a sales product failed miserably.

First if all, I never implied that Saturn ports were affected by Sega Arcade games but you seriously lack KNOWLEDGE of Sega's Arcade and home console focus during those years and always come down to this homogeneous conclusion that is a generalized assumption on why the Saturn didn't do something.

Sega's AM divisions, namely Sega AM2 were directly responsible for cracking the Saturn hardware and making ports and Arcade games however during that time even that dev team also, ALSO had to worry about developing on 32X, developing on Sega Model 2, and development on Sega Model 3...

In comparison Namco's Tekken/SoulEdge and Ridge Racer devs which were also Arcade devs essentially transitioned AWAY from Arcade System 22 and TOWARDS the PS1 based System 11 with 100% devs focus on ONLY working on PS1 hardware.

Can you honestly compare and see that the PS1 and Saturn dev comparisons are extremely superficially lacking proper information.

If you cannot analyze and speculate on "what could have been" when discussing Saturn then you will run in circles.

And Virtua Fighter 1 is the TRUE reason why Sega Saturn sold out in Japan and was outselling the PlayStation.

At that time there was NOTHING like it on tbe home consoles so yes, VF1 Saturn is actually a state of the art tech game...

Now where was Virtua Racing? Oh yeah, it was handed off to 32X, on weaker hardware (32X is extremely weaker than Saturn) by a skilled dev team... now imagine if it was instead made on Saturn... keep in mind that the same devs also made Saturn F1 Live Information and Sega Rally port in 1995. A fair comparison would be if that was the case.

YES I CAN QUANTIFY THAT!!

The 32X as an addon project costs money.

32X as a software development time taker costd money

32X as a revenue maker costs even more money when it FAILED to make revenue due to consumer backlash in 1995 U.S.A. and perhaps Europe.

Therefore 32X was a financial DRAIN and dev time waster and company credibility and reputation destroyer.

Like I said, if you cannot imagine the consequences of the 32X never being approved then your Saturn arguments will always remain the same.

Sega Model 2 games that were ported to Saturn later, I know that but you still argue the impact by lacking understanding.

Saturn was also the ST-V Arcade hardware but back then Sega did not have heavy focus on ST-V as they did on Model 2 and Model 3 where in comparison Sony repositioned the PS1 as a standard arcade hardware. Basically let's say, Namco fully focused on one platform for years while Sega had a more split focus.

But more importantly is the fact that you have to acknowledge that besides the 32X and Sega of America creating a quagmire of marketing failures, is the fact that Sony PS1 was sold at a lower cost than it was supposed to retail at and all those company heads at SCEA were let go or fired by the end of 1995 and 1996.

PS1 success isn't as fair and magical as people make it out to be.

There is a difference between calling someone a "dedicated Sega fan" and being aware of other events of those years that contributed to the problems that generation presented.

Because some of us know how the 32X affected the Saturn sales in North America and Europe.

How it affected the marketing of Saturn and how horrible Sega of America's Saturn marketing was.

Sony ONLY had to worry about ONE platform.

Sony Namco alliance became such that Namco fully focused ONLY on PS1 hardware as Arcade base, eliminating porting time and effortand costs.

Also a lot of Saturn games suffered from being rushed to market like Daytona USA, Sega Rally and Virtua Fighter 2 in 1995.

In the space of one year Sega AM2 personally handled porting Virtua Fighter 1, Daytona USA, Virtua Fighter Remix ST-V, Virtua Fighter 2 and Virtua Cop 1...and that's only on the "hard to program for Saturn" there's also Virtua Fighter 1 32X and all those Model 2 and Model 3 games they were making.

But yeah let's just have a technology discussion without acknowledging the variables that affected things.

Could even Sega's AM2 dev team have benefited from less rushing and more dedicated Saturn development in that same time year?

There is a cut off time when comparing Saturn versus PlayStation... as soon as Bernie Stolar got in to get his agenda of new hardware in 1997 that is pretty much it and many Saturn games, especially first party games were rushed for retail mostly at request by Sega of America.

It is when you fail to analyze the variables and make unfair comparisons.

Please look up the dev inteview... I'm sure you will find it and realize that the same dev team, same lead programmer handled 32X Virtua Racing, Saturn F1 Live Information and Sega Rally Saturn the latter of which was made on a short dev time window and was rushed.

It was missing the rear view mirror and not because the Saturn couldn't handle it...meanwhile Namco had a full year to make Ridge Racer Revolution released precisely one year after Ridge Racer in December 3rd 1995 Japan...unless you believe a game was made when it was released in your region.

You can look up the magazines yourself if you are so interested as much as you are interested in forum discussion arguing.

It's pretty easy, just focus on print magazines starting mid 1993 to 1997 in your region, North America and Japan.

And yet you made it sound like it was something that was important to say where a lay-man on consoles of that generation will ASSUME that consoles needed cooling fans.

 

This is a very misleading way of thinking...

Saying that the Saturn games fell short alone is misleading.

The main problem is that Sega Saturn had a successfull launch and first year and second year in sales in Japan, outselling Sony PS1, it was even outselling N64 in that region.

That is why there are so many games that were made that did not get localized and people don't discuss or aren't aware of when they make their generalized assumptions.

Sega Saturn was mishandled by Sega of America's marketing and 32X.

Sony's North America CEOs also sold the PS1 at a far lower price than it was supposed to and all those heads rolled by 1996.

Now if Saturn had a more focused North America launch even if early then the sales would have become more games made but how can you expect a Sega of America that relied on giving games away and didn't have experience launching consoles to contribute success?

 

Oh dear lord. After so many months, I am just totally bored to go through this again
Just to dismiss your whole "32X" argument, that thing barely got any support, only 9 games were developed by Sega themselves (the majority arcade games so they were just ports) and last game was released in 1995.

Anyway I don't speak fanboy. So byeeeee

 

Sega Japan really fucked Sega America and Sega Europe with the launch. They forced an early launch, isolating many retailers - as they had too few units at that time and chose select retailers only - and disappointed customers due to undercooked launch titles that got a fraction of the possible performance from the system.

Saturn hardware was a SoJ caused mess that Man-God Yu Suzuki did not approve of, even if his team could get inedible things out of it (he had far more input on the Dreamcast, and categorically states it to be his favourite system ever).

The hardware has its charms and excels in certain areas, but it's overall weak in "generally applicable performance per dollar" and "typical software performance and IQ per development man hour".

It was the wrong hardware. But more than that, it's was wrong and expensive.

Sega's arcade divisions were, ironically, absolutely on the nail and on the bleeding edge when it came to features and performance. It's no wonder that the developer-influenced Dreamcast was such an awesome machine, but by then Sega were holed and taking on more water than even a raft of innovative technologies and innovate games could bail out.

 

Give me a damn retro Neptune.

 

What do people think of this design instead of the Saturn. It uses less chips and far less pin/trace count and would of had a much smaller motherboard:

Hitachi SH3 @ 57.2Mhz with 8kb cache (0.5 micron process, 3.3v, 144 pin, 49mm die size)

CPU Ram: 2MB SD RAM @ 57.2Mhz

32 bit wide VDP1 re-engineered to take advantage of 32 bit writes more like Panasonic 3DO's cell engine @ 57.2Mhz + 4-8kb texture cache ( this would offer 4 times the fillrate of the VDP1 in the current design)

VRAM: 1MB sprite/textures + 512kb framebuffer

SCU DSP @ 28.6Mhz with 4-8kb Cache shared between program & data with the ability to do fast reciprocal approximation.

Hitachi SH1 acting as the CD-Rom controller AND the audio chip perhaps on a 32 bit bus. The SH1 would be better at decompressing samples on the fly than the 68000 even if it was doing CD-Rom duty aswel. Also drop the FM part of the audio and double the audio ram to 1MB.

Drop the MPEG slot aswel as the internal save ram and improve the cartridge slot so cartridges can be inserted and removed in game.

Im trying to keep the design similar but just make it more efficient and cleaner. Video compression is now handled by the SH3, audio compression is now handled much better by the SH1 with twice the audio ram. The DSP in the SCU clocked twice as fast with a larger cache and the ability to do divide math now makes it ideal for transformation & lighting.

Based on that design i described above what do you think would be the earliest they could of released a machine like that assuming it was the plan from the start? and they could make a deal with Hitachi to use the CPU? Im thinking August 1995 in Japan.

 

Everything faster and betterer, in my dreams!

(Yes, before anyone asks, I have done this as well. Many many times.)

I have to say I wonder how unique the VDPs in Saturn really are - much of their DNA do seem to come directly from Sega's arcade division, whose late '80s/early '90s hardware also have separate foreground/background processors. Developing entirely new silicon is a big undertaking versus largely adapting something existing... *shrug*

 

Give me the damn sprite based 3-D arcade greats on my minders platforms please.

 

Eh its hard to deny that the 32x was a roadblock to saturn success. It was vomited onto the market with no support which after the lack luster sega cd did nothing to help sega. And while it only got 9 games for it , those 9 games would have helped the saturn out alot

I think sega thought 2d would rain supreme for another generation and you could sorta see why when you look at how expensive model 1 and 2 were. Its more obvious looking back at the n64, ps , saturn how bad the 3d really was. It aged extremely poorly compared to consoles just a few years later like the dreamcast. I think the Saturn could have been sucessful (and it was in japan) if they had never put out the 32 x as I said above those resources could have gone towards the saturn and while yes its only 9 games at the same time it is 9 games . 9 first party games from sega of the 90s would have been quite excelent.

wouldn't it just have been better to go with an SH-3 and power vr graphics card ? Would have cost them similar imo to what the saturn cost but would have been much easier to develop for and as you could see in the Tomb Raider DF stuff the performence would have been better than the playstation

 

Worse than the 9 games "stealing" resources from Saturn games was the reputation hit SEGA got from the 32X flop, following the SEGA CD flop (although I still have one till this day and love it for some reason). Adding additional optional hardware to make the Genesis more powerful was the worst idea ever.

 

I was trying to redesign the machine so it could be out in 1995 in Japan. Power VR wouldn't of been ready until late 96 probably. Remember this is in an alternate reality where the Saturn hadn't been released and Sega had planned for my alternate design from the start with the aim of getting it out as soon as possible.

I think i read somewhere that the SH3 started sampling in early March of 1995. I think if Sega had got it out by say August 95 at the latest in Japan and early 1996 in the US/Europe along with no 32x so the machine had total support it could of split the market with the Playstation. If gamers new Sega were releasing a more powerful console alot of gamers that bought the PS would of waited for Sega's 1995/96 machine.

My redesigned machine would of got alot more 3rd party support and 3rd parties would of been much more reluctant to sign exclusivity deals with Sony as Sega would of had a more appealing machine. If they could of got Squaresoft even if it was non exclusive then i think they would of won Japan and fared alot better in the US/Europe. Not letting Sony get Core Design (Tomb Raider 2/3) would of helped them massively in the US/Europe as well as getting Resident Evil 2/Nemesis from capcom.

Model 2 games would look better on my alternate design machine aswel. Basically Virtua Fighter 2 on Saturn would have been fully lit/shaded with higher polygon characters, better textures and better audio samples. Although with the VDP2 chip gone it would of been interesting to see how good the floors & backgrounds looked but my redesigned VDP1 would of offered around 4 times the fillrate of the VDP1 in the Saturn so more than enough to cover for the loss of the VDP2.

I think you would be looking at 228.8 MB/S bus bandwidth. The machine would be cheaper too as less cpu's, less pin/trace count, smaller motherboard e.t.c

Later on in the machines life using a 4MB expansion cartridge they could of had respectable Model 3 conversions like VF3, Sega Rally 2 and a few others.

The big question though is when do people think is the earliest they could of put my alternate design that i described above on the shelves?

 

I don't think the additional hardware was a bad idea on its own. They just need to do only one. The sega cd would have been fine and didn't really burn through good will at the time .

I remember wanting a 32x thinking it be the coolest thing ever ... then hearing nothing about it , then hearing about the saturn then my dad coming home with the 32x saying it was on clearance at toys r us and he got it and 3 games for $50 bucks .... Then i got a saturn. The Saturn came out when i was 14.

 

What is a japan ? There is only the USA my friend Your right however that Power VR wouldn't have been ready till 1996 , i forget that back then the launches were stagered

 

Delaying the Saturn would have been better than rushing it out and cramping the Genesis.

 

I can accept that the 32X affected some of the resources that could have gone to Saturn. But presenting the resources spent on the 32X, as a major reason for Saturn's demise is false.
There were so many things wrong with the Saturn that even if the 32X did not exist, it would have still faced the same challenges and issues that ultimately destroyed it.
It wasn't the resources spent on the 32X that affected the Saturn the most, but Sega's severed reputation for dropping a bad product (32X) after promises and hype for great support.
In addition Sega of Japan made things worse when they forced Sega of America to drop the support of the Mega Drive in the region. Sega of America wanted to continue the support of the 16 bit console because it was still doing well and bringing money that were so badly needed.
This was another major blow to Sega's reputation.

Sega was constantly failing its consumers by braking promises and by selling add ons and systems that died fast
They screwed their launch by rushing it
Their hardware was very difficult to develop games on and had many draw backs in an age when 3D was new and devs needed support.
To top it off their documentation and tools were very far behind
It didnt allow much room for manufacturing cost reduction. Therefore competition was selling at lower prices, and Sega's efforts to compete in the price war just bled money
Sega of Japan was just calling the shots for every region.

 

My statement about falling short was completely in regards to performance in games, and not in the market. Also, I own north of 300 Saturn games, and have played more than I own. So when you talk about people making generalized assumptions don't assume that people are making assumptions.

 

He also ignores the fact that although it was probably doing better in Japan compared to other regions, Sega had a tendency to report units shipped and not sold. So while it was selling more units to retailers than Sony especially during launch, many units were sitting on shelves in shops. Sega was using the shipped numbers to prove that the Saturn was more popular than PS1 in Japan. Die hard Sega fans fell for that argument and some are still using it to this day.
The PS1 was enjoying higher numbers of units sold to actual customers in general and it also had a shitload of Japanese games that never got localized despite its crazy worldwide success. Some of them were dead gorgeous and better than games that got worlwide popularity too.