| MegaDrive08 said: Sega's worst enemy was it's own management, releasing hardware left right and centre, I think they were still manufacturing the master system when the Saturn was released, they worried to much about the hardware when all they needed to focus on was the software, look at what ninty did with the snes they just sat back and focused on software and watched sega destroy themselves going crazy with hardware |
I see their support to older hardwares as a great thing, in the same manner I love the similar approach from Sony. The problem with Sega was when they started to do the opposite and abandon hardwares just to release a new one. The released Sega CD and after a year or so, they released 32X and made everyone that got a CD feel like idiots. And one more year later, Saturn. Everyone that bought Mega Drive expansions where cheated, since Sega sold expansions almost as expensive as other console just to drop it and release a full console. Dreamcaat was released too soon, killing Saturn too, marking the third time that Sega dropped a hardware quickly. That really destroys the consumer confidence on a brand.
About Saturn, I see it as the reason of Sega's demise. In a pure point of view of the hardware, it was made to fail. Complex architecture made it hard to develop for and it was underpowered when compared with the competition. It was launched at a high price point. They tryed to get an edge by releasing early (Saturnday), but the announcement of the PS1 price at the same time combined with the limited availability of Sega's console killed sales and infuriated the stores that were excluded of the launch, like Wallmart (actually PS1 surpassed its sales in a week or so after launch, even with Saturn on sale for 4 months).
Despite that, Saturn's complex architeture , with two processors and several high customized auxiliar processors for other tasks, made it hard to consolidate components and cut costs. While PS1 and N64 were getting even cheaper, Sega couldn't keep the race because of their console's complexity (instead, they even bundled 3 games in EU, and that just drove software sales down). To end this giant post, Saturn killed Sega. They made other mistakes, but that was a giant one and actually people on the US and EU simply forgot that Saturn existed, it was Sony and Nintendo and nothing more. That was the mistake that put them out of the race. Dreamcast was a fantastic device, but it had to fight against the massive losses of Saturn and, at the same time, try to put Seha back in a race that they were out since N64 launch in 1996.
