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Chrkeller on 11 November 2024
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Cerebralbore101 said:
Chrkeller said:

I see a lot of arcade and japan preferred titles.  Honestly, I don't see much that would have driven US sales.  Especially at their price tag.  

Edit 

I'm going off memory but I don't recall anyone at school really caring about the Saturn.  Meanwhile 007 and FF7 were the talk of the town.  The Saturn, imo, didn't have a US system seller.  

It's really hard to tell what would have done well. Panzer Dragoon Saga wasn't out until 98 but was as much of a tour de force as FF7. Sega Rally was the first driving game to have terrain based physics. Perhaps it would have taken off in the West. GT sold 10 million units so don't count out a humble racing game. 

Also if Saturn hadn't bombed in the west Konami, Capcom, and Core Design would have kept making games for it. Imagine N64 having to deal with another system that has MGS, Resident Evil, Castlevania, Tomb Raider Trilogy, etc. 

Finally if FF7 got ported to PC, it would have likely got a Saturn port too. 

I really can't stress enough how much retailers in the USA screwed over the Saturn. It was pretty much a Toys R Us exclusive system. The nearest store to me that even sold games was an hour away. By 1998 nobody carried Saturn stuff at all. 

Nah, you really don't believe Panzer (from a US commercial perspective) is on the lines of Final Fantasy.. do you?  Especially FF7?!!??  

There is no doubt retailer situation hurt, but there are so many others facts:

1) Sega had NO reputation by the time the Saturn launched.  They burned the crap out of people with the CD and 32x.  Both were just trash "upgrades" that alienated their core demographic.

2) Pricing, $400 for far too much for a system that was no more capable than the competition.  

3) I still maintain their game lineup was weak for the US.  A bunch of arcade games, not much else.  The world was moving on from arcades.  You compare Sega Rally to GT...  you do realize GT has an entire massive career mode with hundreds upon hundreds of cars, tons of customization, etc?  Which is my point.  Sega was launching Daytona and Rally, arcade ports.  Sony was moving to robust single player games with career modes.  Sega was behind massively on where gaming was going.