You know, when they released it too soon with no games, and pissing off retailers.

If it came out a year later for $299, with an easier to program for hardware/software and more launch games then it may well have been the number one console of the generation.

They made a lot of mistakes. If they hadn't made all those stupidly worthless addons (32X CD) to the Genesis/Mega Drive. The Saturn would of come out at a normal pace. And not released on it's freaking announcement. It would of definally done better than what it did.

I Think the "what if?"-question should be traced back to the Sega-CD/32X addition to the Mega drive. they started on a path of not knowing what they would do next and therefore made rash descision. Had they not started on that path, I Think the Saturn would have released at the same time, but at a larger cost and better capacity, and it would become a dominant force in the industry.

What puppy roach said about the SCD/32x

The sega CD while not the best seller wasn't a brand doomer. The CD has its place in history, however the decline began with the 32X and Nomad as both weren't heavily supported.

Then upsetting the retail chain by releasing the Saturn 6 months early with only 2 launch titles vs the 15 or so it would have had in its original launch is what spelled doom for sega's branding. Not releasing a Sonic title (even if it was a 2D sidescroller) was also a giant mistake. The PS1 was a perfect storm but sega may have eaked out a nice niche in the 2D diehards and Japanese game enthusiasts with a better release policy for the saturn.

Also a single processor architecture would have been much better from a programming and cost enivornment.

The CD helped in screwing everything up. Instead of designing the Saturn when the Genesis was dying. They go and Make the CD add-on. Wasting time to get things out. Plus, it was always hated because it required AC adapters, AV wires, etc. Might as well been the Saturn from the start.

Then the new Sega girls anime would have more than three characters, I suppose.

The problem with Sega CD was that Sega was trying to keep backwards compatibility with the Genesis while also reducing hardware costs, selling the console to people who already owned a Genesis.  I can't really say add ons never work, because Kinect and Playstation 4 Eye have sold or are selling well, but before Kinect, henceforth known as BK, add ons never worked.  Sega should have realized this with all of Nintendo's failed attempts at an add on.  Or even the Turbo Grafx-16 CD which was exactly what the idea behind Sega CD was.

Turbo CD had more support than the Sega CD, but Sega CD did have a fair amount of support for an add on.  If Sega released the Sega CD as a brand new console, they'd probably have upgraded the hardware from the very dated Genesis hardware and it'd have been a true next gen console at the time.  We probably would have then received games with 2D graphics like Arc the Lad, SotN, etc, if the system had an upgrade then, and the Sega CD would have been able to produce actual 3D instead of the mock 3D that the system was capable of. 

I like the Sega CD only because there are some good games on it, but I do agree it was the very beginning of Sega's demise.  They then released the 32X which did even worse than the Sega CD, which anyone could have told you that was  going to happen.  Their poor development and bad start of the Saturn, and then their big Dreamcast mistake.  As great as the console was, it's kind of hard to sell games when people can just burn them and play them right off  the console.  If Sega did stuff a little different, the current gen might have Nintendo making games for Sega instead of the other way around.  Or might not have got Sony or Microsoft to join the market.

Nintendo would not be layed back as they are now, PS would continue like today but less superior, Xbox probably would be a lesser brand, or on par with Sega's.