Anniversary Sega Saturn, The Most Successful Console "Flop" Of All Time, Turns 30 Today

Sega just couldn’t read the room.

We were playing iteratively derivative versions of scrolling 2d games over 80s/90s and wanted 3d games sans the arcade trappings. Not a big surprise Saturn failed.

It didn't flop; it just came in last place in that generation in terms of sales.

Crazy how the Saturn is such a vastly different beast when it comes to its Japanese library of games versus what was released here in the UK .

I would argue that the Dreamcast is the most succesfull "flop".
However the Saturn holds a special place in my heart, and I have an inordinate amount of appreciation for the console.

Its best games sadly stayed in Japan.
I doubt it would have turned the tide against the ps1 but with those games localized the Saturn could have made afar better showing of it.

But it is what it is.

I stil have copies of the UK Saturn Magazine and the latter issues are equal parts sad as the Saturn dies a slow death, and impressive .
Because the magazine appeared to keep to want to keep the Saturn afloat by sheer force of will and import reviews and recommendations.

And if the Saturn was a failure its only a failure commercially, any other way it has where it counts.

Push back against the historical narrative ?
Yes.

The more I read about the Saturn on this site, the more I’d like Saturn mini. There’s already been a Play Station mini so it should be feasible.
With third party support and bonus games on previous mini releases there would be some good possibilities.
Maybe Silent Hill 1 with improved visuals that would have been possible with the RAM expansions. Not sure if Silent Hill made it to Saturn during its run.

@KitsuneNight I think you're absolutely right. The Saturn has some great games in its library, but those games are of their time or even before, which is probably why we as retro gamers like the machine so much. As someone who was around at the time of its relevance, though, we wanted 3D and the PS1 and N64 were a lot better for that.

Mind you, it did sell even less than the Wii U, and most people consider that a flop. So there's that.

Also, now that I think about it, and going by the conditions of the article, the Wii U might actually be the most successful console "Flop" of all time".

It wasn't a flop in Japan... but it still wasn't enough to cover for Sega's losses. Their real moneymakers were overseas.

In fact, the overseas failure of the Saturn caused then-CEO Isao Okawa to call for Sega to stop making consoles. It didn't work, obviously, but you have to wonder... instead of "what if the Dreamcast won", what would've happened if Sega never made the Dreamcast?

@Starless

Then the Saturn would probably have more Japan only games and be even higher regarded.
But the Dreamcast had to be made, Sega was bleeding money the Saturn was dead in the west.
They were between a rock and hard place.

The Dreamcast was a hail mary and it failed.
While the Saturn was a victim of the struggle for control between Sega of Japan and America.

And the failure of the Sega CD, the 32X, and the cancellation of those machines and the Megadrive in 1996, despite the assurance they wouldn't a few months earlier, to focus on the Saturn.

All that combined with the surprise launch of the Saturn in 1995 with a disastrous launch line up that looked terrible ( but played well )
Scruffy 3D
Hard to develop for,
And most of its best games staying in Japan.
Mediocre PR, and the ps1 and N64 running roughshod over the Saturn.

All that and more buried the machine.

@CocktailCabinet

Oh for sure .
The Saturn was difficult to work with and its 3D looks scruffy at best when anybody other then Sega developed for it

Though that scruffiness has a certain amount of charm

@gb_nes_gamer
It didnt.
The Dreamcast was out in Japan in 1998. the Saturn was on life support in Japan by 1999.
It's last game was released in 2000
Most big name sequels go cancelled for the Saturn
No Tomb Raider 2 or Resi 2 for example.
Just the originals

@gb_nes_gamer The hardware necessary to emulate saturn would be so expensive for a mini most people wouldn't bother.

Happy birthday Saturn, you'll always gonna be my winner of your time

I have sega saturn back then, the fact that most it’s rpg is available only in japan or only limited distribution for western language are annoying, in the end I sold the console and play solely on psx, where most of the rpg available in english 😕

I still want dragon force and panzer dragon saga remaster with 4K and 60 fps graphics, I never play those games back then, I heard they’re really good.

I have 3 saturn consoles still, 2 modded with one able to play back-up cdr's and even have a video-CD card in it with 4 video-CD movies, still my favourite console ever and I have a vast library of must-have games for it with many japan only releases (English language games) and a few English translated fan releases, use it more often than my 2 modded Dreamcast consoles, only use my PS3 for blu-ray films, lol, Sega will always be my favourite hardware and software company and this coming from a former megadrive/mega-CD/32X combo owner, 🤣

@RetroGames Wii U has to be second- I always see the GameCube also described as a flop, due to its paltry 21 million sales (rounded down from 21.8, because who cares about math?) compared to the Xbox's impressive and respectable 24 million.

@gb_nes_gamer I'm with you on wanting more Saturn games to be re-released, for sure! Not personally all that excited about having a dedicated emulation box to play them on, though, when they could just be released as software, either in a compilation or individually.

It's great that Guardian Heroes, NiGHTS into Dreams*, Panzer Dragoon, and Radiant Silvergun are already available on modern platforms (mostly Xbox), but let's get some PD Zwei and Saga over here as well! Maybe Burning Rangers, Dragon Force, Magic Knight Rayearth, and Shining Force 3?

*Note that Nights is being delisted in exactly 2 weeks!

The Saturn had its issues in the market, but it was a fun system to own when it was current. For me it was the system I owned at a time in my life when I was most into video games. It may have been a flop compared to expectations and what Sega needed it to be, but it had a very good library. It was funny that by the end of the Saturn's life I had swung back from the 3D craze to a new appreciation for 2D games. Games like X-Men vs. Street Fighter and King of Fighters '97 were a big part of that. It was truly impressive to see that level of 2D gaming at home on my TV at the time. Of course, that could be said for many 3D games too. There was something special about those games. Another favorite of mine was Virtual On. I was not familiar with that game from the arcades, but saw it in a Saturn commercial and thought it looked cool despite not knowing much about it. I picked it up based on that and ended up loving the game. Another great memory of the Saturn was getting two new games right as I had a week off from school. The two games were Fighters Megamix(Japanese copy) and Dragon Force. I had the best week ever with those two.

I've said this many times before. And this is not a knock on Sony or its marketing. The PS1 wasn't really $100 cheaper at their launch prices. It had no game. Most people would need a game if they weren't planning to play demos. Games were about $50 where I was. A memory card would not be required, but would be highly recommended. Without the card, it would be $350. $370 or so with the card. The Saturn came with a game for a bit and didn't require external memory for saving. With that said, Sony's approach was better because people could choose their first game. Plus, it was better optics and psychology having the system priced at $300.

@Sketcz

The defiant weirdness is what makes the Saturn fun and worth playing and collecting for.
There is nothing quite like the Saturn out there
And it's all the better for it.

Even if in hindsight.

@smoreon

The Cube has had a resurgence of sorts, or at least more exposure because a good chunk of all the Wii consoles, at least 80 million of them, can play cube games.

Making it very easy to pick up and play Cube games with out an actual Cube console.

So technically the Cub is not a failure, and had quite a lot of exposure to gamers over the years.
Easiest way to play Cube games these days is pick up a Wii with a component cable.

The Saturn has no such path.

@smoreon it’s nice to see re-releases on modern platforms but it’s having to re-download or transfer games to the next console, games being de-listed.

I like the convenience of a mini console. However many console generations later, you’ve got the games there on small device, HDMI, USB cables, ready to play.
So long as there are enough quality games to justify it.

@smoreon Yeah, that's an interesting one.

Not sure if it's just me not understanding the sentence properly, but in my view history has done the opposite of dirty to the Saturn. In its day it was a complete and utter disaster (from a western perspective at least) - not worth buying for most people and a constant source of angst and frustration for those who did invest in it. Only now, in the age of nostalgic gaming historians, is it so frequently brought up as a lost gem of a platform. Only now, after every man and his dog has spent a million hours playing and written a million words dissecting the PS1 and the N64, is the Saturn's unpopular library now "fresh" and "unique". It is indeed fresh! Because I never played it before! Because barely anyone did! Now that the Saturn is "history", it has become far more interesting and sought-after than it ever was when it was contemporary.

@N64-ROX

Well almost everybody likes an underdog.
Personally I have been in to the Saturn since 1999.
I went to a gameshop with birthday money to buy ps1 games.
They had a Saturn on display with VF 2 running, and I was sold.
Even better they were offloading the machine with 5 games for 249.
15 min later i was walking home with a brand new Saturn and 5 games.

I am very familiar with the machine,it's not just its underdog status and unknown library that push it to the fore front but that its a 2D monster.

Only the DC and Neo Geo can out perform it in 2D.
Any 2D game on the ps1 is better on the Saturn, with more modes better animation more frames, better colors.

The Capcom VS games on the ps1 are weighed down with loading times choppy animations and even worse they ripped out the real time partner system.

On the Saturn you can change partners on the fly in real time.
On the ps1 you can only play as your tag team partner if you lose a round with your first character

As for 3D, the Saturn uses quads instead of polygons which gives it a distinct somewhat scruffy look.
It has way more "quirky" games then the ps1 has though.

I love the Saturn. I really think it got a raw deal. Pretty obviously a better piece of hardware than the N64 (There are great games on the N64, no doubt. But people like to say that the Saturn didn't give gamers of the time what they wanted, while the N64 used CARTRIDGES). Marketing and in particular localization choices were just so bad. It's like a completely different console in Japan (where -surprise- it did quite well).

But even what we got in America was so unique, and unlike other famous console failure the Wii U, most of those unique games are still exclusive, which is simultaneously a shame and makes Saturn a more special console to collect for.

@gb_nes_gamer I'd like to buy some of the previous minis, but they were... well, delisted. Sold out. Whereas I can still buy and download decades-old games on GOG and Steam, thanks to the unlimited "print run" of digital. Pros and cons to both, of course!

Plus, there's nothing preventing them from releasing, let's say, a physical Xbox/PlayStation disc containing 10 Saturn classics.

@KitsuneNight I wouldn't say the GameCube was a failure, either. Not a huge success, sales-wise, but it did okay. Just not as well as Nintendo hoped- or it arguably deserved.

And its library had some real quality, too!

As far as accessibility and reputation in the present day, I don't see how that would make a system any more or less of a success... it's not even like Nintendo kept pressing more GameCube games for back compat during the Wii era, the way some companies did for other platforms (e.g., PS1 games like Metal Gear Solid being sold for PS2). But yes, I think it has seen a resurgence in popularity. Lots of people now see it as an underappreciated gem.

The Saturn was a big flop in the US but a big success in Japan. Probably one of the most polarizing major consoles I can think of when it comes to that. I remember how nobody really wanted one, every kid I knew who was into video games went from a Genesis/SNES to a PS1/N64. Even as a Sega Genesis fan I skipped it, was mostly into PS1 that gen, and got a Dreamcast after it released. Even though the Dreamcast also flopped arguably it was a lot more popular than the Saturn ever was.

@smoreon
More exposure via the Wii means more people are more nostalgic for it nowadays.
And nostalgia is the reason prices go up. ( for the most part)

And the best way (and cheapest way ) to play cube games nowadays is to buy a Wii with it's component cable.

The Cube component cable is offensively expensive.

I dont Consider the Cube a failure either, it has some great games but it was railed roaded, like the DC was, by the monolith that is the PS2.
The PS2 was just a monster.

"The console got far better software support in its homeland,"

This is incorrect. Most of the Saturn library in Japan was either shoot'em ups or visual novels. I'm not sure why people keep pushing this argument. The fact is more western games needed to be made for the Saturn to do well.

@jimmytodgers hard disagree. 2d was matured and looked awesome on Saturn. 3d in that generation was rough despite some classics like Mario 64 and Metal Gear Solid. The fact is, it took the next generation for 3d to start to shine.