No, absolutely not. The reasons for the "failure" of the Saturn are well known at this point.
1) The hardware was a pain to program and port games to compared to other consoles at the time. There's plenty of interviews and comments from programmers about this. 2) "Saturn arguably became the gold standard when it came to "hardcore" gaming experiences", if your game library is predominately being geared towards certain niche audiences, it's not mainstream and thus reduced sales and interest. If you weren't into fighters, you weren't getting a Saturn. 3) "...anyone wise enough to purchase a Japanese Saturn (or find a way of getting import games to run on their Western system) would know that an embarrassment of riches awaited them" see above, marketed towards niche audiences. Most people didn't even know about importing or how to even do it. 4) "despite the fact that its library runs to over 1000 titles", and how many of those titles are known and well-respected? Most of them never left Japan and most are probably forgettable and probably low tier jank garbage. You're only hearing about the good ones. 5) This article also conveniently omits and ignores Sega's other problems that were piling up at this time. The 32X especially. How Sega pissed off retailers with how they launched the Saturn, how their western and eastern divisions couldn't even see eye to eye. There was alot more behind-the-scenes here that also contributed to the console's "failure".
Gonna be honest, this reads like a sore Sega fan who still can not accept the fact that their brand "lost" 25 years ago and is trying to pull whatever they can to try to "change the narrative". The Saturn had unique aspects to it, but it wasn't enough for it to survive. These problems also spilled over into the Dreamcast. So no, the narrative is mostly correct.
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Re: WATA-Graded NES Star Wars Prototype Released From Its Plastic Tomb
I can understand collecting and keeping sealed copies of games, but an undumped prototype...that's messed up. Seriously messed up.
Re: Is It Time To Change The Narrative On The Sega Saturn?
@Lobsterv00 and I encourage you to read my comment again where I never mentioned Sony or Nintendo consoles specifically.
Re: Is It Time To Change The Narrative On The Sega Saturn?
@Lobsterv00 I mean I quoted several sentences from the article so clearly I did.
Re: Is It Time To Change The Narrative On The Sega Saturn?
@GhaleonUnlimited I didn't mention Playstation at all in my comment... hmm...
Re: Is It Time To Change The Narrative On The Sega Saturn?
No, absolutely not. The reasons for the "failure" of the Saturn are well known at this point.
1) The hardware was a pain to program and port games to compared to other consoles at the time. There's plenty of interviews and comments from programmers about this.
2) "Saturn arguably became the gold standard when it came to "hardcore" gaming experiences", if your game library is predominately being geared towards certain niche audiences, it's not mainstream and thus reduced sales and interest. If you weren't into fighters, you weren't getting a Saturn.
3) "...anyone wise enough to purchase a Japanese Saturn (or find a way of getting import games to run on their Western system) would know that an embarrassment of riches awaited them" see above, marketed towards niche audiences. Most people didn't even know about importing or how to even do it.
4) "despite the fact that its library runs to over 1000 titles", and how many of those titles are known and well-respected? Most of them never left Japan and most are probably forgettable and probably low tier jank garbage. You're only hearing about the good ones.
5) This article also conveniently omits and ignores Sega's other problems that were piling up at this time. The 32X especially. How Sega pissed off retailers with how they launched the Saturn, how their western and eastern divisions couldn't even see eye to eye. There was alot more behind-the-scenes here that also contributed to the console's "failure".
Gonna be honest, this reads like a sore Sega fan who still can not accept the fact that their brand "lost" 25 years ago and is trying to pull whatever they can to try to "change the narrative". The Saturn had unique aspects to it, but it wasn't enough for it to survive. These problems also spilled over into the Dreamcast. So no, the narrative is mostly correct.