'Neptune should have just been the Model 3 Genesis.';

'>>10851803
No variation of the 32X will help Sega's position. None. Zero at all. Don't participate in the False Start generation, don't pay attention to it, don't acknowledge it, etc.';

'>>10851803
anything would have worked better than what they did
ultimately the sega 32x was just a stronger processor, it was a bad idea to begin with: the megadrive already had a pretty strong one - it didn't add much

what would had made a difference was if they just had better games
the 32x would had sold a lot more if it had a proper sonic and not just some gimmicky bullshit spinoff';

'>>10851803
> delay the Saturn for another year or two to improve its architecture
No amount of time would fix the Saturn, its design is fundamentally flawed.';

'>>10851886
I don't think that's true at all. There were benefits to the dual VDP setup. What really fucked Saturn was the dual SH-2s. Delaying the Saturn a year so that Hitachi could come up with a better solution, maybe a single SH-3 for example, would have helped tremendously. Plus a delay would have allowed for a better software lineup out of the gate. People forget but the original Virtua Fighter port was rushed garbage.';

'For once and for all, no';

'>>10853151
>People forget but the original Virtua Fighter port was rushed garbage
It's impressive how the 32X port is actually more stable visually';

'>>10853160
The 32X Virtua Fighter port is what I point to for why I think the 32X/Neptune could have worked under different conditions. Sega wanted to get Virtua Fighter ported ASAP because it was practically a religion in Japan for a while. That's one of the major reasons they rushed the Saturn to market. But if they had used the 32X as a stopgap to cover for a 12-18 month delay for the Saturn instead of releasing the two machines on top of each other, that could have solved everyone's problem. SOJ gets to sell Virtua Fighter to the Japanese, SOA gets to keep the Genesis afloat for a bit longer, and the Saturn can launch comfortably in late 1995 with Virtua Fighter 2 and a slew of other titles that had enough time to cook. The 32X was a huge mistake in the way they released it but it didn't have to be that way. Games that fell into that generation gap like Rayman and several Capcom and SNK games that were too much for 16-bit machines but didn't REALLY need Saturn/PS1 power could have rounded out the 32X library in the interim. The 32X actually has some decent games. The DOOM port sucks but that, too, was rushed. A competent version would have definitely been possible. Sega had the perfect answer to all it's problems and decided to shit the bed instead of use it properly.';

'>>10851803
No, fucking moron. 32X was a shit idea. They should've solely focused on Saturn.
>>10851808
Retarded.';

'>>10851883
>the sega 32x was just a stronger processor
wow....
32x
Processor: Two SH2 32-bit RISC processors with a clock speed of 23.011 MHz, approx 20 MIPS each
Video RAM: Two linear framebuffers with support for RLE compression and an overdraw mode to simplify compositing objects with transparency. All scaling, rotation, and 3D operations are performed in software on the SH2 processors.
ROM (BIOS): 3 Kb
Color depth: 32,768 simultaneous colors on screen at standard Mega Drive/Genesis resolution. Video output can overlay Mega Drive/Genesis graphics or vice versa. Mega Drive/Genesis video effects such as shadow or highlight do not affect 32X video.
Memory: 256KB (2 MBit) program RAM and two 128KB (1 MBit) framebuffers.
Audio: Stereo 10-bit PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) mixing with Mega Drive/Genesis sound for a total of 12 audio channels of varying capability, 22 with the addition of a Mega-CD/Sega CD.

>>10853151
>That really fucked Saturn was the dual SH-2s. Delaying the Saturn a year so that Hitachi could come up with a better solution
Sega wasn't really in a position to delay the release any further, the PSX was about to be released in Japan and looking much better on paper than the Saturn, and Nintendo was over marketing the N64 as the console to rule them all although Sega couldn't know the N64 was going to be vaporware for a while more
That was the reason for them to rush release the american market AND predate on the newly released 32x like that.

What fucked sega up is that they couldn't play their cards right, if they sell the 32x at a loss to get the megadrive platform up to the snes level, and made use of the stupid cart port to include backwards compatibility on the Saturn with an established library of 32x carts and cds, then the value proposal of the Sega Saturn would have been much more well received in the market.
The potential was there hardware wise as the saturn had most if not all the hardware to do so.';

'>>10853302
The Saturn rushing to market was SOJ panicking because the Mega Drive was done in Japan so delaying it would have meant they'd effectively have zero console presence in Japan and no way to port Virtua Fighter which was white hot at the time. That much makes sense. But the 32X could have solved that problem nicely. The Japanese would have absolutely bought a MD+32X or a standalone Neptune if it were the exclusive Virtua Fighter platform in 1994. They'd have paid anything for that game. Shit, Virtua Fighter 32X exclusivity might have been a shot in the arm for the Japanese Mega Drive in the same way Pokemon was for the Game Boy. That one game was the sole reason Saturns flew off the shelves for a few months in Japan. If the 32X didn't exist then, yes, Sega wouldn't have been able to delay the Saturn since they needed SOMETHING on the market. But the 32X was right there and Sega fumbled the ball.';

'>>10853151
The SH2's were not really the problem. The real issue with the saturn is that vdp1 sucks.';

'>Page 10
BUMP

I don't care if it would have "saved Sega" or not. I still wish it existed because it's a neat idea. I wish I could mod my own 32x inside my genesis, but I'm too retarded to do that.';

'>>10851808
>Neptune should have just been the Model 3 Genesis.
In 1998? Did ANYONE give a shit about the 32X at that point in time?';

'>>10851803
If Saturn was cancelled or pushed to 1996, and the SEGA Neptune was sold at 189.99 in 1994, then yes.';

'>>10851803
sega was never going to succeed as a hardware company after the genesis. that was lightning in a bottle and their consumers didnt have the brand loyalty that nintendo did. the only reason it was even successful is because the nes had no other competition. sega was never going to compete with sony no matter how much fanfiction people write';

'>>10856067
Cold sobering truth.';

'>>10856067
To be fair, they did have a good thing going with Sonic... and then they messed it all up due to incompetence.';

'>>10856019
Im sure they still had spare 32X parts and carts they had to liquidate. Throw in Chaotix and Sonic Classics as pack-ins.';

'>>10851803
Not going towards CDs as fast as possible would've been a huge mistake as it drove down publishing costs massively which encouraged developers to put out more games and take more risks with new ideas';

'>>10856317
CD drive speeds were too slow. And had massive loading times. Mario 64 would never work on CD.';

'>>10856374
and nothing of value would be lost';

'>>10851803
Yes it could have worked. Just make Neptune and focus on good games like Nintendo.';

'Aw Jesus, why do you have to make fantasy threads about Sega winning every day? Don't you get bored of having the same conversations, asshole?';

'>>10851803
Can you stop with the sega what if threads please?';

'>>10856768
That didn't really work for Nintendo, Sony crushed them. But they had a few things to fall back on like the Game Boy and Pokeman while they regrouped. They had to go after the mom and grandma market with the Wii to find success again on console.';

'>>10851803

Haven't seen anyone post this, but the Neptune's setup would have also had the advantage of not being limited to the Genesis customer base to break into the platform as a consumer.

if you match this with a better handling of the Nomad to be the new mobile platform replacing the Game Gear would have been pretty damn cool. But solid memory was still fucking expensive and optical storage was just too damn enticing.

>>10853302
>Sega couldn't know the N64 was going to be vaporware for a while more

true, but hindsight being 20 20, thats what they should have done. By the time the decision of what to do came around, they were already in deep shit. The only had bad choices, and trying to limp by with the Genesis was the least-bad decision in hindsight and find a different enxt-gen plan, but still would have been painful.';

'>>10857182
Sony didn't crush Nintendo. They bullied them. But didn't still sold around 40 million N64s. And Nintendo sells hardware at a profit. So they made money.

Sony DID crush Sega. They only sold 9 million Saturn.';

'>>10856374
There's a working build for a quick-and-dirty port to the 64DD which ended up hardly any worse. I'll give you the 64DD being a bit faster than a 2X CD drive, but they probably didn't give enough of a shit to optimize load times here either.';

'>>10851803
Cancel the 32x and Sega CD, don't design a stupid architecture with 2 CPU, plan retail sales strategy, make ads for normies and not some troon shit and voila, Saturn is relevant.';

'>>10857706
Sony still spends billions and crushes you.';

'>>10853364
>zero console presence in Japan
Peak irony given they allowed themselves to be in exactly that position between 1997 and 1999 in most Western territories and contributed to their own downfall. Severe tunnel vision with these execs.';

'>>10851803
Sega either could have made neptune or adapt Sega Model 1 arcade board into a console.';

'>>10857725
They didn't give a flying fuck about the West, big difference. They went balls-in on Japan at the expense of everywhere else and it backfired miserably.';

'>>10858007
I'm glad someone else said it.';

'>>10851803
It would have been the same as the 32X but more expensive and retarded since you must buy an entire new system.
Not to mention a campaign for launching a new system would had dry out Sega's pockets in a very crucial moment.
Potential users would have end with some shit slightly better Genesis on their hands thinking on how retarded they were not to buy the Playstation instead and use the wasted money in games for it.
As a side note, I simply don't understand how people can seriously blame the Sega's downfall on the 32X alone. I mean, it was just a damn add on.';

'>>10859786
>As a side note, I simply don't understand how people can seriously blame the Sega's downfall on the 32X alone. I mean, it was just a damn add on.

The Sega Japanese workers can't say it was any of the other products they made because they would get backlash from their peers in the industry and get ostracized. Japan is very group oriented.

Just look at the other nonsense Sega made:

Sega SG-1000 Mark 1
Sega SG-1000 Mark 2
Sega SG-1000 Mark 3
Sega Master System
Sega CD
Sega Mega Karaoke
Sega Mega PC
Sega Mega Jet
Sega Mega Teradrive PC
Sega Pico
Sega Pico Advanced
Sega Laser Active
Sega Nomad
Sega Game Gear
Sega CDX
Sega HiSaturn
Sega HiSaturn Navi
Sega Saturn Karaoke
Sega JVC V-Saturn
Sega Skeleton Saturn
Sega PriFun
Sega Saturn Arcade Hotel


Look how spread out they were. But they blame 32x? A single add-on? Only makes them look more foolish.';

'>>10851803
Sega and anything 32-bit related before the Saturn would have only worked if DKC was never made, and barely at best';

'>>10851803
The problem with the Neptune was they couldn't get the price under $200, it was closer to $300 to build them.
Not to mention cart prices had exploded, late Genesis and 32X games were routinely in the $
$70-$80 range. You can't be a budget system with the most expensive games on the market.

What Sega should have done is fix the self inflicted problems with the Saturn, it should have shipped with the Ram Cart, official ones were not easy to find and the battery backup was a joke, the Saturn ate lithium batteries like the Game Gear ate AAs.
They should have ditched giant Sega CD cases for standard jewel cases like Sony did, you can double the games on the shelves and save a boat load of money on shipping
they should have matched what ever Sony was offering in their royalty split, 3rd party Saturn games had no business being $10 more expensive than their PS1 cousins.';

'>>10857398
>>10853302
>N64
>Vaporware
Anons, SGI tried to sell the RCP to Sega before they went to Nintendo. It was never vaporware, though SGI and Nintendo did over promise and under deliver
Keep in mind that Sony also was touting what were obviously prerendered images as what the "PSX" would be capable of, and it turned out it didn't even have z buffering so Nintendo and SGI were hardly the first and haven't been the last companies to lie about what their hardware can do';

'>>10860156
>Sega SG-1000 Mark 1
>Sega SG-1000 Mark 2
Gotta start somewhere

>Sega SG-1000 Mark 3
>Sega Master System
Very solid console, not their fault you're american

>Sega CD
Successful platform. again, not their fault you're american

>Sega Mega PC
>Sega Mega Teradrive PC
>LaserActive
Made by Amstrad/IBM/Pioneer. Not Sega

>Sega Pico
>Sega Pico Advanced
It's a childs toy

>Sega Nomad
>Sega Game Gear
Good tech, not nonsense.

>Sega CDX
People literally beg sega to combine the systems, yet gloss over this.

>Sega HiSaturn
>Sega HiSaturn Navi
>Sega JVC V-Saturn
This is Sega working with tech partners to get saturn into the homes of non-gamers. I have a V-Saturn with mpeg card, it's cool.

>Sega Saturn Karaoke
Karaoke is big in Japan, and Saturn had CD-G out of the box. No brainer, much like the HiSaturn/V-Saturn

>Sega Skeleton Saturn
It's literally a saturn with a transparent case, how is this nonsense?

>Sega PriFun
Weird, but not that unusual. There were a lot of stuff like this aimed at girls.

>Sega Saturn Arcade Hotel
I've never heard of this one and I can't find anything about it? Was it just an in-room gaming system? There were Nintendo and Sony variants in the 90s-early 2000s, having seen a special Playstation in a hotel.

Basically, not nonsense, just a diverse product line that leveraged their core technologies and expertise.';

'>>10862454
> didn't even have z buffering
z buffering is an anti-feature. Not having it is a good thing.';

'>>10851812
I'm pretty sure 32x was only ever made in response to the 3DO and Jag, which were both too early and under-powered.';

'>>10862514
Explain yourself. How is having to manually draw everything in order a good thing?';

'Sweet neptune!';

'>>10861962
Keep in mind that DOOM was what changed the 90s gaming landscape, and EVERY console wanted a piece of that DOOM pie.';

'>>10862603
z-buffer is completly incapable of handling transparancy, this fact requires the game engine to perform hideious contortions as soon as anything needs to be transparent. In the case of ps1, transparency is free as part of the normal rendering process, no extra contortions needed.';

'>>10851803
32X was a better idea than the neptune, but really neither should have been made.';

'>>10863653
What SEGA should've done was made their Saturn easier to develop for. Sony already made the right move by making it a breeze for programmers to get the hang of their PSX.';

'>>10862479
None of these items are free. Even if they collaborate with other companies, Sega still has to some devote resources to its development, and contribute some funding. It's not free. And lastly this also means devoting some Sega personnel to oversee the development. This was a terrible choice since this was at a time when Sega was stretched thin in manpower and finances. Especially from the mid 1990s and onward. You don't see Microsoft making 20 different Xboxes, Xbox GPS car units, Xbox Karaoke, a portable handheld Xbox, etc. No its just Xbox and your lucky to get different colors.';

'>>10862516
That has been officially debunked by one of Sega of Japan's hardware engineers who designed peripherals for all of Sega's consoles:
https://twitter.com/Tosaki_c01/status/1781106738227511616

The 32X was entirely Sega of America's idea because they didn't want to sell the Saturn and didn't think anyone would pay more than $200 for a new console. They convinced Sega of Japan this was the correct strategy for the US and EU markets.';

'>>10864335
>The 32X was entirely Sega of America's idea
That's retarded';

'>>10864340
Yes, Sega of America was retarded.';

'>>10864347
It's even more amusing when you take into consideration that SOJ themselves thought the JAG was barely a competitor.';

'>>10862625
>DOOM was what changed the 90s gaming landscape
Not on consoles or with Japanese developers. It was Virtua Fighter.
FPSes had a relatively small impact on console development until the following generation.';

'>>10864359
>Virtua Fighter.
Seems like a cool game, I've never played it before.';

'>>10864335
>because they didn't want to sell the Saturn
Of course they wanted to sell the Saturn. It wasn't ready yet in Japan. It was rushed in Japan to beat Playstation to market. Tom Kalinske saw that Saturn wasn't ready for market yet either. Software wasn't ready. The launch games weren't ready. Sega didn't make enough of them either. It was clear Saturn was a rush job and needed another year to make more consoles and games.

Also another problem was that Sega of Japan wasn't able or didn't know how to do a global launches. They kept doing staggered launches like with Master System and Sega Genesis.

For example:

* Japan got the Genesis in 1989.

* Then 1 year later North America got the Genesis.

* Then 2 years later parts of Europe got Genesis. And it still took a full year for it to spread throughout Europe.

* Then 2 years later Korea got the Sega Genesis

* Then 4 years later, India finally got the Sega Genesis in 1994.


This led to a weird ass situation where the Sega Genesis was still new or still in the middle of its 5 to 6 year console cycle. How could Sega of Japan not know this?

Japan is not the rest of the world.';

'>>10864385
The Brazilian Genesis timeline is the most fascinating of them all.';

'>>10864385
> It wasn't ready yet in Japan.
It was ready. The hardware is more than good enough to be competitive.
>Software wasn't ready.
It wasn't ready in because they were dicking around with the 32X and moving Saturn games over to 32X to pad it's library.
>Sega didn't make enough of them either. It was clear Saturn was a rush job and needed another year to make more consoles and games.
That's because they had to split the amount of CPUs they had available to make 32Xs.
>Also another problem was that Sega of Japan wasn't able or didn't know how to do a global launches. They kept doing staggered launches like with Master System and Sega Genesis.
This was the norm for other companies at the time as well. PS1 launched in 1994 in Japan, 1995 in the US. NES launched in 1983 in Japan, 1985 in the US. SNES was 1990 in Japan, 1991 in the US, and 1992 in Europe.

The evidence is overwhelming at this point. The Saturn's failure is entirely Sega of America's fault.';

'>>10864405
>The Saturn's failure is entirely Sega of America's fault
Sega made a ton of mistakes but even if they played things perfectly, Sony was still going to steamroll them. There was no path to victory.';

'>>10864456
>There was no path to victory.
That never stopped Nintendo, because the GCN sold significantly less than both the PS2 and XBOX';

'>>10864405
>32x ate all the CPU chips so not enough Saturns could be made.
>32x took all Saturn's games

All the more reason they should have waited 1 year to make more games and consoles. Launch in USA in 1996 like Tom Kalinske wanted. Plenty of consoles would be available. Plenty more games would be available. How can you not see that.';

'>>10864456
>Sony was still going to steamroll them.
That's a given for anyone not Sony that generation. The goal wouldn't be to beat Sony, it would be to secure a solid 2nd place finish and be in a better position financially come next generation.';

'>>10864462
>All the more reason they should have waited 1 year to make more games and consoles.
If there's no 32X that problem goes away. If Sega of America was focused on prepping Saturn in 1994 and 1995 they could have launched in fall of 1995 with more than enough systems and games. Instead they focused on the 32X.

There's no path where Kalinske's plan works. He misread the market, plain and simple. How can you not see that?';

'>>10864471
Your own interview you posted said that Sega of Japan CEO wanted Sega of America to release an upgraded Sega Genesis to counter the upcoming Atari Jaguar. But SoA talked them down to just making an add-on Genesis instead.

The responsibility here is on Sega of Japan. They were threatened by the Atari Jaguar.';

'>>10864459
No one could compete directly with Sony. Nintendo tried, and then they gave up and went after a different audience with the Wii. They didn't beat Sony, they just stopped fighting them.';

'>>10864475
It's ironic though, because Sony and Microsoft tried riding off the motion control wave afterwards.';

'>>10864473
I did not post that interview. I posted what one of Sega of Japan's actual hardware engineers said in response. Sega of Japan didn't consider the Jaguar a threat and never took it seriously. No one did. The Atari Jaguar story has been debunked.

Maybe you should actually try reading what people post?';

'>>10864481
Wasn't the sound on the Jag akin to an Amiga?';

'They should never have fucked with anymore Genesis hardware experiments. It was still doing well in the US but only because it was still getting good games no one asked for another overpriced add-on like the Sega CD especially because everyone already knew the Saturn would be happening.';

'>>10864485
Didn't some Americans buy JP import consoles due to the long wait?';

'>>10864490
Yeah, same thing happened with the PS1 to some extent it was common practice back in the days before consoles had simultaneous international release schedules.';

'>>10864467
Depends how you define "solid" but Nintendo sold like 40 million N64s and they weren't even close to the Playstation. A solid second place finish was probably also impossible.';

'>>10864496
Sounds based as hell, that explains why I see JP import listings on eBay every now and then.';

'>>10864501
If Saturn did as well in the US as it did in Japan it probably would have been able to match or beat the N64 when you factor in the different size of the markets. Which again it wouldn't be near PS1 sales, but it would have been enough to keep them in a better financial position and not have to rush out Dreamcast so quickly.';

'>>10864490
Electronics Boutique and other brick & mortar stores used to carry Saturn imports in the US. The Saturn era is also when e-commerce import game stores got going.';

'>>10864509
But even then the PS2 was another unstoppable juggernaut. I don't see any way Sega survives as a console maker. Especially with Microsoft joining the race.';

'>>10864536
If Sega doesn't have to rush the Dreamcast out in 1998/1998 but can instead wait until 2000 they could have released with better hardware and been in a better position to not be hemorrhaging money just selling it at $199. Would they still last past the 6th gen? Maybe not, but they'd be in a better position that things could play out differently.';

'>>10864481
I will take word of Sega of Japan's CEO over some lowly Japanese engineer.

Many people laugh now, but Atari was a huge company in the 80s. There was a possibility they could have made a comeback in the 90s if they played their cards right. Sega's CEO was right to be concerned about losing North America to Atari.';

'>>10864631
>I will take word of Sega of Japan's CEO over some lowly Japanese engineer.
We don't have his word in regards to the Jaguar. We have hearsay from a lowly American dev. I'll take the Japanese Hardware engineer over the American dev as the Japanese hardware engineer was actually involved in the discussions about what hardware was being made and knew what competing hardware they were actually looking at and taking seriously.

The only word we have from Sega of Japan's CEO is that he was concerned about the PS1 and 3DO but Sega of America convinced him no one would buy them and instead they had decided to split the market with the cheaper 32X for the US (Scroll down for Nakayama quotes):
https://mdshock.com/2023/07/10/irimajiri-speaks-out-about-the-saturn-the-32x-and-soas-financial-troubles/

>Many people laugh now, but Atari was a huge company in the 80s
And quickly became a laughing stock by the 90s. No one took the Jaguar seriously.';

'>>10864631
Also this wasn't some lowly Japanese engineer. The guy was head of peripheral development at Sega and designed a lot of the different peripherals for the Genesis, Saturn, and Dreamcast including the Virtua Gun/Stunner, 3D Control Pad, VMU, the Dreamcast controller, etc.:

https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2022/06/03/interview-kenji-tosaki-talks-saturn-dreamcast-peripheral-design/';

'>>10864335

a peripheral designer, not a system designer sharing his opinion that other systems weren't on their radar?

we have multiple other accounts from higher positions that say they were.

>The 32X was entirely Sega of America's idea because they didn't want to sell the Saturn and didn't think anyone would pay more than $200 for a new console. They convinced Sega of Japan this was the correct strategy for the US and EU markets.

they were forced to come up with the idea because SOJ took 'none of the above' off the table, which would have in hindsight probably been the least destructive option.';

'Pretty clear to me that Sega of America and Sega of Europe knew what they were doing. They sold 35 million Sega Genesis overseas. Meanwhile Sega of Japan only sold 2 million in their home country. Lmao. Pathetic.

Sega of Japan got jealous of other branches success, and sabotaged their own company. Petty Japanese politics killed Sega. They couldn't stand a superior American knew how to sell their own system better than the Japanese did. That's why they are a no name company today. Not even a SHADOW of what they once were. Their former glory gone.';

'>>10864405
>It was ready. The hardware is more than good enough to be competitive.

at the time the decisions were being made, it most certainly was not.

>It wasn't ready in because they were dicking around with the 32X and moving Saturn games over to 32X to pad it's library.

their own shitty dev and documentation for the saturn was a way bigger factor than a handful of four 32x titles made by 2 developers being occupied. Proof of that is that the problem persisted well after the development death of the 32x


>>10864459
>That never stopped Nintendo, because the GCN sold significantly less than both the PS2 and XBOX

thats because 1, they did was Sega of Japan wouldn't when it looked like they weren't ready to go to market . They fucking didn't and stuck with the SNES a bit longer.

Sure it didn't make them lots of money having to push back on the n64, but the important part is that they didn't lose any more than they would have by doing anything else.

and 2, the game cube was cheap and intentionally designed below cutting edge and did not sell it at a loss. Selling less than ps2 and xbox does mean they were less successful with their platform, but also meant they made money.

>>10864471
>There's no path where Kalinske's plan works. He misread the market, plain and simple. How can you not see that?

the sequence of events was that Kalinske was first told about the saturn, the games in the works and the launch price of $450. In 1994 money $450 in the US was insane, all consoles in the price range were DOA, and he was right to point it out, and it was a correct read on the market.';

'>>10864536
>But even then the PS2 was another unstoppable juggernaut. I don't see any way Sega survives as a console maker. Especially with Microsoft joining the race.

Microsoft was the bigger factor. Remember they partnered with MS on the DC.

but no, the biggest factor was still liquidity and debt.

>>10864563
>to not be hemorrhaging money just selling it at $199

By the time they came to market, they weren't hemorrhaging, they were fucking upside down in loans during development and manufacturing. The price per unit was the least of their concern because the debtors were banging on the door.';

'>>10864750
>but also meant they made money.
Nintendo's got their first party titles, so that's good.';

'>>10864738
>we have multiple other accounts from higher positions that say they were.
No we don't. We have one quote from Scott Bayless that has been regurgitated over and over again. And it's quote of him talking about a meeting he wasn't even in.
>they were forced to come up with the idea
They weren't forced to come up with anything. Sega of Japan gave them exactly what they wanted, the chance to stick with the Genesis and design their own hardware.

>>10864750
>at the time the decisions were being made, it most certainly was not.
There is no evidence of this. You can see game magazines of the era both in Japan and the US talking about the Saturn, showing shots of games in development and even providing the final specs. Saturn's design was near final by this point and was going into production with game development well underway.

This is further backed up by the development documentation and C libraries we have that date back to 1993.
>their own shitty dev and documentation for the saturn was a way bigger factor than a handful of four 32x titles made by 2 developers being occupied.
It wasn't just 4 games. When you combine what titles SoJ and SoA made for 32X as well as the third parties that were pushed into making 32X titles it adds up to quite a lot of games.

As for the documentation, again that's due to splitting resources for the 32X. 32X went from napkin scribble to on shevles in under 10 months. A lot of Sega's hardware engineers in Japan had to stop what they were doing with Saturn to make that happen. A lot of technical writers had to stop what they were doing for Saturn and start making dev documents for 32X.

>Proof of that is that the problem persisted well after the development death of the 32x
That's because the 32X mess put them in a position of constantly playing catch up.

>>10864750
>In 1994 money $450 in the US was insane
And by Fall of 1995 they could have launched at $299 like Sony. They could have done that with out the 32X.';

'>>10865578
You don't seem to understand something BASIC here.

If a simple add-on like 32x failing was enough to cripple Sega, then Sega was not in a good position to begin with. Blaming the 32x makes Sega look WORSE. It makes Sega of Japan look like a terribly run company.

Were all laughing at watching you dig your hole even deeper with every post you make.';

'>>10865578
>And by Fall of 1995 they could have launched at $299 like Sony.
Sega only did that at a huge a financial loss to themselves. They were trying to compete with Sony head on. What a stupid idea. Sony was 50 times bigger than Sega.';

'>>10865703
Sony has put out lots of products that failed in the market they were intended for. They’re not infallible. But they had the right hardware and the right software support with the PS1.';

'>>10865712
That's not my point. Sony had massive amounts of money to sell their products at a loss. They are a massively successful hardware company. The Gaming industry is very small compared to the rest of Sony's businesses.

Sony was a 75 billion dollar company.

Sega was a 2 billion dollar company at their peak.

Sony could buy Sega 10 times over and it wouldn't break Sony.

Sega trying to play chicken with Sony over who could have the lowest console price is stupid. Sega will ALWAYS lose that battle. They are tiny compared to Sony.';

'>>10856067
wrong. a lot of ex-SEGA fanboys, due to poor communication and marketing from HQ, thought the company just stopped making consoles. living in the third world at the time we had no idea what became of them. none of us even knew the Saturn was a thing or that variations like the SEGA-CD or 32x even existed. lots of fanboys ended up just moving to the PlayStation because it was just the next console. even boomers at the time (and non-boomers here) unironically thought the PlayStation was made by SEGA themselves, I shit you not.';

'>>10864479
pretty sure Sony had patented motion controls long before Nintendo though. I remember reading a document of sorts around the chan years ago.';

'>>10865915
>pretty sure Sony had patented motion controls long before Nintendo though.
Nope. You can't patent an idea. You can only patent a specific product or specific design. Nintendo's motion was implemented differently than Sony's patent.';

'>>10851803
Sega lost. Move on with your life';

'>>10851803
Yes. Neptune was better than Saturn. Cheaper. Costs less. Backwards compatible with Genesis. Can still do 3D. Can be sold for $199. If Sega had any sense, this would be their main console.';

'>>10865578
>They weren't forced to come up with anything. Sega of Japan gave them exactly what they wanted, the chance to stick with the Genesis and design their own hardware.

this is where you're inserting stuff that doesn't exist. Even if its the most charitable reading, the thought that SOA actually wanted to design their own hardware independent of what SOJ was working on is preposterous. The fact is they were kept out of the discussion of what SOJ was working on, and we know this is the case. But your tortured reading of this to mean that they wanted to work on their own hardware is just beyond believable.

They wanted to stick with the Genesis, and not come to US market with the Saturn they way SOJ did, and not to do anything else until the Saturn could be launched on the terms SOA wanted. You need all 3 of these conditional clauses stated to be accurate about what was happening. Stating only one of them is not the complete picture.';

'>It wasn't just 4 games.
Thats launch titles, not the whole library. Your whole argument there was that developing for the 32x took precious and valued dev workload away from the precious Saturn. Thats a stretch. There were 4 launch titles when the 32x dropped. Maybe 6 if you include within 60 days instead. 3 developers across all 6 titles, 2 of which were Sega studios. This is true for Japan and the west. Get your facts straight.

>When you combine what titles SoJ and SoA made for 32X as well as the third parties that were pushed into making 32X titles it adds up to quite a lot of games.

now your argument has to grow to encompass the whole library. Ok, fine. But run the thought experiment, if those games that came out on the 32x exclusively belonged on the Saturn, it still would have been terrible for Sega. None of those games were system sellers. The best game for 32x would be generously called a b-.

>As for the documentation, again that's due to splitting resources for the 32X. 32X went from napkin scribble to on shevles in under 10 months. A lot of Sega's hardware engineers in Japan had to stop what they were doing with Saturn to make that happen. A lot of technical writers had to stop what they were doing for Saturn and start making dev documents for 32X.

thats bullshit too, because after the announced death of the 32x, the documentation should have improved. It didn't. It never did. The argument that they were playing catch-up implies there should have been improvement, but there wasn't.

>And by Fall of 1995 they could have launched at $299 like Sony. They could have done that with out the 32X.

Yes, they could have, but thats wasn't what SOJ wanted. Why are you omitting that part? SOJ wanted to goto market in NA in 94 and at $450 the same as they did in Japan.';

'The CD was good hardware and not totally exploited, good or bad Sega should have committed to it and made it a compelling differentiator as CD games were something the SNES could not do. The way I see it though the market was turning to 3D games and SegaCD's scaling tech was yesterday's solution and looked old-timey., the problem though was 32x was a half-measure. Getting SegaCD cheaper should have been the priority, as well as dumping the back-catalog on CD as a way to build a budget library. This system could have coexisted with Saturn in different market segments.';

'Kalinske shat on the Saturn when talking to Next Generation back then in order to talk up the 32X.';

'Frame this paragraph with flashing lights around it';

'Reminder';

'>>10867207
date of article? It would be before may 95. Which means Sega was still selling for $400+.

so Tom was talking about $400 for a saturn to get 32bit vs $160 for a genesis owner to get 32x, (or by then $300 for a new Genesis too.)';

'>>10867207
>"Saturn will be at a price point that will not make it a mass market item."

I fucking cringed. Way to shit all over your own product. Basically telling you to look for alternatives.';

'>>10867209
Holy shit nigga, they fucking called it.';

'>>10867358
He's just being realistic. Americans will NOT spend $400 dollars on a console. Keep in mind this was the early 1990s. The dollar was worth a lot more and there was way less inflation. The economy was better.

$400 in 1993 money is like asking someone to pay (according to inflation charts and graphs) $865 in today's money for a console. It's just crazy and Tom Kalinske knows it. If he promoted Saturn at $400 dollars in interviews, it would hurt Sega a lot much more. People would think Sega has lost their minds.';

'>>10867358
He can't just pretend it's affordable.';

'>>10867969
You don’t be “realistic” when talking publicly about the product your company needs to start selling in a few months to survive. You talk about how it’s gonna be the hottest shit ever and anyone who doesn’t buy one is going to miss out. And then you drop the price when it makes business sense.
Kalinske was out of line and Sega apparently couldn’t do anything to bring him in line and unify their strategy, which hurt the company fatally.';

'>>10868323
This was pre-internet. Nobody saw him say that. It had no effect on Saturn's success.';

'>>10868323
We saw Sony try that with the PS3 and it blew up in their face. If your item's not affordable, there's no good way to break that news.';

'>>10868323
>You don’t be “realistic” when talking publicly about the product your company needs to start selling in a few months to survive. You talk about how it’s gonna be the hottest shit ever and anyone who doesn’t buy one is going to miss out.

Not when your console costs $400 dollars. That's called arrogance and can backfire immensely.';

'>>10868347
It’s not so much about who read Next Generation at the time (a normal newsstand mag) but the fact that the guy in charge of Sega’s western business was not aligned with the home office on strategy and was wasting money on costly distractions that went nowhere, and also had no confidence in making Sega’s next major console work. Even if the Saturn had problems, the solution was not to extend the life of the Genesis hardware when the industry was changing so quickly.';

'>>10868391
>home office
More like the home office in Japan wasn't aligned with the rest of the world and were living in a fantasy land. Sega of Japan didn't listen to their branch office needs, and didn't understand the changing trends of World markets. They just focused on Japan and arcade games.

That's why games like Final Fantasy 7 and Mario 64 crushed Sega Saturn. Sega of Japan had no response.';

'>>10868391
It's worth remembering that SoA were kept in the dark regarding the next console's development. They were only told the details circa late-93. And they were understandably pissed off when they learned the full specs. A not-insignificant part of SoA was angry that SoJ had previously rejected talks with Trip Hawkins, the SGI folks and others, in favor of what ended up an overdesigned, underpowered, overpriced boondoggle. And this wasn't SoJ's first fuckup, the SVP was also a dud caused 100% by SoJ's retardation.

>Even if the Saturn had problems, the solution was not to extend the life of the Genesis hardware when the industry was changing so quickly.
That was partly the correct call, as far as US/Europe was concerned. The fully correct call for the Western market would've been to simply keep pushing Genesis (maybe even non-FMV-shit SCD games) games until late-95. And use the 1.5-ish years (starting count from early-94) to get to grips with Saturn's shit-ass architecture. Don't bother with the 32X at all.';

'>>10868591
And then SoJ panicked when they heard about the Jaguar and told SoA to release hardware to counter it. Tom Kalinske didn't think the Jaguar would be a threat and wanted to continue with the Genesis for another year. But SoJ was worried and made it an order.

Originally it was going to be an upgraded Genesis but SoA but SoJ talked them into just making an add-on instead. They made the best of a bad situation.

You can tell this is true because SoJ is absolutely obsessed with releasing half-baked hardware in Japan, sell only a few units, and then release something else. Look how many variations of the Mega Drive they made in Japan. It was crazy. None of them sold well at all.';

'>>10868612
>Tom Kalinske didn't think the Jaguar would be a threat
Actually that's not entirely true. Kalinske agreed with Nakayama's belief that the new 3D consoles (the 3DO got launched in late-93 as well) might pose a threat, he just differed in terms of potential solution. Also, there was another issue, namely that Kalinske (like many in SoA) really disliked the Saturn (admittedly, he had solid reasons to do so) and had absolutely 0 faith in it. The correct course of action would've been to tell Nakayama that they'll just hunker down (and try to squeeze a bit more blood out of the ol' turnip) in the US/Europe, until the Saturn is fully ready for a proper Western launch (that is, it has a launch library larger than 2 games, and a launch window pipeline that was actually worth a damn), with no distracting half-measures (like either a stop-gap console or another add-on). Problem is, SoA tried kicking the Saturn can down the road (due to their dislike of it), instead of going full-bore on gearing up for support, with a targeted mid-1995 launch.';

'>>10864475
>No one could compete directly with Sony.
Nintendo defeated Sony on the handheld console market, though.';

'>>10868772
Goes to show that what matters is the games. Not having the best hardware.';

'>>10864631
>Atari was a huge company in the 80s.
Atari was THE videogame company during the early 80's. The equivalent to Nintendo regarding the term "videogames", even.';

'>>10868798
Nintendo has remained as the absolute king of handheld consoles since the beginning, with only Sony and the PSP being a serious competitor against the big N.';

'>>10868891
Sony was never a threat to Nintendo in the handheld market because Sony doesn't have killer games and franchises for portable devices like Nintendo does. Sony was more interested in pushing more expensive formats owned by them rather than trying to outsell Nintendo. Remember UMD discs? Interesting but much more expensive than GBA cartridges.';

'>>10862479
>CDX
Cost $100 dollars more than the Genesis and Sega CD combined when it was released. Absolute disaster.';

'Sega never realized that they strength was their franchise games. Sonic, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, etc. They were too obsessed with hardware. That's fine for arcades. But consoles need to be more budget friendly. The focus for consoles needs to be the games.';

'>>10868891
PSP was never successful.';

'>>10869087
very successful*';

'>>10865703
>Sega only did that at a huge a financial loss to themselves.
No they didn't. We literally have their internal reports and data from early 1996. At that point they were selling the system for $299 and it cost about $235 to produce. The main issue in Saturn's cost was RAM, and RAM prices crashed hard in 1995 and 1996. So yes they could have launched at $299 in Fall of 1995 and been in no worse of a position than selling at $399 a year prior.

And for what it's worth, the PS1 wasn't that much cheaper to produce. Both system were being sold at a massive loss at release in 1994. PS1 cost about 50,000 Yen to produce, Saturn cost about 54,800 yen to produce. It was about a $20-$30 difference or so in cost. Not nearly the massive amount that people seem to think.

>>10865696
>You don't seem to understand something BASIC here.
No that's you. When you have limited resources and try to split them across 5 different platforms (Saturn, 32X, Genesis, Game Gear, and Sega CD) it doesn't take much to have it all fall apart. In Sega of Japan wanted to transition the Genesis, Sega CD, and Game Gear to legacy status to soely focus on the Saturn. Sega of America wanted to stick to the Legacy systems and boost them with an add-on. Sega of America pushed them into the position of supporting more systems than they could manage and it caught up to them fast.';

'>>10869158
>We literally have their internal reports and data from early 1996. At that point they were selling the system for $299 and it cost about $235 to produce.

1. Prove it. Post it here

2. No one was buying Saturns in 1996 outside of Japan. That year belonged to PS1 and N64.

Even if the cost manufacture was lower, it doesn't matter because there's no demand for their console.';

'>>10869164
The second (or was it third) memory chip cartel got busted around that period, and memory prices collapsed.';

'Explain how the Virtual Boy didn't kill Nintendo, but the Sega 32x killed Sega.';

'>>10869185
Virtual Boy didn't cause any consumer resentment from Nintendo's customer base. Sega CD and 32X pissed off a lot of Genesis owners who saw resources being diverted to expensive add-ons they didn't sign up for.';

'>>10869185
I think there wuz a rise of the robots for 32x it must have been everywhere except on virtualboys';

'>>10867157
>The fact is they were kept out of the discussion of what SOJ was working on, and we know this is the case.
This isn't the case though. We know from various interviews from both sides they were well aware of the Saturn being designed and when it was due out. They even knew about the dual CPUs because they incorporated that into the 32X when they designed it.

> But your tortured reading of this to mean that they wanted to work on their own hardware is just beyond believable
There's plenty of interviews out there from former Sega of America execs who have stated there were people in Sega of America who wanted to make their own hardware and peripherals. There's an interview with Al Nilsen where he states he killed ideas similar to the 32X at Sega of America at least 3 times before he left Sega in 1993.

>>10867158
>Your whole argument there was that developing for the 32x took precious and valued dev workload away from the precious Saturn.
Any title made for 32X is taking resources away from the Saturn, regardless of if it's a launch 32X title. Again they had 5 different consoles going at once with limited resources.

>None of those games were system sellers.
Mostly because people didn't want the 32X but wanted to wait for Saturn and PS1 instead.
>The best game for 32x would be generously called a b-.
I'd say having a solid port of Doom, Virtua Racing, Star Wars Arcade, Mortal Kombat II, NBA Jam, etc. as well as new titles like Stellar Assault, Metal Head, Chaotix, etc. at launch for Saturn definitely would have made it look better. Instead for a lot of those games we got late outsourced ports that were of poor quality (MK2, NBA Jam, Virtua Racing, etc.)
> SOJ wanted to goto market in NA in 94 and at $450 the same as they did in Japan.
And the US could have simply pushed back with the idea to wait until Fall of 1995 and just focus on getting a good launch ready, instead they pushed the idea of no Saturn and a boosted Genesis.';

'>>10868591
>It's worth remembering that SoA were kept in the dark regarding the next console's development.
No they weren't. They were well aware of it from the beginning and were even asked for input. The problem was their input was stupid. They wanted an 68020 based system with more colors. They weren't even thinking about 3D while Sega of Japan was.
>>10868612
>And then SoJ panicked when they heard about the Jaguar and told SoA to release hardware to counter it.
This has been debunked by people on the Japanese hardware design team. They weren't even looking at Jaguar and didn't consider it a threat. They were more concerned about PS1 and 3DO. The Jaguar story is another tall tale from a Sega of America dev.

>Originally it was going to be an upgraded Genesis but SoA but SoJ talked them into just making an add-on instead.
This is out of context. This came about because in mid 1993 Irimajiri visited Sega of America to get a more clear picture of why they didn't want to get behind the Saturn and was told they couldn't abandon the Genesis yet and that Saturn, 3DO, and PS1 were too expensive for a new console. So Irimajiri went back to Japan and gave them this info. So Japan came to them and said "What can we do to help you stay competitive with these new systems coming out?".';

'>>10869164
>1. Prove it. Post it here
This is from their brand review dated in March of 1996. You can see Saturn's production cost was $236 for Model 1s, and $232 for the upcoming Model 2. At this point in time it was being sold for $299, and they were planning for a $249 Price drop that month. The drop to $249 would put them back into loss territory, but not nearly the "they were selling it at over a $100 loss!" that people like to claim.

>2. No one was buying Saturns in 1996 outside of Japan
This is March of 1996. N64 wasn't out yet and we're not even a year after launch yet. Had they not fucked up the launch and dicked around with the 32X they could have been in a better position at this point.';

'>>10868974
>>10869087
>outsold the GBC and GBA
>not even the 3DS matched its numbers even after taking MH away from it
ok';

'>>10869236
>They weren't even thinking about 3D while Sega of Japan was.
It's literally the opposite. Sega of Japan first made Saturn with a focus on 2D. They only changed it later when they found out Playstation was 3D.';

'>>10869236
>This has been debunked by people on the Japanese hardware design team.
You don't need to examine the Jaguar physically to consider it a threat.

Sega of Japan's CEO considered it a possible threat and that's what matters.';

'>>10869319
>It's literally the opposite. Sega of Japan first made Saturn with a focus on 2D
Wrong. Hideki Sato debunked this years ago. The entire reason he chose the SH2s was because he wanted the console to be able to do 3D. The SH2 was chosen around 1992. The system was to be designed for 3D from the beginning, the change in response to Sony was adding a 2nd SH2 to boost the 3D performance more. This was decided around September of 1993.

All the 3D stuff was there by the time Sony revealed the PS1 specs, the reaction afterwards was to boost the performance more.

>>10869326
>You don't need to examine the Jaguar physically to consider it a threat.
He doesn't just mention that they didn't examine it, he goes so far as to state they didn't even consider it a serious competitor.
>Sega of Japan's CEO considered it a possible threat and that's what matters.
There's not a single direct quote of him ever saying this, only hearsay. The only competing 5th gen consoles he ever mentioned directly are the PS1 and 3DO. You need to come to terms with the fact that the Atari Jaguar story is nothing but an exaggerated meme at this point.';

'>>10869294
Gameboy sold 120 million units
Nintendo DS sold 155 million units.
Nintendo 3DS sold 77 million

PSP 75 million.
PS vita sold 15 million

Nintendo absolutely crushed Sony in the handheld war.';

'>>10868323

yeah well, >>10868362 this. We've seen that program run. You can get away with that maybe in wiggle room of cost, but that was way outside of wiggle room.

It was also 90s.Video games were the domain of children, which means convincing a parent to spend $400+, when the last game machine 2 or 3 years ago was $250 and came with the game.

Young adults were not yet much of a market by share, and they wouldn't spend their own money on that much for so little in return unless they were rich.';

'>>10868391
>Even if the Saturn had problems, the solution was not to extend the life of the Genesis hardware when the industry was changing so quickly.

in hindsight, thats exactly was SOA should have done. When Nintendo had the air sucked out of them by the Sony deal falling apart, thats what they did when they had to suddenly put n64 plans into overdrive.

its not that this was a good decision, it was the best of bad decisions left to them. They had already been in trouble by the time it came necessary to make this decision and they couldnt fix the trouble, only deal with it.';

'>>10869341
>Gameboy sold 120 million units
Fake number';

'>>10869341
>Gameboy sold 120 million units
>Worldwide: 118.69 million (including Play It Loud! edition, Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Light and Game Boy Color units)

>PSP 75 million.
>https://twitter.com/ShawnLayden/status/1707563288178135099
Why people are still upset at the PSP?';

'>>10869378
Wow only 82 million? What a complete and total failure.';

'>>10868746
>Problem is, SoA tried kicking the Saturn can down the road (due to their dislike of it), instead of going full-bore on gearing up for support, with a targeted mid-1995 launch.

that didn't seem to be an option when SOJ said they had to produce something in the meantime, leading to the 32x. At least on the surface.

knowing how much money Sega was wasting, they totally could have had someone on payroll dealing with that in the meantime.

>>10869158
>And for what it's worth, the PS1 wasn't that much cheaper to produce.

true, but sony was able to cut themselves a deal on many components that Sega couldnt.';

'>>10869228
>This isn't the case though.

it is though. the receipts have been posted here in the last 6 months already. SOA was kept out of the design loop and decisions for the Saturn. Your CPU remark makes no sense in a timeline anyways.

>Al Nilsen where he states he killed ideas
since when does a marketing director get product making decision authority? WTF? In what world does that make any sense? That alone makes that remark sketch. But lets be specific and say console design, not peripheral design (no controllers, and other bullshit considered hardware).

>Mostly because people didn't want the 32X but wanted to wait for Saturn and PS1 instead.
your argument just became circular. Either the game was good enough to make people buy the platform to play it, or it wasnt.

>I'd say having a solid port
Thats why the post said exclusives to the 32X, because your whole point was that they were so goddamn important to the Saturn success that they tanked it by not having it. Why are you mentioning ports? If its a port, that means there was a separate team working on the Saturn port which means that game did not take any resources, which was your entire point of mentioning it. And if you're trying to scapegoat the fact that the ports on the Saturn ended up poor quality, how is that SOA's fault?

>And the US could have simply pushed back with the idea to wait until Fall of 1995 and just focus on getting a good launch ready,
SOJ did not allow that option on the table. Why do people keep leaving this part out?

> instead they pushed the idea of no Saturn and a boosted Genesis.
no actually, they originally pushed the idea of no Saturn til market price could come down. period. Nothing else.

a boosted Genesis only came out of SOJ saying that SOA was not allowed to do that and be out of market for that long.';

'It's absolutely hilarious you people blame the Sega 32x for Sega's downfall. A cheap add-on. Lmao

Anyone who seriously researches the Sega knows that Sega of Japan is a financially irresponsible company and run by amateurs. Everyone in the industry knows Sega spends money like a drunken sailor. They are terrible with money. Terrible. They only thrived because arcades gave Sega a huge income, and because the Sega Genesis sold well overseas. The moment arcade income dried up in the mid 90s, Sega of Japan couldn't cover their mistakes with arcade money anymore.

Even 20 years later they are run by fools. Sega had to sell their arcade business, and tried to blame covid as the main problem. Not their crappy business planning. What a disgrace!

Meanwhile Namco also had an arcade business and their arcades are just fine. They didn't need to sell anything.

Meanwhile Taito also had an arcade business. Their arcades are just fine. No sale needed.

But sure Sega of Japan... Keep blaming the pandemic. Your company is run by MONKEYS.';

'>>10869236
>They weren't even thinking about 3D while Sega of Japan was.

... at this point, this must be a troll shitposter.

>>10869236
>...and that Saturn, 3DO, and PS1 were too expensive for a new console...
At the time, all systems were or expected to be selling at $400 or above. SOA was right, these were too expensive for the market like >>10869358 pointed out. It was still mostly just children who got consoles bought for them, and this represented a doubling of cost from the last generation of consoles, meaning parents were not interested. 3DO's dismal numbers were proof. Neo Geo was proof.

Then the rumblings of $299 happened and made SOA even more right than they already were.

>So Japan came to them and said "What can we do to help you stay competitive with these new systems coming out?".

try again.

They said something more along the lines of "These systems are coming out one way or another, and you aren't allowed to just wait until the market sale costs come down for you to launch the Saturn," which SOA was totally prepared to do.

>>10869339
>Wrong. Hideki Sato debunked this years ago. The entire reason he chose the SH2s was because he wanted the console to be able to do 3D.

That makes no sense. the charge was that the system was focused on 2D, and it was. It wasn't that it couldn't do 3D. Watch your goalposts. Besides, remember they were originally going with only one SH2. Kinda hard to make the argument or even implication that means Sato was saying it was focused on 3D compared to the PSX.';

'>>10869402
>true, but sony was able to cut themselves a deal on many components that Sega couldnt.
Sega was able to get pretty good deals from Hitachi and Yamaha for the components they used. The fact that both systems cost about the same to make and that Sega was able to beat Sony to certain price points without taking any worse of a loss than Sony is proof that production cost wasn't that big of an issue in reality. The issue was the lack of games to help push the system outside of Japan.';

'>>10869429
>the receipts have been posted here in the last 6 months already.
No they haven't, receipts proving the exact opposite have been posted. Here's an example of one:
https://mdshock.com/2020/06/16/hideki-sato-discussing-the-sega-saturn/

And this article from Hitachi's engineers confirms the timeline. The SH2 was decided upon around fall of 1992, and SoJ was taking input from SoA for their next gen system as early as this point with the 68020 suggestion:
https://mdshock.com/2020/06/16/the-story-of-the-hitachi-sh-2-and-the-sega-saturn/

SoA knew of the Saturn as early as 1992.
>since when does a marketing director get product making decision authority?
You'll have to ask him, I'm just stating what he said in interviews. The point is Sega of America very much wanted to make their own hardware.
>your argument just became circular.
No it didn't, you're just incapable of understanding how one event can impact something else down the line.

32X was never going to sell. People were already getting hyped for Saturn and PS1 before it was even revealed. No killer software was going to make it sell when something better was right around the corner. That doesn't mean all it's games were bad, there were some good ones that if put on an actual platform where they had a chance of selling could have made an impact.

A good port of Doom would have been a decent seller at launch, it certainly helped the PS1. NBA Jam and Mortal Kombat would have also been good ones, they certainly helped out the PS1 at it's launch. Then there's the fact that sports games the Saturn was lacking like Football and Fifa Soceer were released on the 32X, but were missing on the Saturn early on, resulting in Sony getting those customers.

Then you get to the first party stuff like Virtua Racing, Star Wars Arcade, Chaotix, Stellar Assault, etc. that could have helped give the Saturn some good launch titles. Chaotix alone could have filled the void of a missing Sonic game.';

'>>10869429
>Thats why the post said exclusives to the 32X, because your whole point was that they were so goddamn important to the Saturn success that they tanked it by not having it. Why are you mentioning ports? If its a port, that means there was a separate team working on the Saturn port which means that game did not take any resources, which was your entire point of mentioning it.

So you truly are retarded and unable to understand resource management. If the internal teams at Sega are working on 32X games, then who's left to make the Saturn games? They have to outsource them which will generally be more expensive and result in lower quality. This is exactly what happened with all of the Saturn's US produced titles early on. Bug!, Ghen War, Virtua Racing, etc. were all outsourced and in many cases late or cancelled. There were glaring holes in the library when it came to things like a football game. 32X had them, Saturn didn't and Sony capitalized on that.

Then you have Sega's internal teams porting things like Virtua Fighter to the 32X. That was a complete and total waste when Saturn not only had it's own port, but also had Remix done and ready by April of 1995 and was playable at E3 1995. That development team could have been tasked with something else entirely, or tasked with helping polish up other Saturn ports like Daytona USA.

All those resources going into 32X could have gone into Saturn instead. The teams making those 32X games could have instead been making them for Saturn. The teams working on pointless ports that were already on Saturn could have been working on something else for Saturn or helping polish other games in development. That would have resulted in a better launch line up and a better launch overall.

> And if you're trying to scapegoat the fact that the ports on the Saturn ended up poor quality, how is that SOA's fault?
Because they pushed the 32X idea which resulted in the split resource problem.';

'>>10869429
>a boosted Genesis only came out of SOJ saying that SOA was not allowed to do that and be out of market for that long.
Again no. This came about because Sega of America was adamantly against the Saturn and refused to sell it and Sega of Japan came to them saying "Ok how can we support you to stay competitive against these new consoles coming out?" and out of that came the 32X.

Sega of Japan wasn't this evil company forcing Sega of America to do something against their will. At this point Sega of America was still free to do their own thing. Sega of Japan wanted them to succeed and make money and was going out of their way to support them. Sega of Japan only pulled in control after the 32X idea completely failed.

The key takeaway from it all is that Sega of America misread the market, and Sega of Japan trusted them. That's all it really boils down to.';

'>>10869536
>That would have resulted in a better launch line up and a better launch overall
The launch was going to be a disaster no matter the games. Sega had large chain stores boycotting them over how bad they fucked up.';

'>>10869462
>... at this point, this must be a troll shitposter.
I'm sorry you can't deal with the fact that the Japanese side of the story is coming out.
>At the time, all systems were or expected to be selling at $400 or above. SOA was right, these were too expensive for the market
Didn't stop them from selling in Japan.
>3DO's dismal numbers were proof.
That has more to do with it being $700 and hardware having to be sold at a profit since it was a licensed spec.
> Neo Geo was proof.
That has more to do with the fact it was never intended to be sold that way and was intended to be a rental system. It only started being sold when rich enthusiasts wanted to buy it.
>They said something more along the lines of "These systems are coming out one way or another, and you aren't allowed to just wait until the market sale costs come down for you to launch the Saturn," which SOA was totally prepared to do.
That doesn't align with any actual statements or interviews we have from the time period.

>Then the rumblings of $299 happened and made SOA even more right than they already were.
If Sega of America had been on board and prepping for a Fall 1995 Saturn launch they too could have launched at $299.';

'>>10869462
>the charge was that the system was focused on 2D
Why do you think the SH2 was chosen?
Why do you think the SCU-DSP is there?
Why do you think VDP1 had the ability to draw polygons, textured polygons, etc.?
All of those were there and in the system before the 2nd SH2 was added and before Sony revealed their specs. The dev manuals and C libraries back this up.

>Besides, remember they were originally going with only one SH2
The SH2 was chosen because of it's performance when it came to 3D math. Sega also worked directly with Hitachi in designing it. It has a 64-bit multiplication unit to allow it to multiple 2 32-bit numbers in 1-3 cycles. It has a 64-bit division unit to allow it to do divisions in parallel while other instructions are executing. Why do you think they'd want this if they weren't doing 3D? What do you think the SCU-DSP is there for? It's there to do 3D Matrix calculations so the CPU can do other things. Why would they be putting that in the system if they weren't planning on doing 3D?

The main change that happend after the PS1 specs were revealed was adding the 2nd SH2. This was done because while they were planning on modest 3D, but not on the same level as what Sony revealed. They originally wanted to increase the clock speed of the SH2 to compensate for this and boost the 3D performance or redesign VDP1. It was too late in the game to redesign VDP1, and Hitachi wasn't able to do increase the clock speed. Hitachi suggested adding a 2nd CPU in a Master Slave configuration, and that's what they did. VDP1 was tweaked a little as well with adding things like High Speed Shrink to help with rendering performance.';

'>>10869557
>Sega had large chain stores boycotting them over how bad they fucked up.
This was entirely due to the surprise launch, which was entirely due to the 32X failure and Sega of Japan wanting to sweep it under the rug. If there's no 32X, there's no surprise launch. If there's no surprise launch, there's no boycott.';

'>>10869568
Also, if there's no 32X, there's no publisher boycott, because there'd be no shifting priorities between platforms.';

'>>10869486

thats not the same as owning a production line that produces a material component, tho. And that just means unit cost; its not describing the whole picture sufficiently on what it means to the company.

Cant find the exact quote, but Kutaragi talks about this.

>>10869503
alright, lets break it down, then
>https://mdshock.com/2020/06/16/hideki-sato-discussing-the-sega-saturn/
>"When I was first designing the Saturn architecture, I was focused on sprite graphics, "

well, there goes >>10869339 loose implication that 3D was a forethought during design/dev phase of Saturn.

>SoJ was taking input from SoA for their next gen system as early as this point with the 68020 suggestion
Clearly they never took it seriously. Sato says contradictory statements also which calls into question his framing. He says "The people at Sega were good at assembly. That’s all they had been using on the MC68000." That wasn't fucking limited to Sega, most third parties knew how to fucking write 68k assembly too. 68k programmers were not in short supply from 1980 on. but then he says something stupid "You had to program the SH in assembly. .... third parties struggled with programming the SH in assembly..." WTF? The SH2 was a different platform from the 68k, it was a SuperH. And the SuperH was only as new as 1990 in embedded manufacturing, so its not like there was a huge pool of SuperH programmers. Why would Sega be any better at assembly for SuperH than any other developer on principal? The statement makes no sense unless you're running cover. "Our third party support was awful." Indeed. Because SOJ wasn't listening to anybody about input. SOJ never considered a 68020 seriously because SOA's concerns covered everything Sato talks about, and so any statement that suggests SOA was part of the design of the Saturn is sophistry at best without better receipts.';

'>>10869579
>thats not the same as owning a production line
Sure, but the key takeaway here is that Saturn's cost wasn't that outrageous and they were able to match Sony's prices just fine. The issue was software.

>well, there goes the implication that 3D was a forethought during design/dev phase of Saturn.

You realize that article is taking snippets out of a much larger interview right? In the full interview he states at first he was only thinking of sprites and gives a long explanation of about how few developers at Sega knew how to do 3D and only Yu Suzuki really understood it. He states originally they were looking at making something more like the System32 Board that would be more sprite based so most of Sega's teams would be able to work with it. However after talking with both Suzuki as well as Kutaragi and knowing Sony was doing 3D with their new system, he decided to go with both Sprites and Polygons. That also influenced him to choose the SH-2 over the 68020.

That all happened in the span of 1992 which is when the SH2 was decided, long before Sony revealed their final specs. So from as early as 1992, Saturn was intended to be able to do both 2D and 3D.

>The statement makes no sense unless you're running cover.
He's talking in comparison to Sony at that point in the interview, who by comparison had mature C libraries and easy to use devkits. By comparison doing assembly on Saturn was much harder. While Sega did have C Libraries and compilers, Sony's tools were better. Also there's a difference between writing a 2D game in assembly, and a full 3D engine in assembly.

>SOJ never considered a 68020 seriously
And rightfully so, it would have been terrible for doing 3D. The SH2 is the least controversial part of the Saturn's design.

>I want better receipts!
I'm sorry you can't cope with the fact that Tom Kalinske and other SoA employees have been lying for years.';

'>>10869503
A good port of Doom would have been a decent seller at launch, it certainly helped the PS1. NBA Jam and Mortal Kombat would have also been good ones, they certainly helped out the PS1 at it's launch. Then there's the fact that sports games the Saturn was lacking like Football and Fifa Soceer were released on the 32X, but were missing on the Saturn early on, resulting in Sony getting those customers.

>Then you get to the first party stuff like Virtua Racing, Star Wars Arcade, Chaotix, Stellar Assault, etc. that could have helped give the Saturn some good launch titles. Chaotix alone could have filled the void of a missing Sonic game.

>>10869536
>All those resources going into 32X could have gone into Saturn instead. The teams making those 32X games could have instead been making them for Saturn. The teams working on pointless ports that were already on Saturn could have been working on something else for Saturn or helping polish other games in development. That would have resulted in a better launch line up and a better launch overall.

If the 32x goes away and all the games that came out for it (before it was declared dead and therefore when dev stopped) instead came out for the Saturn, it would have made no difference. There is no evidence either in the games that came later for the Saturn that they would have been better or sooner because of it.

32x and Saturn launched Late 94 and was thrown together quickly, right? So between a 32x SDK and a Saturn SDK, which one was out first? And the development for 32x was effectively dead as soon as launch information came out about the Saturn right? Exactly how big a development window are you saying the 32x had, and suggest that it meaningfully poached from the Saturn?

we can debate the games themselves, but without sales numbers across platforms for parts, it will be hard to make a case that isn't purely anecdotal.';

'>>10869559
>Didn't stop them from selling in Japan.

we're not talking about Japan, its market was not the same as the US's. And besides, Even if you eliminate North America. Sega still dies on Japanese soil with only Japan's sales in its pocket.';

'>>10869660
>There is no evidence either in the games that came later for the Saturn that they would have been better or sooner because of it.
Doom on 32X was done by Sega of America with Carmack himself working on it. You're seriously saying you don't think if that was instead being done for Saturn that it could have been out by Fall of 1995 and been far better than the port we eventually got in 1997?

Virtua Racing Deluxe as done in house by Sega, you're telling me that wouldn't have been a better Japanese Launch title in 1994 for the Saturn than the janky release we got for Saturn from Time Warner?

>32x and Saturn launched Late 94 and was thrown together quickly, right?
32X's was, Saturn's had more time and effort going into it for Japan at least.
>So between a 32x SDK and a Saturn SDK, which one was out first?
Saturns.
>And the development for 32x was effectively dead as soon as launch information came out about the Saturn right?
Info on Saturn's Japanese launch was well known to the public in both Japan and the US before the 32X was even announced.';

'>>10869618
>Saturn's cost wasn't that outrageous and they were able to match Sony's prices just fine.
No they weren't because nobody was buying Saturn outside of Japan. It sold like crap in America AND Europe (which had a normal launch).
In addition you aren't factoring in sunk costs like research and development and the huge marketing budgets to promote it.

Saturn was a huge financial. loss for Sega. You can see this in interviews about Dreamcast. The Sega executives talk about how financially devastated the company was from Saturn's failure. NOT 32x. They say Saturn. So drained was the company that they wanted to Exit the hardware market and become just a 3rd party developer. But the Sega of Japan CEO pushed for the Dreamcast to be made despite the Board of directors having serious doubts.';

'>>10869618
>Sure, but the key takeaway here is that Saturn's cost wasn't that outrageous
yes
> and they were able to match Sony's prices just fine.
no, the point was they were still at a competitive disadvantage from the manufacturing get-go, and that had a cumulative effect further down the line greater than just making a straight $ cost v cost case reveals.

> The issue was software.
yes, but peripherally true as well.';

'>That all happened in the span of 1992 which is when the SH2 was decided, long before Sony revealed their final specs. So from as early as 1992, Saturn was intended to be able to do both 2D and 3D.
>You realize...
this is still all sophistry. Saying that it could do 3d still doesn't mean it was designed around 3d which is the implication the other posts were trying to leave a reader with. It wasn't, and we have explicit statements that it wasn't the focus of intent.

>He's talking in comparison to Sony at that point in the interview
who else would he have been talking about? the 3D0?
>Also there's a difference between writing a 2D game in assembly, and a full 3D engine in assembly.
that still doesnt make the entire "we at sega had all these whupass assembly programmers that could magically program for a SuperH that had only been out for 2 years and all these 3rd parties programmers couldn't." Even if we believe the Sega programmers in Japan were the only ones with the special sauce, all that means is that SOJ didn't have the good sense to understand they were about to shrink the talent pool of developers that could work on their platform (by using sh2) and didn't take any fucking mitigating steps.

but SOA is just as bad because they knew the problem was coming and could have had a full-time engineer and documentation on the payroll whipping up docs like crazy and were blowing money on anything but. Many of your counterpoints seem to think there is a blanket defense of SOA motivating them. There isn't.

anyways. the point is, SOA would have pointed this out when advocating for use of another 68K before the SH2 was chosen. and the fact SOJ still went with the SH2, and still had shit support is a problem to be laid at SOJ's feet. Not the existence of the 32x's.';

'>>10869660
>Exactly how big a development window are you saying the 32x had, and suggest that it meaningfully poached from the Saturn?
Saturn's development started in 1992. By 1993 they were already starting to make games for it aiming for a November 1994 launch in Japan. Sega of America though was dragging their feet and not starting any Saturn development, focusing instead of Genesis.

32X was proposed in January of 1994 with development being a mad dash to get it out in under 10 months. Saturn's last hardware changes seemed to have happened around early 1994 (VDP1 gets High Speed Shrink around this time, SCU-DSP development stops), and 32X's hardware development starts. In this same time frame 32X software development has to start to have things ready by November.

So Sega of America instead of translating Saturn documents and devkits is focused on making 32X documentation and devkits. Instead of making Saturn games they're focused on 32X games. Games Sega of Japan has in the pipeline for Saturn are instead moved to 32X to help pad it's library. However some of these they still want on Saturn, so they're outsourced since no one internally is able to work on them. The same situation is happening with Western Third Parties.

In early 1995 Sega of America still thinks 32X can compete and is still pushing forward with development and Sega of Japan is happy to help them by continuing 32X projects like Virtua Fighter, Tempo, and Chaotix. It's not until Spring of 1995 that Sega of Japan finally tells Sega of America they have to pull the plug and pivot to the Saturn. Any remaining games in the pipeline from Japan are finished up at this point.

All of that could have instead been put into Saturn.

> but without sales numbers across platforms for parts
They made 800k 32Xs and by 1996 hadn't even sold half of them. That's 800k more Saturn's they could have had to sell from the SH2s alone which definitely could have helped with the shortage issues they had in 1995.';

'>>10869689
>It sold like crap in America AND Europe (which had a normal launch).
Because the launch was terrible, not just the surprise launch but the lack of any western software being ready because all of that was dumped on 32X.
>In addition you aren't factoring in sunk costs like research and development and the huge marketing budgets to promote it.
I'm sure the amount they dumped into 32X in the west didn't help that matter.
> The Sega executives talk about how financially devastated the company was from Saturn's failure. NOT 32x.
They say their overall performance in the 32-bit generation, which includes 32X. Saturn's failure outside of Japan is linked directly to the 32X. The 32X diverted necessary resources that could have gone into prepping Saturn for a successful launch. Instead they wasted R&D on an add-on no one wanted, wasted time and money making games for a system no one wanted, and then had to rapidly pivot to their actual next gen system after burning just about every bridge possible with their consumer base.

The 32X is 100% to blame for Saturn's failure outside of Japan.
>>10869691
> they were still at a competitive disadvantage from the manufacturing get-go
They were able to sell the system at a profit at $299 by at least Q1 of 1996, so it couldn't have been that much of a disadvantage.';

'>>10869693
>Saying that it could do 3d still doesn't mean it was designed around 3d which is the implication the other posts were trying to leave a reader with.
Why would you go with a new RISC CPU and ask it's engineers to add in a fast 64-bit multiplication and fast 64-bit division unit it in it if you weren't designing the system to do 3D? Why would you include in the design a DSP to perform 3D Matrix calculations if you weren't designing the system to do 3D? Why would you include the ability to draw textured and untextured polygons in VDP1 if you were only intending to do 2D with it?

This isn't sophistry, it's simple hard fact from looking at the hardware, when it was added into the design, and the interviews we have from both Sato and Hitachi engineers as well as the dev manuals.

>SOJ didn't have the good sense to understand they were about to shrink the talent pool of developers that could work on their platform (by using sh2) and didn't take any fucking mitigating steps.
It's not that they didn't understand this, they were taking steps to mitigate it by working with Hitachi to get a C Compiler as well as contracting out a GNU C Compiler as well. They were working on C libraries as early as 1993 for the Saturn. Sony's tools early on in 1993 weren't much better, but there was a key thing they did. They bought Psygnosis which included SN-Systems, who made some of the best dev kits of the time. With that resource they revamped their devkits and were able to rapidly get good C Libraries out to developers. Sega didn't really have that option on the table.';

'>>10869693
>>10869723
>SOA would have pointed this out when advocating for use of another 68K before the SH2 was chosen
Sega of America wouldn't have pointed this out because this wasn't what they were thinking of. They were thinking more about a modest Genesis upgrade for backwards compatibility.
> and the fact SOJ still went with the SH2, and still had shit support is a problem to be laid at SOJ's feet. Not the existence of the 32x's.
Sega of Japan went with the SH2 because overall it was a much better CPU. There's no debating that. And yes, we can blame part of this issue on the 32X because it once again split resources that could have been focused on polishing up Saturn's documentation, tools, libraries, etc.';

'>>10869701
>Games Sega of Japan has in the pipeline for Saturn are instead moved to 32X to help pad it's library.
there's no evidence of this assertion. For this to be cogent, then the games that did come out for the 32x that weren't on the Saturn at all would have to have convincingly made a difference, or the one that were also on the Saturn there be some evidence that the games that came out later would have come sooner.

And thats limiting the argument to internal to Sega. If you're trying to make a statement that it would have made it more competitive with the Playstation, thats only convincing if you're talking about titles that were on the 32x and PSX, but not on the Saturn.

that basically means Doom, WWF Arcade, and Primal Rage. Not a convincing argument on that point either.

And the only SOJ specific game you could say got 'pulled' in your example with be Virtua Racer. But if the other games were so good/important/relevant to helping the Saturn, why is Virtua Racing the only one they worked on getting to the Saturn as well? Because they weren't casts serious doubt on the prospect that they were poaching in the first place.

>They made ...
that was supposed to be 'for ports' not parts. sorry. Was trying to draw a comparison of meaningful cross platform software competition.';

'>>10869701
you still didnt answer the question about the length of time. From your post, that would have been the 32x had less than 10 months of potential development time before launch, and the Saturn had no less than 18 months. So the 32x had half the development window the Saturn did in total before they both were launched at the same time. And they only overlapped for about 8 months.
That would mean the argument is that those 8 months resulted in the poaching of developer talent (which we established through Sato's impression most couldn't program for the Saturn anyway) that would have made some meaningful contribution to the Saturns chances at success. And but for the 32x's existence thats exactly how it would have been.
The timing, the games released, and multiple other factors don't resonate with this.';

'The Saturn killed the 32X not the other way around.';

'>>10869758
This 100%';

'>>10869723
>Why would you include in the design a DSP to perform 3D Matrix calculations if you weren't designing the system to do 3D?

come on, you know those can be used in multiple ways even for 2d, especially with certain visual effects. Lay off. You know if they meant for the system to focus on 3d as opposed to just 'being able to do some' it would have had a much more robust kit from the get-go.

>>10869723
You're saying they did take steps? Their steps were shit and limp-wristed in that case. Sony's initial tools were better because MIPS was out 2 years sooner than SuperH, so that only makes sense. But if you're attributing their successes with 3rd parties to the Psy acquisition and all the IP that came with that, fine.

If the best Sega could come up with is asking the chip supplier to deliver a C compiler for those poor souls that couldn't work in assembly, especially if their own programmers in low level languages were so much damn better, then the fruits of their efforts were spoilt from the first bite. And on top of that, SOA and Europe would complain that anything they got in support was only in Japanese. WTF? Is is a mystery why this was failing outside of Japan?';

'>https://mdshock.com/2020/06/16/hideki-sato-discussing-the-sega-saturn/

you'll also notice in this interview in the 3rd parties topic he doesn't mention the favorable business arrangements for third parties games that Sony did and Sega didnt.';

'>>10869758
>The Saturn killed the 32X not the other way around.
Yep. If they gave the 32x roughly two solid years of really good support before launching Saturn in the USA, then it would have worked. Japan screwed over their American branch though.';

'>>10869770
>And on top of that, SOA and Europe would complain that anything they got in support was only in Japanese. WTF? Is is a mystery why this was failing outside of Japan?
Sega of Japan didn't know how to market and support their products outside of Japan. They envied the success of other branches and wanted to control them, but they ultimate shot themselves in the foot.';

'>>10869741
>there's no evidence of this assertion.
The evidence is there, it's just buried behind a language barrier. There's an interview with Stellar Assaults director that states Stellar Assault was a Saturn title that was pulled over to 32X and how pissed he was about it. There's also interviews with the Japanese team doing Chaotix that states they were annoyed being told to develop it for 32X when they would much rather have been working on the Saturn. It's fair to say there were probably others.

>For this to be cogent, then the games that did come out for the 32x that weren't on the Saturn at all would have to have convincingly made a difference
A solid port of Doom would have been a big one to have available at launch. It definitely helped the PS1 out. Star Wars Arcade would have been another nice one seeing that Star Wars was pretty popular in 1995 with hype starting to build about the Special Editions. Stellar Assault would have been nice as well and probably closer to the game we eventually got on Saturn in 1998 as that's what the director originally wanted to try and pull off.

>or the one that were also on the Saturn there be some evidence that the games that came out later would have come sooner.
Again Doom probably would have been ready around the same time as it's PS1 port in 1995. NBA Jam and Mortal Kombat 2 would have probably been done on time too, same with games like Virtua Racing. Just about every major western title for Saturn was outsourced and late, and in many cases the Saturn ports started after their 32X ports.

> But if the other games were so good/important/relevant to helping the Saturn, why is Virtua Racing the only one they worked on getting to the Saturn as well?
Because they don't have enough resources to develop them all for both and have to play triage. The ones they think are most important are being outsourced like Virtua Racing. This is what happens when resources are split.';

'>>10869756
>you still didnt answer the question about the length of time
I did answer it, you're just being dense about it. We're talking about a time period from about Mid to Late summer of 1993 to May of 1995. During the majority of that time both 32X and Saturn are having games developed for both platforms and competing with each other for resources.

>So the 32x had half the development window the Saturn did in total before they both were launched at the same time.
Which is exactly why some games were moved from Saturn to 32X because it was the quickest way to get games out on time.

>That would mean the argument is that those 8 months resulted in the poaching of developer talent (which we established through Sato's impression most couldn't program for the Saturn anyway) that would have made some meaningful contribution to the Saturns chances at success
If they couldn't program for the Saturn then they couldn't program for 32x either since they both used the same CPUs.

And it's not just developer talent we're talking about. Entire games are either being ported twice or being moved entirely to 32X from Saturn, or just not being made for Saturn at all when they could have been made for Saturn instead. Resources for working on devkits, manuals, marketing, etc. were all being split between the two. The better choice would have been to funnel all of that effort into one of those systems instead of both, and the better choice to funnel it into was the Saturn.

>The timing, the games released, and multiple other factors don't resonate with this.
It does, you're just being stubborn.';

'Did any explanation ever come out as to why Sega outsourced Saturn Virtua Racing? And did it the old way, not providing the team any source code or A/V resources?';

'>>10869817
Sega was stretched thin and Virtua Racing wasn't deemed a lower priority. So they let a 3rd party do the port.

Sega of America provided them with a Deluxe arcade cabinet.

Dev kits were in short supply.

Sega of Japan had the source code and wouldn't share.';

'>>10869758
>>10869761
Without the Saturn there is no 32X since without the Saturn there is no SH2. 32X is what set Sega up to fail and lost them the US market during the 5th generation. It was a terrible idea that was dead on arrival.

>>10869770
>you know those can be used in multiple ways even for 2d, especially with certain visual effects.
Like what? Why would you need a very specific DSP that's aimed specifically at just adding more CPU brute force for 3D Matrix Calculations if you're not planning to use it for 3D Matrix Calculations? What effect would you need that CPU for that you couldn't already do on VDP2? It's blatantly obvious that the reason those were chosen and put into the system was for 3D Math.
>You know if they meant for the system to focus on 3d as opposed to just 'being able to do some' it would have had a much more robust kit from the get-go.
The system is pretty capable of 3D as it is. The main choke point is that VDP1's fillrate is low for how it renders.
> Sony's initial tools were better because MIPS was out 2 years sooner than SuperH
According to devs who had to work with them, including Psygnosis, the early PS1 devkits were pretty trash.';

'>>10869770
>If the best Sega could come up with is asking the chip supplier to deliver a C compiler for those poor souls that couldn't work in assembly, especially if their own programmers in low level languages were so much damn better, then the fruits of their efforts were spoilt from the first bite.

You're twisting this into ridiculousness. It's not that the only idea they came up with was to ask the supplier to deliver a C compiler. It was that Sega worked directly with Hitachi in developing the SH2 to tailor to to exactly what they wanted with the Saturn. The fruits of doing that was a C Compiler from Hitachi, and Sega themselves also were busy developing their own C Libraries. The one thing Sega contracted out was a GNU C Compiler to allow for development on other systems that couldn't run the Hitachi Compiler. The main thing was Sega's resources were again split with the 32X and they didn't have a rockstar like Psygnosis in their pocket to hand it off to.

That said by 1994 what was available wasn't terrible. If anything the tools for 32X were worse.

>And on top of that, SOA and Europe would complain that anything they got in support was only in Japanese. WTF? Is is a mystery why this was failing outside of Japan?

Gee it's almost like it was their job to Translate shit from the Japanese branch.';

'>>10869793
>The evidence is there, it's just buried behind a language barrier. There's an interview with Stellar Assaults director that states Stellar Assault was a Saturn title that was pulled over ... the Japanese team doing Chaotix that states they were annoyed being told to develop it for 32X when

these are piss poor examples. Okay, Stellar Assault, fine. But its outside of the launch title window for even the Saturn when it drops on the 32x, so no, its not a relevant case here. And Chaotix started out developing on MD. its not convincing that is was a game who's dev needs were so taxing as to not get it released on the Saturn as well, but it never was.

>A solid port of Doom would have been a big one to have available at launch.
sorry, just don't buy it. not a knock on Doom, but it only mattered in the west in terms of its initial reach. And its popularity belonged to a segment of gamers that just didn't overlap with people who owned/cared about consoles. If you wanted to play Doom, you got a PC.

Doom was not good enough on 32x OR the Saturn as to have wowed anybody at the time. And what helped Doom on the PSX was networking, that I do remember being huge, it was a console gamer's first taste of a lan-party. but the port itself was just ok.

>Star Wars Arcade would have been another nice one seeing that Star Wars was pretty popular in 1995 with hype starting to build about the Special Editions.

this is the only one I feel could be convincing because you could make the case that the CD format and real music instead of FM and limited samples would have brought the arcade experience much more vividly home. That original machine blasting the opening orchestra hit did command attention. But its a very shallow game overall, who's novelty dies off quickly.

>Again Doom probably would have been ready around the same time as it's PS1 port in 1995.
thats just plain doubtful. It didn't drop for 3 years on Saturn after the 32x launch. It doesn't line up.';

'>>10869840
>But its outside of the launch title window for even the Saturn when it drops on the 32x
This the most idiotic flaw of your logic. You don't think for one minute that having to move from one system to another is going to delay things and slow down development? If that didn't happen it may have hit the launch window for Japan. But even with it's actual release date it still hit the launch window for the US, which is where it would be more important.
>And Chaotix started out developing on MD. its not convincing that is was a game who's dev needs were so taxing as to not get it released on the Saturn as well, but it never was.
This statement just shows how naive you are about what goes into developing any kind of software. Just because the game was mostly 2D doesn't mean it was easy and they could just make it for both at the same time. Secondly the key thing here is that the team wanted to make it on Saturn but were told to make it on 32X instead. So instead that effort was wasted on making the game for a dead platform when it could have bee a Sonic title to have at launch for the Saturn in the US.
> If you wanted to play Doom, you got a PC.
Do you have any idea what a PC that could run Doom properly cost in 1994/1995? They weren't cheap by any means. So yes having a good port of Doom that ran on par with the PC version on a System that cost a fraction of the price was a big deal. Doom was a big seller on the PS1 at launch, and not just for the system link feature. The only reason it didn't do well on 32X was because no one wanted a 32X when the PS1 and Saturn were due out the following year.
>But its a very shallow game overall, who's novelty dies off quickly.
To which they could flesh it out, especially if the target was a 1995 US Launch.';

'>>10869828
>32X is what set Sega up to fail and lost them the US market during the 5th generation.

Lying isn't good.';

'>>10869840
>>10869869
> It didn't drop for 3 years on Saturn after the 32x launch. It doesn't line up.
Are you being deliberately stupid here? I'm saying instead of Doom starting development for 32X in 1994, it could have started development for Saturn in 1994. It was one of the few games Sega of America made in house for the 32X in 1994, if they were instead focused on Saturn in 1994 that effort could have been put into a Saturn release. Instead it got outsourced for it's Saturn release where it was delayed. And by that time the damage of the 32X had been done. Sega had to downsize and had even less resources available. They couldn't have done the Saturn port themselves if they wanted to.';

'>>10869828
Neptune should've replaced Saturn, but still be a Saturn with backward compat. The Saturn should've been the Dreamcast and the dreamcast should've been shoved in Uranus.';

'>>10869871
Please explain how a system that was dead on arrival could have possibly held it's own for the coming years against the PS1? Especially when developers didn't even want to support it?';

'>>10869879
>Neptune should've replaced Saturn, but still be a Saturn with backward compat
This makes no sense at all as again by the time 32X was conceived Saturn's design was finalized. And Saturn already has enough chips in it, adding backwards compatibility to it would have made things worse, not better.

If they wanted the ability to play Genesis games on it that could have been done on the Saturn we got with a Cartridge Adapter that had the Genesis hardware in it.';

'>>10869793
>NBA Jam and Mortal Kombat 2 would have probably been done on time too,

NBA Jam, jock players only. Jock gamers didn't really play other games for a long time, both arcades and home. Nah, they weren't a big enough gamer base to have mattered with NBA Jam. and MK2 was outside launch-title range on the 32x so its a poor example of poaching too.

>in many cases the Saturn ports started after their 32X ports.
many cases? are you kidding me? were talking about single digit count of titles that fall in this category. And even then, why would it have mattered when dev began if it wasn't handled by the original dev? If a different dev was working on that port, wtf does it matter when the work is done on the 32x port? They would have been working concurrently, just like any other production. Just like Probe handled MK2 on MD the preceeding year and the 32x version. And at the same time Sculpted Software handled it on Snes.

>If they couldn't program for the Saturn then they couldn't program for 32x either since they both used the same CPUs.
Which means Sato's remark about assembly is bunk as fuck, or the development tools weren't cross compatible (which would be SOJ and Hitachi's fault, and is the more likely problem, since taking the work done on 32x didn't help with launching a game on the Saturn.)

>And it's not just developer talent we're talking about.
Wait, there is no disagreement about the principal of that. The disagreement is that there is any evidence such resources took something away from the Saturn that would have made a difference in the final analysis.';

'The problem with this Sega fanboy anon is that he's treating Sega of Japan, Sega of America, and Sega of Europe like they are seperate companies. They aren't. They are financially linked together.

Blaming one branch of the company only makes Sega look worse. It's called responsibility. And the responsibility belongs to Sega of Japan as the home office.

I run a team for my job. I am responsible. For my subordinates successes and failures. If one team member screws up, I will be held responsible. Yes he will get some blame, but it's my team and my ultimate responsibility. Blaming my subordinate will not fly in the eyes of the company.

This is basic 101 team management.';

'If a cheap add on with a tiny game library of mostly ports had such a huge impact on the Saturn it just shows how fragile and doomed the Saturn really was. I suspect even if you gave the Saturn the PERFECT launch that exists in little anon's mind it still would have got mogged by the PlayStation just as it did in Japan where the Saturn was a "success". The Dreamcast confirmed what Sega could do with a great launch with no competitors or distractions.

The 32X came and went in a blink of an eye most people never heard of it. Sega did not move the earth to launch it or put too many eggs in the basket, in fact it's clear SoJ did only the bare minimum and hurt their relationship with SoA with a half-assed effort. If the 32X was a success in US/EU the argument it hurt the Saturn would make more sense because it would have took Sega's piece of the market for itself with no room for the Saturn but that didn't happen, the 32x quickly died like the rest of SoJ's fail add ons.

Here is the reality: Sega was a great arcade company that struck gold with the Mega Drive/Genesis (SoA/Sonic) but when the industry exploded in the mid 90s and megacorps like Sony and Microsoft jumped into the ring it was clear Sega was outmatched and they were bullied out of the industry.';

'>>10869893
100% agree mostly.

Makes you really respect how nintendo survived this long.';

'>>10869893
>cheap
$160 in 1994 is worth $337.20 today';

'>>10869886
>If they wanted the ability to play Genesis games on it that could have been done on the Saturn we got with a Cartridge Adapter that had the Genesis hardware in it.

>Let's just make an addon for Saturn, it's not like add-ons are bad and destroyed our company or anything.
You're retarded. They should've waited, not released the Sega CD or 32x and made the Saturn more powerful and have all the Sega CD and 32x games developed for the more powerful Saturn.';

'>>10869918
Ontop of making it backwards compatible. With the money saved from not producing and developing the 32x or Sega CD, they could blow into rnd and better Saturn parts.';

'>>10869912
Saturn $399 in 1994 is $865 dollars in today's money';

'>>10869904
Pokemon came at the perfect time for them (during the storm of the PlayStation) and they had the handheld market all to themselves which was a lifesaver.';

'>>10869889
>NBA Jam, jock players only. Jock gamers didn't really play other games for a long time,
It was enough to sell to at least 1/4 of the people that bought a PS1 during it's launch window.

> MK2 was outside launch-title range on the 32x so its a poor example of poaching too.
But is within the US Launch title range for the Saturn. Both ports were done by Probe with the 32X port getting priority and coming out first. The Saturn port wouldn't come out until a year later. If they didn't have to do the 32X port and could instead focus on the Saturn port they probably would have been able to have it out sooner. If you look at the credits you'll see the 32X programmers are listed in the Saturn versions credits under special thanks, meaning they were probably pulled in to help after finishing the 32X port. Instead they could have just been working on the Saturn port from the start.

>many cases? are you kidding me?
Sega of America at this time was prioritizing the 32X over the Saturn, so yes western devs were being encouraged to focus on the 32X first. In cases like MK2, both ports were handled by Probe and as stated above you can see overlap in the credits.

>Which means Sato's remark about assembly is bunk as fuck,
He's most likely talking about very early development around mid 1993 to early 1994 while the C Compilers and libraries were still under development and not ready for third parties. You're just trying to make it into something it's not.

All I was pointing out was if programming for the SH2 was a problem for the Saturn, it would be a problem for the 32X as well. The issue with a developer having to change platforms wasn't due to the SH2, it would be having to now learn the rest of the 32X and adapt the project to a system that had less capable hardware. That will slowdown development.

> or the development tools weren't cross compatible
The compilers were cross-compatible sure, but the rest of the hardware is completely different.';

'>>10869869

this entire post is just unconvincing after this remark earlier.

>>10869814
>If they couldn't program for the Saturn then they couldn't program for 32x either since they both used the same CPUs.

You're telling us that you know so much about developing any kind of software for a project only to have said this?

>Do you have any idea what a PC that could run Doom properly cost in 1994/1995?
yes, 4 digits easy. That doesn't really matter in the scenario youre painting here. Doom was not a killer app that was selling $1000+ 486DX's at the time and growing the PC market in any accelerated way it wasn't already growing. The idea that there was waves of console gamers, whom did not overlap with PC gamers at the time, that would have known or been excited about finally being able to play Doom after not having a modern PC in their household, enough consumers that it would have made them make a material decision to buy a Playstation and not a Saturn (or in addition to, to be generous) such that it would have made a convincing difference is just not there.

>>10869875
>Are you being deliberately stupid here? I'm saying instead of Doom starting development for 32X in 1994, it could have started development for Saturn in 1994.
its more like you are. Doom did come to Saturn 3 years after the 32x. If you assume that there was no concurrent development of Doom for both platforms, that means they could have been working on Saturn Doom for as much as 3 years. Do you know when Rage started work on it? Because the argument is but for the existence of the 32x, the Saturn would have had a port of Doom around late 95 when the Playstation did. First, you'll need to show that it didn't take them all 3 years of the comparable timeline to make their port(you understand why, right?). And if it didnt take that long, and if Doom was such a key to success, you'll have to tell us why they didn't start dev on it at least as early as Saturn's launch date.';

'>>10869891
>The problem with this Sega fanboy anon is that he's treating Sega of Japan, Sega of America, and Sega of Europe like they are seperate companies. They aren't. They are financially linked together.

At the time the time they were set up in a way to act very independently of each other and they didn't do consolidated accounting. This eventually did come back to bite them in the ass when they did start consolidating accounting and realized all the massive losses and unsold Inventory Sega of America had amassed but that's a different story.

That said, the main thing I'm pointing out here is that Sega of America was well aware of the Saturn and Sega of Japan didn't force the 32X on them. Sega of America wanted to stick with the Genesis and Sega of Japan did what they could to support them in that.

>It's called responsibility. And the responsibility belongs to Sega of Japan as the home office.
The main thing here is the Sega of Japan side of the story does take responsibility and shares it with Sega of America. The Sega of America side just points the finger at Japan.';

'>>10869935
>realized all the massive losses and unsold Inventory Sega of America had amassed but that's a different story.
Nta but that's debunked rubbish.';

'>>10869893
>If a cheap add on with a tiny game library of mostly ports had such a huge impact on the Saturn it just shows how fragile and doomed the Saturn really was.

The strategy would be a disaster regardless of which company did it. It's not that the system was fragile and doomed, it's that you can't split the market with one console for Japan and another for the US after you've already announced the one for Japan to the rest of the world. It was an unnecessary distraction and an unnecessary waste of time, money, and development resources.

>I suspect even if you gave the Saturn the PERFECT launch that exists in little anon's mind it still would have got mogged by the PlayStation just as it did in Japan where the Saturn was a "success".
Who said anything about it beating the PS1? I clearly said earlier the goal would be a solid 2nd place to be in a better financial position going into the next generation. No one was going to beat the PS1 that generation. The point for Sega is to not completely blow their own legs off with a bazooka.

And for what it's worth, PS1 only overtook the Saturn in Japan when Final Fantasy VII came out and Sega announced they were releasing the Dreamcast the following year.

>The 32X came and went in a blink of an eye most people never heard of it.
Plenty heard of it, no one bought it. There is a difference.
> Sega did not move the earth to launch it or put too many eggs in the basket
They put it out in under a year and developed a ton of resources into making that happen.
> in fact it's clear SoJ did only the bare minimum and hurt their relationship with SoA with a half-assed effort
Sega of Japan developed more 32X games than Sega of America.';

'>>10869891

part of the problem is trying to ascribe a disproportionate load of responsibility, too.

Sega as a whole did all sorts of dumb shit in all regions. But some are trying to argue that this particular issue was somehow a uniquely and wholly US responsibility, and on top of that was a decisive factor in a company already on a failure vector.

>>10869893
>If the 32X was a success in US/EU the argument it hurt the Saturn would make more sense because it would have took Sega's piece of the market for itself with no room for the Saturn but that didn't happen,

this. You could at least say SOJ could have convincingly argued that 32x success didn't grow the market, it only took from the Saturn.

>>10869918
releasing the CD at least made sense because they were eying the kind of games the NEC were releasing. And even some computers, like FM Towns. And we did get some fun CD titles that persist to now.';

'>>10869935
>Sega of Japan didn't force the 32X on them.

SOA was content to not do anything but the Genesis until the Saturn's purchase cost came down. That means not doing the 32x either.

SOJ didn't force the 32x on them in the sense that SOJ developed it and said 'now go use this.' They forced it on them because they said "SOA you can't do absolutely-nothing until the Saturn is at the pricepoint you think it can be successful."

your characterisation that this equates to providing some kind of benevolent support is hogwash.';

'>>10869893
> If the 32X was a success in US/EU the argument it hurt the Saturn would make more sense because it would have took Sega's piece of the market for itself with no room for the Saturn but that didn't happen, the 32x quickly died like the rest of SoJ's fail add ons.
It died quickly, but it again was an unnecessary distraction that took away effort that could have gone into the Saturn.
>>10869928
>this entire post is just unconvincing after this remark earlier.
Only because you can't understand basic resource management.
>You're telling us that you know so much about developing any kind of software for a project only to have said this?
Again I was pointing out that the issue wasn't the SH2s. It was that developers were being told to move projects to another platform and then had to learn that new platforms hardware and take time to adapt their project to it. That will slowdown development.
> That doesn't really matter in the scenario youre painting here.
It entirely matters here as not everyone could afford a $1000+ computer to play Doom. And It shows in the sales data as PS1 Doom sold close to a million copies.
> Do you know when Rage started work on it?
Considering both programmers on the project were also the programmers on the port of Revolution X that came out a year prior, I'm guessing development on it started sometime in 1996. Which from the prototypes that have surfaced and the files on the disc, that seems to align.
>If Doom was such a key to success, you'll have to tell us why they didn't start dev on it at least as early as Saturn's launch date.
Because Sega of America had instead wasted the resources on a 32X port and weren't planning on doing a Saturn port until they had to. But at that point they didn't have the resources to do it themselves so they outsourced it. If that 32X port they started in 1994 was started for Saturn instead, they could have had a Saturn port ready for launch.';

'>>10869943
How is it debunked? We literally have the inventory reports and the statements from the CEO that replaced Tom Kalinske to back it up?

>>10869953
>Sega as a whole did all sorts of dumb shit in all regions. But some are trying to argue that this particular issue was somehow a uniquely and wholly US responsibility, and on top of that was a decisive factor in a company already on a failure vector.
Some mistakes are more damaging than others on the long run. And the 32X definitely did some of the worst damage to Sega going into the 5th generation. And a lot of that responsibility does fall on Sega of America. Not all of it, but a good amount of it.

>>10869970
We have statements from Nakayama and others in 1994 addressing shareholders that far more align with Sega of Japan working with Sega of America to help them stay competitive than forcing something on them. You can read them here:

https://mdshock.com/2023/07/10/irimajiri-speaks-out-about-the-saturn-the-32x-and-soas-financial-troubles/

It's pretty clear that the idea was for 32X to be the sold console in the US for a few years, not just until 1995. The decision to launch Saturn in 1995 in the US came only after the 32X failure was obvious.';

'>>10869994
weren't planning on doing a Saturn port until they had to.

had to? what do you mean by this? If it was that important a release, then they always 'had to.' There was no reasonable option where it just sits in their project que until they get to it. thats dumb as hell especially since they ended up outsourcing it in the end anyways.

there shouldn't have been any waiting.

You say Rage began work on it in 96, lets split and say late Q2. With the game dropping in late q1 97, that means they worked on it in 9 months.

If it was that damn much of a game changer, Sega should have been rushing to get it out. There is no 'waiting until they had to' to begin, you fucking begin immediately. If it only took the outsourcer 9 months to get what we got, then that 9 months should have been started on release date of the 32x version at the absolute latest(since that would mean no supposed resource conflict anymore), which means Doom Saturn should have released Q3 of 1995. Not 1997.';

'>>10869563
>they were planning on modest 3D
But, anon, if the original Saturn was only targeting even more modest 3D than it ended up doing, it would've been an absolute utter shitpile. "Modest" 3D is 3DO tier.
This is merely more evidence that SoJ were serial fuckups when it came to hardware design.';

'>>10870018
>had to? what do you mean by this?
Had to as in "Oh shit, we bet on the wrong horse and now need to pivot to the Saturn but we have no western games ready or planned for it!" followed by "Oh shit, Doom is selling PS1s, we need our own port out!".

>You say Rage began work on it in 96, lets split and say late Q2. With the game dropping in late q1 97, that means they worked on it in 9 months.
The Final Build date for the first release (EU) is November 20th 1996. So it was rushed out in under a year and is heavily based on the PS1 port.

> should have been started on release date of the 32x version at the absolute latest
Why would they do that when they were convinced 32X was going to hold the line in the US and they wouldn't need to release the Saturn for a few more years? Remember this was the original plan which is evidenced by Nakayama's statements to shareholders in 1994. The rapid pivot to Saturn in the US only happened as a kneejerk reaction to 32X bombing.

The point here is that if they had just not done the 32X and Sega of America had started that project for the Saturn instead, they could have had a good port of Doom in time for the US Launch.';

'>>10870021
A Saturn with just 1 SH-2 and no VDP1 improvements would be about 3DO Tier. VDP1 isn't that much better than the Madam chip in 3DO, especially without things like High Speed shrink and what not. It has a little more fillrate and can do Gouraud Shading, but it's not that much better really. The real question would be how would a 26MHz SH2 + SCU DSP compare to the 12.5MHz ARM CPU and it's own DSP in the 3DO.

Which for when they they were designing it that wasn't that silly to be aiming for. I think people forget just how much of a shock PS1's specs were when they were finally revealed.';

'>>10870009
>How is it debunked? We literally have the inventory reports and the statements from the CEO that replaced Tom Kalinske to back it up?
That's how retail in America works. You must have reserve inventory to do business with big bame retail stores. Nintendo, Atari, Sony, etc all had to do it. They had warehouses full of consoles held in reserve. Sega is not special.';

'>>10870039

you either make it or you dont. If you want to say the decision to make it was the result of a course correction fine, but they you have to point to a change in circumstances or some new information that led to the course correction. What new information did they have? the fact that the PS1 port was selling well? How could that be blamed on the 32x? Did the 32x port sell well enough to give them a hint about the ps1 success potential in the future? No, otherwise they would have made it for the Saturn to as well at the outset. Holding the line or not doesn't factor here.


>So it was rushed out in under a year and is heavily based on the PS1 port.

you sure about that? Its out there on fan sites that its derived from the 32x version, because Carmack himself torpedoes the use of a particular engine during dev.';

'>>10870039
>The rapid pivot to Saturn in the US only happened as a kneejerk reaction to 32X bombing.
Which was a self-feedback loop. As long as Saturn would exist, the 32X would bomb. Since Saturn would always exist (due to SoJ desperately needing to move away from MD), it stands to reason that the 32X shouldn't have been attempted in the first place.';

'>>10870110
Saturn Doom used the same technique as PS1 Doom to prevent texture warping: Render the environment as a series of 1-pixel wide strips of polygons. That much is clear. Whether they were merely inspired by PS1 Doom technique or used the same source code is another matter, but it's very different from 32X Doom in this aspect.';

'>>10870054
>Which for when they they were designing it that wasn't that silly to be aiming for.
Utterly dumb is what it was. The 3DO's hardware was not a complete black box for Sega, given that SoA and Hawkins had some tentative discussions circa mid-late-1992 (which sadly didn't go anywhere). SoJ were retards to lowball that hard with their next system. Going for "slightly better performance than 3DO, maybe, in select titles" made absolutely no sense, even when using the initial timeline estimates (pre-panic mode).';

'>>10869203
>Released on the Amiga, Amiga CD32, DOS PC, Mega Drive, SNES, Game Gear, 3DO and CD-I

Who thought this was a good idea? WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!!??';

'>>10870219
It was the single most hyped game of the early-90s.';

'Sega was a fascinating company that provides so much interesting discussion and what ifs to this day. They had so much going on at once and the unique Japanese/American dynamic is great. I'd love to read a Sega book that went into more detail into this stuff and interviewed all the Sega bosses on both sides of the Pacific.';

'>>10851803
Why do people always think the 32X or any other Genesis/Mega Drive add-on would have saved Sega in the console business? What they needed was a Sega Saturn that could compete with Sony somehow. Something that did 3D well, was development-friendly and could be sold for $299. Also don't turn away retailers by trying to release it too early.
Then again it is hard to compete with Sony because they are a much bigger company with way more financial strength and a superior own R&D department. Sony did better what made the Genesis/Mega/Drive and even SNES so successful. People want mature games but also ones that have deeper gameplay-mechanics (progression) and aren't just arcade-style. PS1 even had high-quality arcade games such as Ridge Racer and Tekken. I mean why not just buy a PS1 instead as a consumer? Sega needed to offer something more like the DC.';

'>>10865903
What kind of schizo reasoning is this? No many Sega fanboys went to the PS1 because the Saturn had no games.';

'>>10870631
>What they needed was a Sega Saturn that could compete with Sony somehow
True, but also impossible. You can fix the 3D processing and maybe you get some more ports out of it, but it's still NOT a Playstation. Nothing competed with the Playstation for two straight generations.';

'>>10870631
Sony wanted Sega's audience, the teens and the arcade gamers, but they also wanted a new audience with their "cinematic" experiences and they created that audience themselves, which turned out to be massive. Sega couldn't get those people, they couldn't out-sony Sony. At best they hold on to the arcade action enthusiasts. But that was a dwindling crowd anyways.';

'>>10870769
>>10870789
Yeah. I think Sega should have tried to fill a niche like Nintendo always does. We may not have Final Fantasy, GTA or MGS but we have different exclusive games like Sonic, Super Monkey Ball, Jet Set Radio or Phantasy Star.
The issue was also that Sony did every game genre as good or better than Sega. Virtua Fighter? Tekken. Daytona USA? Ridge Racer. Sonic? Crash Bandicoot. Phantasy Star? Final Fantasy/Dragon Quest. Saturn and PS1 were quite similar in terms of which audiences they tried to capture and also the type of games themselves that they offered.';

'>Don't bother with the 32X
>Make Saturn more capable of 3D, delay until 96 if you have to
>For fucks sake have a Sonic game ready at launch, don't outsource it to burgers, make Naka work on it or he's fired.
>Wait until 2001 for the DC, give it a second analog stick, secure GTA3 exclusivity.
GG EZ';

'>>10870219
>>10870261
Rise and Donkey Kong Country came out basically in the same week in the States, the Amiga version was out earlier in the summer
They were both sold on the same idea of, "look at these 3D* graphics"
The ad blitz Rise was insane, you couldn't buy a comic book in 94 without a 2 page or back cover ad for Rise of the Robots';

'>>10870817
STI weren't just some random Americans they made Sonic 2';

'>>10870089
>That's how retail in America works. You must have reserve inventory to do business with big bame retail stores.
That doesn't mean you keep printing Genesis games like it's 1991 and do nothing to manage the inventory. There's a point where you need to start getting rid of it. There's a point in the generation where you need to start winding down production and renegotiate with those retail stores.

Clearly Sega of America did something wrong here because if Nintendo was playing by these same rules they clearly were able to manage the situation better.';

'>>10870110
>What new information did they have?
That the 32X was a failure and PS1 was selling.
> How could that be blamed on the 32x?
I'm not saying the PS1 port selling well is the fault of the 32X. I'm saying they bet on the wrong horse and put their port on the wrong system.
>No, otherwise they would have made it for the Saturn too at the outset.
How could they when now they don't have the resources to do that themselves? Remember at this point Sega of Japan is retaking control of Sega of America and is pushing them to downsize because the company is too big and out of control.
>Holding the line or not doesn't factor here.
It does when you understand what the original plan was. The original plan was Saturn in 1994 for Japan, 32X in 1994 for the US. Saturn wouldn't release in the US until sometime in 1996 or 1997. Eventually this changed to Saturn would launch a year later and then to launching immediately as the 32X situation became worse. When they were doing Doom for 32X, they were thinking they wouldn't have to do Saturn stuff for a few more years.
> Its out there on fan sites that its derived from the 32x version, because Carmack himself torpedoes the use of a particular engine during dev.
Carmack torpedoed a version that drew it all as massive textured quads because it was a warpy mess. The version that released is rendering the exact same way the PS1 version and even has the same WAD files with colored lighting data in them.

32X Doom is instead doing software rendering more like the original PC release and is based on the Jaguar version with a lot of the code being shared as Carmack was working on both at the same time.';

'>>10870159
You realize the 3DO isn't that weak of a system right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir7zVH59qj8

The main limiting factor it has is it's CPU is capped at 12.5MHz instead of the 25MHz they originally wanted.

>>10870631
>>10870769
The Saturn's Hardware is already more than capable of competing with the PS1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epZhxsDw03Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZpa0ABrypc

>>10870874
The people that did the heavy lifting where the Japanese members.';

'>>10870968
They did, the stores wanted Genesis on the shelves since that's where the demand was, SOJ told SOA that Saturn had to come out because it btfo PS1 in 94 in Japan, SOA always knew the Saturn was shit and the industry was transitioning to 3d. So SOA were looking for alternatives but kept getting shot down by SOJ until they settled on the 32X which SOJ kneecapped by moving up Saturn's American release date 5 months without telling retailers, players and only having 30k units and 5 games available.
And then Sony undercut them by $100.

So Sega has passed off devs, players and retailers in one move.';

'>>10870968
No anon. Sega of America were following standard retail protocol. If your item is sold in stores, then you are contractually obligated to have a certain amount of reserve stock. It doesn't matter if its a console, accessory, or simply just a game. If a store calls your company up and says, "Hey we need more copies of Sonic 2. For some reason customers love buying all our old stock. Give us more." Then you have to supply it to them.

The Japanese, or at least the Sega Japanese Executives, do not understand this. The Japanese have different retail rules for how they operate. So it's no wonder the Sega Japanese Executives are clueless on this topic. That's why all Sega interviews with Japanese Executives commenting on unsold stock are invalid in this discussion.';

'>>10871016
It's also dumb that SoJ was mad about reserve stock not selling when it was SoJ who decided to cut off the Genesis when it was doing well. What did they think was going to happen?';

'>>10871014
>They did, the stores wanted Genesis on the shelves since that's where the demand was
And that's where this narrative falls apart. There wasn't demand for Genesis games on store shelves. The 16-bit market was starting to wind down and collapse in 1994 and 1995. Stores were selling those games at extreme discounts to get rid of them:

https://mdshock.com/2022/05/09/a-second-atari-shock-the-decline-of-the-16-bit-console-era/
https://mdshock.com/2021/04/14/segas-financial-troubles-an-analysis-of-export-revenue-1991-1998/

Sega, Nintendo, Capcom, Konami, etc. were all posting major losses for FY95 (1994) due to 16-bit software not selling. Sega however posted some of the worst losses, which would seem to point to them not managing things as well.

>SOJ kneecapped by moving up Saturn's American release date 5 months without telling retailers
This was done entirely because the 32X was dead on arrival. They didn't kneecap the 32X, they disposed of it's corpse.

>>10871016
> If your item is sold in stores, then you are contractually obligated to have a certain amount of reserve stock.
The items weren't selling, they were being dumped at discount prices to get rid of them and there were no orders to replace stock. We can see this in the inventory reports. And again read the above articles. Eventually you need to start winding down and clearing out inventory.

>>10871036
> SoJ who decided to cut off the Genesis when it was doing well.
But it wasn't. The 16-bit era was coming to an end and the market was starting to collapse.';

'>>10871016
Have you asked yourself why Nintendo never seemed to have this problem? I'll tell you why, because Nintendo wasn't playing by the same rules. And no, this is NOT how these things work in retail. Fry's went out of business because they did not have enough money to purchase inventory, they tried to get manufacturers to essentially send them inventory to sell on consignment. What do you think happened? Fry's had no inventory to sell and went out of business. Companies don't ship inventory to stores on consignment. The stores pay for the inventory and it is their problem, unless the company negotiates to sell on consignment.
Sega had to do this stupid shit that shot them in the foot years later because it was the only way in the door. This is discussed in Console Wars, Kalinske basically takes it right up the ass from Walmart by agreeing to basically stock their stores on Consignment and take back the unsold inventory. It's really funny how they danced around that inconvenient truth in retrospect. Big mistake. Nobody does this, Nintendo absolutely did not and they refused to accept returns of unsold merchandise or "buyer's remorse" items as that sort of thing was a contributing factor in Atari's demise and the US console crash in the early 80s.
You have very strange ideas that don't align with reality. Please read a book';

'>>10871045
Sega had the worst losses because they had a bajillion consoles plus accessories in stores. Game Gear, Pico, Game Gear TV Adapter, Sega CD, Sega CD 2, infrared controllers, 6-button controller, arcade pad, 6 button arcade pad, Activator, Master System, Master System Adapter, Nomad, CDX, Laseractive, and that's just from the top of my head. All taking shelf space. All getting removed from the shelf by the retailer and sent back to Sega for a refund because they are not selling, have not been selling, will not be selling.

Nintendo meanwhile has the SNES and releases Donkey Kong Country 1-2 and Yoshi's Island all with nextgen graphics and oh wow Sega for some reason is selling bad and Nintendo is selling better, I wonder how could that happen.';

'>>10871045
>The items weren't selling,

You aren't listening. Until they finally say, "OK we aren't carrying the Sega Genesis anymore at our store" then you have to keep a reserve stock. It's part of the supplier contract. That's how it works in America.';

'>>10871045
>The 16-bit era was coming to an end and the market was starting to collapse
Nintendo kept going and overtook the Genesis. There was still some life in that gen, but SoJ wanted to be first to market again with a new machine. Their fatal mistake in hindsight.';

'>>10871067
>Have you asked yourself why Nintendo never seemed to have this problem?
Because it's not a problem. Nintendo know the rules of retail, and follow them. Nintendo of Japan is probably *laughing* at Sega of Japan complaining about having a reserve stock in North America.';

'>>10871169
Nintendo had a ton of accessories for their systems too, and they were supporting the Gameboy, NES, and SNES at this time along with prepping the Virtual Boy for release. Also some of the stuff you're losting there wasn't distributed by Sega, it was distributed by other companies like Pioneer.

And Nintendo's stuff wasn't selling at full retail price either, including Donkey Kong. You can see Toys R Us ads from the era with them all severely discounted to get them to sell. Sure they may have sold a million copies, but not at full price.

>>10871202
I am listening, and I'm telling you you're wrong. I've actually worked retail in the US and know how it works. If you order shit and it doesn't sell it's your fault and you have to deal with it. Rarely if ever do you get to sell it back to the company you ordered it from save for something like an ordering mistake that's caught immediately and dealt with before they've even been opened. And even that's rare.

Kalinske made a bad deal to get the Genesis in as many stores as possible and it later came back to bite him in the ass. No one else was doing that.

>>10871210
>Nintendo kept going and overtook the Genesis.
If you take Japan out of the equation for both the Genesis and SNES, SNES and Genesis are pretty much equal in overall consoles sold. But again this isn't an accurate picture of the state of the market. All companies including Nintendo were posting losses at this point because as stated the software wasn't selling to their expectations.

>>10871232
If anything Nintendo is laughing at Kalinske getting conned that badly by US Retail stores.';

'>>10871067
>Fry's went out of business because they did not have enough money to purchase inventory
Fry's has nothing to do with Sega and a completely different issue. They were a poorly run company with terrible customer service. The Pandemic was the final nail in the coffin.';

'>>10871294
You missed the point dumbass. He's pointing out that what Kalinske was doing with Sega's inventory wasn't the norm at all. The retailers that did try to push this model exclusively didn't survive because few companies were willing to do something so risky for them.';

'>>10871286
>Rarely if ever do you get to sell it back to the company you ordered it from
I've done retail as well. This depends on the contract negotiated between the retailer and tbe supplier. A sell back clause can be negotiated. Returning items isn't completely uncommon. Especially if demand was overestimated.

And even with overstock returns, North America and Europe sold 40 million Sega Genesis in Western markers. Much better than Sega of Japan being only able to sell a paltry 3 million in their home country. Very pathetic.';

'>>10871286
>If anything Nintendo is laughing at Kalinske getting conned that badly by US Retail stores.
Nintendo probably pities Tom with how badly Sega of Japan treated Sega of America.

Nintendo of Japan and Nintendo of America have a great relationship and are in sync with eachother.';

'>>10871325
>This depends on the contract negotiated between the retailer and tbe supplier.
And most suppliers don't negotiate such a risky and disadvantageous contract as Kalinske was doing. Nintendo and other companies definitely didn't have a contract like this.

>North America and Europe sold 40 million Sega Genesis in Western markers.
40 Million is a rough estimate we have for world wide numbers and that's really stretching it. The official numbers are around 30 Million world wide with 3.5 Million of that being Japan, and the rest being US, Europe, and Brazil.

Sure Sega didn't sell as many in Japan, but they were probably in a better position financially because they didn't have this massive amount of unsold inventory and losses piling up. You need to realize that the total amount of systems you sell doesn't always align with financial success. Especially if a lot of that is being returned and refunded later. What's coming to light now is that a lot of Sega of America's "success" was mostly overinflated as a lot of it was later returned and refunding nuking any profits they had made.

>>10871345
>Nintendo probably pities Tom with how badly Sega of Japan treated Sega of America.
Tom literally had the authority to do as he pleased. Sega of Japan trusted his judgement and would bend over backwards to accommodate him. They only started to reign in control after the 32X failed and the cracks in the facade started to show.';

'>>10871349
>Tom literally had the authority to do as he pleased. Sega of Japan trusted his judgement and would bend over backwards to accommodate him.

If that were true, then why didn't they listen to Tom when he tried to bring SGI to design the graphics for a new console? Why didn't they delay Saturn until 1996 in North America like Tom wanted? Your statement is false.';

'>>10871406
>then why didn't they listen to Tom when he tried to bring SGI to design the graphics for a new console?
Because by the time he brought that too them Saturn's design was nearly final and they didn't have time to completely redesign it and hit their 1994 target. There were also serious concerns about the CPU performance and if SGI could be able to meet demands on time. Looking at what happened with the N64 they were right. The N64 was severely delayed to make all the changes to the chip Nintendo needed to make it performant and it was still heavily crippled by the shared RDRAM and the CPU had to be 3x the speed of the Saturn and PS1 to work.

>Why didn't they delay Saturn until 1996 in North America like Tom wanted?
They did originally decide to do that with 32X being the main focus in the US until 1996. Having nothing in 1994 wasn't an option in Japan because the 16-bit era was dying and PS1 was right around the corner. 32X came about because Sega of Japan was trying to help Sega of America with their plan to not do Saturn until 1996 while still giving them something that could compete against the PS1. 32X however was dead on arrival and they needed to change directions to adapt.

Tom should have instead started finishing up Genesis projects around late 1993 with it's final year of being the main focus in the US being 1994. Around the same time he should have started prepping for a Saturn launch in 1995 and getting software development going in 1993/1994. During this time he should have also been working on getting dev kits and documentation into developers hands.';

'>>10871349
>Sure Sega didn't sell as many in Japan
You are severely understating it. SEGA barely sold ANY in Japan. Even for Japan, 3.5 million is shit sales for Mega Drive.

Nintendo sold 20 million NES in Japan. 17 million SNES sold in Japan.

Sony sold 19 million PS1 in Japan. 20 million PS2 sold in Japan.

Sega of Japan doesn't know what they are doing.

>Especially if a lot of that is being returned and refunded later.

You are confusing two different categories. The 35 million sales figure for Sega Genesis sales is number sold to customers. It is not the same as unopened overstock returns from retailers back to Sega. Millions of customers were not returning their Sega Genesis. You are confused.';

'>>10871453
NEC sold about 5 Million PC-Engines in Japan and most people consider that a respectable 2nd place. Nintendo shipped 17 Million SNES's because they had developers like Square and Enix in their pocket pumping out Final Fantasy's and Dragon Quests. Just about any console that gets those games in Japan ends up winning by a wide margin.

Secondly I wasn't understating it, I was pointing out there's more to success than just raw numbers of consoles sold. What matters more is your overall profit. Which that's where Sega of America's success starts to fall apart. Sure they may have sold more consoles, but they lost money doing it to the point that they really didn't make that much more than Japan made with their lower sales numbers.

>You are confusing two different categories.
No that's you. 30 Million is the official number Sega has given for world wide shipped units. Not sold through to consumers, shipped to retailers. That's what Nintendo's official numbers are as well.';

'>>10871478
>I was pointing out there's more to success than just raw numbers of consoles sold. What matters more is your overall profit. Which that's where Sega of America's success starts to fall apart. Sure they may have sold more consoles, but they lost money doing it to the point that they really didn't make that much more than Japan made with their lower sales numbers.

No anon. You can squirm your way out of this Sega of America sold 20 million Sega Genesis units. Unless you can PROVE that 16 million Sega Genesis consoles were returned, then Sega of America made MUCH more money than Japan.

You need to face the facts that Sega of Japan was a failure. They were ashamed that the home office was pathetic at selling in their homeland.';

'>>10871517
>Unless you can PROVE that 16 million Sega Genesis consoles were returned, then Sega of America made MUCH more money than Japan.
Here you go:
https://mdshock.com/2023/07/10/irimajiri-speaks-out-about-the-saturn-the-32x-and-soas-financial-troubles/

Again, selling a ton of systems doesn't mean you're making a ton of money if you eventually have to take a bunch of losses on it due to returned stock or having to sell it at a loss to get it in stores.';

'>>10871542
That's not proof. Where are the hard numbers proving 17 million were returned? They don't share any numbers on how much was returned. You are full of lies and cope. Show me direct numbers. You were bragging about having special access to leaked financial data and you can't even provide numbers on returned Genesis';

'>>10871286
>Kalinske made a bad deal to get the Genesis in as many stores as possible and it later came back to bite him in the ass.
He had to do it partly because of, ironically, SoJ. They had completely fucked shit up during the Master System era (when SoA had far less autonomy, and SoJ dictated things directly), so retailers were wary of carrying another Sega home console (especially with Nintendo lobbying them not to from the other end).
Kalinske's consignment deal was the only way it could get most retailers on-board with the Genesis. It was a bad long-term deal, true, and should've been renegotiated as soon as Genesis became a known entity, but it genuinely worked well for a while. It only turned sour in mid-1994, when 16-bit stuff started selling poorly, and retailers on consignment had a higher incentive to return stock rather than mark it down with discounts.

>>10871045
>The 16-bit market was starting to wind down and collapse in 1994 and 1995.
Yes, but the time period we're discussing is winter '93-'94. The 16-bit bust that took place during '94 was yet to come, and neither Kalinske, nor Nakayama, were clairvoyant. And, despite that bust, you still had solid showings, like Sonic 3/Sonic & Knuckles (which was a great way to sell 1.5 games for the price of 2, plus the extra functionality in Sonic 2).';

'>>10871451
>Having nothing in 1994 wasn't an option in Japan because the 16-bit era was dying and PS1 was right around the corner.
Having nothing in 1994 might not have been an option in Japan, but it was an option in the US/Europe, especially since the Genesis (and Sega CD) had been released later. It was doing alright, if not spectacular. And Japan was in a bad situation not (just) because of PS1, but also because Genesis had been a non-entity for the better part of 1993 (which wasn't the case in the West).

>32X came about because Sega of Japan was trying to help Sega of America with their plan to not do Saturn until 1996 while still giving them something that could compete against the PS1.
Lolno, both Kalinske and Nakayama were fully aware the 32X was in no way a serious competitor to the PS1. The 32X was always intended to be a stopgap measure, rather than a full-fat platform.
It just so happened that Kalinske had huffed a fair bit of hopium, coupled with a few bad breaks. Saturn was getting out in late-94 Japan regardless of what SoA/SoE did, since the situation there was dire. So the 32X was always going to get its thunder stolen by the Saturn. However, the 16-bit slump throughout 1994 added to the financial burden, and made the 32X doubly unappealing, by making the base (16-bit) console (necessary to use it) unappealing. And the SVP chip was a massive dud because of, again, SoJ retardation.';

'>>10871582
It doesn't have to be 17 Million returned. Again you're showing how completely naive you are here. It's not just the cost of the individual systems and games, but the cost to ship them back, the cost to store them, the cost to manage that inventory, the sunk costs in marketting, etc. We have the evidence in the inventory reports, the losses posted by Sega during these years showing what money they made quickly evaporated as these losses started to pile up.
>You were bragging about having special access to leaked financial data and you can't even provide numbers on returned Genesis
You have access to it too you dumb stupid shit. It's been available right here and takes only a google search to find:
https://segaretro.org/File:SegaFY1997BrandReview_US.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQPFKMx21Sk

But go ahead continue to bury your head in the sand and ignore the mountains of evidence.';

'>>10871349
I'm sure Sega was in a great spot after the MD bombed in Japan and back to back humiliations at the hand of Nintendo. Sega's massive success in US/EU was "overinflated" (Only reason this thread exists in 2024) and full of fake numbers and and a lot of it was all refunded anyway!!!

Holy shit the mental gymnastics Lol.';

'>>10862516
32X, 3DO, Jaguar - better than the 4th gen, weaker than the 5th gen proper and without enough exclusive releases to make up for it
Dreamcast - better than the 5th gen, weaker than the 6th gen proper and without enough exclusive releases to make up for it
Yes I have a Dreamcast, yes I do like it (although I have to adjust the bloody thing's potentiometer AGAIN after it starts refusing to read burned discs which is the only reason I bought the damn thing), but it didn't last long ENOUGH to get a big enough library to compensate for its other shortcomings. Maybe the other flaws could have been overcome eventually (only one stick, no DVD, lower memory overall) but not without resources SEGA didn't have.
In short - being first into a new console generation worked in the case of the Megadrive and the 360 and those are honestly the only two examples I can think of. Everything else launched too soon and was then outcompeted.
There's your wall of text bro, now have an irrelevant lust-provoking image';

'This narrative that 16 bit was dead in 1994 is BS, DKC1 and Sonic 3 came out that year and many more mega hits to come. 16bit WAS gaming for the vast majority until about 1997 ish.';

'>>10871650
> It was a bad long-term deal, true, and should've been renegotiated as soon as Genesis became a known entity, but it genuinely worked well for a while.
Sure, but the main argument being stated here is that it wasn't the norm as some people try to claim. It 100% should have been renegotiated around 1991 when Sonic hit.
>Yes, but the time period we're discussing is winter '93-'94. The 16-bit bust that took place during '94 was yet to come
It was already starting towards the end of 1993:
https://mdshock.com/2021/04/14/segas-financial-troubles-an-analysis-of-export-revenue-1991-1998/
>And, despite that bust, you still had solid showings, like Sonic 3/Sonic & Knuckles
Those were games they had some of the most excess inventory available for the Genesis in 1996. They didn't sell anywhere close to what the previous 2 games sold.';

'>>10853151
No one could program for it apparently.';

'>>10871670
>Having nothing in 1994 might not have been an option in Japan, but it was an option in the US/Europe
So Kalinske could have better made that stance. He had the chance to do that but he didn't. Secondly the Genesis wasn't doing well by the end of 1993 as that's when sales started to fall rapidly.

>The 32X was always intended to be a stopgap measure, rather than a full-fat platform.
This goes against direct statements from Nakayama, Irimajiri, and Kalinske both after the fact and from the era.

https://mdshock.com/2020/06/16/sega-president-hayao-nakayamas-new-year-speech-1994/
https://mdshock.com/2023/07/10/irimajiri-speaks-out-about-the-saturn-the-32x-and-soas-financial-troubles/

Go read the actual statements from Nakayama in both of those articles. It's very clear that the plan was for 32X to hold the line for a few years until Saturn was cheaper for the US.

>>10871690
Just because the Mega Drive didn't sell a ton of units doesn't mean Sega of Japan was in a bad financial situation.

Secondly the data doesn't lie. We have the export data that shows 16-bit sales plummeted in the Holiday 93 season and that trend continued into 1994. We have the inventory data that shows the excess inventory of 16-bit and Game Gear stockpiled, we have the posted losses from the Fiscal Year Reports that all back this up.';

'Sonic 3 was the third best selling game on the console all time.';

'>>10871748
>Sonic 3 was the third best selling game on the console all time.
No it wasn't. It barely made the top 10. Games like Mortal Kombat, Aladdin, NBA Jam, Streets of Rage, etc. all outsold it.';

'>>10871681
>It doesn't have to be 17 Million returned.
So you don't have any hard numbers or proof like you originally claimed.';

'>>10871765
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Sega_Genesis_games';

'>>10851803
The real question is could the Sega Neptune have saved my marriage?';

'>>10871735
>Secondly the Genesis wasn't doing well by the end of 1993 as that's when sales started to fall rapidly.
Just because you're doing poorly doesn't mean you should start throwing shit at the wall hoping something will stick. Both Kalinske and Nakayama were guilty of this in winter '93-'94. The best course of action for the western market was to accept that '94 and part of '95 was going to be a bloodbath, minimize financial losses wherever possible (no random-ass amusement parks or sports teams sponsorships), and gear up super hardcore (documentation, devkits) for a mid-95 Saturn launch. Accept that launching Saturn in late-'94 Japan was a necessity, but hold off on the west until it had more than 2 games for its launch lineup.

>It's very clear that the plan was for 32X to hold the line for a few years until Saturn was cheaper for the US.
So... A stopgap measure until such a time when the Saturn would be considered more palatable to the US public? It very clearly wasn't intended to have a usable lifespan beyond ~2.5-ish years at best.';

'>>10871735
>Secondly the data doesn't lie. We have the export data that shows 16-bit sales plummeted in the Holiday 93 season and that trend continued into 1994.

You are presenting a false narrative and lying. Yes sales dropped, but Sega of America was still making millions of dollars, and still selling merchandise. They could have easily waited 1 more year to launch Saturn in the USA. Your own chart shows this.';

'>>10871774
>So you don't have any hard numbers or proof like you originally claimed.
I've provided you with the data, you just refuse to look at it. You're asking for a specific number you've pulled out of your ass as a last ditch effort to avoid accepting the truth.

The Genesis hardware was being sold at a loss until about 1994. So all those systems Sega was selling they weren't making any money on, they were losing money on them. So when they get returned it's even worse for them. The software is where they needed to be selling to make money, but by Holiday 1993 those sales plummeted, and inventory started being returned and stacking up.

So when the consoles are losing money on sales and the thing you need to be selling to make money is being returned along with said consoles, that will start to turn into a huge financial loss very quickly. By 1996 they had close to 3 million excess inventory of Genesis hardware and games, another 1.5 Million in excess Game Gear hardware and games, and another 1 million in excess of 32X hardware and games sitting in warehouses.

But it gets worse, their sales goals for Genesis and Game Gear was more than what they had in inventory, so they were planning to produce even more of them to sell. And this is in 1996 when Saturn and PS1 are out and N64 is right around the corner.

>>10871778
That's combining Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles sales together. There was most likely a lot of overlap with customers buying both. If they were released as one game the sales would be around half of what the combined sales are.';

'>>10871828
You claimed Sega of America, despite selling around 20 million Sega Genesis units, still only made the same amount of money as Sega of Japan - which only sold 3.5 million Genesis in Japan. You made the claim, so PROVE it. Show us overall returns of Sega Genesis.';

'>>10871345
Tom is the one who told SGI to contact Nintendo to pitch the chip set that would become the N64 after SOJ rejected them because making the chips would produce too much waste.';

'>>10871814
>The best course of action for the western market was to accept that '94 and part of '95 was going to be a bloodbath, minimize financial losses wherever possible (no random-ass amusement parks or sports teams sponsorships), and gear up super hardcore (documentation, devkits) for a mid-95 Saturn launch. Accept that launching Saturn in late-'94 Japan was a necessity, but hold off on the west until it had more than 2 games for its launch lineup.

This is literally what I've been arguing this entire time. Some people here just stupidly think 16-bit could have held it's own for a few more years until 1996 when that clearly wasn't the case.';

'>>10871842
>SOJ rejected them because making the chips would produce too much waste.
That's not the reason SoJ rejected SGI. Lmao.';

'>>10871861
>Some people here just stupidly think 16-bit could have held it's own for a few more years until 1996 when that clearly wasn't the case.
That's exactly what Nintendo did.

And oh look, Nintendo beat Sega.';

'>>10871816
>You are presenting a false narrative and lying. Yes sales dropped, but Sega of America was still making millions of dollars, and still selling merchandise.
This isn't raw sales it's revenue. It literally dropped by a third going into the Holiday Season of 1993, that's when their sales should be at their peak for the year. They didn't improve in 1994 either, they continued to drop rapidly. This isn't a false narrative it's the cold hard data. This isn't a sign that they could keep going with with the Genesis on it's own for a few more years, it's a sign that the market was saturated and imploding fast.

>So... A stopgap measure until such a time when the Saturn would be considered more palatable to the US public?
Again, the point here was aimed at people thinking Sega always planned to drop the Saturn in May of 1995 right after the 32X. That wasn't the original plan, it was for 32X to exist as the sole 32-bit Console from Sega outside of Japan until at least 1996-1997. We can debate whether this is a stopgap or not, but the point is that the only reason the Saturn launched early was because the 32X was dead on arrival. Saturn didn't kill 32X, 32X was already dead.

> It very clearly wasn't intended to have a usable lifespan beyond ~2.5-ish years at best.
Which is why the entire idea makes no sense and shouldn't have been done at all.';

'>>10871861
>Some people here just stupidly think 16-bit could have held it's own for a few more years until 1996 when that clearly wasn't the case.
Strictly speaking, it didn't *need* to hold its own. Just keep selling whatever you can to keep the lights on and the brand name in public view, abstain from throwing money on random shit (this includes the 32X, alongside sports sponsorships and random non-arcade entertainment venues), draw down you excess inventory to decrease warehousing costs, and prepare as hard as you can for the next piece of standalone hardware, since you really need to stick the landing.';

'>>10871876
>This isn't a sign that they could keep going with with the Genesis on it's own for a few more years,
No one is saying a few more years. Tom Kalinske wanted 1 more year. That's it. And the sales data shows it could still do so. Then launch Saturn in 1996 when more games were available';

'Why are you people arguing with a mentally ill Sega fanboy? It's clear he's deluded. Even after Tom Kalinske left and SoJ took over, Sega of Japan ran their company into ground and nearly declared bankruptcy only a few years later.

Meanwhile Tom went on to run another successful company. Just proves SoJ doesn't know what they are doing.';

'>>10871837
I pointed you to the Irimajiri quotes where he states that when they looked at the Financial statements Sega of America wasn't actually making much money at all. He was the one who took over Sega of America after Kalinske and had that mess dropped in his lap with the task to fix it:
https://mdshock.com/2023/07/10/irimajiri-speaks-out-about-the-saturn-the-32x-and-soas-financial-troubles/

We can also look at their Fiscal Year reports and see the massive losses being posted as well as the statement in FY98 where they point out part of the massive loss came from clearing out this massive inventory of unsold stock:
https://segaretro.org/images/f/fe/AnnualReport1998_English.pdf

Finally I never said they made the same amount of money, I said they were most likely in a better financial position and that Sega of America when accounting for all the losses most likely didn't make that much more money. It's not just the losses on returned inventory, Sega of America dumped tons of money into shit that ended up being massive losses. All of that adds up.

>>10871875
>Nintendo did!
Not by choice. They wanted to release the N64 in 1995 but it was delayed due to issues with SGI. That's why they rushed the Virtual Boy out to try and have something new to sell.

>>10871887
This >>10871875 anon just said they could have gone until late 1996. This is the mindset I was replying to.

I agree they probably could have been fine to hold off and release Saturn in 1995 in the US. But that would require them to start winding down Genesis development and focus on clearing out inventory which they clearly weren't doing. In 1996 they were still planning to sell an unrealistic amount of Genesis hardware and software and were still focusing development efforts on new games for it.';

'>>10871893
> Even after Tom Kalinske left and SoJ took over, Sega of Japan ran their company into ground and nearly declared bankruptcy only a few years later.

Because by that point the damage was too severe and there was no real recovery. Why don't you look at the mess they were handed when he left and see what winning strategy you can come up with:

https://segaretro.org/images/8/8c/SegaFY1997BrandReview_US.pdf';

'>>10871828
>That's combining Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles sales together. There was most likely a lot of overlap with customers buying both. If they were released as one game the sales would be around half of what the combined sales are.
So let me do the math, half of 4 million is 2 million which is double Mortal Kombat 3's sales which sits at #10 all time. And this is "barely making the top 10"? Lol. 2 million beats NBA JAM and is good for 5th all time.';

'>>10871002
>The original plan was Saturn in 1994 for Japan, 32X in 1994 for the US.

this part is wrong. The original plan was Japan to get Saturn in 95. It got moved up without SOA input or discussion after they were already committed to the 32x.';

'>>10871915
Wikipedia's numbers for 4 million don't align with NPD data or other sales chart data. When we look at actual sales numbers both are at most 1.75 -1.8 Million each.';

'>>10871873
Yes it is. You couldn't make as many SGI chips off a silicon wafer compared to the Hitachi chips in the Saturn';

'>>10871919
>The original plan was Japan to get Saturn in 95.
There is no evidence for this whatsoever. We literally have Japanese gaming magazines as well as US Magazines all pointing to Saturn releasing in 1994.
>It got moved up without SOA input or discussion after they were already committed to the 32x.
32X was proposed in 1994. Sega announced in 1993 that Saturn was going to release in Fall of 1994.';

'>>10871934
I knew that would be your next move. Only your sources are true.';

'>>10871861
>Some people here just stupidly think 16-bit could have held it's own for a few more years until 1996 when that clearly wasn't the case.

maybe change the framing from 'held its own' to 'least bad choice of bad choices.' That still makes it the right move in hindsight. But at the time, was there anyone suggesting to do it that way? hmmm';

'>>10871945
NPD data doesn't count? By March of 1995 both games had sold at most 750K each in the US. They weren't even close to the top of the carts either. By November of 1995 they weren't even in Sega's top 10 best selling Genesis titles according to their own internal documents. And by Spring of 1996 they had close to 400k In excess inventory with 0 orders.';

'>>10871904
>In 1996 they were still planning to sell an unrealistic amount of Genesis hardware and software

dont disagree, but it still looks like in hindsight that failing to meet these goals would still have been less damaging than the sequence of events that did unfold.';

'>>10871960
Sonic 3 sold a lot that's all we know and it was a strong performer on the all time list beating most everything besides sonic it self. Just admit it.

Also splitting one game into two was genius and turned 2 million into 4. Sega was Winning in 1994!';

'>>10871919

that would make more sense because that would mean SOJ was acting like it had more time then it actually did to get support, development, docs and all that crap more mature before launch. When Sony's press releases started coming out probably created lots of date changes.

>>10871943
thats when Sega announced. Within 45 days, Sony announced too. but if other anon is right, Sega had internal timelines they were operating from before this.';

'>>10871904
>I pointed you to the Irimajiri quotes
Like other anon said it's been debunked. Irimariji doesn't understand how retail and suppliers works in America. His statements are invalid. Deboonked';

'>>10871914
>https://segaretro.org/images/8/8c/SegaFY1997BrandReview_US.pdf

Pointless unless we have Brand Reviews from 1994, 1995, and 1996 for comparison. Show us those.';

'>>10871914
>Because by that point the damage was too severe and there was no real recovery.
Lmao you are blaming Tom Kalinske for the failure of Dreamcast? The guy left way before it came out. Cope and seethe more.';

'>>10871973
>Sonic 3 sold a lot that's all we know and it was a strong performer on the all time list beating most everything besides sonic it self.
There's no data to back this claim up. The only conclusion we can draw from the data we do have is that it under-performed and did not sell to Sega's expectations.

>>10871978
>Like other anon said it's been debunked. Irimariji doesn't understand how retail and suppliers works in America.
And as others have pointed out in this thread that is NOT how retail worked in the US. That was a deal Kalinske made early on to get the Genesis in stores and never went back and renegotiated. If that was how it worked for everything retail in the US no one would sell anything at any major store because it wouldn't be worth it financially.

Nintendo didn't have this issue because they didn't do this.

>>10872025
>Pointless unless we have Brand Reviews from 1994, 1995, and 1996 for comparison. Show us those.
When they leak and become available sure. That said the Review for FY97 isn't pointless, it shows us the exact situation Irimajiri was handed. And the FY98 report explains exactly what he did to deal with it. They wrote off the unsold inventories, downsized SoA, sold off unnecessary assets, and re-evaluated Sega of America's networth which all combined resulted in their first major financial loss.

>>10872035
>Lmao you are blaming Tom Kalinske for the failure of Dreamcast?
No, I'm saying the mess created by the 32X had long standing impacts. The dire situation Sega was in going into Dreamcast is directly related to Saturn's poor performance outside of Japan. Saturn's poor performance outside of Japan is directly related to the 32X disaster. The 32X disaster is directly related to Kalinske's misread of the market.

If there's no 32X, Saturn has a chance to do better outside of Japan. If Saturn does better outside of Japan, Dreamcast has a better chance and doesn't need to be rushed out as fast.';

'>>10872228
>And as others have pointed out in this thread that is NOT how retail worked in the US.
There are no others. It's just you samefagging. We all see it. Same typing style. Same grammar. Same writing style.';

'>>10872236
>It's just you samefagging.
There have been at least 3 different people in this thread explaining how retail actually works in the US, all with different writing styles.';

'>>10872228
>If there's no 32X, Saturn has a chance to do better outside of Japan. If Saturn does better outside of Japan, Dreamcast has a better chance and doesn't need to be rushed out as fast


Total daydream. Saturn was NEVER going to do well outside of Japan because Sega of Japan doesn't know how to market Saturn to Westerners. Saturn had no games Westerners cared about like Sonic. No sequels to Genesis hits like Streets of Rage. The USA didn't care as much about Virtua Fighter like Japan did. Tekken by Namco was much bigger in the West.

SEGA Saturn didn't have any good sports games either, and sports was massively important in the West. American Football and NBA Basketball in America. And Soccer in Europe. Both of those went to Sony.
Lastly no good RPGs to compete against Final Fantasy 7. And nothing to compete against Mario 64 on Nintendo. Saturn had no games.

Sony was always going to crush Sega because Sega of Japan is run by fools. And Sony bought all the competition and 3rd party devs with exclusive contracts.';

'>>10872248
>Total daydream. Saturn was NEVER going to do well outside of Japan because Sega of Japan doesn't know how to market Saturn to Westerners.
Correct, that was Sega of America's job. Unfortunately they were dumping all of that effort into the 32X instead. Maybe if they instead put that effort into the Saturn they could have had Western focused games and western focused sports titles ready for launch. But since they blew their load on the 32X they were left having to rely on Japanese software for the US Saturn launch because that's all they had ready.';

'32x wasn't the reason the Saturn's mascot was an androgynous clown. Sega didn't do themselves any favors but that system was destined to fail. Even if it was good, Sony was better.';

'>>10872275
>32x wasn't the reason the Saturn's mascot was an androgynous clown.
There was a Sonic game wasted on the 32X that could have been released on the Saturn instead.';

'>>10872279
Come on. That wasn't a true 3D Sonic game.';

'>>10872497
It wouldn't need to be 3D right out of the gate at launch. A nice and advanced 2D Sonic game would have been fine at launch and given Sonic Team time to experiment and learn 3D with NiGHTS and start work on a 3D Sonic for a release in 1997 as they were originally planning.

Sony didn't have mascot platformers out of the gate either. Even Crash Bandicoot didn't land until late 1996 after NiGHTS into Dreams came out.';

'>>10871692
Perhaps the problem with Atari specifically was that they were trying to hard to go in all "early."';

'>>10872524
>It wouldn't need to be 3D right out of the gate at launch. A nice and advanced 2D Sonic game would have been fine at launch
Nope. Unacceptable. Not when Nintendo is launching with games like a Mario 64. You don't seem to remember but the generation 5 of the console wars was cutthroat. First impressions mattered a lot. If Saturn launched with a 2D sonic then it would have been ripped apart by gaming magazines and called old fashioned or behind the times.';

'>>10851803
The problem with Sega is they always use cutting edge expensive hardware and have to buy parts from manufacturers. They try to sell the public that their hardware is bleeding edge. They don't use inexpensive parts to save money. This strategy is fine when finances are good, but terrible when your company is on a budget.

This was made worse with Sega Saturns over-designed, bloated, and underpowered 3D design. There's also Sega's questionable relationship with Hitachi chip maker. There were many other chip makers Sega could have used that had a history of making solid and reliable and proven chips. Such as IBM, Motorola, 3DFX, etc chips. So clearly something shady was going on behind the scenes with Hitachi and Sega's relationship.';

'>>10869236
>They weren't even thinking about 3D while Sega of Japan was
>>10869339
> The system was to be designed for 3D from the beginning

BIG FAT NOPE. Latest interview confirms what we all suspected

>Was the Saturn originally intended to be a 2D console? Or a 3D one?

>Sato: To be honest, in the beginning, I wasn’t thinking of 3D capabilities for the Saturn at all. This was partially my fault, but additionally, the game developers at Sega at the time had basically no knowledge of 3D game development. They had all been raised in the environment of 2D sprites and backgrounds, and the only developers who had any real experience with 3D were Yu Suzuki and AM2 with the Virtua series. >Actually, all of the other developers wanted to continue developing using the same system they were used to. If you looked at every single Sega employee within the home console division, there were practically no programmers or designers who had any knowledge of polygon technology.
>I had taken a look at Sega’s development teams at the time and concluded, “It’s going to be impossible for them to do 3D games.”
>I concluded that there was no way Sega’s development assets would be able to do 3D.
>However, the PlayStation completely embraced polygons.
>When we found out about that, we realized we were in trouble.
>Thankfully, the (Saturn) SH-2s could be linked in a cascade connection. A large amount of geometry calculations are required to do polygon graphics, and a single Saturn SH-2 was completely insufficient.
>With all the CPUs in the Saturn, only a tiny fraction of developers at Sega were able to make sense of them all and actually put them to use. For third parties… well, there was no way.
>I’m not sure if you call it a memory, but a regret I have is not going with one of our options to use the arcade system Model 1 as the base for the Saturn.
>We could have gone with 3D polygons with that kind of force.

-December 2021
-Hideki Sato, Former Head of Sega Research and Development';

'>>10864335
I will never understand how all these suits didn't sit down for a meeting to decide on one single fucking Genesis successor to develop and didn't leave until one path was set in stone no ifs ands or buts about it';

'>>10864475
Turns out that was the right move, as it's now evident. Nintendo won by doing absolutely nothing, Sega should have done the same';

'>>10869364
Still assblasted about famitsu';