Sega Saturn

"Sega Satān shiro!"

- Segata Sanshiro



The Sega Saturn (セガサターン) is a 32-bit video game console produced by Sega that was first released on 22 November 1994 in Japan, 11 May 1995 in North America, and 8 July 1995 in Europe. The system was discontinued in North America and Europe in 1998, and in 2000 in Japan.

The system was popular in Japan due to its successful marketing such as with the character Segata Sanshiro, while its predecessors, the Sega Mega Drive and the Sega Master System were not popular there. However, the system suffered in North America and Europe due to a poor launch, extensive competition from Sony's PlayStation and the Nintendo 64, difficulty to program by third-parties, and marketing woes. It also suffered in North America from the policies delivered by former Sega of America president Bernie Stolar; such policies included the condemnation of games such as RPGs, with Bernie proclaiming that RPGs would not be popular with American consumers (despite the fact that Final Fantasy VII for the PlayStation was a huge success for Japan and North America alike), and 2D games as Stolar stated that they could not display the full graphical potential of the Saturn.

According to the 2006 book Invisible Engines: How Software Platforms Drive Innovation and Transform Industries by David S. Evans, Andrei Hagiu, and Richard Schmalensee, the Saturn had sold 17 million units; however, according to a July 2007 GamePro article, the Saturn had sold 9.5 million units.

Sonic games

 * Sonic 3D Blast
 * Sonic Jam
 * Sonic R

Cancelled games

 * Sonic X-treme
 * Sonic Saturn
 * Sonic the Fighters
 * Sonic Adventure (development moved to Dreamcast)

Christmas NiGHTS
This game features a number of unlockable bonuses such as the ability to play the demo stage as Sonic the Hedgehog. In the "Sonic the Hedgehog: Into Dreams" minigame, Sonic is only able to traverse the Spring Valley stage on foot, and the original game's Puffy boss is re-skinned as a "bouncy ball" version of Doctor Eggman. The music is a slightly remixed version of "Final Fever", the final boss battle music from the Japanese and European version of Sonic the Hedgehog CD.

Characters Introduced

 * Metal Knuckles
 * Tails Doll

Development
Sega's 27-member Away Team, comprising employees from hardware engineering, product development and marketing, worked for two years to design the Sega Saturn's hardware. The Saturn was a powerful machine for the time, but its design, with two CPUs and six other processors, made harnessing this power extremely difficult. Also, many of the ancillary chips in the system were "off the shelf" components, increasing the complexity of the system because the components were not specifically designed to work together. Rumors suggest that the original design called for a single central processor, but upon hearing of the Sony PlayStation's capabilities, a second processor was added late in development to increase potential performance.

"One very fast central processor would be preferable. I don't think all programmers have the ability to program two CPUs &mdash; most can only get about one-and-a-half times the speed you can get from one SH-2. I think that only 1 in 100 programmers are good enough to get this kind of speed [nearly double] out of the Saturn."

- Yu Suzuki reflecting upon Saturn Virtua Fighter development.

Third-party development was initially hindered by the lack of useful software libraries and development tools, requiring developers to write in assembly language to achieve good performance. At least during early Saturn development, programming in assembly could offer a two to fivefold speed increase over the C language. To save development costs and time, some programmers would utilize only one CPU. One such case was with Alien Trilogy.

The implementation of dual CPUs within the Saturn was not ideal. The biggest disadvantage of the architecture was that both processors shared the same bus and had problems accessing the main system RAM at the same time. The 4 KiB of cache memory in each CPU was critical to maintaining performance. In general, very careful division of processing, in addition to the already-challenging task of parallelizing the code, was required to get the most out of the Saturn. One example of how the Saturn was utilized was with Virtua Fighter ' s use of one CPU for each character.

Compared to the PlayStation, the Saturn's hardware was difficult to work with because of its more complex graphics hardware and lesser overall performance, as noted by Lobotomy Software programmer Ezra Dreisbach. In order to bring Duke Nukem 3D and PowerSlave/Exhumed to the Saturn, Lobotomy Software had to almost entirely rewrite the Build engine to get adequate performance from the Saturn. Also, during testing of an unreleased Quake port for the PlayStation, the Saturn's performance was found to be notably inferior for the game.

Unlike the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 which used triangles as its basic geometric primitive, the Saturn rendered quadrilaterals. This proved to be a hindrance because most of the industry's standard design tools were based around triangles. One of the challenges brought forth by quadrilateral-based rendering was problems with making some shapes, notably triangular objects. This can be seen in the Saturn version of Tomb Raider, in which triangular rocks are not rendered as well as other system's versions of the game. The hardware also lacked light sourcing and hardware video decompression support, the latter being a major disadvantage during a time when full-motion video was quite popular.

Still, if used correctly, the quadrilateral rendering of the Saturn had advantages. It could potentially show less texture distortion than was common with PlayStation titles, as demonstrated by several cross-platform titles such as Wipeout and Destruction Derby. The quadrilateral-focused hardware and a 50% greater amount of video memory also gave the Saturn an advantage for 2D game engines and attracted many developers of RPGs, arcade games and traditional 2D fighting games. With creative programming, later games like Burning Rangers were able to achieve true transparency effects on hardware that used simple polygon stipples as a replacement for transparency effects in the past.

The cartridge slot was useful for adding extra RAM or storage devices for saving games to the system. One ROM cartridge was released with King of Fighters '95. which contained part of the game data because not enough RAM was available. Two different RAM cartridges were released for the system; a 1 MB RAM cart by SNK for King of Fighters '96 and a 4 MB RAM cart by Capcom for X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter. Both companies were known for their sprite-based 2D competitive fighting games and many of their subsequent games utilized their respective cartridges.

Japan
The Japanese Saturn was released in November 1994, just a few weeks ahead of its rival, Sony's PlayStation. Approximately 170,000 machines were sold the first day the console went on sale.

Many of the games that made the Saturn popular in Japan, such as the Sakura Taisen series and various console role-playing games, or even most Japanese games in general, were never released in foreign territories as it was assumed at Sega of America and Sega of Europe that they were not appealing to a Western audience.

The last commercial licensed release in Japan and last official game for the system was Yuukyuu Gensoukyoku Hozonban Perpetual Collection, released by MediaWorks on 4 December 2000.

North America
By the end of 1994, the 16-bit video game era was in twilight in North America and gamers were eagerly anticipating the new 32-bit machines from Japan. In early 1995, Sega president Tom Kalinske announced that the Saturn would launch in the U.S. on "Saturnday", (Saturday) 2 September 1995. This date was greatly anticipated by gamers and the media. It also allowed Sony to announce that the PlayStation release date would be one week later on 9 September 1995.

However, at the first Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in May 1995, Kalinske announced that the "Saturnday" date was a ruse and that the system was being released nationwide by a few select retailers immediately (11 May 1995). It appeared that Sega had a real opportunity to take a commanding 4-month lead in the 32-bit race by beating the PlayStation to the market.

However, the "surprise attack" launch backfired on Sega for several reasons. The Saturn was released at a high price point of US $399, while Sony announced a US $299 price for the PlayStation at E3 itself, as a response to the Saturn's earlier release.

The early launch also meant that the Saturn had only a handful of games available at the moment, as most third party games were slated to be completed and rolled out around the original 2 September launch date, and as many successful Japanese titles were not imported. Third party publishers, particularly these based in North America, were angered as the surprise launch prevented them from capitalizing on the momentum inherent in an anticipated, planned release. Essentially the only software available on the shelves at launch was software released by Sega. Many within the gaming industry viewed the early launch as a calculated move to give Sega larger sales of Saturn software at the expense of independent developers.

In addition, the retailers who were not included in the early launch (most notably Wal-Mart and KB Toys) felt betrayed, with some retaliating by supporting Sega's rivals. This resulted in Sega having difficulties with these distributors for the Saturn (and also for its successor, the Dreamcast). For example, Sega's actions so angered KB Toys that the latter refused to release the Saturn at all, and actually went as far as having some retailers remove anything Sega-related in stores to provide more retail space for the Saturn's competition instead.

By the time of the PlayStation's release on 9 September 1995, the Saturn had sold approximately 80,000 systems. The PlayStation sold over 100,000 units upon release in the U.S., and Sega's dreams of early domination of the new generation of hardware were quickly forgotten.

From 1995–1997 the Saturn became the "other" system, running a distant third behind the Nintendo 64 and the PlayStation. However, it was the preferred system for many arcade gamers who eagerly anticipated Sega's arcade classic games being ported to the system. Sales of the Saturn would generally spike as new arcade ports were released, then die off shortly thereafter. By the end of 1997, with Sega publicly saying that it would develop a successor, later known as the Dreamcast, console sales and released games dropped dramatically.

Saturn's failure caused Sega to lose US $267.9 million and lay off 30% of its workforce.

Europe
Despite the successful results of previous Sega consoles in this region (Master System and Mega Drive were both the top-selling consoles of their generations in the European market) and although the Sega Saturn was launched in Europe in July 1995 — a few months before the newcomer PlayStation's release — the momentum for Sony's console amongst consumers began to build rapidly, stalling Saturn sales in the region. As a result, the Sega Saturn never enjoyed the success it achieved in Japan or even the post-launch hype the machine was awarded in North America, leaving the market almost solely in the competition's hands. By the time that the Nintendo 64 hit European shelves in early 1997, the Saturn's sales had long since stagnated.

The last commercial licensed release in Europe was Deep Fear, released by Sega Europe in November 1998, as the Saturn, along with all other consoles, were outsold by the Mega Drive.

However, support for the Sega Saturn in the UK was bolstered by the successful publication of Sega Saturn Magazine. Although the publication of the magazine technically ran parallel to the last commercially released games, it dedicated the bulk of its pages to reviewing Japanese releases and news relating to the eagerly anticipated Dreamcast. In another marketing blunder, Sega refused to give EMAP (the publisher of Sega Saturn Magazine) the Official Dreamcast Magazine licence in the UK, despite a large and extremely loyal fanbase.

End of an era
As price drops continued throughout the 32-bit era, the system board design of the Saturn was not as easy to condense in a cost-saving manner and Sega fell behind after price drops offered by Nintendo and Sony. As a marketing strategy, Sega bundled with the system three of its best selling games (Daytona USA, Virtua Cop, Virtua Fighter 2) in order to keep the more expensive Saturn competitive with its rivals. This was not entirely successful as gamers preferred to purchase game titles of their own choice instead, so they turned to cheaper competing systems.

By early 1997, the Saturn was trailing the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation in both North America and Europe to such an extent that senior management began planning a new platform and, by E3 in 1997, had begun talk of the system called the Katana (which would later be named the Sega Dreamcast). Sega America President Bernie Stolar, who was strongly in favour of the upcoming console, announced "The Saturn is not our (SEGA's) future".

As Sega began public discussion about their next generation system, barely two years after having launched the Saturn, it ironically became a self-fulfilling prophecy, some citing it as an example of the Osborne effect. This move, combined with Sega's recent history of short-lived consoles, particularly the Mega CD and 32X which were considered ill-conceived "stopgaps" that turned off gamers and developers alike, led to a chain reaction that quickly caused the Saturn's future to collapse. Immediately following the announcement, sales of the console and software substantially tapered off in the second half of 1997, while many planned games were canceled, causing the console's life expectancy to shorten substantially. While this let Sega focus on bringing out its successor, premature demise of the Saturn caused them financial problems. Even though the Dreamcast did address many of the problems with the Saturn, Sega's bad reputation caused customers and publishers to be skeptical and holdout to see how it would fare against Sony's PlayStation 2 and Nintendo's GameCube.

The aggressive move to replace the Saturn resulted in a rift between Sega and many of their third-party developers and publishers. North American developers were already hostile to the Saturn because it was difficult to program for, and because they were left out by its early release, so the future project alienated what remaining support Sega had in that region. However, many Japanese developers had strongly supported the Saturn in its homeland and saw little reason for Sega to rush another platform to market. The announcement caused a substantial drop in software sales, causing frustrated third parties to cancel many planned releases. The early abandonment of the Saturn hurt third party software support not only for that system, but also for Sega in general. Several major publishers such as Electronic Arts declined to support the upcoming Dreamcast, which played a part in its discontinuation as well.

The games planned to be released in North America or Europe that were canceled included highly anticipated titles such as Sonic X-treme, Policenauts and Lunar: Silver Star Story. A chain reaction of cancellations transformed the 1998 schedule of released games down to a minimum with titles like Steep Slope Sliders, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Burning Rangers, The House of the Dead, Shining Force III (only part one of the three-part series) and Magic Knight Rayearth.

The Saturn was discontinued in 1998 in most countries, and in 2000 in Japan.

Asian models
In Japan, Sega licensed the rights to produce Saturns to their hardware partners – Hitachi, who provided the CPUs and several other chips, and JVC who produced the CD drives for most models, although functionally identical Sanyo drives were sometimes used. SunSeibu released a model with a 7-CD changer for use in hotels. The concept of a multi-game player for hotel use is very common in Japan.

North American models
All North American models are black in color and were produced by Sega.

Early models came packaged with a redesigned controller that was slightly bigger than the Japanese variant. Eventually the Japanese controller was adopted.

European/Australian models
European and Australian Saturns are identical as both regions share the same AC voltage and TV standard. There is no internal variation between PAL and SÉCAM machines as all were shipped with SCART leads. All models are black and externally quite similar to the North American variations. PAL and SECAM machines will have "PAL" next to the BIOS revision number on the system settings screen instead of "NTSC".

Japan
Japanese software was packaged in a standard CD jewel case with a spinecard – a tri-fold piece of light cardboard that hugs the spine of the jewel case and is held in place by the overall shrinkwrap. These spine cards had a gold and black color scheme with the Japanese Sega Saturn logo, along with lettering printed vertically. The spinecard bears the title of the game to which it is attached. Saturn games re-released under the Saturn Collection (Satakore) label (which can be thought of as a kind of "Player's Choice" for Saturn games) have a red and white spinecard with white lettering, the Saturn Collection logo under that, and the 2,800 yen price featured prominently. Spinecards are valuable to collectors, and necessary if one wishes to sell the game as "complete." Games spanning multiple discs were packaged in diamond case] double CD cases, which are twice as thick as a standard case; Burning Rangers, although it is only a single-disc game, was packaged in a diamond case because of the bonus audio CD that was included with it.

The game manual is included in place of liner notes, and the cover will usually carry a bar similar in appearance to the spinecard, along with the Japanese rating, if there is one. The back liner usually features artwork or screenshots from the game and a black bar at the bottom containing necessary legal information, such as copyright notices. This liner sometimes had artwork printed on both sides, and a clear CD tray would be used (in place of the black tray that many Saturn games used) in order to see the artwork.

Some games that came with thicker instruction manuals were packaged in a non-standard, slightly thicker variant of the standard jewel case. Only about 20% of Saturn games used this particular type of case. The game Super Robot Wars F (a Japanese-only game produced by Banpresto) comes with this special jewel case, which is approximately 1 mm thicker, necessitated by its 54-page manual. Langrisser 3 and Riglord Saga 2 also used a similar case for the same reason.

North America
In North America, the existing tall, single hinged case design used for Sega CD games was adopted for Saturn titles. The cases incorporate a white spine containing a 30 degree stripe pattern in gray (although this pattern was not used with later games), with white outlined lettering displaying the words "Sega Saturn". The manual slides into the case in the same manner as the liner notes in a normal jewel case, and the cover often carries a back insert with information about the game. The manuals were substantially larger than standard CD manuals, and as a result had more room for art. Games spanning multiple discs had special inserts to accommodate the extra discs; two-disc games had an extra plastic tray that slotted into the front half of the case to hold the extra disc, and three-to-four disc games had the extra discs packaged in paper sleeves specially cut to fit into the case.

These cases had several problems:


 * Their sheer size made them difficult to store and vulnerable to cracking.
 * The mechanism that keeps the cover closed wears out quickly if the cover is opened and closed too much.
 * There is sufficient empty space inside the case that, if the CD comes loose of the case's spindle, it can easily suffer scratching or be shattered during case transportation. Some games (especially early in the system's life) came with a foam brick to keep the disc from falling off the spindle. This brick was left out later on to save costs, but an improved spindle design was implemented, which held the discs more securely than the old design.
 * Because these cases were proprietary for the most part, replacement cases were difficult to find.

Games packaged with the system (such as Virtua Fighter) or a peripheral (such as NiGHTS Into Dreams...) often came in a standard CD Jewel case.

Europe
The European Saturn cases were custom designed and came in two styles. One style, similar to a DVD snap case, was a two-piece clamshell enclosure held together by a single large piece of card, comprising both the front and back covers and spine. The second style was a single-piece plastic case, with a paper insert detailing covers and spine underneath a flexible plastic outer window; the case was similar to a commercial VHS video case except in dimensions. Some titles, notably those from Electronic Arts, featured an extended deeper version of the VHS-style case.

When the case is opened, the disk rests inside the case to the right of the hinge, while the booklet was placed to the left. Standard art design includes a solid black spine and white lettering displaying the words "Sega Saturn".

These cases had several problems:


 * The cardboard hinges wore out very quickly
 * The spindles which held the discs in place wore out very quickly, causing discs to move around in the cases in transit and scratch
 * There was nothing holding the manual in place; as the manuals were often heavy, with several languages, it was difficult to close the cases without the manual falling out of place
 * The mechanism for closing the cases wore out very quickly and was very ineffective to begin with

The cases were redesigned in later years, with a plastic case and a sleeve insert, much like a DVD keep case. These cases were fairly hard to open, but they were more sturdy and less prone to breaking. Later games were released only in these cases, but some earlier games, like Athlete Kings and Sega Rally, were released both in this case and the older one.

Direct Link
The DirectLink (also known as Link Cable) is a device that enables two Sega Saturns to connect to each other for multiplayer gameplay. The device requires two televisions and two copies of the same game.

Arcade Racer
Arcade Racer is a steering wheel type of joystick for the Sega Saturn, helpful when playing racing games. Unlike most controllers at that time which were digital, the Arcade Racer is analog. This gives the controller a smoother response. The controller works with a variety of Sega Saturn games including:
 * Time Warner Interactive's V.R. Virtua Racing
 * Sega's Daytona USA
 * Sega's Sega Rally Championship
 * Sega's Sega Touring Car Championship

Storage Cards
Utilizing the cartridge slot behind the CD tray, portable storage cards could be inserted to store game information such as high scores and saved game files. This was one of the few accessories for the Sega Saturn to be available to third-party manufacturers.

Trivia

 * This console has the least amount of Sonic titles on it.
 * Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams features Sonic as a playable cameo.
 * The Saturn was going to have an attachment/sequel console called the Sega Pluto but only three prototypes were made not for retail.
 * Virtua Fighter 2 is the best selling Sega Saturn game. This is unusual because most of Sega's other consoles had a Sonic game as the best seller.
 * The Sega Saturn has over 500 games.
 * Most American Sega Saturn discs can be played in Japanese consoles, but most Japanese games are locked for American and European consoles. Like in the Mega Drive/Genesis, the use of a switch replacing jumpers, will circumvent the region-lock but won't change the language. In addition, the use of certain unlicensed backup/RAM cartridges will also allow a console to play games from different regions, except for games that use proprietary ROM-RAM carts. Games from different television systems may have graphical problems.