"After announcing that the Saturn will be released in the United States on "Saturnday," September 2, Sega jumps the gun and actually releases the system in May for $399.99. Overall sales are very low, and very few titles are released, because third-party companies are taken completely off guard by the early debut."
-Gamespot's 'History of Videogames' feature

The Sega Saturn

There is a great number of uninformed Sega freaks out there who would lead you beleive that the Sega Saturn was the greatest Sega system of all time and that it wasn't popular only because of "stupid faggot Sony loving fanboys who hate sega fuck fuck FUCK!" However this assesment of history couldn't be further from the truth and is based only on the biased opinions of brainwashed Sega fans who have never played anything more complicated than "Sonic the Hedgehog XVII: Yes, he can still run fast." There is a huge number of reasons the Sega Saturn was a horrible failure but not a single one has anything to do with Sony fans. As a matter of fact the PSX was launched in the US after the Saturn so Sony fanboys didn't even exist yet at the time of the Saturn launch. Of course all of that may be too complicated for many of my readers to understand so why don't we start with some history first?

The downfall of the Saturn begins not with the launch of the system but actually long before and far from the lands of Sega. The downfall in fact begins with Nintendo and their reaction to Sega's announcement of the Sega CD addon for the Genesis. At the time nobody knew that the Sega CD would turn out to be the usless cancerous growth it eventually turned into so Nintendo expected that they would need to counter attack with their own CD addon for the SNES. Nintendo actually teamed up with Sony to develop such a device. Later, when Nintndo saw how poorly the Sega CD was doing and decided that maybe they overeacted a bit, they went downstairs to the R&D lab and told Sony to take a hike. And take a hike they did...TO THE BANK! Ha, sorry small joke there. Anyway, When Nintendo called the project off Sony decided to use what they learned to develop their own console. So, shortly after that the PSX was announced and with Sony's huge pool of resources they were able to develop a system much more powerful and capable of delivering 3D games better than what anyone had ever seen before.

As usual, Nintendo had failed to plan ahead so the N64(which didn't even have that name yet) was still far from launch. Sega on the other hand, which had planned far to quickly, was nearly done with the development of the Saturn. They looked at the amazing 3D graphics the PSX was going to have and then looked at their console which had been designed to be a "2D powerhouse." Then they looked at the PSX again, then back at their system again and screamed "WHAT WERE WE THINKING!?" And so, Sega attempted to cover up their mistake by tacking 3D ability onto the Saturn at the end and it showed not only in the shoddy hardware design but also in the half assed 2D launch titles someone had attempted to desguise as half assed 3D titles.

Now the ball was in the court of the 3rd party developers. This is another place you will hear alot of biased Sega fans screaming at Sony for being less than honest but lets face it, I don't think you will find a developer who regrets choosing to develop for the PSX over the Saturn if you search for the next 20 years. Developers could choose Nintendo&Sega, who had over the years done everything short of sending them letters written in blood saying "work for us or suffer" or they could choose to develop for Sony who was completely honest and fair about letting them develop any game they wanted and had provided them with a platform that was cheap and easy to program for. For most, the choice was obvious. Only a select stubborn few stayed with Sega and Nintendo and most of them saw the error of their ways when they found out the Saturn and N64 were money pits as their fellow developers released games for the PSX and made money hand over fist even if the games they produced were awful. To make matters worse, when the Saturn went on the market Sega also had the Sega 32X, Sega CD, Sega Game Gear, Sega Nomad and the Sega Genesis on the market at the same time as well. The few developers still willing to work for Sega were split between which system to develop for!

When the PSX and Saturn launched in Japan at the same time for around $500 each Sega was completely crushed by Sony. Sega never had a chance when the PSX had superior Hardware and vastly more 3rd party support. But Sega never learns and so instead of giving up as they should have they sat down to devise their next evil scheme.

After having already announced the Saturn would be launched in the US on "Saturn Day" September 2, Sega called a press confrence in may at E3. Everyone was expecting nothing more than a big show of what games would be available for the system and how much it would cost. But Sega had something much more sinister up their sleve. The CEO of Sega walked out on stage and shouted out "AH HA! WE HAVE YOU NOW SONY! THE SATURN ONLY GOING TO COST $399 AND WE LAUNCHING IT RIGHT NOW! YOU HEARD ME, IT AVAILABLE NOW! YOU CAN'T HANDLE US SONY, WE SEGA! I'M GOING TO DANCE ON YOU GRAVE!" Later, down the hall at the Sony press confrence, there was a big lead up to how much the system would cost while a boring speech was made about the specs of the system that everyone had already seen. Finally the CEO of Sony walked out on stage, calmly approached the microphone and then said simply "$299." Then he walked off the stage as the chaos began. Nobody had ever seen someone sell a system for $200 less than it was worth. And thus the concept of selling a system below cost was born. Now Sega was not only up aginst a system that had better hardware and vastly more 3rd party support but it was cheaper than their system to boot. As you know Sega was completley crushed by the PSX in the US market.

And now you know the sad story of the sad console that just didn't have a chance. The myth that "Sony fanboys" were somehow involved in a wacky plot to assassinate this system should be finished from this day foreward. If you actually bought this system, I hope you learned why that was a really really bad idea.