Sega Saturn
The is a home video game console developed by Sega and released on November 22, 1994, in Japan, May 11, 1995, in North America, and July 8, 1995, in Europe. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it is the successor to the successful Genesis. The Saturn has a dual-CPU architecture and eight processors. Its games are in CD-ROM format, including several ports of arcade games and original games.
Development of the Saturn began in 1992, the same year Sega's groundbreaking 3D Model 1 arcade hardware debuted. The Saturn was designed around a new CPU from the Japanese electronics company Hitachi. Another video display processor was added in early 1994 to better compete with the 3D graphics of Sony's forthcoming PlayStation.
The Saturn was initially successful in Japan but not in the United States, where it was hindered by a surprise May 1995 launch, four months before its scheduled release date. After the debut of the Nintendo 64 in late 1996, the Saturn rapidly lost market share in the US, where it was discontinued in 1998. The Saturn is considered a commercial failure; this was affected by the cancellation of Sonic X-treme, planned as the first 3D entry in Sega's popular Sonic the Hedgehog series. The Saturn was succeeded in 1998 by the Dreamcast, having sold 9.26 million units sold worldwide, most in Japan.
The Saturn has several well-regarded games, including Nights into Dreams, the Panzer Dragoon series, and the Virtua Fighter series, although much of its library was confined to the Japanese market where the system fared better than it did in the West. The Saturn's reception is mixed due to its complex hardware design and limited third-party support; Sega's management has been criticized for its decisions during the Saturn's development and discontinuation.
History
Background
In the early 1990s, Sega had success with the Genesis, backed by aggressive advertising campaigns and the popularity of its Sonic the Hedgehog series. Sega also had success with arcade games; in 1992 and 1993, the new Sega Model 1 arcade system board showcased Sega AM2's Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter, crucial to popularizing 3D polygonal graphics. The Model 1 was expensive, so several alternatives helped bring Sega's newest arcade games to Genesis, such as the Virtua Processor chip used for Virtua Racing, and the 32X add-on.Development
Development of the Saturn was supervised by Hideki Sato, Sega's director and deputy general manager of research and development. According to project manager Hideki Okamura, the project codenamed Saturn started over two years before its announcement at the Tokyo Toy Show in June 1994. It was developed by the same team that developed the System 32 arcade board. Sato regrets that he did not go with the Model 1 arcade hardware as a base, as he was too concerned of leaving all the developers behind that were focused on sprites rather than 3D, which were the majority of developers.In 1993, Sega and the Japanese electronics company Hitachi formed a joint venture to develop a new CPU for the Saturn, which resulted in the creation of the "SuperH RISC Engine" later that year. The Saturn was designed around a dual-SH2 configuration. According to Kazuhiro Hamada, Sega's section chief for Saturn development during the system's conception, "the SH-2 was chosen for reasons of cost and efficiency. The chip has a calculation system similar to a DSP , but we realized that a single CPU would not be enough to calculate a 3D world." Although the Saturn's design was largely finished before the end of 1993, reports in early 1994 of the technical capabilities of Sony's upcoming PlayStation console prompted Sega to include another video display processor to improve 2D performance and 3D texture mapping. Sega considered making CD-ROM-based and cartridge-only versions of the Saturn, but discarded the idea due to concerns over the lower quality and higher price of cartridge games.
According to president Tom Kalinske, Sega of America "fought against the architecture of Saturn for quite some time". Seeking an alternative graphics chip for the Saturn, Kalinske attempted to broker a deal with Silicon Graphics, but Sega of Japan rejected the proposal. Silicon Graphics subsequently collaborated with Nintendo on the Nintendo 64. Kalinske, Sony Electronic Publishing's Olaf Olafsson, and Sony America's Micky Schulhof had discussed development of a joint "Sega/Sony hardware system", which never materialized due to Sega's desire to create hardware for both 2D and 3D visuals and Sony's competing notion of focusing on 3D technology. Publicly, Kalinske defended the Saturn's design: "Our people feel that they need the multiprocessing to be able to bring to the home what we're doing next year in the arcades."
In 1993, Sega restructured its internal studios in preparation for the Saturn's launch. To ensure high-quality 3D games would be available early in the Saturn's life, and to create a more energetic working environment, developers from Sega's arcade division were asked to create console games. New teams, such as the Panzer Dragoon developer Team Andromeda, were formed during this time. In early 1994, the Sega Titan Video arcade system was announced as an arcade counterpart to the Saturn. In April 1994, Acclaim Entertainment announced it would be the first American publisher to produce software for the Titan.
In January 1994, Sega began to develop the 32X add-on for the Genesis, as a less expensive entry into the 32-bit era. The 32X was approved by Sega CEO Hayao Nakayama and widely supported by Sega of America employees. According to the former Sega of America producer Scot Bayless, Nakayama was worried that the Saturn would not be available until after 1994 and that the recently released Atari Jaguar would reduce Sega's hardware sales. As a result, Nakayama ordered his engineers to have the system ready for launch by the end of the year. The 32X would not be compatible with the Saturn, but Sega executive Richard Brudvik-Lindner pointed out that the 32X would play Genesis games, and had the same system architecture as the Saturn. This was justified by Sega's statement that both platforms would run at the same time, and that the 32X would be aimed at players who could not afford the more expensive Saturn. According to Sega of America research and development head Joe Miller, the 32X familiarized development teams with the dual SH-2 architecture also used in the Saturn. Because the machines share many parts and were prepared to launch around the same time, tensions emerged between Sega of America and Sega of Japan when the Saturn was given priority.
Launch
Sega released the Saturn in Japan on November 22, 1994, at a price of ¥44,800. Virtua Fighter, a faithful port of the popular arcade game, sold at a nearly one-to-one ratio with the Saturn console at launch and was crucial to the system's early success in Japan. Though Sega had wanted to launch with Clockwork Knight and Panzer Dragoon, the only other first-party game available at launch was Wan Chai Connection. Boosted by the popularity of Virtua Fighter, Sega's initial shipment of 200,000 Saturn units sold out on the first day. Sega waited until the December 3 launch of the PlayStation to ship more units; when both were sold side by side, the Saturn proved more popular.Meanwhile, Sega released the 32X on November 21, 1994, in North America, December 3, 1994, in Japan, and January 1995 in PAL territories, at less than half of the Saturn's launch price. After the holiday season, however, interest in the 32X rapidly declined. Half a million Saturn units were sold in Japan by the end of 1994, and sales exceeded 1 million within the following six months. There were conflicting reports that the PlayStation had a higher sell-through rate, and the system gradually began to overtake the Saturn in sales during 1995. Sony attracted many third-party developers to the PlayStation with a liberal $10 licensing fee, excellent development tools, and the introduction of a 7- to 10-day order system that allowed publishers to meet demand more efficiently than the 10- to 12-week lead times for cartridges that had previously been standard in the Japanese video game industry.
In March 1995, Sega of America CEO Tom Kalinske announced the Saturn's launch in the U.S. on "Saturnday", September 2, 1995. However, Sega of Japan mandated an early launch to give the Saturn an advantage over the PlayStation. At the first Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles on May 11, 1995, Kalinske gave a keynote presentation in which he revealed the release price of , and described the features of the console. Kalinske also revealed that, due to "high consumer demand", Sega had already shipped 30,000 Saturns to Toys "R" Us, Babbage's, Electronics Boutique, and Software Etc. for immediate release. The announcement upset retailers who were not informed of the surprise release, including Best Buy and Walmart; KB Toys, which was not part of the early launch, responded by refusing to carry the Saturn and its games. Sony subsequently unveiled the retail price for the PlayStation; Olaf Olafsson, the head of Sony Computer Entertainment America, summoned Steve Race to the stage, who uttered "$299", and then walked away to applause. The Saturn's release in Europe also came before the previously announced North American date, on July 8, 1995, at £399.99. European retailers and press did not have time to promote the system or its games, harming sales. The PlayStation launched in Europe on September 29, 1995; by November, it had already outsold the Saturn by a factor of three in the United Kingdom, where Sony had allocated £20 million of marketing during the holiday season compared to Sega's £4 million.
The Saturn's U.S. launch was accompanied by a reported $50 million advertising campaign including coverage in publications such as Wired and Playboy. Early advertising for the system was targeted at a more mature, adult audience than the Genesis ads. The early rescheduling yielded only six launch games because most third-party games were scheduled around the original launch date. Virtua Fighters relative lack of popularity in the West, combined with a release schedule of only two games between the surprise launch and September 1995, prevented Sega from capitalizing on the Saturn's early timing. Within two days of its North American launch on September 9, 1995, the PlayStation, backed by a large marketing campaign, had more units sold than the Saturn had in the five months following its surprise launch, with almost all of the initial shipment of 100,000 units being sold in advance, and the rest selling out across the U.S.
A high-quality port of the Namco arcade game Ridge Racer contributed to the PlayStation's early success, and garnered favorable media in comparison to the Saturn version of Sega's Daytona USA, which was considered inferior to its arcade counterpart. Namco, a longtime arcade competitor with Sega, also unveiled the Namco System 11 arcade board, based on raw PlayStation hardware. Although the System 11 is technically inferior to Sega's Model 2 arcade board, its lower price made it attractive to smaller arcades. Following a 1994 acquisition of Sega developers, Namco released Tekken for the System 11 and PlayStation. Directed by former Virtua Fighter designer Seiichi Ishii, Tekken was intended to be fundamentally similar, with the addition of detailed textures and twice the frame rate. Tekken surpassed Virtua Fighter in popularity due to its superior graphics and nearly arcade-perfect console port, becoming the first million-selling PlayStation game.
On October 2, Sega announced a Saturn price reduction to $299. High-quality Saturn ports of the Sega Model 2 arcade hits Sega Rally Championship, Virtua Cop, and Virtua Fighter 2 were available by the end of the year and were generally regarded as superior to competitors on the PlayStation. Notwithstanding a subsequent increase in Saturn sales during the 1995 holiday season, the games were not enough to reverse the PlayStation's decisive lead. By 1996, the PlayStation had a considerably larger library than the Saturn, although Sega hoped to generate interest with upcoming exclusives such as Nights into Dreams. An informal survey of retailers showed that the Saturn and PlayStation sold in roughly equal numbers during the first quarter of 1996. Within its first year, the PlayStation secured over 20% of the entire U.S. video game market. On the first day of the May 1996 E3 show, Sony announced a PlayStation price reduction to $199, a reaction to the release of the Model 2 Saturn in Japan at a price roughly equivalent to $199. On the second day, Sega announced it would match this price, though Saturn hardware was more expensive to manufacture.