The Sega Saturn was very successful in Japan, from its release in 1994 all the way up until it was discontinued in 2000 it had very strong support, however with a life spanning from 1995 to 1998, many would say the US Saturn was doomed from the launch.
The Saturn was originally designed to be a 2D powerhouse but during its development Sony released the specs of its upcoming Playstation, which showed the newcomer would have very strong 3D capabilities. Sega panicked at this point and decided that in order to compete they would need their new system to have 3D abilities as well. Sega decided to add a second processor very late in development to increase the potential performance but programming for two processors would prove to be difficult for developers.
The first real blow for the Saturn came at the first E3 expo in 1995. Leading up to E3 Sega had started to build the hype for the launch of their new system, Sega of America president Tom Kalinske announced that the Saturn would be released on Saturday 9/2/95 and they were calling it “Saturnday”.
On 3/11/95 Sega took part at the first E3 expo, at the end of Sega’s presentation they announced that the whole Saturnday promotion was a fake. Looking for a head start on the Playstation they announced that the Saturn had already been shipped and that it was available now at select retail stores for a retail price of $399. This announcement stunned most of the people on hand but Sega’s biggest mistake was that they didn’t realize the rift they had now created with both retailers and developers. Some big retail stores were left out of the Saturn’s surprise launch, most notably Wal-mart and KB Toys, feeling betrayed KB Toys went as far as declining to sell the Saturn and took it even further by refusing to sell any Sega products making the space available to Sega’s competition instead. The other issue was that third party developers had set their time tables around the September 2nd launch date, now their games would not be ready at launch and they would miss out on sales generated from the hype and buzz of a new system launch. This meant that the only software initially available for the Saturn was developed by Sega and many in the industry thought this was done to give Sega larger sales of their own software at the expense of the third party development houses. Hearing that the Saturn was now available Sony responded by announcing that there Playstation console would launch on 9/9/1995 however big news was that it would be priced $100 less then Sega's new system, only $299. In the four month head start the Saturn had sold approximately 80,000 systems but Sony’s Playstation burst on to the scene and was able to move a record breaking 100,000 units in its first weekend, making Sega’s surprise launch a complete failure.
The first real blow for the Saturn came at the first E3 expo in 1995. Leading up to E3 Sega had started to build the hype for the launch of their new system, Sega of America president Tom Kalinske announced that the Saturn would be released on Saturday 9/2/95 and they were calling it “Saturnday”.
On 3/11/95 Sega took part at the first E3 expo, at the end of Sega’s presentation they announced that the whole Saturnday promotion was a fake. Looking for a head start on the Playstation they announced that the Saturn had already been shipped and that it was available now at select retail stores for a retail price of $399. This announcement stunned most of the people on hand but Sega’s biggest mistake was that they didn’t realize the rift they had now created with both retailers and developers. Some big retail stores were left out of the Saturn’s surprise launch, most notably Wal-mart and KB Toys, feeling betrayed KB Toys went as far as declining to sell the Saturn and took it even further by refusing to sell any Sega products making the space available to Sega’s competition instead. The other issue was that third party developers had set their time tables around the September 2nd launch date, now their games would not be ready at launch and they would miss out on sales generated from the hype and buzz of a new system launch. This meant that the only software initially available for the Saturn was developed by Sega and many in the industry thought this was done to give Sega larger sales of their own software at the expense of the third party development houses. Hearing that the Saturn was now available Sony responded by announcing that there Playstation console would launch on 9/9/1995 however big news was that it would be priced $100 less then Sega's new system, only $299. In the four month head start the Saturn had sold approximately 80,000 systems but Sony’s Playstation burst on to the scene and was able to move a record breaking 100,000 units in its first weekend, making Sega’s surprise launch a complete failure.
During its life span in the US the Saturn became known as "the other system" and most gamers forgot about it, supporting instead both the Playstation and the Nintendo 64. One reason for the poor sales in the US can be attributed to the awful ad campaign of the Saturn. While Japan had one of the best ad campaigns with the creation of a fictional character named Segata Sanshiro the US team went with what had been popular in the states at the time, attitude based advertising. Many of the ads were aimed at being in your face and discrediting the Playstation calling Sony’s machine a “Play-thing” consumers were not amused and sales suffered. Sega had long been known for its Sonic the Hedgehog games and development for a 3D Sonic title for the Saturn got underway. With the title of the new game announced as Sonic 
Extreme Sega was ready to have Sonic once again help move their hardware but due to many delays and health issues with the development team Sega decided to cancel the game and release a port of Sonic 3D and a compilation disk, Sonic JAM which had the four Sonic games released on the Genesis. Some point to the lack of a true Saturn Sonic game as a major reason gamers passed on Sega's machine. Another issue was that the fact that development on the Saturn was not very easy, the system had 2 CPU’s and it was difficult to program correctly leading to some game programmers to ignore the second processor all together as seen in Alien Trilogy. Unlike the Playstation and N64 which used triangles as the basic geometric primitive the Saturn used quadrilaterals, the issue with this was that most development tools were based on triangles making it hard to find useful development tools and lead to many programmers needing to write in assembly language in order to get the performance they wanted.
Extreme Sega was ready to have Sonic once again help move their hardware but due to many delays and health issues with the development team Sega decided to cancel the game and release a port of Sonic 3D and a compilation disk, Sonic JAM which had the four Sonic games released on the Genesis. Some point to the lack of a true Saturn Sonic game as a major reason gamers passed on Sega's machine. Another issue was that the fact that development on the Saturn was not very easy, the system had 2 CPU’s and it was difficult to program correctly leading to some game programmers to ignore the second processor all together as seen in Alien Trilogy. Unlike the Playstation and N64 which used triangles as the basic geometric primitive the Saturn used quadrilaterals, the issue with this was that most development tools were based on triangles making it hard to find useful development tools and lead to many programmers needing to write in assembly language in order to get the performance they wanted.Perhaps the biggest reason for the Saturn’s sale issues was the policies instituted by then head of Sega of America and COO Bernie Stolar. Stolar had Decided that North American gamers did not want to play role playing games and that 2D games were a thing of the past. Upon taking his position with Sega he denied the US release of the very popular RPG Grandia, due to this view by Stolar many of the great games released in Japan were not given a US release. Then there was the quote which Bernie is remember most for, in 1997 at gamings biggest event the E3 expo Stolar stated that “the Saturn is not our future”. This further frustrated retailers and third party developers and many games that had been planned were canceled. Electronic Arts was so angered by the way things had been handled with the Saturn that they refused to support Sega’s next system, the Dreamcast.
By the time all was said and done the Saturn's Commercial failure caused Sega to lose $267.9 million and forced them to lay off 30% of its workforce. The Saturn is often overlooked and most only remember the failures but there were some truly great games released for the system and some very unique gameplay experiences.
By the time all was said and done the Saturn's Commercial failure caused Sega to lose $267.9 million and forced them to lay off 30% of its workforce. The Saturn is often overlooked and most only remember the failures but there were some truly great games released for the system and some very unique gameplay experiences.
