This Console Was Powerful, but IMPOSSIBLE to Program for

When people hear “Sega”, they might think of the Genesis, the Dreamcast or maybe the Game Gear. But you don’t hear about the Sega Saturn that much. This console went head to head against the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 and lost. So what went wrong?
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Hardware Comparison between the Saturn, N64 and PS1:
www.racketboy.com/journal/ps1...
Development of Sonic X-Treme:
info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_X-t...
Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
0:56 Sega Genesis
2:06 Module 1 Arcade Board
2:38 Saturn Development
3:25 Sega 32x
4:36 Release
5:53 Games
8:50 Poor Launch
9:23 Sonic Games
11:02 Hardware Issues
11:38 Downfall
12:18 Conclusion
12:42 Outtro
Special thanks to the following users from pexels.com for the stock footage:
84LENS, 霍天赐, A frame in motion, Ahmet Akpolat, Andrew Hanson, Anna Hinckel, Anvar Tushakov, Artem Podrez, Caleb Oquendo, Cottonbro, Cristian Dina, Curtis Adams, DAV Grup 1, David McBee, Distill, Drones Scot, Edward Jenner, EKATERINA BOLOVTSOVA, Ekrulila, Evgenia Kirpichnikova, Free Videos, George Morina, Glen McBride, Hirsh Philippe, Jack Sparrow, Joseph Redfield, Kampus Production, Kamrul Chowdhury, Karolina Grabowska, Kelly, Kindel Media, Ksenia Chernaya, MART PRODUCTION, Mikhail Nilov, Miguel Á. Padriñán, Mike B, Monstera, Nazim Zafri, Nicole Michalou, Pavel Danilyuk, Pete Wales, pickarick, Pixabay, Polina Tankilevitch, Pressmaster, RDNE Stock project, Ricky Esquivel, RODNAE Productions, Ron Lach, Ruvim Miksanskiy, Sora Shimazaki, Steve B, Thirdman,Tiger Lily, Tima Miroshnichenko, Tom Fisk, Tony Schnagl, Vlada Karpovich, Yan Krukov, Yaroslav Shuraev
Special thanks to streambeats.com for the music used in this video.
#sega #segasaturn #retrogaming

[@DominiqueWillkins]

Sega’s worst enemy was Sega

[@MatthewStevensOrMattDave]

As true in 2024 as it was in 1994

[@videogamesruinedmylife3769]

Sega of America and Sega of Japan always but heads against one another

[@iwanttocomplain]

Kalinski was sega's worst enemy. Then the company had it's management see a hostile takeover and they went from the biggest game company in the world to about the 15th.

[@imeakdo7]

Your worst enemy is yourself

[@Matixmer]

⁠@@iwanttocomplainI don’t know what Kalinsky should blame himself with. If Console Wars from Blake Harris is somewhat accurate, SoJ forced him to launch the 32X which was a terrible Idea and became a noticeable blemish on Sega‘s reputation. He tried to avert the disaster which was the Saturn. He and Ólafur Ólafsson tried to get Sega and Sony to launch the PlayStation as a joint venture. Sega rejected Sony‘s architecture because 3D games were supposedly to hard to develop for most developers and then went ahead and created an overcomplicated console with 8 distinct processors. And to top it all off SoJ forced him to launch the console months ahead of the planned schedule with only a fraction of the intended inventory available for 399$! Mere hours before Sony‘s legendary „It’s 299$“ E3 presentation of the PlayStation. I don’t see why SoA and Kalinsky should blame themselves more than SoJ.

[@hammerheadms]

Saturn controller lame??? No way, dude. The Saturn controller was greatest controller of it's generation. The 6 face buttons are WAY more ergonomically efficient for fighting games.

[@nathleflutiste]

Yeah, this controller feel way better than the Playstation's. If he claims things like this he could at least explain what he bases his opinion on, or he just seems like he doesn't know what he is talking about.

[@hammerheadms]

@@nathleflutiste the PlayStation controllers were actually a turn off for me. I didn't get into PlayStation until PS3 came out, and admittedly those controllers, although better feeling than X-Box 360's, were not great. The quality of those controllers, and seemingly every controller since then seems to have slipped. They just don't hold up. From a durability stand point I think NES, then Saturn, then Genesis (6 button), then SNES controllers rank first to last in durability. I have never had to replace any of these controllers, and all still function (with a bit of cleaning) as originally intended. POJR is the first person I have ever heard that had a problem with Saturn controllers

[@orangejjay]

It's also the design that Microsoft used to make their own controller and lives on today with their latest controller.

[@ApexPredator318]

I was going to reply something similar. The Saturn controller is one of the best of all time (before analog sticks became the norm). I had a hard time giving the rest of the video any credit after that comment. 🤦‍♂

[@nathleflutiste]

@@hammerheadms Actually, I've never liked Sony controllers, well except for the PS4 one, when they finally got "usable". I have always felt that passion for video games in general was missing in Sony devices, it always felt more like they're purely consumer product. And this was most seen with the PS2, I think. When I was a child, I grew up with the Mega Drive/Genesis, also had a Nintendo 64 (not my choice, but it wasn't a bad one anyway) and Dreamcast. I've never got a single problem with the MD/Genesis, and the Dreamcast ones. Those things were damn sturdy, even though I did not like the lack of comfort from the Dreamcast joypad, I don't understand why they went with this design, when the Saturn 3D controller Saturn feels better for everything.

[@blakegriplingph]

The Saturn was ridiculously over-engineered that it took decades for emulation and cracking its copy protection to get better. The Saturn's 3D hardware was basically just Sega messing around with sprites even further considering their experience with Super Scaler hardware, but it also gave developers and artists a headache. Oh and btw, Tomb Raider released on the Saturn first.

[@MaxAbramson3]

On a related matter, the MIPS 4300i and RCP/RSP was only $40 and would've been 2-3 times more powerful than the Saturn, had NINTENDO not screwed up the memory bandwidth, audio, and textures.

[@Desmaad]

@@MaxAbramson3What was wrong with the audio?

[@Desmaad]

I wouldn't call the Saturn overengineered, more like kludged together. The 3D was an afterthought that the second CPU was supposed to remedy.

[@ssg-eggunner]

​@@MaxAbramson3I thought N64 audio was just DAC

[@MarquisDeSang]

Quad are better than polygons, but the polygon lobby push for polygon modeling tools.

[@Ratchetcomand]

The six button Genesis button controller was perfect. It was smart that the Saturn would use a similar controller layout.

[@Scorpiove]

I agree, I wish controllers still had 6 face buttons.

[@davidtran9444]

this is the first time i've heard any retro youtuber bag on the saturn controller.

[@therealfodder]

@@Scorpiove I pulled my Saturn down from the loft a few weeks ago to have a go on Street Fighter Alpha 2. The pads still feel fantastic and are really accurate - almost 28 years since I got them!

[@user-lr4sd2cw6d]

Actually I saw in a controller tier list from Royal Pear he said he didn’t know what it was from but it was crap. But then again, I doubt he knows what a Saturn is.

[@Wallyworld30]

I played so much SFII on SNES controller I got used to holding that controller weird with my right index finger on left shoulder button and palm for right shoulder and used thumb for the 4 face buttons. When I finally played SFII on Genesis with a six button controller it took a lot of getting used to it.

[@stonent]

I picked up a Saturn new on closeout for $29.99 back in 1998. Also it was fortunate that blockbuster was clearing out their Saturn rental titles so I bought about 20 titles for 1 to 4 dollars each.

[@doff1395]

Saturn prices are pretty high nowadays did any of the cheap games you got hold any value?

[@inceptional]

I definitely have a lot more respect for the Saturn viewing it again in modern times than I ever afforded it back in the day. When it comes to 2D, man, what a system. And, given much of the early 3D games from that generation honestly don't hold up that great, the Saturn library has actually aged really well for the large part. I'd definitely be interested if Sega released a Saturn Mini system today--so long as they did a better job than Sony with the PSX Mini.

[@NimhLabs]

eh... the issues with a Saturn Mini are similar to the issues with an N64 Mini... emulators for either are uh... well, both of them are harder systems to write emulators regarding

[@inceptional]

@@NimhLabs I would like to imagine Sega could figure out it. :-o

[@noop9k]

Saturn sucks even at 2D, to some extent. Raw sprite performance of VDP1 is actually *inferior* to PS1 GPU! Where Saturn wins overall is the SNES-like 2D backgrounds, "mode 7" effect and SNES-like transparencies, supplied "for free" by the VDP2.

[@NimhLabs]

@@inceptional I dunno, Sega was partnered with AtGames back before AtGames was focused on "making a decent product"--and more focused on getting their supply lines working decently

[@inceptional]

@@NimhLabs Yeah, in the case of a Saturn Mini, I'd want them to handle it internally like they did for the Genesis Mini and really do it right.

[@TheRetron8]

Layer Section DID come out in the U.S., but here we called it, Galactic Attack.

[@pojr]

True. My bad for my mistake. Very glad it did get a US release though.

[@dricas76]

Too bad Layer Section 2 Didn’t come Out here. I imported It. It held its own against the ps version

[@carlosjuniorfox]

5:44 - Quadrilaterals were in some degree the default at the time for some vendors. Nvidia's NV1 chip, for example, handles the graphics using quadrilaterals instead of triangles, and because of that, many Saturn games were ported to PCs using this video card. Quadrilateral makes sense at the time because the basic logic of then was the same as the sprites. Quadrilaterals are just sprints with 3D capabilities, like turning, rotating, and switching forms, so, at the time, was supposedly easer for developers from the 2D era migrate to 3D without the hassle of learning everything from beginning.

[@metronome8471]

Exactly. start looking at the 3D on the Saturn as sprites instead.

[@SerBallister]

I'm not sure it was that easy to transition, you still needed to learn almost all the 3d vector math for your "sprite" vertices. On PC this meant switching to a radically different 3D API like OpenGL, DirectX or Glide3D. I'm glad the industry switched to triangles, things like normals that are important for lighting and back-face culling can break in weird ways when using quad primitives if you're not careful.

[@carlosjuniorfox]

@@SerBallister I don't have the proper knowledge to make a judgment about the nuances for advocating which one was better, but I believe that the appropriate one has been choosing.

[@keeper7keys2003]

The Saturn controller is one of the best. The japanese version at least.

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

The Saturn version of Virtua Racing DOES NOT play closest to arcade. Sega refused to help Time Warner's team and they had to do some guess work that alters the way it plays. Most Virtua Racing fans see it as a downgrade, despite the original content. Also, quads were used in 3DO. And the DS is a hybrid of triangle and quad rendering.

[@maroon9273]

Atleast, the 3do rasterized quads polygons. While saturn uses warped quads.

[@MaxAbramson3]

Quads were used in the Sega CD, 3DO, nVidia, most arcades, Amiga, and the Saturn. In fact, a majority of 3D developers at that time thought that quads would prevail over triangles. IMHO, if quads had gotten the same amount of R&D money in the 1990s, we'd be using them today because wrapping textures and rendering these are more efficient.

[@froilanrivero2826]

There was a 3D Videocard (GPU) fro PC from creative that would use the same quad rendering and you could play panzer dragoon in the same way as saturn but yes .. triangles won... Maybe in some parallel dimension quads won....

[@thetechn1que518]

Lockheed Martin’s 3D hardware used quads, and their tech was used for the Model 1, 2, and 3 boards that Sega used for their arcade games. It makes sense that Sega may have wanted to make it easier to port their arcade games to Saturn.

[@n64fan60]

@MaxAbramson3 3D artists model in quads for easier texturing etc. Gets converted to triangles.

[@ClaudioBalbin]

Had a Saturn growing up and spinning a Nights Into Dream disc on Christmas was trully magical because the game had special content for it. So many questions like "how can a game know it's Christmas?" or "how can it play videos if it's not a vcr?". Mind blowing at the time.

[@hectorg5809]

Are you sure you're not confusing it with the Christmas Edition of the game?

[@locked01]

You must have been really young to be impressed by videos coming out of a disk.

[@shoelacedonkey]

@@locked01 When the Saturn was released there was no real mainstream way or device for video on a disc. What has been the standard for a few decades now was very new back in those days. The Saturn was released late '94 and the first DVD players came later in '95, and they still were far from mainstream. "You must have been really young to be impressed by videos coming out of a disk." This comment only shows you're probably too young yourself to have known about technologies back in the 90s.

[@marcelopires711]

Despite not being mentioned in the video, I will always praise Panzer Dragoon II as the most beautiful game of that gen.

[@ajsingh4545]

I have to check that one out now ... That's high praise indeed

[@michaeljedlowski4227]

Indeed. Better than anything on N64? Specially Panzer Dragoon Saga. And I like the N64. My friends always make fun of me for liking it.

[@Dzztzt]

​@@michaeljedlowski4227people who make fun of you for the consoles you enjoy aren't your friends

[@shoelacedonkey]

Panzer Dragoon Saga was my favourite game of the Saturn. They managed to create such a new world with fantastic soundtrack, it amazed me from the moment I saw the opening screen and heard the theme song vocals. Beautiful. I'm still kind of hoping SEGA will revive that world somehow.

[@Vorticron]

A couple corrections

[@joaopires1761]

This comment should be pinned.

[@shoelacedonkey]

Definitely deserves a pin. Great comment 😄

[@JMFSpike]

Your post just goes to show the problem with these kinds of videos. They come (usually) from people who are giving you info based on what they've read or heard on the internet. Not many of them have any personal experience programming for the console they are covering. They may have enough computer knowledge to make you think that they know what they're talking about, but in reality they know little about the subject. But people believe it, then the false information spreads like wildfire until damn near the entire planet believes it. We need people like YOU to make videos like this and put an end to the misinformation.

[@SerBallister]

I hear from people who worked with Saturn/SH2 assembly that the SH2 was a bit of a dog compared to other platforms, namely R3000, R4000, ARM, Motorola 68k, etc.

[@Vorticron]

@@SerBallister I certainly never heard any complaints from my friends in the industry back in the 90's. However, it's still eye of the beholder. Some opcode sets can be challenging for some if they were perhaps used to other risc sets like R3000. I was programming Saturn before I programmed PlayStation so my knowledge of SH-2 was pretty firm before I got started on R3000. 68k I don't think really counts as it is easy as heck to program in asm and I can't entirely speak for arm as I've only done a bit of arm assembly making code fragments for dynarec. I certainly won't put anyone down in the industry who thought SH-2 was hard but in my circles it wasn't. Jaguar programming on the other hand.... ........ if you paid me a million dollars i MIGHT do it. haha.

[@miguelvieira3687]

My uncle had a Sega Saturn, I loved playing Sonic Jam, Megaman X4 and Virtua Cop (With the gun controller!!) on it, it's pretty nostalgic to me, even if it wasn't a commercial success I still love it

[@ukaszmozejko9984]

The worst part about both Sonic 3DBlast and Sonic R is how both games are obviously rushed. It looks like Traveling Tales were up to something and could develop good Sonic Game, but Sega pushed them to relase them ASAP to compensate for no Sonic Extreme.

[@ryannurse2890]

Sonic R wasn't even supposed to be a Sonic game, it apparently started life as a Formula One title before Sega phoned them up and said "hey we need you to turn this into a Sonic racing game, by the way you have six months, good luck"

[@Ratchetcomand]

Layer section was released in the US as Galactic Attack

[@pojr]

True. My bad on the mistake. I'm glad we got it in the US though!

[@mr.y.mysterious.video1]

I kind of miss the days when consoles were intricately designed pieces of custom hardware. These days all the consoles are just pcs in custom cases with custom operating systems. Remember when the PS3 was said to be more powerful than most pcs of the time?

[@SalivatingSteve]

The PS3 was indeed powerful, but equally (if not more) difficult to develop for as Saturn. Just like many Saturn games only used 1 CPU, PS3 games often only used the 1 main PowerPC core because it was too hard to do anything with the specialized 7 SPEs. PS2 early on was also hard to program, with devs saying the documentation was a stack of papers in Japanese. But then middleware engines like Criterion’s Renderware (used in GTA3) made it possible to more easily develop and port games for multiple systems.

[@Tempora158]

Old consoles NEEDED custom designs because they were all solving problems that PCs had when it comes to running games, even though PCs were demonstrably more powerful than any console on the market as evidenced by Doom in 1993, even though they couldn't pull off a smooth scrolling Super Mario Bros. clone or a smooth animating Street Fighter II clone that consoles excelled at. Now that PCs have graphics hardware that are on par with consoles, every hardware inventor need to answer this question: "What problem does the modern PC architecture have with running games, that our billion-dollar invention (e.g. the Cell processor) is going to solve?" The answer is going to be "nothing", which is why every console, arcade game and VR platform nowadays just use modifications of the existing PC architecture.

[@BurritoKingdom]

The Cell CPU in the PS3 is stronger than the CPUs in the PS4/XBone. But it doesn't matter. All gamers really care about are graphics and that depends on the GPU and amount of RAM. Advanced AI and physics are what the CPU is for now and most gamers don't care. An easy example is the comparison between the single player Star Wars games release for the PS360 and PS4/XBone. The Force Unleashed for the PS360 had crazy physics and environmental destruction while the Jedi series on the PS4/XBone is a souls like game with hardly any physics or destruction but looks prettier.

[@Roxor128]

@@Tempora158 PCs couldn't pull off a smooth-scrolling Super Mario-like game? Have you not played Commander Keen? The engine for that was originally developed as a way to replicate that smooth scrolling of the NES and similar consoles from around 1990, and was even proposed to Nintendo for a DOS port of Mario. Nintendo wasn't interested, so ID Software made something original with it instead.

[@diablo.the.cheater]

@@BurritoKingdom Actually, AI also uses the Graphics card, the kind of math operations for AI and for 3d Graphics overlap a lot

[@DaveIsaNub]

Imagine calling the best controller for fighting games lame.

[@BigGainer98]

​@@randybutternubs4647GET OUT! 🤬

[@ChrisCarlos64]

@@randybutternubs4647 We get it, you didn't enjoy fighters, but everything you said amounted to a lot of blabber that offered nothing or was mainly just garbage output with no substance. They never leave the tiny arena is a fault because? It's a fighting game. Do boxers leave the ring? No. Most fighting games were modeled after that. Nothing to their mechanics? Please elaborate because this is an empty statement that proves nothing and has no merit. You didn't git a 💩 about VF? Okay who asked if you did and what does your opinion on the matter hold? Nothing, that's what.

[@user-tz4bt5bt6x]

Sounds like you got your ass kicked every time you played against someone in a fighter.@@randybutternubs4647

[@InfernosReaper]

@@randybutternubs4647What about the fighting games that do pick up weapons?

[@metronome8471]

​@@randybutternubs4647 fighters lame. Gtfo

[@jakescartoons6045]

5:28 Don't you dare call that controller lame! The Saturn controller is one of the best gamepads to ever exist!

[@mafcho4186]

[phone] Saturn pad forever

[@ajsingh4545]

Yeah that controller comment had me scratching my head too

[@clayton33]

Don’t let Lord Farquaad’s words trouble you.

[@jakescartoons6045]

@@clayton33 I... don't get it.

[@clayton33]

@@jakescartoons6045the little man from Shrek , Pojr kinda looks like him.

[@SomeBlokeOrWhatever]

The Quadrilateral based approach to 3D is not as weird as it sounds nowadays, back then quads and tris were in competition, both having advantages and disadvantages, and there were a lot of hardware and software developers who believed quads were, in fact, the future. Including Nvidia. But ultimately triangles won and that's yet another reason the Saturn was left out to dry: The rest of the industry was moving on, and the thought of rewriting the entire game engine for a console that wasn't even popular would have sounded insane to devs. In another universe the Saturn and the Nvidia NV1 got the traction, and quads beat out tris. But the thing you don't mention in the video, which I believe was the real Saturn killer, wasn't the Saturn itself. -- It was the PlayStation -- People often talk about the Fifth Generation in terms of the ways Sega and Nintendo failed, but they rarely talk about how Sony's smart moves got them to steal the games industry from under everyone's feet. Sony charged smaller licensing rates and royalties from studios, they pressed game discs fast and on-demand vs. the old model of having to order an amount of copies months in advance and losing tons of money if the game flopped, and the PlayStation had a PC based development environment that made the cost (both financial and labour) of developing on PlayStation much cheaper than the competition with its clunky workstation development environments. -- If you were a software house in the mid 90s, the PlayStation was such an obvious choice for "what am I going to develop my game for, as its main SKU", it wasn't even funny. And one thing feeds into the other: More devs wanted to make games on PlayStation, so PlayStation had more games, so more people bought PlayStation, so more devs wanted to make games on PlayStation. The N64 managed to carve out its niche as the second player more or less because it wasn't _really_ fighting on the same ring as the PS1 -- It was deliberately a console made for kids and families, which made it tempting to parents. Plus it could do a few things the PlayStation couldn't.

[@Dovah_Jay]

Never owned the Saturn, but I did own a controller that I used on my pc to play games. No other controller comes close.

[@blokin5039]

That's just nonsense.

[@Dovah_Jay]

​@@blokin5039 Not really. I've owned many, many controls and it's still one of the best I've ever owned. So maybe I should have said few stack up with it.

[@TheGemini5]

Ummm, maybe the original US controller was, as you say, lame...but the one you showed was damn near perfect! But at least you got it right about Sega of Japan ruining Sega's reputation.

[@zabustifu]

Exactly. Even the fat controller was fine, even if not as good. This statement paired with the wrong picture shows Pojr does not really know what he's talking about here.

[@demgreens]

The N64 was never bundled with Super Mario 64. It did however practically sell at a 1:1 ratio with the console.

[@noelmagann1]

But Mario 64 was bundled with the N64.

[@demgreens]

@@noelmagann1 OK I stand corrected, there was a Wal-Mart bundle, as well as one sold in European countries.

[@n64fan60]

Yeah, a quick Google reveals that there were N64 + Super Mario 64 bundles.

[@MarquisDeSang]

Europe does not exist, so there never was a pack in Marion64.

[@jerronimo13]

​@@MarquisDeSang both😂😂😂

[@osgeld]

this doesnt seem researched very well

[@metronome8471]

It's not.

[@brendanroberts1310]

I thought the saturn pad is one of the best rated pads of all time. The Japanese version at least.

[@MisterBigMack]

Bang on The information he used - he has found on Wikipedia and/or websites I feel bad for the people who subscribe to him - harsh but fair

[@plaztik767]

When I read the headline, I knew it was gonna be the Sega Saturn 🪐 (Oddly enough, though it was a 2-D powerhouse and a time when 2-D graphics really didn’t matter that much)

[@megamix5403]

Only real ones know

[@pojr]

Yeah there's some great 2D games on it. Japan had a lot of shooters on it.

[@metronome8471]

Princess Crown. Didn't even see it in this vid. No panzer dragoon. Poser.

[@Roxor128]

Could have been the Atari Jaguar. That was supposed to be a pain in the neck to program, too. Or more recently, the Playstation 3. So, at least three candidates for the spot.

[@ianfisch7289]

Oh god this video. Do you know what else had two CPU’s? The PlayStation, the Sega Genesis, the Super Nintendo. The problem wasn’t the Saturn’s architecture. It was lack of documentation and dev kits.

[@nororengo286]

5:28 "the controllers were pretty lame" What? the Best 6 button fighting pad ever made you mean? You take that back Son!! :). good video though.

[@michaeljedlowski4227]

I think this video was kinda lame.

[@HeyHedgehog]

Oh my god, the Sega Saturn controller was one of the best of the era and hands down one of the best pads for fighting games. It hurts so much to hear someone call it lame. 😫

[@michaeljedlowski4227]

He likely didn't even use it. Just looked at pics, and passed judgement on it.

[@Swampert_Tube]

7:23 when did nintendo do this? To my knowledge the N64 had no pack in games on launch

[@pojr]

True. Not all of Nintendo's titles had a Mario game at launch. Some did, like the N64, GameCube and Nintendo DS, but some didn't, like the Wii and Switch.

[@michaeljedlowski4227]

@@pojr No pack in. Had to hope to find Mario 64. Pretty hard to. At least in my area. Just millions of copies of Pilotwings no one wanted.

[@thetechn1que518]

Some real hot takes in this one, calling the Saturn controller lame and Virtua Racing a good port. I didn’t like the original US Saturn controller though, I don’t think anyone did, so Sega started packing in the smaller Japanese S-controller with US consoles. The S-controller is widely viewed as one of the best digital controllers ever made, and rightfully so. Also I think Saturn Virtua Racing is fairly good even though it’s a little weird. Both VR and VF were considered poor ports, whereas the 32X versions were considered good for the weaker hardware. Over time, this has morphed into “32X ports of Model 1 games are better than the Saturn versions”, which is definitely not true.

[@rustymixer2886]

The 32x vr destroys saturn version are you trolling

[@metronome8471]

It wasn't til the switch version that virtual racing had a port to finally be better than the 32x port

[@rustymixer2886]

@metronome8471 exactly and the switch version still needed color update to match arcade

[@LUCKO2022]

N64 never came bundled with Mario 64. At least not in North America.

[@eyeball226]

In the UK mine did.

[@InfernosReaper]

It's been a long time... Did it just not come with a game, because there were like only 2 launch games released in NA due to various issues, one of which was Mario. It definitely didn't come with Pilot Wings or my brother would've had it

[@metronome8471]

This whole video has too many glaring mistakes that it feels like a Kotaku review.

[@sloppynyuszi]

@@metronome8471😂 yeah, he doesn’t do much research. Check out his master system review. Shame as this channel is really some accuracies away from being pretty good. Also the hot takes are just poorly informed. Not sure if it’s deliberate for engagement

[@alexojideagu]

@@dogsbark5750 it did in the UK

[@jordanscherr6699]

There's a few good points here, but some important missed ones. Part of the problem was a disconnect between overseas and native Japan, where the Megadrive was doing far poorer. Ironicly, a repeat would happen with the N64, but far worse. I.E. the Saturn actually BEAT the N64 in it's native country! "Sega finally got what they wanted, for the nice small price of everything else."

[@nathleflutiste]

1:36 Actually, there is a lot to say about hardware comparing the two console, they had a lot of differences, but even though the MegaDrive/Genesis does not have an hardware function for the mode 7, it is actually able to do process it by software. If Sega could have push the research about everything that could be done with the console to the max, the company would have discovered it sooner and even include it in a devkit. Another thing that have to be said about the MD/Genesis, is that it was a way more powerful console than the Super Nintendo regarding 3D, as it was able to manage up to 1800 polygons per second without any chip while the Super Nes could only do 190 per second, with the Super FX chip the Super Nes could go up to 2000pg/s, but that's it. This means the Mega Drive is actually able to process a game like Star Fox without chip (with of course some differences). Now what the console is able to do with the SVP chip is at a whole different level.

[@NimhLabs]

BTW, do you know how the fan game based upon Star Fox that is being made for the Genesis is going?

[@SalivatingSteve]

Yeah the Genesis had an 8Mhz 68000, the same chip used in the original Macintosh and Atari ST. The SNES had a 3Mhz CPU IIRC, it was really slow.

[@johncurley5808]

The SNES was so weak, without coprocessors it couldn't do much at all except true transparency. The Genesis beat the pants off it in every other way excluding the 32x add on. Even a port of StarFox that someone is making that runs directly on the CPU.

[@kryptonite704]

@@SalivatingSteve LOL so you are really going by mhz to compare 2 completely different processors ? a little more complicated than that.

[@kryptonite704]

Wrong on multiple things there lol snes has graphical abilities far above what the genesis could do.....no mention of the color limitations of the genesis huh :)

[@litjellyfish]

When Saturn was released actually the triangle as primitive was not so super standard. I mean it was not many 3d consoles before. Heck even NVidias first consumer 3D card used spline patches as their base primitive :)

[@MarquisDeSang]

Quads are superior. But the tools were not there.

[@ArneChristianRosenfeldt]

The flat shaded and wireframe games before did not utilize quads, nor did Jaguar with its focus on Gouraud shading. Quads don’t even have a normal. They surely weren’t standard.

[@MarquisDeSang]

@@ArneChristianRosenfeldt What are you saying? Quads can have normals. There are many things other than polygons : bicubic-patch, displacement, voxel, nurbs mesh, solids...

[@litjellyfish]

@@MarquisDeSang superior than what? Triangles? (In many cases yes) and what tools do you mean,?

[@litjellyfish]

@@ArneChristianRosenfeldt some did. Or even used different n-gons. What has shading to do with quads? Why would not a quad have a normal? Of course it has. It’s a plane.

[@bromanndibs3709]

Fun fact: Most of the shooters mentioned there actually got released outside Japan, especially galatic attack.

[@pojr]

Yeah I definitely messed that one up, my bad!

[@bromanndibs3709]

@@pojr hey I dont blame you, parodius was released on europe but not north america, and thunder force 5 only released in japan Layer section was released everywhere.

[@cyrollan]

@@pojr haha, you say "my bad" a lot. love the honesty. we all make mistakes!

[@caeserromero3013]

I have quite a lot of Sega ROMS for Genesis, 32X and Sega CD etc. It's noticeable in the difference in the sharpness of the graphics in the versions of Virtua Racing between the Genesis and 32X versions. I never even knew there was a Genesis version of VR until recently and I tracked down the ROM. However, despite the slightly sharper graphics, it wasn't a huge leap in gameplay or even the feeling of speed. You can see why people skipped the 32x and went straight to the Saturn (as my best friend did). I skipped both the 32X AND Saturn and went straight to an IBM PC compatible with CD in 1994. I was soon playing Doom, X-Wing, Star Wars Rebel Assault, Virtua Fighter etc and LOVING IT.

[@elmariachi5133]

I don't think the Saturn was running against the N64 very much. It was just the Playstation. Nintendo back then had it's fixed audience even more than today. And the N64 obviously was such terrible hardware, that it would have lost against both, the Saturn and the Playstation, if it would have had the same target audience.

[@svr5423]

N64 came way later, when most people already bought a PSX or Saturn. Plus the games were really expensive because of the cartridge format. SNES was way more popular among my peers than the N64 ever was at the time.

[@boriscat1999]

Nvidia NV1, originally designed to be used in the Sega Dreamcast but was dropped, also uses quads for rendering. Nobody likes rendering quads, there are some weird corner cases because the vertices aren't automatically coplanar, unlike with triangles.

[@kryptonite704]

dreamcast was going to have voodoo based hardware curtesy of 3dfx before sega of japan had the last brain fart of their hardware career.

[@Turbotef]

@@kryptonite704 LOL, well said!

[@ALivingDinosaur]

I wouldn't call these cases "corner cases" because the limited precision of both floating- and fixed-point numbers makes sure vertices of a quad will almost never be coplanar. :)

[@boriscat1999]

yea. more like, every quad is rendered unpredictably depending usually on what order you feed the hardware its vertices. It made it really difficult to do things like have a texture that spans multiple quads line up properly. So there can be seams or weird popping during camera movements. With modern triangle rendering, the rasterization is well defined and you can confidently create a triangle mesh and have your texture coordinate render seamless over it.

[@SerBallister]

@@ALivingDinosaur Most none coplanar problems come from 3d space, not screen space. Screen space precision issues are just another bonus on top of that :)

[@AgentLazarus]

Just to let you know, the controller for the Sega Saturn was one of the best alien technology things that ever existed. End of story.

[@michaeljedlowski4227]

So funny....

[@AgentLazarus]

@@michaeljedlowski4227 are you trying to tell me that what I'm saying is false?

[@michaeljedlowski4227]

Not necessarily. But how can you say Saturn is better for fighters bt not rpgs or platformers?

[@AgentLazarus]

@@michaeljedlowski4227 only in the Japanese Market where RPGs worth of shit on the Saturn

[@michaeljedlowski4227]

Panzer Dragoon Saga?

[@Ryuujin1078]

What do you mean that not many people talked about the Sega Saturn? Back then there was a lot of cheddar about it when the people around me and the kids at school the kids around my neighborhood, especially when it came to playing imports and being able to play the best version of Capcom fighting games on the Saturn. @7:24, the N64 never had Mario 64 as a pack in game. Only DK64 was the only time Nintendo packed in a game. I noticed a lot of your info throughout this video is incorrect. Something KZbinrs do a lot. it is annoying that contact creators filled to do proper research before spending time and effort, and making a video.

[@shoelacedonkey]

Luckily there are a *lot* of people pointing out errors & mistakes in this comment section. I love it :D

[@Mrshoujo]

The Saturn wasn't "incapable" of rendering triangles. It was designed to use quadrilaterals. That makes triangle rendering environments difficult for Saturn emulation but not impossible.

[@noop9k]

But this has the same meaning. Or, to be more precise, it was incapable of rendering uv-texture-mapped triangles.

[@leoleonvids]

the ps1 isn't "incapable" of rendering quads either, it uses triangles, but the gpu has commands specifically for drawing quads (using 2 triangles)

[@harlockmbb]

They Created Worlds podcaat just release an episode with new info about the Saturn. Basically Sega was afraid the devs were not ready for 3D and in the end had to put 2D processors to make all the 3D stuff using sprites. This was why Saturn used quads.

[@maroon9273]

Plus, sato and his team were the only people working on the saturn. While yuzuki and Lockheed martin were busy working on the Model 2 and later model 3. Sega were impatient waiting on them.

[@Ryusuta]

For what it's worth, Saturn had BY FAR the best ports of a couple of the CPS2 arcade fighting games like X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Marvel Superheroes vs. Street Fighter. It stood absolutely head-and-shoulders above the Playstation ports. Also, while somewhat flawed and compromised, the Saturn port of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Akumajō Dracula X: Gekka no Yasōkyoku) had a lot of exclusive content including a really good boss fight against Maria as well as a playable version of her. The PSP version also featured Maria, but in a much more lame and watered-down way. Compared to the Saturn versions of Maria, the PSP was utterly pathetic. I'd say that the Saturn release is worth a look if you can get past some graphical compromises here and there. Finally, Saturn Megaman 8 featured some updated content as well, including a couple of "legacy" boss fights as well as a completely new theme song for Tengu Man's stage. Definitely worth giving the time of day if you enjoyed that entry to the series on Playstation.

[@noop9k]

"Superior 2D ports" on Saturn are mostly thanks to a larger amount of total memory, which was also expandable.

[@Julian-hw7eg]

The Saturn controller was terrific

[@benhickey3189]

I too am an old man, I remember EB Games... before the dark times of Gamestop...

[@pojr]

Yeah I miss EB Games!

[@marcellachine5718]

Who remembers funcoland or kaybee toy stores, or walking down the video game isle of toys r us in the early 90s?

[@anon_y_mousse]

It's not so much that it was impossible, but rather that programmers back then hadn't yet figured out multi-core processing. Now every processor has multiple cores and most programmers don't have as much of a problem with that. Of course, considering the volume of programmers in general, we still have a lot that are bad at handling threaded code.

[@ManuFortis]

Saw the title, hadn't even clicked on the video yet, figured "That's gotta be the Sega Saturn pojr will be talking about in this one." I had one for a brief time. Fun 'little' unit.

[@jordanronayne7867]

Ah. The Saturn the perfect 2d console for a 3d generation. You only really see the abilities of this thing through the modern homebrew scene.

[@pojr]

Yeah there's some great 2D games on it. Seems like it was better at handling 2D games than it was 3D ones, that's for sure.

[@DesertRainReads]

Right? Look at the revamp of Symphony of the Night. Holy shit, MASSIVE difference over the original Japanese release! If that were released physically? I'd buy it.

[@therealswarvey]

Homebrew? But it's, and I quote, "impossible* to program for 😂

[@nickbond6447]

@@pojrthis is pushing a myth. Reach out to a Saturn community for better info

[@benb.1273]

I really do think the 32X was the final nail in the coffin for the Saturn before it even released. It wasted Sega's internal resources, it gave consumers a lack of confidence in Sega, and every game developed for the add-on would have been better off on the Saturn.

[@48hourrecordsteam45]

Or the svp stand alone Sonic’ and knuckles type cartridge.! If they really wanted to expand the genesis . *No wires *no big, box needed hardware *cheaper *simpler *more streamlined Why develop this chip and have it end with one expensive a*% game .on one big stupid cart .! The chip on cart could have been sold for $39.99 And virtua racing $39.99 Virtua fighter $39.99 Virtua cop $39.99 Star Wars arcade $39.99 Third party doom. $39.99 Duke nukem $39.99 Now u make Sonic 3d blast & vectorman 2 chip exclusive .! Anything in 96 had to take advantage of the svp chip. The last days of the genesis was in the svp only People would have been wowed look what the genesis can do by just using this cartridge Then give us the the svp version of the 6button controller .. Like add shoulder buttons and make the handles a bit longer and thicker and rounded for grip. For the price of the 32x you could have baught the svp cart and 3 games . N what if the svp cart made existing games run smoother Say the 3d games that was already released then 🧐 😮 That way the Saturn could have taken more resources to iron out and not rush release the genesis would still have us cooking. With 3d games . Virtua racing was a testament to the chips power

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

@@48hourrecordsteam45 Sega couldn't get bulk discounts on chips the way Sony and Nintendo could. Even standard ROM games like Phantasy 2 and 4 had to be sold at a higher price on release. It's why they preferred console add-ons over SVP library.

[@georged7627]

I’m a Nintendo Nerd but when it came to the 16bit era i had the Megadrive ive got all Nintendo and Sega consoles well most of them including the JVC Victor Wondermega…Now im a Nintendo and Sega nerd

[@dyscotopia]

The thing Sonic R does really right and shows the dedication of Traveler's Tales in mastering the hardware is that there's virtually no draw distance pop in which I don't think any other saturn 3d games mastered. Regardless of what you think of the game, it is a technical masterwork

[@raygunpyle]

I remember going to a Toys R Us in May of 95 and seeing a banner outside showing Saturn was available. I kept up with release dates with my magazine subscrptions and I remember I was very confused Saturn was available. Then I get inside and see a Saturn display model behind the glass like Toys R Us would do for all their systems. Even as a ten year old kid, I couldn't believe the sticker shock from that $399 price. I never knew why KB didn't have anything Saturn at all, yet had other Sega systems. I didn't know all the behind the scenes politics on the NA launch until much later.

[@blokin5039]

I think you are making this up and you know it!

[@fpser4888]

@@blokin5039 what?

[@CTFC-GERMANY]

There ist no "Module 1" Arcade Board from Sega...you mean Model 1.

[@pojr]

True. My bad.

[@armamentarmedarm1699]

"Even Tomb Raider got a Saturn release" The Saturn got Tomb Raider first.

[@Darthaurelius]

Yo POJ another great video my man. Keep up the great work. Ive seen all your videos and i gotta say the quality is really getting good. Hang in there and dont give up.

[@michaels9917]

I don't think Nintendo bundled the n64 with Mario 64. Definitely not initially.

[@pojr]

There were occasional bundles where it was packed in, but yeah you're right. My bad.

[@alexojideagu]

They did in the UK

[@michaels9917]

@alexojideagu here in the States, we got the n64 with 1 controller for $250 at launch. Some n64 games were over $70 when released. It was brutal. I guess it was the only way nintendo could undercut Sony.

[@alexojideagu]

@@michaels9917 Yeh we didn't get it until March 97, 6 months after the US. So they needed to make up for that so I guess the Mario 64 Bundle was part of it, and a cheaper price. The Goldeneye Bundle was the most popular though by far.

[@alexojideagu]

@@michaels9917 France didn't get it until September 97 which is crazy

[@TheRetroMartin]

I was ready to switch off straight away when you stated that Genesis games were no more advanced then rad racer on the NES. Just wow. The SNES also had to have chips in the carts for some games like Star Fox so it wasnt just the Megadrive/Genesis. Weird comparison of Virtua Fughter 1 and 2. VF2 was a sequel, not a "version" of VF1. Good research as well (sarcasm) - one or two Parodius gamea DID come out of Japan - PAL regions got them. Commercial failure? Maybe un the West but in Japan it was Segas best selling console at the time.

[@hidarimak]

Good video. I just have two tidbits to add to it, for those interested. First up, for those who are interested, Layer Section was released in North America (and maybe or maybe not elsewhere outside of Japan) as Galactic Attack, by Acclaim. Aside from translating the game menu to English and changing the title, it's the same game. Also, for those who don't know, there are plenty of additional great games which Sega of America (who also controlled what got brought into Europe) decided to leave in Japan. This is particularly so with 3D fighters, such as the near-perfect port of X-Men VS Street Fighter, and shoot-em-ups. The fighting games specifically took advantage of a cartridge which provided more RAM to the games, allowing for better animation and speedier load times. I believe that a 4 MB RAM cart would work with all games which used it, with the only exception being King of Fighters '95, since the extra data for that game was stored on the cart itself like with most game cartridges. I mention this because some games were released which worked with smaller RAM carts (1 MB and 2 MB), making them useless with games which require the larger capacity carts. Also, some games work without the cart, but work better with the cart. I'm not selling those carts, but for those who are still gaming on the console, you might want to look into getting one. As someone who modded their Saturn just to play import games, I think those games were well worth it.

[@kevindilworthno1]

What did he just say about my favourite controller 😢

[@SEGAGuys]

I don’t usually do shameless plugging, but if anyone wants to learn the truth about the SEGA Saturn, its development, and have myths (including some in this video) debunked, then our video “The Truth About SEGA Saturn” may be up your street. It pains me that so many people are absorbing this wealth of misinformation. So many SEGA content creators, ourselves included, do our best to keep SEGA’s history alive and relevant in the face of numerous videos like this that only further reinforce the lies and do nothing to help SEGA’s legacy.

[@zabustifu]

Although Virtua Fighter is indeed not as appealing as Super Mario 64 as a pack-in title, that comparison feels irrelevant to me, considering the N64 was released almost 2 years later. The N64 came out pretty late, and by the time it was out, the Saturn was already in a pretty bad position.

[@metronome8471]

Pojr seems to never have played a skilled VF.

[@zesebastian]

However, the Saturn sells more in Japan than the N64.

[@Turbotef]

Clockwork Knight really should have been the pack in title IMO.

[@Morgan423Z]

The decisions of second-half-of-the-90s Sega were extremely perplexing... one wonders if the C-Suite spent that time on a never-ending half-decade-long bender or something.

[@flogjam]

TOMB RAIDER was a Saturn exclusive for a short while. It released on that machine. Failing to mention this is unforgiveable

[@NumberSixAtTheVillage]

The way I understood Sonic Xtreme, is that Sonic Team (the actual Japanese developers of the Sonic games) didn't like the fact Xtreme was being made in America without their input. I believe I read that they got the Xtreme development shut down.

[@lazarushernandez5827]

They were originally using Sonic Team's code/game engine from Night's into Dreams without their permission. Sonic Team's leader Yuji Naka threatened to leave Sega if they did not stop.

[@Monacomaverick]

I've read that the Saturn could do three sided polygons. One of the four coordinates had to be set to "0".

[@ArneChristianRosenfeldt]

The Quake remake exhibits texels because they are all nice and square. Your trick .. UV unwrap .. is complicated.

[@SerBallister]

I think one of the coords had to be set to be equal to one of the other 3. This creates a "degenerate edge" where 2 edges of the quad are the same, so it makes a triangle.

[@ArneChristianRosenfeldt]

@@SerBallister also squeezes all the draws onto a single pixel and is quite a waste.

[@SerBallister]

@@ArneChristianRosenfeldt Yeah. I suppose any none-parallelogram involved some overdraw on Saturn, triangles being the extreme case.

[@huldu]

I remember sega saturn and when it released, we went to to store and the pricing on that thing was *insane*. Even renting it was out of the question since they required a deposit which at the time was unheard of. It makes sense since it was a very expensive console. Then we got familiar with the playstation which I believe released in the same year or bit later? I can't remember but didn't think much of saturn until way, way later. Me and friends at the time would play on the genesis and later the playstation. I think I was the only one who had a snes.

[@azazelleblack]

If you want to grow your channel, you've got to do better research. A significant part of the information in the early part of this video is really mistaken. You really got the history wrong. It's a decent video with some great editing, but you've really got to get the details 100% right or at the very least acknowledge that you aren't sure.

[@iwanttocomplain]

I was almost moved to correct all the mistakes but I changed my mind after I couldn't shorten it to less than 2000 words.

[@azazelleblack]

@@iwanttocomplain LOL. At least your username is correct!

[@iwanttocomplain]

@@azazelleblack yeah I wrote like 3000 words.

[@kavya1638]

Check out Shenmue development on the Saturn. They actually utilized the sound chip to "aid" in 3D rendering, they pulled resources from every corner of the console to get this game in development. Technically, the Saturn was a 2D powerhouse, more so than the PS1, they probably should have stuck to their guns as 3D games (though fun now), were more hit/miss back then... Today, it's all about 2D Indy games.

[@joeynrg]

The Saturn was f'in amazing. Wipeout was by far the best racing game that looked mental for the time. Nights into Dreams also holds a place in my heart with that Christmas soundtrack that was played in every toy shop in the UK in 95. That was the best times for consoles. The hype and excitement over releases was totally different back in the day.

[@SEGASaturnLad]

My god there are so many inaccuracies from this video it’s laughable. The fact the first thing you start with is a rambling plug of the poor quality, generic merch being sold tells me everything I need to know. Everything in this video screams you’ve never played a Saturn? Or at least have a very limited experience. It appears you have basically watched several videos from YT on ‘why Saturn failed’, skimmed through Wikipedia and then regurgitated the absolute nonsense.

[@rustymixer2886]

It didnt fail measurably at first 32x sold like 200,000 to 500,000 first month

[@nathleflutiste]

Yeah, the dumb thing was to release it shortly before the Saturn, they would have release it at the same time of the Mega-CD, the story would have been different.

[@mikeg2491]

@@nathleflutisteno the dumb thing was releasing the Saturn period. Sega should have doubled down on being the budget alternative to what Sony and Nintendo were doing and squeezed a few more years out of the Genesis ecosystem with the 32x. There were a lot of working-class adults and children of poorer families who just couldn’t afford the new offerings hence why the 32x sold well initially IMO. Then you had developing countries like Brazil that were still playing these older consoles deep into the late 90s and early 2000s. Also having antiquated hardware would have pushed design styles into brave new directions much like Nintendo did with Donkey Kong country on the SNES that would have carved out a unique niche and separated them from the pack vs the Saturn just trying to keep up with the PS1 in having inferior ports of the same titles. They could have even worked on expanding the Sega Channel to new markets to get a good little revenue stream coming in.

[@orangejjay]

​@@mikeg2491Greed is a helluva drug.

[@nathleflutiste]

@@mikeg2491 Well I would rather say that its is also true. It's crystal clear that the Saturn was released too early, too sudden, no proper devkit for game studios, not enough advertising, not enough deals with the resellers, not enough killer games, without a Sonic… Everything was so wrong. Even though at one moment or another it would have a necessity, it wasn't the right moment for it. Regarding the 32X, the problem really was to has such a short period of time between its release and the Saturn's one. Once the 32X would been well installed, it could have cohabited very well with the Saturn, having similar hardware. Making a port from one another would have been easier for the games companies. We already have examples of how close the games can be between the two platforms. I think the 32 was doing an amazing job for what it was. For example we have that Spiderman game on 32X with Daredevil, I loved that game, it was so unique, Kolibri was also a very nice game I loved this one too. I always wonder what we could have got if this hardware was pushed to the limit, sadly we may never really know about it. I totally agree with you that the idea of the 32X had a lot of potential and was a good option for those who could not afford more expensive one, but without a good support it's complicated to exploit it and again (sorry if I repeat myself too much) this happened thanks to this damn release of the Saturn coming out too early. I swear, Sega had gold in its hands and decided to fuck up everything.

[@pojr]

​@@mikeg2491that actually wouldn't have been a bad idea. At the very least, they should have released 1 or the 2 consoles, not both.

[@litjellyfish]

Many systems have had more than one CPU actually

[@evertonshorts9376]

Even the Sega Megadrive/Genesis has two.

[@Jimfowler82]

@@evertonshorts9376isn’t one for sound though

[@evertonshorts9376]

@@Jimfowler82 It runs game code if you plug a master system cart in, but the MD uses it to drive the sound hardware. Its a Z80, a general purpose cpu used in things like the ZX Spectrum, and loads of ancient CP/M machines.

[@Jimfowler82]

Yes I thought so, so it’s a backward compat cpu for master system games & sound? So it’s not like the mega drive had 2 cpus to use as cpus?

[@Prizrak-hv6qk]

@@Jimfowler82 I recall hearing that at least a few Genesis games offload some none sound related stuff to the Z80.

[@TheAlphaWoomy]

I had a Saturn the day it launched in the US and I loved it still do. I still play Nights, Clockwork Knights and Daytona USA all the time. Here is how Sega could of made it better. 1. Genesis cart port on the back 2. Practical Memory Cards 3. A Sonic game obviously 4. Talking to Square Soft to get FF games. 5. Metal Gear Solid

[@dogeymon83]

It was so dumb back then that people said PlayStation was $299 while Saturn was $399……but for $399 you got onboard memory for game saves and you got a game. A PlayStation was $299 but came with nothing. You had to buy a game and memory card separately so you would end up paying $399 for PlayStation anyway

[@maroon9273]

Which sega fumbled by not stating it during there presentation at E3 1995.

[@huldu]

I only remember the pricing on the saturn at launch where I lived and it was very pricey, $600(I checked the dollar value at the time vs my currency). It was a very expensive console at launch but I do believe the price dropped a bit in the coming years. We did have a playstation but we got that one a year or so after launch, at the time I was more interested in PC gaming and started to lose interest in consoles as well.

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

The Saturn was half the cost of a PlayStation if you count the second PlayStation you had to buy when the first one stopped working.

[@SonySupporter]

PS1 memory cards were $20 and a game of your choice was $49. PS1 had always better games.

[@48hourrecordsteam45]

Smh, but when ur playing with mindless sheep you have to give them what they feel is better for their perception to handle . Sega should have did the same things 1.remove the internal memory 2.remove the pack in title 3.sold the memory separately 4.included a demo disk with all the game on there with extensive content for the pack in title Matches Sony’s $299 price asap ! For me sega should modified the controller a bit. Slid the buttons a little higher in the controller & made them a little bit smaller just a fraction The shoulder buttons should be flat the circular design is not it . And then seen Sony and match them with double shoulder buttons . The triggers would have been blessed Because they was big on House of the dead and virtua cop being key franchises . Sega would have competed better by just the launch price alone…!!! But available was just not there as well

[@knight0fdragon]

This video has a lot of information that is just wrong or not presenting facts correctly. If you want to hit larger audiences, spend the time to do thorough research and cross check your sources. Example, 32X did not come out because Sega thought that the Saturn would not be out in time. Sega of Japan needed the Saturn to come out early because the Mega Drive (US Genesis) was doing poorly over there, but Sega of America thought that the Saturn was coming out too fast and that the Genesis still had a few years of life left in it, which brought about the 32X.

[@metronome8471]

The 32x was made to cripple the Atari Jaguar.

[@knight0fdragon]

@@metronome8471 well I won’t argue with that. It indeed was a means of getting the Genesis to compete with the Jag and 3DO.

[@kryptonite704]

@@knight0fdragon Well.....guess none of them could "do the math" lol

[@knight0fdragon]

@@kryptonite704 oh, Sega did the math, and they did not like the numbers they were seeing haha.

[@SteveBrandon]

As a big Sega Dreamcast fan who never even touched a Saturn, the Saturn's failure is still a two-edged sword. On one hand, the rush to beat the Playstation 2 to market meant that we got the Dreamcast before the 1990s were over with what I consider to be the last console launch that truly felt like you were playing something from a few years in the future but, on the other hand, if the Saturn had been a success, perhaps that would've meant that Sega could've held off releasing the Dreamcast until 2001 or so and they could've delivered a console that would've been as powerful as the XBox and which wouldn't have necessarily been Sega's last console.

[@crazedlunatic43]

A 2001 launch would’ve given Sony a single year head start to establish the PS2.

[@joesshows6793]

My question is, what was Nintendo working on before silicon graphics came into the scene??? They must have had something up their sleeves otherwise they would have been ever further behind the game

[@Jasontyo]

Saturn is what I think of First when i think "Sega". If Only............... Imagine if they brought those arcade perfect ports with the cool RAM cart add-ons to America. They would have sold like crazy.

[@starpier]

I understand the complaints about the lack of a Sonic game but, all things considered, it is better it went this way. If they released an original new Sonic game it would have been in 3D, now imagine the reviews of a Sonic Adventure like game on Sega Saturn. It would have been a giant flop because the Saturn was never a good 3D gaming machine. The only way they could have released a great new Sonic title is if they stuck to 2D. Unfortunately the market at the time imposed to develop 3D titles. A 2D Sonic would have been ignored when compared to Mario 64 or any 3D adventure game on PSX. Let´s be glad that we got not one, but two original 3D Sonic titles on the following console.

[@pojr]

I do wonder if a Sega-made 3D Sonic game would have been possible on the Saturn. Sonic X-Treme looked cool although it seemed like it was very early in development. I can't picture a Sonic Adventure-like game on the Saturn though.

[@starpier]

@@pojr my understanding is that they tried and the results were insufficient for a AAA Sonic game. More or less what also happened for Shenmue, they tried their best to make the engine run on Saturn.

[@lazarushernandez5827]

An American team was working on Sonic Extreme using Sonic Team's Nights engine. When Yuji Naka found out he basically threatened to leave Sega if they continued to use his teams engine. The dev team had to go back to the drawing board and eventually dropped it completely. The thing is Sonic Jam showed that a 3D Sonic was feasible on the Saturn. And there was also his cameo appearance in Christmas Nights. Both of these were done by Sonic Team. It pisses me off to this day that we didn't a proper Sonic on the Saturn because of this rivalry between Sega of Japan and Sega of America. We didn't even get a sequel to Nights into Dreams until 11 years later on the Wii. Perfect opportunity for a console called "DREAMCAST" squandered... 🤦‍♂

[@starpier]

@@lazarushernandez5827 dont look at it from a rivalry point of view. Yuji Naka was probably defending the quality of the Sonic brand. Imagine that Yuji Naka was Hideo Kojima and the engine was the Fox Engine. Now imagine Kojima thretening to leave Konmai if the Engine was given by Konami to another less competent team. This actually has happened in the end and we all have seen what a mess was done with that amazing engine. I seriously doubt that in 96-97 an american team would have made a great 3D Sonic title, lets be realistic. Now we arrived to the point that not even the Japanese teams can make a great 3D Sonic title, the Sonic Team has dropped the ball, which is a very sad thing to watch.

[@lazarushernandez5827]

@@starpier Yuji Naka and Sonic Team could have delivered. Naka did a stint in the U.S. with Sega Technical Institute and released Sonic 2, so collaboration wasn't unheard of. They could have worked together with the american team for a common goal, ie the good of company.

[@billmcintyre3652]

i owned the Saturn and it had some great games but failing to launch it with out a Sonic game killed it's chance to beat PS1 and N64. Dreamcast did everything right and was the most revolutionary console ever imo. First time home Arcade Ports looked better on home console than in the Arcade. Sadly it was too late to matter. Dreamcast was the only console I bought on Launch Day and I thought it was going to save Sega I mean how could it not? It had better than arcade Soul Calibur it had a fresh new Sonic Game and the ultimate version of Tony Hawk Pro Skater when my father saw me playing Crazy Taxi he said this is the most amazing game I've ever seen. My father looked into buying Sega Stock after he saw it and thankfully for him it was a privately owned company. Sadly I didn't realize what financial mess Sega was in and even the success on Dreamcast couldn't save it especially with manufacturer hype around PS2 which wasn't any better than Dreamcast but could play DVD movies.

[@48hourrecordsteam45]

I loved the dc but that controller needed to be. Better.! Xbox s controller would have been blessed and the dc needed just a little bit more power.! Better textures .. ps3 & GameCube did smoother more lifelike textures making the dc look a bit crude . I for one feel sega did not need to launch the dc at $199. We would have baught it at even $249.99 Sega took too much of a loss . And like some guys said Why launch in Japan first when the Saturn was still thriving in Japan. 🤷🏾‍♂️ Just terrible after terrible decision

[@billmcintyre2897]

@@48hourrecordsteam45 Your not thinking about it properly. In 1999 we didn't compare Dreamcast to anything except what else we had available which was PS1 and N64. It's resolution and textures were incredible by comparison. The Dreamcast Controller was infinitely better than the N64 Controller especially the analog stick. Only the Dual Shock 1 controller was better. The VMU was a cool concept I even used to bring my VMU to work with me to play the Sonic Mini pet (Chao game). The VMU battery was trash though but it was a cool concept. Sure 2 years later when Gamecube came out it had prettier textures but I still think Dreamcast had better games. 3 years after Dreamcast I Xbox came out and that was my main console from then on. I bought a Gamecube for the kids and we played Super Monkey Ball to death but Xbox was the grown mans console after Dreamcast faded.

[@Prizrak-hv6qk]

DC was amazing but unfortunately, at that time Sega was already hemorrhaging way too much money, hoping to be saved by revenue coming in from licensing and software sales. Then the DC piracy hit, allowing anyone with a decent internet connection and a CD burner to play pirated games. That was that. :(

[@billmcintyre2897]

@@Prizrak-hv6qk My cousin was a Tony Hawk fanatic he had sunk hundreds of hours into the game on PS1. When he first played it on my Dreamcast he was in love. When I saw the cool stuff he could do he got me into the game and ended up sinking hundreds of hours playing it as well. Just trying to pull off the biggest trick of all time made that game never get old. On Tony Hawk 1 you had to link tricks with rail slides and wall rides. In Tony Hawk 2 they introduced the manual trick (Riding on just 2 wheels) which made max trick almost infinate with enough practice. Soul Calibur also ate up over 200 hours as well and that game kept track of your total gametime so I'm certain on that one on how many hours I played.

[@Azureskies01]

having 2 CPUs is literally normal now. AMDs 3000 and higher chips with more than 8 cores use chiplets, effectively being two CPU blocks that talk to the IO die. Intel is also doing the same with their Performance cores and Efficiency cores, They are two separate CPU blocks that talk through their own IO die... it is the same but much different than the AMD implementation. So while dual socket motherboards are rare you can still find them around however we have moved on from dual sockets to just dual chiplets.

[@BlueMSX.]

very good retrospective on the Saturn in the US Pojr! In Japan it was quite interesting too with the Victor V Saturn not only being made but also making one mention of Sega on the entire system. Sega had a much rougher time in Japan compared to the states with many of their systems underperforming there. It does make me wonder if Sega was seriously considering releasing the Japanese Saturn under Victor's name only, as Sega's name was somewhat tarnished over there, and they already had a good relationship with Victor.

[@michaelpalmer2143]

I owned a 32x and enjoyed a few games on it. Really they should have released an SVP chip as a lock on cartridge

[@lazarushernandez5827]

If you think about it, the 32X was taking that solution, a step further. The SVP chip lock on cartridge would have enabled polygons sure, but it did not enhance the color palette nor help in the audio department. The 32X did accomplish these things. It seemed like a good idea at the time. The issue was the Saturn was already on the way, it launched in Japan in 1994 while the 32X was released in the U.S. at the same time. I had a 32X and enjoyed quite a few games on it: Space Harrier, Virtua Racing Deluxe, After Burner Complete, Shadow Squadron/Stellar Assault, Knuckles Chaotix, Star Wars Arcade and several others. Once the Saturn arrived I didn't look back. The 32X should have either been a cartridge version of the Saturn (with Sega later launching the Saturn and a 2X CD drive attachment) or just not have been made in the first place.

[@michaelpalmer2143]

@@lazarushernandez5827 I also enjoyed the 32x. I owned Starwars Arcade, Virtua Racing, Space Harrier, Cosmic Carnage, and that motocross game everyone trashes but I liked at the time. I used it with a genesis 2 and always had issues with the video cross cable that would mess with the colors if the system moved or shook. Obviously a SVP lock on cart wouldn't offer the colors and such, but polys, enhanced math, and maybe a mode 7 like mode would be enough for a nice CHEAP upgrade that wouldn't compete with Saturn. I liked my 32x but never forgave the death of that Aliens Trilogy game that was supposed to get released for the system. I drooled over the magazine snapshots for it, but it came to psx and maybe saturn instead. Boo. Also, Virtua Hamster might have been cool.

[@litjellyfish]

Saturn did not have a chip that handled sprites and polygons. It handled sprites. Just sprites. But the sprites could be distorted and use to mimic a 3D quad

[@ElVlogdeBob]

They added a geometric engine in one of the SH chips to make a frame and put the sprites around them. It had 3D but not REAL 3D.

[@iwanttocomplain]

I looked up the wiki. "Unusual for the time, the PlayStation lacks a dedicated 2D graphics processor; 2D elements are instead calculated as polygons by the Geometry Transfer Engine (GTE) " So two triangles per sprite. I think the wiki might be wrong though.

[@ArneChristianRosenfeldt]

@@iwanttocomplainI am too lazy to look it up right now, but both PSX and N64 could blit rectangles like Amiga did. No scaling. Pure 2d.

[@iwanttocomplain]

@@ArneChristianRosenfeldt I searched around a bit and there is no evidence of 2D hardware in the PS1 or N64. Only a 'citation needed' on the fandom ps1 tech spec page. Which is the best one. The N64 had no 2D games. Nintendo practically forbade it. So I doubt it has 2D hardware. Fun fact though. The PS1 cpu is based on a SGI design. But the N64 uses an NEC cpu.

[@paul_boddie]

@@iwanttocomplain "The PS1 cpu is based on a SGI design. But the N64 uses an NEC cpu." Well, they are both MIPS architecture CPUs: the PS1 using the R3000 and the N64 using a derivative of the R4200. Being dependent on MIPS for their own products, SGI had bought MIPS Technologies prior to the PlayStation's introduction, but the R3000 was already around at the time of that acquisition, and workstations from other vendors were also using the R3000 alongside SGI.

[@Pedro.Sanchez]

That intro music, man, it just take me back from when I played the hell out of V-Rally Championship Edition on my game boy color

[@tobiaslofi]

Nothing beats the days and days of fun we had setting up tournaments with all our friends in Fighter’s Megamix!!!

[@npc5983]

8:55 as a matter of fact things went EXACTLY the Sega's way: the emotional bind some have to Genesis ends up by blinding them from the truth that Sega was always terrible at developing and marketing their consoles. Mark 1/2/3, Master System, Game Gear Sega CD, 32x, Saturn, Dreamcast...ALL of them where tremendous failures from a market standpoint. And look: I'm a Sega widow, these consoles gave me way more fun than whatever came after them. I LOVED Sega Saturn back in the days as I owned a region-free console and had the 4MB RAM expansion (accessing the outstanding Capcom and SNK ports). Dreamcast made me very happy as well. If there was one console that didn't went the Sega way, for it's own good, this console was the Sega Genesis.

[@n64fan60]

IMO this wasn't true in Europe until the Saturn. Mega Drive had clear market-dominance over SNES. The most common games machine to see in anyone's home. Then the Saturn released, was expensive and not marketed well, then a much more affordable Sony machine came along, with seemingly better graphics and much better marketing. From a European perspective, the Saturn flopped hard. I knew only two people who owned a SEGA Saturn, and many who owned a PS1 or N64.

[@NimhLabs]

I dunno... I'm fairly certain there is a large audience of Portuguese speaking people who'd let you know the Master System was not a failure. Why, there is talk in some corners of the web, that the Master System still reigns supreme in Brazil to this day =P But yeah... I loved the Game Gear back in the day--and was annoyed at how it was all "om nom nom, hungry for all the batteries, gimmie gimmie more batteries--I need to eats all the batteries"... and was super hyped for the 9/9/99 Dreamcast release date Main reason I never had a Genesis, was because I never was able to save up enough money for it. I thought the ability to upgrade it with the 32X and Sega-CD was cool. "Bringing the features that make PC gaming so cool to the console!" -- my naive 90s brain

[@NimhLabs]

@@n64fan60 the MD/Genesis was the only console from Sega not in the list for flops given I'm presuming by "Mark 1/2/3" he is talking about the precursors to the "Master System". You know--with Sega's completely straight forward and not at all confusing naming scheme

[@npc5983]

@@NimhLabs yeah....sure...Brazil. It was so relevant that, whatever success they had there, it wasn't enough to keep Sega in the game hardware business. A market where Master System reigns supreme to this day is not a market to be taken seriously.

[@inkajoo]

I think the 32x was a good idea, and they should have cancelled the Saturn to focus on the Dreamcast.

[@lelsewherelelsewhere9435]

Idk sony would have had even more of a lead, being unmatched for like 6, 7 years, while sega would have lost even more of its america market share. I dont think sega would have survived in America if they did that.

[@RetroGamesBoy78]

There would be no Dreamcast, the DC was a console born out of Sega's failure to sell the Saturn. Its easy to come up with "they Should haves" after the fact, in the beginning the Saturn was actually outselling the PS1, but Sega had gotten it all wrong, Sony had gotten it all right, and in time that all showed, bad PR across the board is essentially what hurt Sega the most, not the hardware.

[@ajsingh4545]

32x was horrible idea. Should have just focused on the saturn

[@RetroGamesBoy78]

@@ajsingh4545 yeah, even though I think the 32X is a cool little system, it was certainly more of a hindrance to Sega than anything else and in the end I'd rather the Saturn have had 100% of Sega's attention from day one!

[@lazarushernandez5827]

@@RetroGamesBoy78 I don't think it was a failure to sell Saturns, remember that a certain new head of Sega of America announced that Saturn was not their future in 1997. He also stopped a lot of Japanese market software from coming to the West. Up to that point, the Saturn was still getting it's version of 3rd party titles. Sony was in the lead, and Nintendo was gaining steam with the N64, but the cartridge media was a limitation for it. After those announcements, third parties canceled their Saturn titles and/or shifted them to the Playstation.

[@gezeo750]

I love that the Genesis with the 32X attachment was basically an SNES with a built in FX chip. Better colors, better sound, and capable of Star Fox graphics.

[@Vorticron]

The 32X didn't have any 3D hardware capabilities. It was all software rendered.

[@SalivatingSteve]

@@Vorticron Yep! All the 3D was rendered in software on the SH-2s on 32X.

[@AlmirAlvesPereira]

I can´t believe you went over side-scrolling shooters and left out the legendary Radiant Silvergun. That game is the perfect showcase of Saturn sprite rendering capabilities.

[@paranoidgenius9164]

Google - The Mega Drive's main CPU (central processing unit) is clocked over two times faster than the one in its rival product, the SNES. Sega's Motorola 68000 processor is clocked at 7.67 MHz, compared to the 3.58 MHz clock speed of Nintendo's Ricoh 5A22 S-CPU (an adaptation of the 65c816 with additional features). I don't know why you said that the Mega Drive \Genesis looked dated compared to the SNES. I saw the Mega Drive as more of a fast pace fighting & racing games machine when the SNES was more of a slower pace RPG & gameshow games machine. The Mega Drive could push graphics more than twice as fast as the SNES, but with a slightly lower screen resolution. I reckon you were more Nintendo when you were a kid, am I correct? In most of your spoken words, you like to end the sentence with a faint "nhe" Your narrative style & flow sounds quite odd, as if you are trying to imitate a speech synthesizer.

[@noop9k]

This is not about the clock as technically 65816 does more work per clock. If the difference only amounted to clock speed, 65816 would win. 68000 is essentially a 32-bit CPU with 16-bit ALU on 16-bit bus. 65816 is a 16-bit CPU with 16-bit ALU on a 8-bit bus. It is also a more primitive CPU with less registers and less powerful instruction set. The number of registers and 8-bit bus were the most important factors that crippled its performance. Also, not only its cartridges were 8-bit, they often did not run at the maximum speed supported by 65816, to save money.

[@kryptonite704]

Comparing mhz of 2 completely different cpu architectures are we lol btw the megahertz wars ended with the pentium 4 anyways (valid in your argument i guess)/

[@litjellyfish]

Using assembly (you mean assembler?) has nothing to do with the lack of tools. And well it was nothing new. Basically all games on master system and Megadrive was made in assembler so that was what devs was used to. Actually Saturn was maybe on of the first consoles where you could use higher level languages as C. It Was more that is had a risc parallel cache based CPU that was hard to learn where you really needed not to write in assembly language but also know how to pipeline the code to get the most out of it. Please it’s quite a lot rather easy high level factual errors in this clip. Next time do a bit more research or include someone who o proof read and feedback on the material

[@calebr908]

Quads were not strange or odd. 3D0 used quads as well, so when saturn came out, this was pretty standard.

[@thuggeegaming659]

There's a lot of errors in this video. For one thing, the Sega Saturn is very well known. Probably better known than the Dreamcast, which didn't last very long at all. The Saturn controller was awesome. Not the model 1 controller, but the model 1 controller which was identical to the Japanese SS controller. Virtua Racing for the SS was criticized at the time for being a downgrade from the arcade version, and most agree that the 32x version was actually better overall. The 32x failed mostly because it was released concurrently with the Sega Saturn, cannibalizing sales, and discouraging developers from making games for it, opting to develop for the SS instead. The N64 did not have a pack-in game at launch. Mario 64 was sold separately.

[@MisterBigMack]

Saturn controller was lame?……it’s fine having an opinion but look at all the comments - and mine included - it was a phenomenal controller and presenting it as facts is just not good Just another video showing the negativeness around the Saturn….🙄

[@FeralInferno]

That's so weird they couldn't get triangles to work on the Saturn! Learned something new today. Cool video, Pojr!

[@TheDunbartxeen]

no, the video is badly researched. Saturn could display triangles, but the hardware was designed for quadruples. have in mind that triangles back then was not the standard

[@PakIwan853]

quadruples

[@duscha55]

8:30 i have these games and i live outside of Japan. "Layer section" is "Galactic attack" in europe And "Gokujou Parodius Da! Deluxe Pack" is just "Parodius" in europe. I allso have "Darius Gaiden" and "Darius 2" PAL/european.

[@admiralrimmer]

The Saturn's controller and its d-pad was god tier for 2D games. Virtua Racing was a terrible farmed out port that that didn't play like the original, the 32X port was better. Virtua Fighter games are not button mashers, they're some of the most technically complex fighting games.

[@joeyfarris2543]

SEGA defeated themselves and to that I say..... Game over man Game over, Bye Bye Wayne it's bedtime once again 👍👍😂😂

[@rustymixer2886]

Soj defeated soa then themselves