What If The Sega Saturn Wasn't Rushed?

This one I was thinking about for quite a while actually. So..join me as I grind out how the Sega Saturn could have been successful and what may have happened from that.
#SegaSaturn #No32X
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[@ahyesidk4284]

This deserves more views

[@GVGINU]

Thanks, I like to think these things out and just gives my overall thought process on how they could have turned out. Got plenty of others if you would like to check them out.

[@MaxAbramson3]

It was the constantly changing roadmap. Neither gamers nor developers nor retailers are going to invest in a company that keeps pulling the rug out from under them.

[@albertabramson3157]

I would've done the opposite: Build the "Tower of Power" as a single unit, as millions of people were saying at that time. Many people wanted it and would've gladly paid the $199 price for it. While the Saturn would be available in other markets, the 32X-CD would simply use the more powerful VDP of the 32X with its 32,768 color palette, vastly improved sound, 4x CD-ROM, and a one year head start on the PlayStation. With its 1,000 or so games looking as good as most PS1 launch titles, the limit pushers of the 32X-CD in the mid-90s would look as sound slightly better than the wobbly, jagged edges of the lower res 256x224 PlayStation games. SEGA could've then skipped the Saturn in North America and gone straight for a $300 Dreamcast for the Christmas of 1997, allowing the 32X-CD and venerable Genesis to fade out gradually, the old legend being able to go out with a crescendo of 600MB jrpgs, shooters, perfect arcade ports, beat em ups, fighters, military strategy games, and Sonic CD racer. Sequels and franchises that were never released, 40 of the 32X titles, and 29 more in the pipe that were abandoned would've helped fill out the 1995 season with PlayStation arriving in stores with almost nothing. Naughty Dog was thinking of releasing Crash Bandicoot on the Sega CD, and Metal Gear Solid (made by Hideo Kojima of Snatcher fame) could've found its way onto the Sega 32X CD.

[@Nassyy]

Great insight into the Sega Saturn. I'm happy to know more, especially through your video. For me, I believe it coule have worked, if they released a revised version of the Saturn, which corrects previous issues with the original model. This would delay the Dremcast a lot later, but for the best.

[@GVGINU]

That would have been a better move to make than abandoning the Saturn altogether. That may have caused it to have the same issue that the 3DO had though. Not all versions were able to play all of the games.

[@Nassyy]

@@GVGINU In that case, perhaps Sega had to sacrifice the backwards compatibility and make the Saturn revision (Saturn Slim?) play CD games only. You are definitely right about this.

[@thetriggeredone3461]

@@Nassyy there was never gonna be backwards compatibility the cartridge slot was for extra memory by using cartridges

[@MaxAbramson3]

Simpler: Once the Sega CD failed in Japan, build the Saturn around a 2xCD-ROM, and ARMv7 running at 10 MIPS, and a simpler VDP with scaling, rotation, and 16-bit color. We would've had that in the States for $299 by Christmas of 1992 and had a viable platform capable of playing all of the Virtua series arcade games, albeit at 10,000 polygons/sec. They could then sell a RAM-SH2 expansion in 1994 to extend its life and handle textured, Gauroud shaded polygons.

[@calibvr]

2 things 1. this would be epic 2. my favourite game of all time, ninja gaiden 2 would never have been made also great vid

[@MizzahTee]

Dope video my good man. Excellent points and interesting theories!

[@GVGINU]

I took a bit of my inspiration from Archemedies honestly. Just wish I had the production values he had. But thanks for giving it a listen. I'm planning a Sega extended universe set of videos, luckily I have a couple weeks to work on it with all of the videos I already have uploaded.

[@tankgod8833]

There would be no Dreamcast at all. It would be an entirely different system. Sonic Adventure 1 probably would have been a Saturn game with a 128 bit upgrade later. The Dreamcast was created as the opposite of the Saturn to correct the problems of it, but since the problems have been resolved it would have been a different system. I also LOVE the idea of a successful Neo Geo Pocket! I never thought about that but that was an amazing handheld! Also imagine having both the Power Base converter and that Genesis adapter for the Saturn. That would be amazing to play Genesis, SMS, and Saturn all in one. Possibly with that adapter it could have also played Sega CD games?

[@GVGINU]

That's an interesting take to have, but it is still a possibility that the Dreamcast would have been made, as a better machine than what it came out as. Maybe not as a correction to the Saturn, but possibly as an improvement to it in my scenario. Still, you do present me an interesting direction to go in if I revisit this one.

[@GVGINU]

And yeah, maybe with an adapter or a boot disc for Sega CD stuff...that would be interesting.

[@rainehappy7097]

Space Harrier and After Burner got rereleased in Sega Ages for the Saturn. And it came with OutRun!

[@GVGINU]

That was later on in the life of the system if I remember correctly, that wasn't how it launched.

[@robkearsy2995]

Really liked this yet more ideas that could've helped out Sega back then.

[@MrRedFoxorMrelzorrorojo]

This is an interesting video. It's always fun to make logical suppositions about history- in this case, gaming history. I have to disagree with Sega being as innovative as Nintendo but aside from that point, it was a well thought out, well positioned argument.

[@GVGINU]

Well thanks Red. I wouldn't say they were as innovative as Nintendo, but there definitely some bread crumbs that kind of show where they could have gone had they been a little more forward-thinking and less reactionary.

[@fizzyfuzz5878]

The Saturn was mostly Sega Of Japan's baby I believe, and they were jealous because the Genesis/Mega Drive was much more successful in North America than Japan. So I think in spite they refused to make the Saturn backwards compatible

[@G.L.999]

I wonder how things could've been different if the N64 was backwards compatible with SNES games back then. It would've been the only console back then that could play games from the prior generation.

[@dekulevi936]

Imagine if Sega Re released Sega Genesis Games on the Saturn?

[@GVGINU]

That was kind of mixed in there with what I was saying.

[@ciredecgellar8232]

The sega Saturn wasn't rushed so ....it wasn't 500,000 poor 32 Xs sold that had any impact on Saturn sales. The Saturn was made for 3D the VDP1 chip is only used for that .......we really haven't finished telling anything about this console ....

[@GVGINU]

when the Sega Saturn was originally built it only had one of its CPU chips. It was being built to be a 2d powerhouse which it actually was. The part of the Saturn that was rushed was throwing any additional CPU and memory to the unit without having proper support for coding on it to account for the adjustment made. And that only happened after the PSX/PSOne was shown running 3D games. That is why many games were poorly optimized for it, including Sega's first party titles, like the original Virtua Fighter, that's why Virtua Fighter Remix was made to fix the issues of the original. It could do 3D very well if time was taken to really work with it. This is all very well-known.

[@thetriggeredone3461]

@@GVGINU This frustrates me that people still believe this shit the saturn was always gonna be 3d it was always gonna have 2 cpus the thing that was added later was the vdp2 to was to help vdp1 since vdp1 couldn't do infinite 3d background plane's that was how the system was developed and thats how it was supposed to work

[@thetriggeredone3461]

@@GVGINU this is all a very known myth

[@thetriggeredone3461]

@@GVGINU and the reasons the game's were poorly optimized were not only the rushed launch but because it was not so simple as the playstation this samed thing happened to the n64 it was as simple as the playstation one to develop for

[@MaxAbramson3]

Work has started on the Saturn BEFORE the Sega CD was released. It had a 68EC020 and a CD-ROM. SoJ held onto the machine, gradually adding more and more chips until we ended up with the 8-processor behemoth that cost over $400 to build.

[@carlozduerson1368]

I love your video, knuckles kaotix would have also been for saturn which would have pushed sales to new hights, though I admit it wasn't as fun as a sonic game but perception is everything, so people would have bought it regardless. The 32x had a 3D processor and saturn did not, so when they heard that the Sony PlayStation specialised in 3D, sega made a last min effort to make their 2D co sole a 3D or I like to call it 2.5D console, not quite there! Sega was too good for their own good in this timeline. But in a timeline where the 32x never came out, all the resources would have been focused on the saturn which would have backed Sony I to a corner and Nintendo would have been down for the count, Final fantasy 7 would have exploded on the saturn like origenal, and night's into dreams would have been the crash bandicute of the saturn, it would have taken the 32x place as a 3D console and it would have in this timeline the war we all know Saturn vs PlayStation. But ultimately the final fantasy 7 would have been the selling poi t for this console and with a better tech focus the sonic extrem would have been released I mid to late 1996 off the unexpected successes of knuckles kaotix selling around 4 million plus 2.5 million in pack in the saturn.. in 1994 Sony sold around 4.5 mill and saturn sold 2.8 mill, in our timeline, but in this alternate time line the saturn sales are on par with 5 milli sold and Sony sales 4 milli, until Ff7 comes out and sales would take off, the sega dream cast is released in 2002 in the fall, a d by this time I estimate the sales of the saturn have passed the 70 million mark. I gotta do my own video on this one day

[@GVGINU]

Well, glad for the response and that I could inspire you.

[@rainehappy7097]

Knuckles Chaotix with CD audio would have been great!

[@GVGINU]

It could have been, there were still other issues with that game, but they could have ironed them out.

[@carlozduerson1368]

@@rainehappy7097 real talk!!!! Even have the option of having or not having the ball and chain mechanic. Add more enemies on screen, add sonic and tails, Amy rose. Hey you know what this still could happen.

[@rainehappy7097]

@@carlozduerson1368 But Amy, Sonic, and Tails aren't Chaotix members. I'd like to see the ball n chain mechanic have better controls too. It's too random.

[@jameslockwood1958]

I think a good idea would also involve canning the Sega CD/Mega CD. Another waste of resources.

[@GVGINU]

I'm actually planning to redo this discussion as I had some information wrong. But I'll have to check and see how far separated the two were. It really depends on when Sega released, which I honestly don't remember right now, but I am researching this subject again to do a better job, so I'll look into that too.

[@rainehappy7097]

The 32X was fine, but was too expensive, hard to set up, and the games were few. Why buy a 32X version of something when the Genesis version already exists? I do like Virtua Fighter and DOOM though. The Saturn version of DOOM wasn't great either. Maybe they should have just focused on the Saturn version of DOOM? The Saturn even had Virtua Fighter, it wasn't perfect, but they fixed it later with Remix. Doesn't matter anyway since VF2 is the best one and that came packed with the system! So packing VF2 with the Saturn was a good move. The Genesis version of VF2 didn't need to exist. That was a waste.

[@GVGINU]

Well I wasn't really saying that there was an issue with the 32X as a device itself, just that the resources that were used for it could have been out to use on the Saturn since many of the parts were the same. That would have allowed for a more focused approach to the Saturn as a platform, which Sega could have really used at that point.

[@rainehappy7097]

@@GVGINU It hurt them financially for sure.

[@GVGINU]

@@rainehappy7097 That it definitely did.

[@mogo2433]

In your video...please don't record soon after eating... listening to someone berp is nasty and gross. Also, how do you not know the facts that you're talking about? It was KBToys.

[@GVGINU]

Firstly, this wasn't soon after eating. Secondly, sometimes you can forget a detail or two in the middle of running through several different thoughts. There are videos that I have recorded earlier than others that I will remember a detail more clearly than on a video I may have recorded afterwards while talking about a connected subject. It happens. I'm not a computer.

[@mogo2433]

@@GVGINU Just sounded like you were berping. You have a name for your channel? Cancel that...I see it.