A commercial failure by comparison with its rival the PlayStation, the Saturn nevertheless boasted stylish, genre-defining titles that are still played and beloved by retro games enthusiasts today
It is one of the greatest injustices of video game history that the Sega Saturn is widely considered a failure. The console, which was launched in Japan on 22 November 1994, almost two weeks ahead of the PlayStation, is continually and pejoratively compared to its rival. We hear about how Sony produced a high-end machine laser targeted at producing fast 3D graphics, while Sega’s engineers had to add an extra graphics chip to the Saturn at the last minute. We read that Sony’s Ken Kutaragi provided creators with a much more user-friendly development system. We know that Sony undercut the price of Sega’s machine, using its might as a consumer electronics giant to take the financial hit. All of that is true, but what aren’t always mentioned are the vast success of the Japanese Saturn launch, and the extraordinary legacy that Sega’s 32-bit machine left behind.
What I remember is this: Edge magazine reporting from Akihabara in Tokyo, where its Japanese correspondent had joined a queue outside the major Laox computer game centre to try and snag one of the thousand or so machines not already preordered by fans. Two-and-a-half hours later, the writer emerged with his purchase, which included a copy of Virtua Fighter, the best arcade fighting game of the year. It was a lucky buy: the shelves were emptying fast all over town. Sega shifted an unprecedented 200,000 units that day.
