/vr/ - Retro Games

>>10774165
>programming the dual SH2 chips was a challenge due to bus contention to the main RAM, and programmers struggled with the tiny 4KB internal CPU cache, therefore give the second SH2 a secondary 128K DRAM for a secondary cache
>remove VDP2 to reduce cost, we don't need 2D background tiles
>256 maximum colors on screen instead of 32 thousand to speed up rendering and reduce VRAM requirements from 2x256KB to 2x64KB
>CD will now be handled by the SH2 "slave" chip instead of a third SH chip (SH1) to save costs
>sounds will be handled by the cheap and reliable Ensoniq OTIS
>now that it costs substantially less to manufacture, sell it $50 less than the PS1 and market it as the budget alternative
And there you have it. Sharturn is saved.

>>10774165
fuck another one of these thread?
alright well what I would do is spend all my money contacting with a US defense contractor the specializes in tech and use something they have for civilian applications
I believe this was done at one point

that or find the cheapest offering that was half as better as the genesis
anything where retarded zoomers expect a video game company to put top tier pc hardware in what is essentially a toy doesn't even deserve consideration

>>10774165
Everything that would have improved the Saturn from a hardware perspective would have just made it more like the playstation.
>Single fast CPU with hardware T&L coprocessor
>Inverse texture mapped polygons
>Single fast framebuffer and single fast main RAM
>No useless bottlenecked DSP
etc. etc.

The fact is that hardware wasn't what was wrong with the Saturn. Pissing off retailers and launching it early with no games and only getting shit ports is what killed it. If Daytona and Virtua Fighter weren't such embarrassments it might have gained traction.

>>10774165
the sega saturn is perfect as it is. the fact that it filters noobs makes me love it even more

>>10774165
Sega goes third party right then and there. Skip straight to the inevitable part and save everyone a few billion dollars.

>>10774165
Make good games.

>>10774183
>Pissing off retailers and launching it early with no games and only getting shit ports is what killed it
Really just pissing off the retailers, other consoles have survived bad launches and shitty games. But imagine being so dumb that your product is banned forever from several large chains. That's a whole other level of failure.

>>10774165
I know this isn't easy, but what SEGA needed to do was make something closer to what Sony did, a console that can do both 2D and 3D decently, it should've been relatively easy to program for, it needed CDs since it's something that helped it have an edge over N64 in Japan afterall, and those classic Genesis IPs all coming back... Genesis compatibility would've helped.

Instead they made an expensive console that wasn't too good at 3D despite SEGA being good at in the the arcades, that was hard to develop for, no backwards compatibility and few of their major Genesis IPs that made it successful in the west in the first place. I mean, NO SONIC? What were they thinking? Sonic's just the main case, there were many other classic IPs they ignored.

In this scenario, if you're a fan of the Genesis... why would you get a Saturn over the PlayStation? PlayStation's cheaper, has more 3D which was all the rage back then, Crash which was a better 3D platformer than anything on Saturn, a bunch of good 2D stuff too... Saturn didn't take advantage of anything SEGA had going for them by having a successful console and reputation, it just sucked.

I mean, maybe they could've just scrapped the Saturn and well ahead with only the Nepture to keep it cheap, backwards compatible with the Genesis, stellar 2D and some 3D just like the Saturn had, compatible with Genesis controllers, I'm not even joking when I say that, had they not released the Saturn in the west, releasing the Nepture instead, it would've sold more, for real.

the 32x killed their sales and credibility

>>10774165
Doesn't it have most of the Genesis hardware in it already? Some of the Genesis ports literally just have the ROMs on the disc with hooks implemented for Saturn equivalent functions for the rest.

Make it able to play VCD's natively.

>>10774165
There's nothing wrong with the Saturn and dream cast, the were both just poorly timed.

>>10774173
Sounds pretty good NGL. If saturn was cheaper than PS1, More people would have settled on it.

>>10774287
How did this happen, I've never head of this.

>>10774165
It, and the 32x, should've both been scrapped in favor of the Neptune. I mean, just think about it, a console coming out in 1994 or 1995, that's not only compatible with all of your Genesis stuff, or even Master System with an adapter, but can go and play 32-Bit titles aswell, excellent 2D and an impressive 3D for the time aswell, maybe make it a bit more powerful than a 32x, but still cheap...

If they managed to release something like this in 1994/1995 for the same price as a PlayStation, a bit cheaper even considering it wasn't meant to cost more than US$200 at first, it might've won.

It would've been cheap to make and sell since all, or most of its parts, were just the Genesis, it'd be compatible with Genesis cartridges, controllers... easier to develop for than Saturn, so much good.

Of course, if they did the same they did with the Saturn, not having any major SEGA IP, or at least keep so many of them absent, then it still loses, I think it had a better chance though, Sony was on a roll from the get go even with SEGA already in the market as an established developer... launch and price were awful for the Saturn, a console as cheap as Sony's, or cheaper, would've been huge.

>>10774476
Long story short, console launches were a huge deal to retailers. They all wanted stock and they all wanted time to advertise and get customers excited. Sega in their infinite wisdom just gave out Saturns to random stores and didn't bother to tell their other partners. So the Saturn just "showed up" with no fanfare and certain big retailers were shut out. Kay Bee Toys (and I think Wal-Mart) were so pissed off they told Sega "We will NEVER carry this product", and held their word on that.

>>10774165
fuck off spammer

>>10774173
Congrats on making the system even worse. It still sucks at 3d, but now you have removed all its advantages making it 100% shit.

>>10774512
Would've surely been too expensive but this would've been really cool with an intergrated Sega CD too. They could've supported the Sega CD 32x as the standard format instead of just abandoning it after a few FMV titles

>>10774512
Would've surely been too expensive but this would've been really cool with an intergrated Sega CD too. They could've supported the Sega CD 32x as the standard format instead of just abandoning it after a few FMV titles

>>10774165
Here's how.
>cheaper CD drive
>less RAM usage
>only 832KB of fast DRAM required
>only 1 display chip
>fully programmable software DRM
>128/256 color, no real time CD streaming, but cheaper to manufacture than PS1.

>>10774785
>m-muh advantage
>s-sega supremacy
Suck it nakayama.

>>10774165
it's simple: don't be the first
wait for what the others have come up with
I wouldn't have started planning it until the ps1 was out

>>10774834
> 320x192
yes I just love the letterboxxed look
Also, what is the point of this machine, it is all around worse than the final saturn. And has no stengths of its own.

>>10774927
>what is the point of this machine
for sega:
>cheaper to manufacture
>only requires minor modifications to the board design and VDP1 firmware
>less graphics data = faster rendering
>SoA can't refuse this system, it's both powerful and affordable, maybe like $200 without the cd drive
>simpler to program for (slow ram is connected to DMA, SCU-DSP is now just a simple sony GTE-like engine coupled to the SH-2, no need to deal with two VDPs and goraurd shading), attracts more devs
for customers:
>cheaper than ps1
>optional yet cheap off the shelf cd drive, high replaceability and repairability
>easily expandable RAM
>more PS1 ports

>>10774175
>anything where retarded zoomers expect a video game company to put top tier pc hardware in what is essentially a toy
This. Games were barely a sub-culture back then, if at all. They were toys,
regardless if "multimedia adults" or teenage nerds played them.

>>10774294
>In this scenario [of not having a Sonic game at launch], if you're a fan of the Genesis... why would you get a Saturn over the PlayStation? PlayStation's cheaper, has more 3D which was all the rage back then, Crash which was a better 3D platformer than anything on Saturn, a bunch of good 2D stuff too...
This makes sense. 90% of people didn't buy a Genesis because its tech or its association with Sega but for its association with SONIC. Same reason I got a Dreamcast, initially. If the main reason that attracts you to a console is not there, why not just get a different brand's? Despite their faults that gen, Nintendo kept a core audience (that kept them afloat so that the system could get future releases) by having a Mario game at launch with the 64. I'm guessing the Saturn was fairly successful in Japan despite the lack of a Sonic launch because Sonic wasn't as popular there and so there was no expectation for him (besides suspected Sony-plant not withholding game releases there). Also Virtua Fighter was probably an effective "mascot-choice" for that region, but that's just my pure speculation.

>>10775020
*future key releases

>>10774798
Was this actually a viable format for regular games or was it useful only for higher res FMV games?

>>10775000
Does not matter how cheap it is. Nobody would want it. Also ps1 ports would look like complete garbage, as all lighting would be lost, and the entire game would need to be paletterized.

>>10775060
>Does not matter how cheap it is. Nobody would want it.
The cheapest systems normally win, as long as they could run their competitor's games. Gameboy, nes, ps1, switch, and such.
>Also ps1 ports would look like complete garbage, as all lighting would be lost, and the entire game would need to be paletterized.
NDS won bigly against the PSP despite its games looking like utter shit. People still even bought gba sp and gba micro. People really didn't make a huge deal over graphics. Sure they did in conversations, but that rarely affected sales that much. System price and library are the most important things.
Also there's one huge advantage the saturn has over PS1. Expandable RAM, a feature sega never really capitalized on strangely. Although it surely needed to be optional, all Saturn games should've benefited from RAM expansion. More sprite frames, faster loading, etc.

>>10775116
>Gameboy, nes, ps1, switch, and such.
Gameboy was the strongest handheld available when it debuted.
NES was the strongest home console available when it debuted.
PS1 was the strongest home console available when it debuted.
Switch was the strongest handheld available when it debuted.

>>10774294
>>10774512
The more I think about this the more I realize how it would've probably been a good idea. We would've had more Sonic, more Streets of Rage, more Genesis series in general, but in 32-bit, plus backwards compatibility with Genesis. Thankfully we at least got the CDX, which is like a lite version of this idea.

>>10775026
It was only used for FMV games at the time, but presumably it could've been used for something really cool had they not cut support for it so early on. I feel it would've been like a slightly cooler 3DO

>>10774165
Would have stuffed it full of ram. Removed all 3D capabilities. Removed internal memory capability. Removed Cart slot. Sold it in Japan only. Shitting on the USA market.

>>10774196
>the fact that it filters noobs makes me love it even more
That was always part of the allure of the Saturn. Even in the 90s it was the hardcore gamers choice. Playstation offered lite party gaming for casual shitters.

>>10775163
>gameboy is only 2 months apart from the atari lynx and got derided by gaming magazines due to how awful the screen is
>NES was weaker than vectrex, atari 8-bit in many ways, and C64 (not a console, but home computers took american households by storm, a market conquered by the much weaker vic 20 recently)
>switch was weaker than every home console and less portable than ps vita
With the same logic, atari lynx, atari jaguar, virtua boy, neo geo, neo geo pocket color, turbo handheld, sega nomad, dreamcast, xbox, psp, ps vita, ps3, and xbox series x should have won.

>>10775020
Indeed, they really thought people would by the next SEGA just for it being the next SEGA, and it never crossed their minds that people bought a Genesis for a reason, and everything people back then bought a Genesis for was now exactly what Sony had going for them. I didn't know much as a kid, but my dad was more into it, he bought the Genesis and, after it broke, he got a PlayStation.

I think I've seen a single Saturn during childhood, and I didn't even know what it was, I just recall it having a SEGA logo, and a cartridge slot aswell, I thought it could play Genesis, how wrong I was...

These threads are retarded and so are the anons who keep perpetuating them.

>>10774165
/vr/ - What If and Elseworlds

Why are threads that aren't lacking imagination so hated on this board? Do we want to talk about the same 30 games and take photos of the same 4 dusty consoles every single day just like reddit?

>>10774538
Never got to experience this because PAL but I thought ps1 and sat didn't take off until just before n64 came out with the big price cuts. I would think only the very rich could afford it the first 1.5 years. Never saw the 3DO, jaguar and 32x battle either. For me it was snes and megadrive and then one day ps1 and saturn were around.

>>10774834
I wonder if Sega could have just made a good 2D console and tried to market it as super 2D instead of poor 3D or just super scaler style 3D. Make it based on system 32. SH2 with a 2D vdp that is backward compatible.

>>10774165
Its not as easy as fixing the Megadrive where its simply add a few bytes of cram for double the colours or the Mega CD of just adding video out.
I think there probably is no real way to fix the issues it has and it would probably be better to start again with a clean slate for it to beat ps1.
Thing is Saturn graphics were considered spectacular just like 3DO graphics were but how was Sega to know that a very similar system would be released but 20% faster.

I was thinking about the Jaguar, it was impressive in a few ways but the architecture was just so dead end that there was just no way of fixing it to handle polygons while it was well suited to interesting sprite effects that were popular just before polygons took over. So if they just focused on what it was good at then it would have left a better impression at the time.

>>10774173
SH2 x2 is pretty good, can run doom almost like a 486/66.

>>10774294
I wanted Saturn but it was discontinued before I could afford it, I really think Sony had some shady deals to remove Saturn for all stores to dump it at once.

>>10774165
>spend more on cpu, and memory, just keep it simple and versatile like the mega drive. should be powerful and easy to program even without a great sdk, but it would also be much easier to provide a good sdk. with a fast cpu you can avoid needing mpeg decoder hardware or complex cdrom controller, while also improving game performacne.
perhaps
>single Motorola 68060 at least 50mHz maybe even 100. controls peripherals directly, less coprocessors. wider bus connected to fewer devices
>small cpu cache
>simple risc gpu similar in design to the budget rendition verite cards
> 6 to 8 MB unified ram
>similar yamaha sound chip
hard to say how much this all would cost back then, but having physically less chips and a much simpler motherboard would help a lot.
>have a fan and vent rather than an expansion slot
>sell flash memory cards like the playstation, don't bother with onboard save memory

>>10774512
by the time you combine the 32x and cd with the genesis you have an abomination even more overcomplicated, totally onerous to program, and just as overpriced as the saturn. the cd was a modest success but the 32x was the obvious beginning of the end for sega.

>>10776131
>I wonder if Sega could have just made a good 2D console and tried to market it as super 2D instead of poor 3D or just super scaler style 3D. Make it based on system 32. SH2 with a 2D vdp that is backward compatible.
Sega saturn *is* a system 32 superscaler based console. That's why it's poor at 3D, it's really slow and inefficient at doing actual 3D texturing. You can't read texture chunks partially, you have to render the whole tile every time. The saturn should've had more system 32 style games indeed, but sega wasn't known for great decision making, they tried to compete directly with playstation.
Backwards compatibility would be quite impossible. Most of the code of their old arcade games were written for 68000. RISC CPUs like SH2 had very different instruction sets.

>>10774165
joystick gamepad by default.

>>10774175
>retarded zoomers expect a video game company to put top tier pc hardware in what is essentially a toy
Yeah, really zany idea

>>10774165
I would have made the system backwards compatible with Genesis, Sega CD games. And 32X if that was feasible.

No one cared about backwards compatibility back then. Everyone wanted 3D games and 2D games were old and stale.

>>10777247
I cared.

>>10774165
The CPS2 was almost 2 years old when the Saturn was released.

What I would have *insisted* on is that the Saturn be capable of absolute-no-compromises ports of CPS2 games.
Which would at the same time have also covered the CPS1, Neo-Geo, and most any previous 2d arcade game release.

This would mean support for 384x224 resolution, and a 4mb increase in system memory. If this meant delaying the system by a year then so be it. Support the 32X and Sega CD in the time between.

>>10777247
>Everyone wanted 3D games and 2D games were old and stale.
That is not true.

>>10779208
>and a 4mb increase in system memory.
ridiculous. people who wanted this would just buy a neo geo cd instead (which they didn't, because nobody wanted this)

>>10779215
You're ridiculous.
Players wanted Capcom games over SNK at the time. Still do. I ain't buying no fucking Neo Geo CD that doesn't have anything but SNK games on it.

>>10779214
Take a look at any gaming magazine from that era. Everyone was excited about 3D and 2D was the past.

>>10779231
I read numerous articles in magazines at the time because I was 11 when the Saturn was released.
I was hugely into 2d fighting games at the time and proceeded to buy every shitty PS1 port that came along after I got the system for Christmas in 97. Then I bought a Dreamcast on 9/9/99 and relished the perfect ports MVC1 and Super Turbo.
>okay, and KOF 98 in the form of KOF 1999, I do love SNK games as well.

>>10779240
Also before I got my PS1 I bought Street Fighter Alpha 2 for SNES *after* I already had gotten an N64 for Christmas in 1996. For like $70. Because I wanted to play the game so badly and it was the only system I owned it was released for.

Yes, I got an N64 and PS1 in successive years for Christmas. No, I was not a richfag.

>>10779208
Nobody cared about CPS2, not least in 1996. I know you're furiously masturbating to Morrigan's sprites, but that's the truth. If CPS2 mattered, the Saturn would have beaten the PS1 already.

>>10779240
The mass market was ready to move on, 2D was not a selling point.

>>10776038
>How to Save the Saturn™
>imagination

>>10779270
>How to Save the Saturn:
>Don't be SEGA
Problem solved

>>10779269
NPC opinion

>>10779284
Sony banned games for being 2D because they didn't want their console associated with those graphics. How you personally feel about 2D games today is not relevant to the consumer trends of the mid 90's.

>>10779302
More NPC regurgitation.

These threads are pointless because zero-imagination medical autists cannot conceive of ANY course of action other than exactly the same course that Sega pursued. The course that lost the war, yet in their minds any deviation from this course would have been "retarded". They just want to lament.

>>10779309
I always find those sorts of comments fascinating. The worldview of someone's who information comes from literal shill rags. I guess all those 2d games that I, everyone I knew, and apparently everyone else based on people still talking about them over 20 years later, were obsessed with were just in my head! Diablo, Age of Empires, Starcraft? Total flops no one wanted.

>>10779338
If 2D was all the rage back then, why did the only console to embrace it fail? PS1 and N64 blew Saturn out of the water.

>>10779317
Okay shithead, you want precise wording? They are actions that Sega could not have rationally chosen to do.
Telling Sonic Team to make Sonic Xtreme? Good idea, except they were all on strike NOT to make a Sonic game, and telling them that might just make them run off to Sony.
Traveller's Tales? Good idea, except now you just snubbed the American branch out of a flagship title in favor of a 3rd party. Without a few years of hindsight it's impossible to know that STI would fuck things up that bad.

Leave project
Give OP's dad a condom so this thread would never have been made

>>10776038
What if and alternate history shit ain't retro.

>>10779369
The Playstation is an extremely capable 2d console.

>>10779379
But it's not a 2D console. They didn't want 2D games on their system. If you like SOTN, that's great. But that's not why they sold so many playstations. 3D was the trend, they capitalized on it, and they won big.

>>10779395
You're aware it isn't a binary choice?

>>10779398
The general trend was for 3D, I'm not making any argument about the quality of 2D games, or whether or not they existed.

>>10779369
PS1 had plenty of good 2d games AND good 3d games AND better 3rd party support AND it was cheaper AND it was easier to develop games for.

>>10779416
>The general trend was for 3D
I don't disagree with that. But I do disagree with your complete dismissal of 2d gaming.
Did you know Street Fighter Zero 2 was the highest earning arcade game in 1996?
Even higher than Virtua Fighter 2 or 3.
There were many other 2d fighting games that also did well.

So for a post like this >>10779208
to say that it would be a good idea ahead of time to ensure that the Saturn had the best possible ports of these games is not a bad idea. Probably not enough to change the course of history and put it in the lead, but definitely a help.

The problem with posters like you is you read this post and think that the person wrote it means that Sega should entirely focus on 2d gaming, when that's not what was written there at all. You have this black and white mentality where you can't see any change as minor. You see a post like
>I think the Saturn should have had slightly better 2d performance
but you read
>I THINK THE SATURN SHOULD COMPLETELY DISREGARD 3D ENTIRELY AND FOCUS ONLY ON ARCADE PERFECT PORTS OF CPS2 GAMES

Learn2nuance.

>>10779378
Yes they are though.