/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.2811550]

Its the Sega Saturns birthday today!

Do any of you have memories of this system from years ago, or has it always been just a curious oddity that you would read about in the battle between N64 and PS1?

[Anonymous No.2811559]

I still say it could have made it if SEGA wasn't run by a bunch of dumbasses in Japan.

[Anonymous No.2811562]

>>2811559
Do you mean business/marketing decisions, hardware architecture, or both?

[Anonymous No.2811565]

>>2811550
I ended up getting a Saturn about a year ago just to play fighters megamix and it's been one of my favorite consoles ever since.
Even though most of the console game ports to the Saturn were trash I still think it had some good exclusives and arcade ports

[Anonymous No.2811572]

>>2811562

The hardware architecture as-is could have made it if SoJ had their heads properly affixed, instead of floating somewhere up their asses.

[Anonymous No.2811574]

>not putting Segata in the OP
you done goofed anon

[Anonymous No.2811584]

>>2811559
How come it was hugely successful in Japan but failed in the US then?

[Anonymous No.2811589]

>>2811584
Among other things, Le Happy Merchant (i.e. Bernie Stolar) wouldn't let a lot of games be brought over here, and he torpedoed development of other games.

[Anonymous No.2811590]

>>2811584
A lot of amazing Saturn games were released in Japan but never ported to other countries

[Anonymous No.2811594]

>>2811584

It wasn't _hugely_ successful in Japan. It simply wasn't an abject goddamn failure. The Playstation still gave it a run for its money, and still eventually beat the holy high hell out of it. That too, likely could have been avoided.

As I said, SoJ are a bunch of fucking morons on the business end.

[Anonymous No.2811603]

>>2811594
>Japan was like
PlayStation > Sega Saturn > N64
>The rest of the world was like
PlayStation > N64 >>> what console is this? > Sega Saturn

[Anonymous No.2811606]

>>2811589

Stolar was such an inferior replacement to Kalinske it wasn't even funny. Definitely a factor.

>>2811590

Keep in mind that just as often as Stolar or Sega were responsible for that, the companies themselves were also. You don't tend to want to port shit to a platform who's parent company is running screaming in the other direction from it.

At the very least, the absolute _minimum_, the winding down of Saturn should have been an orderly, subtle affair. In the US market at least, it wasn't even that.

[Anonymous No.2811612]

>>2811589
This is popular disinfo, but it was actually SEGA of Japan that made the executive decision over which games would be released in the west. For example, they didn't think Grandia would be worth publishing here, so Game Arts went to Sony and did a port for their PSX (look it up). Bernie was just following orders, so people like to use him as a scapegoat. All this was partly economics, and partly jealousy over SEGA of America's overwhelming success during the Megadrive years, and they felt emasculated that the Japanese branch wasn't the strongest. Yes, they'd rather cripple their company's health than accept the fact that gaijins managed to make SEGA as relevant as Nintendo to the world.

[Anonymous No.2811618]

>>2811606
That's true, not to mention that the Saturn was a nightmare to develop for hardware wise, which is why some ps1 ports performed worse on the Saturn despite it being much stronger than the ps1.

[Anonymous No.2811627]

>>2811618

Better SDKs could have gone a long way toward bandaging that. Thanks to SoJ, they were both late and mediocre until v2.0.

[Anonymous No.2811636]

>>2811612
I don't doubt it. I'm just an anti-semite so I latch onto any chance I get.

[Anonymous No.2811641]

I didn't have any Sega consoles growing up but I've recently got into them. I'm mainly focusing on SNES, Genesis and Saturn right now though I want a Game Gear for the Jurassic Park game.

I just got Puyo Puyo 2 today which is really fun but I like Baku Baku Animal's gameplay a little more but Puyo Puyo has way better graphics.

[Anonymous No.2811646]

>>2811636

Nah, the truth is actually much more level: Bernie is definitely Le Happy Merchant, Bernie was only too happy to cancel many of the games he did, but the facilitator of this (and ultimate bearer of the blame, as they are his superiors) was SoJ.

There's an old, trite saying: Don't hate the player, hate the game. Sega of Japan created the game, not Bernie.

[Anonymous No.2811649]

Do you have to replace the laser with a mod chip for the Saturn to play backups? Good Saturn games/imports are expensive, but I'd rather not butcher a system if given the option.

[Anonymous No.2811675]

I miss Burning Rangers...
I loved that shit

[Anonymous No.2811695]

>>2811649
Modchips go between the drive and mobo allowing the system to boot burned discs. In most cases they only require a wire from a 5V source. You don't replace anything at all. It's piss easy as far as console mods go.

An alternative where you would replace the disc drive entirely is the disc drive emulator Rhea.

[Anonymous No.2811701]

>>2811695
Good to know, thanks for this post. I'll be doing some more research tonight.

[Anonymous No.2811706]

I took a locked door off its hinges so I could play my Saturn a week before Christmas. Carefully packed it up again and won an Ocsar for best actor Christmas morning.

[Anonymous No.2811756]

>>2811584
Because of constant infighting between the US and Japanese divisions. Take a look at what happened to Sonic Xtreme if you want some examples of how crazy it was getting.

[Anonymous No.2811757]

>>2811646
Why not hate both? :)

[Anonymous No.2811771]

>>2811646
Fuck off this antisemitism shit was never funny.

>>>/v/
>>>/tv/
>>>/m/
>>>/pol/

[Anonymous No.2811774]

>>2811771
>/m/

What did they do?

[Anonymous No.2811778]

>>2811559

>SoA did nothing wrong blame the japanese!

I hate this history revisionism that has been going on within the Sega fanbase as of late.

[Anonymous No.2811784]

>>2811778
>judging events based on more accurate info that wasn't available in the past is now revisionism

Fuck off Jap it's all your fault. Based Bernie did nothing wrong and is hella good at golf.

[Anonymous No.2811787]

I fucking love the Saturn.

[Anonymous No.2811790]

>>2811612
>PSX
Don't do this.

[Anonymous No.2811794]

>>2811787
Holy shit fuck off dude. Every single Saturn thread always has to have one of you shitheads depressed over the absurd money they spent on their collection constantly showing it off as a piss poor way to justify your horrible money habits even when the topic of the thread has FUCK ALL TO DO WITH IT! NO ONE CARES! LEAVE! GO GET A LIFE OR SOMETHING HOLY CRAP!

[Anonymous No.2811797]

>>2811790
You should browse some old usenet newsgroups before starting this argument, bunghole.

[Anonymous No.2811798]

>>2811794
Look at you, gettin' all mad on the internet. C'mon son.

[Anonymous No.2811802]

What's a good price for a Sega Saturn these days? I'm in USA

[Anonymous No.2811803]

>>2811802
Just don't bother everything is too expensive including the modchips. It's not worth paying all that money for a few memegames you can easily emulate the superior arcade version of.

[Anonymous No.2811805]

>>2811794

A lot of those aren't even particularly expensive

[Anonymous No.2811809]

>>2811803
Poorfag detected.

[Anonymous No.2811813]

>>2811584
No segata sanshiro desu

[Anonymous No.2811817]

>>2811802

$70 is a fair internet/retail price for a working, tested system in good condition with cables and a controller. Though you can find them for a little cheaper if you look around

[Anonymous No.2811824]

>>2811817
Thanks. Just remembered my collector friend who has two said he would give me one a couple years ago for some pro bono work I did for him. I think I'll take him up on it and get a mod chip.

[Anonymous No.2811895]

>>2811784

Fuck you it's all subjective revisionism.

Sega of Japan did the games, that's all it matters. DWFI, burger.

[Anonymous No.2811906]

Can anyone explain to me why the Saturn had such convoluted hardware? Don't know where I read it, but I recall that Sega originally wanted to make a god tier 2D machine but threw in a bunch of extra chips last minute when they realized the industry was moving towards 3D.

[Anonymous No.2811920]

>>2811906
That's the story as I understand it. When they saw the Playstation being demoed, they added a second CPU to the main PCB in master/slave configuration. One of the biggest problems it had was that it couldn't render triangles; to make a triangle polygon, it had to make a square and set one of the sides to zero. It ate up a lot of the polygon count as a result.

[Anonymous No.2811927]

>>2811920
>When they saw the Playstation being demoed
No, that's total and complete utter bullshit. If there's one thing that made the Saturn move towards increased 3D support, it was the fact that Sega themselves at the time had the biggest hit arcade game in Japan, Virtua Fighter, which was 3D. VF was going to be Saturn's killer launch app.

Sony was still an unknown, and the idea that Sega was awkwardly falling all over themselves to play catch-up with them is purely the fantasy of Sony fanboy historical revisionists.

[Anonymous No.2811931]

>>2811794
>get a life
>on 4chan
wut

[Anonymous No.2811934]

>>2811797
every goddamn time

[Anonymous No.2811943]

I worked at Babbage's in the late 90s and I bought a Saturn before I bought an N64 (Playstation first obviously) I was also a popular mallrat in his first apartment, partying every weekend. Ask me anything, I assure you my life was the /vr/ fantasy.

[Anonymous No.2811952]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_OchOV_WDg
it's an interesting watch

[Anonymous No.2811956]

>>2811612
>jealousy
Find me one fucking source for this besides Kalinske claiming that he was a marketing genius and SoJ were complete fuckups.

[Anonymous No.2811961]

>>2811943
We're the 90s really as good as all the nostalgia kids make it out to be? What was the Pokemon hype like when that series first took off?

[Anonymous No.2811967]

>>2811574
>White
>Then Pink
What?

[Anonymous No.2811983]

>>2811550
one of my first vidya memories before I even got my PSX was playing on my older sister's boyfriends Saturn specifically the Tomb Raider demo, in the caves. They were convinced the only way to quit the demo was to drown her, so they did. In front of my 8yr old face. I was traumatised. fucking water areas man.

PS: I'm from South Africa

[Anonymous No.2811984]

>>2811961
of course not, pop culture is always shit.

[Anonymous No.2811985]

>>2811983
Also I'm stoned.
And fuck spoilers if this doesn't work.

[Anonymous No.2812046]

>>2811961
>Were the 90s really as good as all the nostalgia kids make it out to be?
What's hype is being young and part of a fresh social scene. As far as nostalgia goes, it's a lot easier to look back and identify those scenes in hindsight. Like, there was a pretty fair amount of 70s nostalgia around that time q.v. That 70s Show being so popular. The thing is that the 90s were the decade where the nerds actually took it back. It wasn't just Playstation literally bringing a whole new dimension to video games. Death of Superman struck a huge chord with people and an entirely new age of comic books got underway fueled by record breaking golden/silver age prices and speculators buying up tons and tons of "new number 1s" right and left. Where it had been just Marvel, DC and miscellaneous suddenly there was room for Dark Horse and Boom! and Image and tons of others. The market exploded. Magic: The Gathering was also a tremendous gateway to other traditional games. Suddenly, we not-so-uptight nerds that had always gotten together on weekends to smoke weed playing D&D then play video games and talk about comic books went from worrying we might get attacked by jocks for wearing our super-hero Ts to literally being looked to as the heart of a cultural movement. It's almost like I died and went to heaven. Going from no/bad pussy as a teen to having absolutely no problem scoring with lots of girls drawn to my authentic nerdness amazes me to this day and it hasn't really slowed down. If anything, it's increased with the hipster wave. It's actually a lot of fun for me to talk about it here, anonymously because part of the mystique is a blend of 90s goth nihilism like "Whatever I don't care"

[Anonymous No.2812072]

>>2811895
Just admit you fucked up as hard as you did when you called our bluff on having a second atomic bomb.

[Anonymous No.2812080]

>>2811961

>What was the Pokemon hype like when that series first took off?
I can share a funny story about that with you. I was aware of the impending virtual pet madness. One of the perks of working at Babbage's was always having tons of coverless magazines. One of my treasured memories of the time was showing my then-girlfriend a picture of Pikachu for the first time and explaining to her how very soon that yellow electric mouse would be an image she would never, ever escape. Then I showed her a photo of a Japanese 747 with him painted on it and her expression of confusion and tentative dread is still very clear. As 20-ish people, of course we rejected "kids" culture (the main reason for my N64 delay). I did manage to bring my group around to appreciating the virtual pet boom preemptively, ironically and criminally (the 90s slacker trifecta) by tipping them off to the first shipment of Tamagotchis. One of our group of course was a hardcore shoplifter and he stole at least a half dozen of them from Walmart which we proceeded to carry around and switch out among ourselves probably also slightly as satire of youth parenthood because we would act like they were our kids who we would be abusive to. I was actually the first one to get the rocket-ship ending by mercilessly beating and force feeding mine.

Pic related was what I was driving at the time since anyone who knew me at the time would already recognize me.

[Anonymous No.2812098]

hit length limit, words might be missing

>>2811778
Did SoA do wrong? Sure (never, ever, EVER forget that the 32X was their idea).

but Sega of Japan was on such a "who gives a shit about the international market" streak that it pretty much defined Sega's descent from the market
they're also the reason that every single 32X game was rushed to hell and back (they spearheaded its release and timetable, IIRC Sega of America wanted to drop the 32X mid-development when they found out about the Saturn release timetable being so close, if someone can get me a source for that again, that'd be great).
they're why the Saturn launch was so bad in the US (that absolute disaster of an E3, Sony's "$299" generating crazy hype against them, etc)
pretty much everything they did in 1994/5 can be considered an objectively bad decision, with no possible benefit, even without knowing what we do now

>>2811771
>>>/m/
wait, /m/ is probably the best board on the site, what did they do wrong

>>2811802
$40-50 for the system.
most won't have a controller because the JP-style controller can go for $20-30 on its own, you might be able to get a system with an original kind of crap US controller (or some really shitty third party one) for $50-60 these days.
price went up a bit

also, a lot of games got much more expensive (I bought Galactic Attack for $13 with shipping back in 2012, the game's like $30 before shipping now, some places will try and scalp you for $40+)
speaking of which, I need to get a new Saturn, mine's busted (something to do with the drive controller is boned)

>>2811920
>When they saw the Playstation being demoed, they added a second CPU to the main PCB in master/slave configuration
didn't the Saturn's design spec have dual SH-2s way back in '93
definitely remember reading that somewhere, was some newspaper article

[Anonymous No.2812103]

>>2811778
This is mostly a US-populated board, what do you expect

[Anonymous No.2812110]

>>2812072

Rude and tasteless.

Keep making the same impressions over and over again, americans.

[Anonymous No.2812194]

>>2811943
What did you like about the Saturn that made you get it over the N64?

[Anonymous No.2812208]

>>2812080

nobody cares about your stories of old, gramps

[Anonymous No.2812219]

>>2812194
Even with the Bernie lineup it had more of an adult flavor than the N64. We also actually carried imports for Saturn at Babbage's and I ended up buying them all when they dropped to $5 each. Basically X-Men vs Street Fighter alone was enough for me to own it, especially considering how sick the arcade sticks were. I also played quite a bit of "retro" compilations on it, the Dungeons & Dragons collection and Capcom Generations. It was also where I discovered the MSX originally. It really was my awareness of the Japanese library that lead me to buy one even in... 1997 I guess? Pretty much none of the people who hung out at my apartment was very interested in it either until Panzer Dragoon Saga came out. They were either playing the newest Playstation releases in non-party situations or Goldeneye when there were enough of them. Meanwhile I was over on one of my little Commodore monitors with the Saturn like it was my secret girlfriend. Maybe if they all hadn't been so shit at XMvsSF.

[Anonymous No.2812232]

>>2812110
Stay jelly over America's success with the Genesis Japan.

[Anonymous No.2812235]

>>2812208
Hey now I've only just recently cashed out and gotten married to a girl 14 years younger than I am. My son's only 2 1/2 so I don't THINK I have any grandkids although theoretically I could. That girlfriend I was talking about had a kid when she was 16 and now he's almost as old as my wife. I think he might be the same age as our girlfriend.

[Anonymous No.2812239]

>>2812219
That's actually really interesting. Did you have a Japanese Saturn or an Action Replay? If you had to guesstimate off the top of your head, based on how many games you sold, what percentage of the market do you think the Saturn had in the fifth gen?

[Anonymous No.2812252]

>>2812235

Is this what middleage crisis is like? blogging about your life on 4chan?

[Anonymous No.2812256]

Never actually played anything on it, but holy fuck the gamepad is god-tier.
Mayflash is noice.

[Anonymous No.2812265]

>>2812252
>middleage crisis
you get dat crisis only if your waifu is shit

[Anonymous No.2812269]

>>2812232

The Genesis is a great console, I just think it's sad how americans needed to recur to childish aggressive marketing in order to make it popular. Speaks volumes about american people.

[Anonymous No.2812285]

>>2812269

>DAE AMERIKKA BAD LOL

[Anonymous No.2812286]

The wife and I have been enjoying the retron5 as of late :) it doesn't play Sega Saturn games, but it's still very cool it saves a lot of space.
The kids love it too!

[Anonymous No.2812290]

>>2812239
At the time I used this thing called an ST-Key to boot imports and to play XMvsSF I had to hot-swap the ST-Key for the 4M cart that came with the game and it was a pretty delicate operation lol. When I finally got it to boot on like the fifth try I'd leave it running for weeks until there was a brown out. We had way more of those back then

As far as market share it was a really sad thing to observe first hand. Remember, the Saturn surprise launched at E3 so it beat the Playstation to market by like 8 months but because of how Sega shipped them, we actually didn't have any to sell even though we would have been allowed to. Only the big box stores had them which pissed off our headquarters something fierce. We got these messages called "Bmails" in the mornings on our POSes when they dialed in to update inventory and get price changes and believe me they were NOT happy with Sega. It only took like a month to get the stuff in but by then most of the consoles were already bought and we mainly sold software because our selection was much bigger than Walmart's or Kay Bee or Disc Jockey or wherever

So to start with the Saturn section was huge and bumped a lot of Genesis stuff to the bargain bin. It sold well and everything seemed like it was going to be fine. A lot of customers said they were waiting for Playstation but people say all kinds of stupid shit. However, none of us expected the advertising blitz and even though the Playstation section started out smaller it didn't take very long to see Saturn was in trouble. By January of '96 it didn't even have wall space, just one side and both ends of a kiosk.

[Anonymous No.2812295]

>>2812252
Ummmmm.. I dunno, I guess. I've actually been considering selling my Magic cards to buy a Foxbody so probably.

[Anonymous No.2812307]

>>2812290
What happened after Sega discontinued the Saturn in 98? Did you continue to get and sell new games, or was it almost all used?

[Anonymous No.2812315]

>>2812295

Well, that actually sounds like a cool midlife crisis thing to do, go for it.

Blogging on 4chan and posting pics of your kids (assuming that was your kid on the pic), not so cool.

[Anonymous No.2812317]

>>2812315
not his kid, it's from a custom mame cabinet guide

[Anonymous No.2812370]

$3G@ D03$ wh@t n1nt3nD0NT

[Anonymous No.2812385]

>>2811550
I got a Saturn because I was a collectorfag once upon a time. I literally just felt like I didn't have enough consoles or games, and so I got a Saturn too.

My impression of the thing is that it's nothing special, really. Almost ALL of it's good games are import-only affairs, and even those are nothing to write home about.

Not to be mean or rain on anyone's parade, but it's not even an oddity to me, because oddities have more than a few good games on them. The Dreamcast is an oddity. It has 10-20 good games that are often just fucking weird. Even for it's time.
Saturn had like 5-10 good games, and they were just... Meh.

Personal taste not withstanding, of course.

[Anonymous No.2812397]

>>2812385

I got a Saturn in 97, and although I don't agree with you (I think it has a lot of great games, although granted, many are arcade ports, and most are imports), I agree that it's nothing special in the sense that I don't think it's some sort of hidden awesome console or a "collector's piece" as apparently many people think.

Maybe it's because I got one back in the day and, to me, it was another console. I loved it, but I also loved my PS1 and N64.

I only learned about the Saturn being some sort of "cult status console" that colelctos adore here on /vr/

[Anonymous No.2812410]

>>2812307
I stopped working there in '98 and it was a weird thing at that point seeing Panzer Dragoon Saga at $59.99 on the tiny ass new title shelf. I really should have gone to the effort to get all the US RPGs right then but they were still $15-$20 used and I thought they'd dip lower but they never did.

>>2812315
Not my kid, but a fair example. I'd post pics of our hot ass girlfriend and my bitchin' truck first but that pic of the Dodge 600es is probably enough of a threat to my anonymity already for me to be speaking so frankly.

[Anonymous No.2812415]

>>2812410

>threat to my anonymity

LOL, don't worry I don't think any of your old friends or people you know browse 4chan.
it's not a threat to your anonymity, but it's a threat to our board quality (although I DO appreciate your experience as a retail seller and Saturn memories, so kudos for that, just lower the personal blog a bit)

[Anonymous No.2812418]

>>2812415
>just lower the personal blog a bit

His posts are the most interesting thing I've read on /vr/ in quite some time, there's nothing wrong with some personal blogging if it offers some perspective on the main topic of the entire board.

[Anonymous No.2812451]

>>2812410
Since you seem to be older than the vast majority of /vr/, how would you describe the Dreamcast hype in the late 90s? From what I understand, it was basically THE console to own until the PS2 hit a few years later.

[Anonymous No.2812454]

>>2812415
I know what you mean, Peter. When I was young, I thought that someday I'd produce upworthy web content. Am I doing it? Yes. But not everyone is so lucky.

[Anonymous No.2812459]

>>2812080

Richard?

[Anonymous No.2812460]

>>2812451
Not that guy but I remember the hype being pretty big amongst the hardcore but the more casual gamer seemed to be content with the PS1/waiting for the PS2.

Apart from Crazy Taxi, I remember everyone raving about that game. Even girls!

[Anonymous No.2812464]

>>2812459

Mom?

[Anonymous No.2812470]

>>2812460
What would you say is the first console to appeal to really appeal to casuals? For me, it seems like the PS2 was the fist console that everyone I knew wanted at the time, but I was somewhat young when it was modern.

[Anonymous No.2812474]

>>2812470

The first videogame to appeal to casuals was Pong.

Video games were always aimed for everyone, they were never a secret club thing.

That said, probably the main reason everyone wanted a PS2 so badly back then is because it was a DVD player, AND it could play video games, but that was an after thought.

[Anonymous No.2812485]

>>2812451
Honestly it was eerily parallel to the Saturn thing except with higher stakes. Dreamcast was clearly a next-generation machine. Those games I seen in mags, you won't believe they had. Fifth gen 3D is like proof-of-concept. Very, very few games even attempted to be semi-realistic looking but 6th gen really got people's attention and drew just as many probably even more new people into video gaming than 5th gen. Shit looked REAL and fuck if Sega didn't blow the doors off Sony getting to market and importers were READY this time. Import Dreamcast consoles were everywhere before the US release and actually ended up being how I got into it from release was that I picked up an NTSC-J console and games when those early adopters were swapping them out for US versions. I used this exploit where I disconnected the bios battery and let the clock set screen time out to boot US games in it. Then (at the risk of blogging) I remember when that Utopia loader appeared online and I was amazed that you could burn a CD Rom that would boot in an unmodified console but I also knew it was bad news and the first time I even remotely suspected that the Dreamcast train was anything other than unstoppable. Yeah, PS2 is fucking awesome and it played DVDs and it was backward compatible but I still think the piracy played a big role in tripping up the DC and just between you and me I strongly suspect some funny business in hardware development to have not caught that bug. DC was MUCH less expensive, had online capability right out of the box (on most packages) and had much better support for progressive scan content. I guess we all already know that though

[Anonymous No.2812515]

>>2812219
not him, but are US virtua sticks worth it? They seemed kinda soft, stick wise and buttons look and feel good, but it's the stick that's stopping me from dropping the cash

[Anonymous No.2812521]

>>2812474
>AND it could play video games, but that was an after thought.
an after thought that managed to get 3874 video game titles

[Anonymous No.2812526]

>>2812521

this was the GOAT tbqh

[Anonymous No.2812528]

>>2812515
Brand new ones are still like $20 right? You're not going to get a better stick for your Saturn for that price but if you're going to use it on your PC or something there are real arcade component sticks to be bought around the same price. I use a Pelican.

>>2812485
What is this? A picture for ants?!

[Anonymous No.2812530]

>>2812528
in my area they're going from 25 (no box) to 35 (boxed) so I guess they're worth picking up

[Anonymous No.2812554]

>>2811550
Pay homage to virtual fighter being the first true next Gen console game which also ran at 60fps. It's just a shame Namco made designed their arcade boards to be basically a psx which tekken would ultimately rape

[Anonymous No.2812560]

>>2812530
Don't be a chump
http://www.ebay.com/itm/351567640251

[Anonymous No.2812569]

>>2812560
yeah, it's 25 CAD plus 26 shipping
it's just cheaper and easier for me to buy it from my local game store

[Anonymous No.2812614]

>>2811649
I wish I had the thing in front of me, but I got one of those Action Replay, type things. It was basially a RAM cart with debug options for a ton of games. it just so happened to also allow the system to play japanese games. I don't remember if it worked with burned games, though...

[Anonymous No.2812619]

>>2811794
speak for yourself. I am jelly as hell! I wish I had never sold my copies of Dragon Force and Symphony of the Night

[Anonymous No.2812764]

>>2811778
>I hate this history revisionism that has been going on within the Sega fanbase as of late.

The Saturn's hardware design was the cause of 95% of the system's problems. It was over-expensive, underpowered, and difficult to program for.

Guess who designed it? Hint: It wasn't SoA.

[Anonymous No.2812781]

>>2812098
>Did SoA do wrong? Sure (never, ever, EVER forget that the 32X was their idea).

SEGA of Japan forced them to work on the 32X because they knew it would fuck over America while they would create the superior Saturn.

[Anonymous No.2812846]

>>2812781
yeah they hated whaitto piggu money

[Anonymous No.2812895]

>>2812846
you underestimate glorious nippon salarymen's hatred of gaijins one-upping them

[Anonymous No.2812947]

>>2812895
yeah, that real thing that totally exists

[Anonymous No.2812995]

>>2812947
keep your head in the sand if you want to, i guess

[Anonymous No.2813005]

>>2812995
I gladly turn a blind eye to the figments of your xenophobic imagination, yes

[Anonymous No.2813108]

>>2812764

hurr durr gues who? whuruhrur hint: hurrr

end your life

[Anonymous No.2813109]

>>2813005

don't bother, some americans think they're too important and that Japan feel jealous of them for making a japanese company successful or something.

Their source is some shady interviews from some jewish people that claim the japanese were EVIL YAKUZA ONI WHO HATE GAIJIN or something.

It's a weird mix of victim complex, history revision and regional brand fanaticism.

[Anonymous No.2813112]

>>2813109

This post is frothing with irony

[Anonymous No.2813120]

>>2813112

poor Sega of America, evil yakuza japs didn't let them win, am I right? ;(

>there are people posting on /vr/ that will unironically defend bernie stolar

history revisionism is weird man.

I wonder how long until /vr/ starts hating on the Segata ad campaign just for being japanese.

[Anonymous No.2813123]

>>2813120

What the hell are you replying to me for you actual autistic child.

[Anonymous No.2813126]

>>2813123

Damn, you called me autistic child... I feel truly offended, I'm sure it's the first time I've heard someone on 4chan use "autistic" as an ad hominem.

How can I be as original as you are? Do I have to become a history revisionist and start hating on Japan first? Maybe I should get enlisted to fight for America in Irak? I'd do anything to be like you are senpai

[Anonymous No.2813131]

>>2813126
>facts are insults

ok

[Anonymous No.2813137]

>>2813131
No Dude. Genesis's success in the US was entirely thanks to Japan. Dreamcast's failure in Japan was entirely the fault of the US. Isn't it obvious? Tom Kalinske is also a lying devil just look at how he's run every company he's ever been in charge of straight into the ground.

[Anonymous No.2813141]

>>2813131
>>2813137

omg guyse you don't know anything, Sega of America were the only ones who made the Genesis popular.
Becuase, you know, Europe and the latin american market don't exist at all and the only parts in the world where Sega was popular was in the US of A! The land of the Free!

Evil yakuza oni were just butthurt about WWII and wanted to place a small bomb inside every Genesis but Tom Kalinske was smart enough and he removed every one of these bombs which he later used to rocket himself out of the company when he saw that Sony, another evil yakuza oni imperial force, was entering the game.

It just wasn't fair bros, it wasn't fair

[Anonymous No.2813149]

>>2813141
>he removed every one of these bombs which he later used to rocket himself out of the company
Okay this made me laugh

[Anonymous No.2813154]

>>2813149

it's true though.

Facts, you know. Facts.

I actually think both SoA and SoJ were retarded. I know Kalinske was good at marketing with the Genesis but that's it, I won't put all the blame on the japanese and of course I think Stolar was one of the biggest fuck ups in Sega's history. As of late I've read a lot of people puting all the blame on the japanese and I think that's retarded.

[Anonymous No.2813159]

>>2813154
Bernie was just kind of a stooge who I think padded his resume heavily and managed to impress someone at SoJ most likely by seeming like the opposite of Kalinske and being "stealable" from Sony. Neither Stolar nor Kalinske cared very much for Saturn so it's understandable to hate on both of them in a Saturn thread.

[Anonymous No.2813165]

>>2813159
>Neither Stolar nor Kalinske cared very much for Saturn so it's understandable to hate on both of them in a Saturn thread.

Saturn's hardware made it DOA. Why should they have cared about Saturn when against all advice Sega tried to design the 3D console themselves instead of deferring it to the 3D experts at Silicon Graphics like they should have?

[Anonymous No.2813172]

>>2813165
>Why should they have cared about Saturn

Because there were tons of fans who bought (or wanted to buy) the console and enjoy games like Grandia or Soul Hackers on it.

Thanks Stolar, you amazing jew.

[Anonymous No.2813175]

>>2812515
>are US virtua sticks worth it? They seemed kinda soft, stick wise and buttons look and feel good, but it's the stick that's stopping me from dropping the cash

No, there is a reason why they go for $20. They all use rubber membranes instead of actual switches, even for the stick. Stay away from them.

The Japanese 2nd gen stick has switches and it is much better.

[Anonymous No.2813184]

>>2811550

I remember seeing NiGHTS running on a kiosk in Toys R Us as being one of maybe a dozen times in my life where a videogame totally blew my mind in terms of how beautiful it was in motion

[Anonymous No.2813201]

>>2813172
>tons

hah

[Anonymous No.2813203]

>>2813201

Yeah, Sega were pretty popular and there were tons of people interested.
People interested != people who actually bought the console due to how badly Stolar butchered the catalogue by not letting 2D games and RPGs on it.

[Anonymous No.2813206]

>>2813203
Few people bought those games when ported to PS1, but let's not harm your myopia

[Anonymous No.2813217]

>>2813206

Soul Hackers was never localized on PS1 either, and I thought Grandia sold decently, it got pretty good reviews and me and my friends all bought it for PS1 back in the day.

What do you mean with myopia? Is that an attempt at ad hominem?

Are you guys really gonna start defending Stolar now?

[Anonymous No.2813218]

>>2811649
What semen demon is this anime from?

[Anonymous No.2813220]

>>2811787
>twinkle star sprites

muh nigga.

[Anonymous No.2813224]

>>2813141
holy shit lel

[Anonymous No.2813226]

>>2811961
>What was the Pokemon hype like when that series first took off?

Unlike anything seen before or since. Pokemon literally took over the world for a few years. I think more children knew what Pokemon was more than Micky Mouse or Ronald McDonald.

[Anonymous No.2813228]

>>2813217

Grandia was also one of the most imported games in the US for Saturn, a lot of people wanted to play it and would have bought it if it was localized.

[Anonymous No.2813231]

>>2813217
>Soul Hackers was never localized on PS1 either
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Megami_Tensei:_Devil_Summoner:_Soul_Hackers

Platform(s) Sega Saturn, PlayStation, Nintendo 3DS

>I thought Grandia sold decently
0.2 million outside of Japan

[Anonymous No.2813234]

>>2813231

Are you implying Soul Hackers was LOCALIZED on PS1? Nigger, are you the one who was accusing some other anon of myopia?

[Anonymous No.2813235]

>>2813231
Never mind, I misread what you wrote about Soul Hackers.

But considering how (un)well Persona sold in the west on PS1, there's no chance Soul Hackers would have made any impact whatsoever.

[Anonymous No.2813238]

>>2813235

Yeah, careful with that myopia bro

[Anonymous No.2813242]

>>2813238
I love how you pretended to be more than one person in this post >>2813234
>accusing some other anon
hah

[Anonymous No.2813247]

>>2813242

Sorry, I can't read too well, it's the myopia. I'm gonna boot up some english Soul Hackers on PS1, but I gotta put on the glasses first!

[Anonymous No.2813250]

>>2811550
Was my Childhood system,
ah the memories

[Anonymous No.2813256]

>>2813247
>Sorry, I can't read too well, it's the myopia

Myopia is the inability to read well at long distances you idiot.

[Anonymous No.2813262]

>>2813256

Then why did you assume that other anon was reading at a long distance?

[Anonymous No.2813264]

>>2813250

Tell us about it, what games did you got with it?

And where are you from? how was the Saturn marketed in your region? Did other kids you know have it too?

[Anonymous No.2813280]

>>2813264
Well I lived in around Chicago when we bought it, I was just too young to be in school, so I didn't really have any friends around there. We had a decent amount of games for it, but around when the system started to crash, my mom got lucky and bought like 90% of the US library at this one store, a dollar a pop.

Then shortly later I had move to the middle of nowhere, Indiana, and I had got into school yata yata. I spent a lot of my childhood playing all of those Saturn games, but could never discuss it with my friends at school. Nobody knew what it was. I had a friend come over to my house one day, and he had never seen or heard of it or any of its games ever

Till this day, I am the only one of all my friends, or people that I know in general mater of fact, that grew up with a Saturn

From what my mom told me, It was very popular around Chicago back then idkk

[Anonymous No.2813414]

>>2812515
I bought one. It was literally only any use when playing Sega-style 3D fighters (eg, Fighting Vipers and VF2). Playing Galactic Attack with it was the worst (because diagonals).

it also feels cheap as fuck

[Anonymous No.2814336]

>>2811787
Was there a particular reason US Saturn cases were so much larger than the Japanese ones?

[Anonymous No.2814354]

>>2814336
Because we have more space. Go big or go home.

[Anonymous No.2816085]

>>2811794
You do know a lot of us bought most of our saturn stuff when it was much, much cheaper?

[Anonymous No.2816342]

>>2812515
Mostly just confirming what others have said. They're shit. The Japanese ones are acceptable. The 130 is really the only excellent stick they made.

[Anonymous No.2816359]

>>2814336

Probably something to do with not wanting to have less shelf space than N64 boxes and PS1 longboxes. If anything it's weird that PS1 cases are small

[Anonymous No.2816375]

>>2816359
Except for how Saturn came out first

[Anonymous No.2816379]

>>2816375
and?

[Anonymous No.2816390]

>>2816379
...and that means Saturn boxes can't be a reaction to N64 and PlayStation boxes that didn't exist yet? Are you retarded?

[Anonymous No.2816392]

>>2811550
Great system if you're into arcade games.

[Anonymous No.2816402]

>>2816390

They did exist. Do you think they designed and prototyped things the day they were released?

[Anonymous No.2816404]

>>2816392
I think this is an apt description of every Sega console.

[Anonymous No.2816495]

>>2816404
Except the Pico.

Contrarian away~

[Anonymous No.2816512]

>>2816495
And 32X, unless you really like AM2 games.

[Anonymous No.2816520]

>>2816512
>Arcade perfect ports of Space Harrier and After Burner

>Virtua Racing/Fighter

>The definitive MK2

>Cosmic Carnage

>NBA Jam

>Star Wars Freakin' Arcade

No

[Anonymous No.2816525]

>>2816520
SH, AB and VF are AM2 games.

The rest of those games are trash.

[Anonymous No.2816530]

>>2816525
I know.

Too bad they're still arcade games

Your opinion is bad, and you should feel bad.

[Anonymous No.2816538]

>>2816530
Says the guy that lists MK2 as a reason to own a 32X for arcade games.

[Anonymous No.2816541]

>>2816538
Yeah, it's the best version.

[Anonymous No.2816542]

>>2816541
Best version of a turd doesn't really mean much.

[Anonymous No.2816551]

>>2816542
What, Street Fighter fan or something? Pull the stick outta your ass, mate.

[Anonymous No.2816556]

>>2816551
Even back in the day, MK was only liked for its controversy, not its shit dial-a-combo gameplay.

Besides UMK3 is the only one worth playing if only because of how hilariously broken it is.

[Anonymous No.2816564]

>>2816556
>Liking a game because it's broken

>Not liking a game because it's controversial

I mean, I understand the sentiment (cheap marketing), but it's still fun. It's not like I'm claiming it's the end-all-be-all of the fighting game genre, far from it. But it's a blast to throw on when me and my buddies are plastered and wanna commit mindless retro violence.

But yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man. Feel free to be entitled to it.

[Anonymous No.2817708]

>>2811943
Hey, fellow saturn-babbagesbro. I was 3rd/2nd key at a mall babbages from 2000 until 03' when we were bought out by StopGame. And sounds like we had sort of similar Saturn experiences. By some weird twist of fate two of my hs friends also had Saturns instead of PS1's and we got into importing just for the capcom fighters. We took advantage when it died here in the US and raided all the bargain bins. Between the three of us we pretty much had every title and would swap back and forth. Good times.

[Anonymous No.2818263]

>>2816402
> yes I am retarded