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Post by Xeogred on Sept 15, 2020 17:42:26 GMT -5
Yeah a lot of that does make sense. The Genesis was more uncensored and adult in ways compared to the SNES. The PSX was absolutely that compared to the N64, so Sony snatched that mature audience from Sega in ways probably. Pretty sure Nintendo was still censoring stuff during that era too which also wouldn't help their case.
I wasn't surprised to see the Saturn outsold the Genesis in Japan, since I've always heard how well the Saturn did in its home and that the Genesis was bigger in the West. But... it's still all a bit weird haha. I don't know if Nintendo or Sony have ever experienced such radically different scenarios per territory and complete shifts from one console generation to another.
Anyways, I was blunt with my initial Saturn responses. I won't write off anything completely, but it's still a very low priority system for me. I don't really go back to the N64 either though. So it's mainly just been the PSX for my 32bit fix.
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Post by toei on Sept 15, 2020 18:04:38 GMT -5
Yeah a lot of that does make sense. The Genesis was more uncensored and adult in ways compared to the SNES. The PSX was absolutely that compared to the N64, so Sony snatched that mature audience from Sega in ways probably. Pretty sure Nintendo was still censoring stuff during that era too which also wouldn't help their case. I wasn't surprised to see the Saturn outsold the Genesis in Japan, since I've always heard how well the Saturn did in its home and that the Genesis was bigger in the West. But... it's still all a bit weird haha. I don't know if Nintendo or Sony have ever experienced such radically different scenarios per territory and complete shifts from one console generation to another.Anyways, I was blunt with my initial Saturn responses. I won't write off anything completely, but it's still a very low priority system for me. I don't really go back to the N64 either though. So it's mainly just been the PSX for my 32bit fix. Well, yeah. The N64 was a flop in Japan, and a hit in the West. They went from 17 million Super Famicoms sold to 5.54 million N64s in Japan. That's what really makes it a flop, in my view; while the Saturn only sold a little more than the N64, Sega nearly doubled their domestic sales number from the Mega Drive to the Saturn, while Nintendo lost over 2/3 of their market position. IIRC, the Mark III/Master System sold about 1.7 or 1.8 million units there, so their sales nearly doubled every generation up until the Dreamcast.
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Post by Xeogred on Sept 15, 2020 18:13:36 GMT -5
Dang, I forget the N64 wasn't too hot in Japan. Guess that's why some of us the other day were talking about how hard Sony and third parties destroyed them that era. Nintendo is lucky they had the Gameboy, because the Gamecube did even worse than the N64 worldwide.
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Post by Sarge on Sept 15, 2020 18:35:19 GMT -5
Yeah, losing all those RPGs was a massive blow to Nintendo. Especially losing Dragon Quest, even if it did get stuck in development hell before finally releasing. Nintendo was basically stuck playing the role of Sega in Japan that generation.
Game Boy was one of those cases where you'd think they were primed to lose on that front, too, but Pokemon blew up and single-handedly kept that hardware viable. I mean, I even bought a copy because, well, Game Boy RPG. I didn't even know there was a cartoon!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 15, 2020 21:01:02 GMT -5
Yeah a lot of that does make sense. The Genesis was more uncensored and adult in ways compared to the SNES. The PSX was absolutely that compared to the N64, so Sony snatched that mature audience from Sega in ways probably. Pretty sure Nintendo was still censoring stuff during that era too which also wouldn't help their case. I wasn't surprised to see the Saturn outsold the Genesis in Japan, since I've always heard how well the Saturn did in its home and that the Genesis was bigger in the West. But... it's still all a bit weird haha. I don't know if Nintendo or Sony have ever experienced such radically different scenarios per territory and complete shifts from one console generation to another. Anyways, I was blunt with my initial Saturn responses. I won't write off anything completely, but it's still a very low priority system for me. I don't really go back to the N64 either though. So it's mainly just been the PSX for my 32bit fix. The PC Engine being big was one of the reasons the Genesis sold so poorly there.
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Post by Ex on Sept 15, 2020 22:37:42 GMT -5
I plan to respond to others' posts later, but for now my answers... Do you recall what you thought of the Saturn when you first learned of its existence?Man it was hard NOT to know about the Saturn, if you read gaming mags at the time. Who could forget ads like this: I thought the Saturn seemed strangely soon, considering the 32X released in November 1994, then the Saturn released the same month and year in Japan. I knew those dates because I had an EGM subscription at the time. However the release dates for countries were weird. The USA got the 32X in November of '94, but didn't get the Saturn until May '95. Meanwhile Japan got the Saturn in November '94, but didn't get the 32X until December '94. Even though I was only 15 at the time this stuff was going on, I already knew something wasn't right with SEGA's hardware development direction. I remember thinking it was weird for SEGA to simultaneously encourage players/developers to keep using the Genesis with the 32X, but at the same time encourage players/developers to move on to the Saturn. Strangely opposing forces on the same team! Anyway, it was irrelevant for me, because at the time I could not afford a 32X or Saturn, because I was putting all my money into building my first car (a hot rod). And my parents certainly weren't going to pay $700 (including tax) for a Saturn console for their angsty teenage son. When and where did you first play the Saturn?It was in 1997 or 1998 (not exactly sure), at a friend's house. The game I played on his Saturn, was NiGHTS into Dreams using the honker 3D Control Pad. I remember thinking the graphics were OK, but NiGHTS' game design sucked. (Many years later I fell in love with NiGHTS on Wii though.) He didn't show me any other games on the Saturn after that. Did you think the Saturn was going to be a hit for SEGA?I recall thinking the Saturn asking price was too damn high. And that was confirmed when Sony shrewdly undercut SEGA with their PS1 price. However at that time, I was far more into PC gaming than console gaming. So I wasn't paying that much attention to the newest mid '90s consoles anyway. I was more concerned with PC technology and the development of 3D graphics cards for PC at that time. I also read somewhere that developers were saying coding for the Saturn was a nightmare, compared to coding for the PS1. It was clear around '97 that the Saturn was a flop (in the west at least) from what I could tell. Also, I literally only knew one person who owned a Saturn in real life in the late '90s. Meanwhile, I knew lots of people with PlayStations and Nintendo 64s back then. Did you know the Saturn cost $399.00 when it debuted? (That's $680.00 in today's money.)I asked this question so obviously I knew it. I distinctly recall getting sticker shock when I saw that list price in EGM. Do you currently, or have you ever, owned a real Saturn console?I have never owned a real Saturn. And in real life, I've only known three people who owned Saturns. The one guy I mentioned back in '97/98. Another was a girl I dated in 2009, she owned a modded Saturn. And I have met Sarge in real life, and he owns the console. So yeah, three whole people! What did you think of the Saturn's games versus the competition?In the '90s, I always thought SEGA focused too strongly on twitchy arcade and action games for the Saturn. I remember thinking "Where's the RPGs guys?!" Of course I didn't know at the time, there were actually lots of Saturn RPGs that were simply not leaving Japan. I do think SEGA not bringing more RPGs over was a detriment to the Saturn's sales. Although since Sony had Square and Enix, that's a moot point in retrospect. What are your favorite Saturn releases (domestic and import)?Because my experience with Saturn games has been limited to questionable emulation, I haven't beaten very many Saturn games. I have only beaten five of them. So here's the five I've beaten, and what I rated them: Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams... 6/10 Guardian Heroes 7/10 Panzer Dragoon 7/10 Panzer Dragoon II Zwei 8/10
The Yakyuu Ken Special: Konya wa 12-kaisen 6/10 There are perhaps seven or eight Saturn releases I'd still like to beat. I just have to find better emulation for it. Maybe Mednafen, but I've got to learn how to use that convoluted thing first. I don't naturally gravitate to the Saturn's available English library though, because it tends to focus on shallow action heavy genres that aren't my personal favorites. Nothing against shmups, racers, and fighters, that's all good stuff... just not my bread 'n' butter.
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Post by Sarge on Sept 15, 2020 23:07:33 GMT -5
Ex : Your best option if you want to use Mednafen is probably to run it through RetroArch. I find that a lot simpler than a lot of the other solutions out there. There's also something called Mednaffe that might work as a frontend. toei : Surprisingly, the 3D pad feels pretty good for normal play. That's actually what I use with my Saturn. @opwuaioc: Yeah, PC Engine was pretty ballin' in Japan, mainly because it made a ton of games that appealed to the market (i.e. RPGs).
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Post by toei on Sept 16, 2020 0:06:41 GMT -5
Sarge We had that conversation a pretty long time ago, but it was the basic PCE that sold the most, and it actually has very few RPGs. Fewer than the Mega Drive, in fact. The PCE-CD/Duo had a lot, but they only sold about 2 mil combined (vs 6 for the base console). I don't think it mattered so much to most Japanese gamers that the PCE-CD had a lot of RPGs because the Super Famicom had more - it had more RPGs coming out on a monthly basis by 1993 than you could possibly play through - and it had the biggest series. The PCE was more of a rival to the NES towards the later part of its life, and it most likely did well because it was the most advanced console in '87-'88, and Hudson Soft was good at marketing, with their games festivals and whatnot (and the PCE was as much Hudson Soft's console as it was NEC's - in fact, I think they designed the hardware, and they were the biggest software providers by far). The Mega Drive arrived in late '88, but there were almost no games for it for nearly a year, making the PCE the better option, and just when it started to sell - the MD's best year in Japan was 1990, by which time the library was getting nice - then the SFC arrived and swallowed the market whole. That said, NEC completely bungled their transition to the next gen, and interestingly, they messed things up pretty much like Sega did later, by releasing too much half-assed hardware in a short time span. The Supergrafx was a worse failure than even the 32X, rushed to market prior to its announced date, selling fewer than 80,000 units worldwide, and abandoned after just 6 games. The PCE-CD was released shortly after the PCE, but few games were made for it in the first two years, giving little reason to own it. Then when the Super Famicom put a stop to the PCE's sales, they came up with the Duo and moved game production rapidly towards CD, but the Duo remained niche, and Hudson started making a bunch more games for Nintendo. Finally, there was the PC-FX, a 32-bit console which literally couldn't do 3D (unlike the Saturn, which did have some 3d capabilities), and quickly moved away from traditional gaming for the most part.
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Post by Sarge on Sept 16, 2020 11:24:49 GMT -5
Looking at the raw numbers for the Duo + Super CD, it looks like it did about half of the PC Engine, so around 3 million. So just shy of what Sega did with the Mega Drive. You're right, it appears that the PC Engine took advantage of the lull afforded by Nintendo not getting the SNES out sooner, and Sega not being in position to really take advantage. It does seem like we've got another PS2/Gamecube/XBOX situation, though, in that the SNES thoroughly dominated, with both companies fighting over the scraps, even if NEC did better than Sega snagging some of those tidbits.
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Post by Xeogred on Sept 16, 2020 13:36:22 GMT -5
Looking over NEC, they seem like a pretty large general electronics company. I guess the PCE was kind of just an experiment or side gig for them? The PC-FX being a flop, so they just decided they were done? I guess by the mid 90's the competition was too steep.
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