SEGA Saturn Mythbusting - SixtyRGB

Fuck yeah dude, I'm really glad to see the Saturn going through somewhat of an unearthing in the west, now that emulation is finally near perfect, and with modern gaming turning so many people away for MANY reasons. Between sick videos like this, Stop Skeletons from Fighting's videos on the system and it's software, Modern Vintage Gamer, SEGA Lord X, and of course Pandamonium's insane project of reviewing every US Saturn game, it's sort of dreamlike to see a console I've been obsessed with for nearly a decade now, despite being born at the tail-end of it's Japan life, finally being recognized and celebrated in a more widespread way

Excellent video. The Saturn is kind of a perfect example of history being written by the victors, so much has been said about all the things it did "wrong" and how Sega should have done this or that or worked with so-and-so that it's totally overshadowed the things it did well. It's a great machine, it has loads of fun games and if anything, it's commercial failure in the west has made it a far more interesting console all these years later than it's competition.

I gave the Saturn a chance 15years ago and to this day it's my favorite 5th gen console. And this comes from someone as a kid who had all their nostalgia from the competition. The Dreamcast is also one hell of a console. If only they didnt bleed out of money. So much could have been achieved.

One thing you forgot about the PS1/Saturn price comparison is that the Saturn also came with in built memory for game saves, so PS1 owners would have had to have bought not only a game, but a memory card too.

I was a massive SEGA fan during the 80s and 90s, they could do no wrong in my eyes. Bought the Saturn day one and was very happy. But eventually my head was turned by Sony when more triple AAA titles began to release on that console. Soon I was playing on a PS1 more then the Saturn.

I was 14 or 15 year's old when I got sega saturn as Christmas gift. .will never forget. Still my favorite console

Great video. Also great 3DO highlight. Lots of people don't realize that the 3DO did actually very well in Japan considering it being American designed hardware. It sold 2x more than the OG Xbox in Japan. The Saturn is a great system, and I thoroughly enjoy exclusives like V.R. & AMOK. Underrated system out west, in the shadow of the PS1 and N64.

Now all we need is a Saturn mini! 😀 Asmuch as I love the chunky old boy it does take up bit of space huh?

The Saturn gave us Sakura Wars so I will always love this 'failure'.

I couldn't imagine how much time and effort you've put into making this video. Really great video as always :)

Finally, some Saturn love. Out of all of my consoles I own, the Saturn is the one I always bust out. Sadly it's been a while since I could use it since it's cables have been obsolete for a while now with HDMI being the more prominent option nowadays. But luckily my gaming PC can be hooked up to the TV with a good Saturn Emulator and the problem is solved. To this day my family and I play some Baku Baku Animal and just have a great time. Too bad that game hasn't been re-released after the Saturn and Game Gear Ports. Pretty disappointing but one can only hope for a Saturn Mini to come and fill that Saturn Shaped void we all have.

Its worth adding that most of the people that owned the pc engine cd transitioned to the saturn when that console was dead. Much like the dreamcasts fanbase exodus to the original xbox. Also dragon quest was probably an even bigger blow or just as big as FF7 not having it on their console. A game what they could have had if one could believe it was Breath of fire as the Sega president at the time had went to university and was friends with the creator of that series but they still let that one slip as well.

PS1 also needed a memory card, Saturn had built in memory, when you include all that, the PS1 plus a game, plus a memory card cost the same as the Saturn which came with the rest

Good job with this. The Saturn salutes you!

Great video. I'm not sure if there is a term for it but I feel like there is a lot memory "retcon" that occurs with the Saturn (and endless other things). By that I mean a narrative that develops after the fact that people start then pretending was the prevailing sentiment at the time. I feel like I had a very unique situation in that both my best friend and myself had launch year Saturns and then Playstations in rural U.S. We were the only two people in our school that we know of who had Saturns. In the real world from the perspective of two 12 year olds who had both consoles: 1. The Saturn's 3D performance blew us away. I think the most compelling game was actually Panzer Dragoon. It truly felt like something other worldly and the future of gaming and the Saturn did that first. 2. There was no feeling of notable graphical superiority from the PS1 in those early days. We had some cross platform titles like Tomb Raider and of course competing titles like Tekken and Virtual Fighter. Did we recognize and discuss differences in graphics? Of course, but it was more often that each console just did things differently and it rarely impacted our impression of playability. 3. The biggest failure of the Saturn to us 12 year olds in the U.S. was by far the limited library and release of games. The U.S. Saturn library still had a great list of top tier games once it was all said and done but it missed out on tons of those "pretty decent" games to fill in the gaps. After the initial batch of launch games it was more than TWO MONTHS before ANY other game came out. I don't mean a top tier game. I mean ANY game lol. You got Panzer Dragoon and Virtua Fighter (and Pebble Beach Golf Links lol, thanks dad) and then two and half months later you got Bug...and then a few more weeks and Myst. That's 3 months after launch and you only had two new games to pick from, neither of which were at the top of anyone's list lol.

The exclusives still are better than many games today

Got a Japanese Saturn and installed an ODE. I’ve been obsessively playing shining force 3 and Batsugun and Galactic Attack…just such a cool fucking console, I absolutely love it. I think I knew one or two people who had one growing up, but never got to play it till now. Uncovering such a massive library of dope games is something that other people who are interested should take the plunge and do. Sick video, thanks

Perhaps the biggest way the difficulty with 3D hurt the Saturn is in its lack of groundbreaking event titles. You mentioned the lack of a mainline Sonic title, but basically every groundbreaking title that generation had to be 3D (as evidenced by Virtua Fighter in the early Japan era). While many of the 2D games of that generation are quite respected now, I think only SotN really made major waves during the generation at the time, and possibly some 2D fighters. It wasn’t that no one was playing 2D games, but rather those were the only ones that could usually capture the imagination of a lot of consumers. PS1 had plenty of those, and even N64 had Mario 64, Goldeneye, Ocarina, and a few others. I’m generalizing a fair bit, but I think there’s some truth to it.

I bought the Sega Saturn in Australia on launch day from Game Xpress in Maroochydore, even though i pre-ordered, i had to settle for the $799 pack that came with one controller and Virtua Fighter, because all the $899 packs (came with two controllers, Virtua Fighter, Clockwork Knight, and Daytona USA) were sold out before i got a foot in the door. I still remember walking in there later in the day to collect it, and being told by the guy working there that i was the last person in Australia that would be getting a new Saturn for a while, since everyone else had collected their machines way earlier in the day and apparently there was a big line up at the door when the store opened. I also bought Pebble Beach Golf and Daytona USA, but i had to wait a bit over a week for Daytona because apparently it wasn't available here in Australia on actual launch day (if anyone bought the $899 pack they may be able to confirm that?) it got posted out to me direct from Sega Ozisoft. Due to saving up to buy more Saturn stuff leading up to launch, and my addiction to Daytona USA in the arcade, i had been avoiding arcades for a long time, and playing Daytona USA at home for god knows how long i could've sworn to christ it was everything the arcade version was but with more features, it would've been easily 9 months or more before i set foot in an arcade and saw a real Daytona machine again, and i was blown away by how different it really did look, but still super impressed with how close to the same it played using the Arcade Racer steering wheel. Sega did themselves no real favours by having others release their top arcade games like Virtua Racing (and i'll say Daytona CCE because AM2 didn't make that one, and it was a totally different game as a result) because when you look at the likes of Virtua Fighter 2 and Virtua Cop 1 and 2 you see just how close to perfect those games could be in the home, you know very well the other titles could have been significantly more awesome had they have been given that same first rate treatment from those that actually made the original. This same thing carried on over to the Dreamcast with a few top arcade games there, 3 massively missed opportunities come instantly to mind... I enjoyed this video mate, thanks :)

AMOK is also a pretty good example on what the saturn could do, although it has a bit more of a voxel kind of thing going for