Remembering the SEGA Saturn, and the big-wig execs that started the real console fanboy wars (!)

[mrk]

Shame about the Saturn, but I remember when my best mate at school got the Dreamcast, we skipped French class for most of the week to go round his and play Shenmue and others. The controller was unique, it had a module, it had hall effect analogue stick... It was cutting edge.

I didn't understand at the time why the Saturn quickly faded into the shadows, but looking at videos like this highlights exactly what was happening and why the Dreamcast also died a quick death during the civil war happening inside SEGA. At the time I had a Megadrive and MegaCD, with a PS1 shortly to follow. I then traded the PS1 with a slew of games with another mate for his N64 and the rest is history, the N64 lasted for nearly 10 years playing multiplayer with friends and family the entire time until the internet became a thing with online shooters taking over with PC gaming

It's also funny seeing the console wars starting out at the executive level, Sony's exec creating show floor posters mocking SEGA:

And so on...

RIP SEGA Saturn.

Edit* Fixed timeline notes, confused Saturn with Dreamcast for a moment!

 

[mrk]

One of the few consoles I never even got to spend a minute with. Nobody I knew had one, it was all N64 or PSX.

Also I never knew Shenmue was on it, thought it was Dreamcast.

Edit. Shenmue wasn't on the Saturn, you've been smoking something.

Corrected the post, I was on about playing the Dreamcast, my cousins had the Saturn with Virtua Fighter at the time, they upgraded from Mega Drive to Saturn but I only saw them like 3 times a year so only got limited hands on.

 

[mrk]

As has been mentioned in the mister thread - the mister core is getting quite mature now with a bulk of the library playable just as on real hardware and probably the best way to play saturn outwith a CRT and an original saturn is using the mister and HDMI or whatever retro display you want (I use a CRT Monitor).

I loved the saturn, i bought one on import from japan which cost me £595, i have a lot of time for the saturn still and currently am playing Elevator Action Returns on the mister.

What's the emulation scene for it like I wonder,, time to have a browse... I imagine since like 70%+ of the games were Japan market only, all text is going to be Japanese too?

 

[mrk]

Offshoot but anyone remember ClayFighter 63⅓? I remember watching about it on GamesMaster on TV and laughed at the reason for the name becaus eit wasn't quite 64-bit