Why has the Saturn been forgotten among modern gamers?

[Jagosaurus]

The age & market argument... prob a combo of both. I had 2 family members who were huge Sega fans so I played the Master System, Sega CD, 32X & Saturn. Most of my close friends had no idea the first 3 existed. We all knew about the SS but had N64 & PSX... parents buy their teenagers what their friends already have or what the store clerk recommends. I played Contra (could've been Loaded, too long ago) & NHL 95 on the SS then,took me years to get the system myself.

While most of the "premiere" games are pricey, a lot of fun on reasonably priced titles: Clockwork Knight, Virtually Cop 1&2, Sega Rally, Tomb Raider, Solar Eclipse, Grid Runner, Road Rash, Amok, Nights (small jewel case, long box is pricey),

Also u can import most games (not text heavy RPGs obviously) on the cheap compared to US prices. House of the Dead, Vampior Savior, CWK2... great examples of cheaper, English friendly imports.

[Violent By Design]

- With more games comes something that is insanely important when it comes to selling any product; brand name. That is what the Sega Saturn really lacked, there was no brand for the Saturn other than Sega's name in itself. People may have grown tired of it, but another 2D Sonic still would have sold units, especially if they went balls to the walls with it and made it a super expansive 2D game. There were hardly any familiar franchises to appear on the Saturn. If Saturn says "BRAND NEW STREETS OF RAGE!!! ITS SO XTREME" and showed a 3D hack and slash, that shit would have sold like hot cakes just on the title alone.

I really wish there would have been a sonic game on the saturn (sonic r really doesn't count). You hit the nail on the head there, though, as virtually none of Sega's major brands ever hit the Saturn, they just kinda skipped over it and went straight to Dreamcast.

I mean heck, I was a Genesis kid (as was everyone in my school) which was a system that barely had any RPGs,

http://www.racketboy.com/retro/sega-gen ... drive-rpgs
http://www.racketboy.com/retro/sega/gen ... ary-page-2

Relative to SNES that list is not particularity impressive. Not to mention there is no way most kids would know about those games.

[brukner1129]

Relative to SNES that list is not particularity impressive. Not to mention there is no way most kids would know about those games.

True, but my point was simply that the Genesis did have a fairly large RPG library, even if most of them were really obscure or just downright bad.

[LBJeff]

It's simple, the more time passes from something that no longer exists the less people will remember how good it was.

Ask any kid under the age of 25 who the greatest basketball player ever was. Most will say LeBron James.

Ask any old fart like me, 33, and we'll say Michael Jordan. He's still alive and people still talk about him, but the younger generation since they were not around cannot compare or care to.

What's worse for the Saturn is that it has no more descendants. Sega's hardware run has ended and the company now makes software for the enemy. People can look at the PS3 and say oh yeah, I remember the PS2, PS1, etc. Same with Nintendo but even further back.

Can't do that with Sega anymore. All that is out there is all that will ever be out there. Sega hardware is not going up, it's going away.

[MulishaSoldier929]

I'm late to the party but I read the entire thread so I am going to try and talk about some of the topics that have been gone through.

Growing up I only remember 'one' person having a Saturn. We played Vitua Fighter 2 and it was tits. Pretty much everyone else either had PSX or the 64 and no one brought up the Saturn. Ever. Someone also mentioned the vitual boy. I actually played one(I believe I was playing a wario game) at a best buy and I also played NiGHTS on their Saturn display that same day. That was the good ole' days

As for the Saturn sticking to only 2d games and not making 3d ones... That sounds good today but the environment back then wanted 3d games. Sure they look like chit now but back then the terrible 3d graphics we see today were mind blowing. I remember seeing Vitua Fighter 1 for the first time and I just about pissed my pants. Same thing when I saw the first Sonic Adventure. It was such a huge jump you wanted every game to look that "good".

I can't say people will really ever 'forget' about Sega. I'm sure everyone will learn and talk all about the blunders and mistakes they made for years/decades to come lol not to mention the whole were-hog thing

[Duane Dibbley]

As for the Saturn sticking to only 2d games and not making 3d ones... That sounds good today but the environment back then wanted 3d games.

My point was that Sega of America put very little marketing money and effort into localizing and promoting the plethora of quality 2D games the Saturn saw in Japan. I never expected them to stop pushing 3D, because it was the cutting edge, but SoA basically ignored the fact that they had the most powerful 2D home system at the time.

[Violent By Design]

As for the Saturn sticking to only 2d games and not making 3d ones... That sounds good today but the environment back then wanted 3d games. Sure they look like chit now but back then the terrible 3d graphics we see today were mind blowing. I remember seeing Vitua Fighter 1 for the first time and I just about pissed my pants. Same thing when I saw the first Sonic Adventure. It was such a huge jump you wanted every game to look that "good".

But that would just make them PSX and n64 lite. If they had focused more on 2D games, they would have built a bigger core audience.

Sega was already alienating the audience by trying to appeal to hardcore gamers, why half ass it? Why not provide a true alternative?

[MulishaSoldier929]

As for the Saturn sticking to only 2d games and not making 3d ones... That sounds good today but the environment back then wanted 3d games. Sure they look like chit now but back then the terrible 3d graphics we see today were mind blowing. I remember seeing Vitua Fighter 1 for the first time and I just about pissed my pants. Same thing when I saw the first Sonic Adventure. It was such a huge jump you wanted every game to look that "good".

But that would just make them PSX and n64 lite. If they had focused more on 2D games, they would have built a bigger core audience.

Sega was already alienating the audience by trying to appeal to hardcore gamers, why half ass it? Why not provide a true alternative?

i'm not disagreeing with the fact that sega should have stuck to their strengths and made a bunch of badass 2d games on saturn(a comixzone 2 would have been awesome imo) but at the time it was like "2d bad, 3d good". I was just trying to explain how the environment was for games back then.

I was there. Yeah, it was called the '90s. Ford was President, Nixon was in the White House and FDR was running this country into the ground. I was bummin' in a hole-in-a-wall town in what is now called Utah. Some fella from Colorado shows up, starts making so called "improvements", right? Before we knew what hit us, the streets are running with late'. It got so bad that a fella that liked to, you know... smoke a little grass or drink a little ripple. Crow like a rooster, maybe challenge the mayor's son to a gentlemen's duel, was "uncouth, against God." More like bad real estate values. So we had to go!

[fastbilly1]

So I started thinking heavily about the Saturn recently, because of this topic, and despite owning a large chunk of the library, I realized most of them are ports/have been ported. So what would yall consider the best exclusive Saturn titles? True exclusives, not arcade ports or games ported elsewhere.

Off the top of my head Ive got:
Panzer Dragoon Saga
Magic Knight Rayearth
Clockwork Knight 1/2
Astal
Saturn Bomberman
Shining Force III

[alienjesus]

So I started thinking heavily about the Saturn recently, because of this topic, and despite owning a large chunk of the library, I realized most of them are ports/have been ported. So what would yall consider the best exclusive Saturn titles? True exclusives, not arcade ports or games ported elsewhere.

Off the top of my head Ive got:
Panzer Dragoon Saga
Magic Knight Rayearth
Clockwork Knight 1/2
Astal
Saturn Bomberman
Shining Force III

How about Dragon Force? I would've suggested Guardian Heroes, but it recently showed up on XBLA, so there goes that one. I don't think Panzer Dragoon Zwei is on any other systems is it?

Other suggestions (which may have been ported elsewhere, but I can't think where off the top of my head):
3 Dirty Dwarves
Beyond Oasis 2/Story of Thor 2
Burning Rangers
Mr.Bones
Shinobi X/Legions
Bug & Bug Too!
Dark Saviour
Mystaria