Sega Saturn Vs Sony Playstation 1

[silvergunner]

Going back to the old advertising chestnut that it was bad advertising that killed the Saturn. I actually think sega made some stonking ads. I first saw this at the cinema before seeing it on tv and remember the guy getting his eyeballs sucked out just watched it again for the first time in years and it still feels fresh as a piece of media. Here is the link to the ad in question
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cegoTJ18r-M

[DCHero]

I'm a Saturn guy myself, but the console was virtually doomed from the start. Designed as a 2D powerhouse, 3D started taking off and the Saturn couldn't compete in the 3D area. It's a shame because some of the games were outstanding - Exhumed was a stunning looking game on Saturn and of course Nights...

Incidentally I'm in no doubt that the Saturn contributed massively to Sega's downfall. By the time support was ended just a few years later, many of us Saturn owners were burned bad. Then the Dreamcast, the complete opposite of the Saturn, suffered for it.

[Lost Dragon]

Without wishing to reignite anything, it is well worth noting that a game designed for 1 specific set of hardware, unless totally re-written to take advantage of a rival platform, when converted, is always going to suffer.

Also in terms of just how far something like Quake 'pushed' the Saturn:Lobotomy went on record and said they felt the game used 95% of th Saturn hardware, for that type of game.So, whilst there might be some hardware features are were not used at all, they were useless for that type of game.

[Lost Dragon]

Also, if your talking PS1-to-Saturn conversions:

Assualt Rigs and Adidas Power Soccer were claimed to have been finished, but never saw release.Sentient in development at 1 point.

Probe were converting F1 (original game, not F1'97, as well as Destruction Derby II-proto.footage doing the rounds i believe, missing a lot of textures and CPU cars, so guessing early stage footage.

[HalcyonDaze00]

it isn't much of a battle is it, the Playstation wipes the floor with the Saturn, no question about that

[RodimusPrime]

Also, if your talking PS1-to-Saturn conversions:

Assualt Rigs and Adidas Power Soccer were claimed to have been finished, but never saw release.Sentient in development at 1 point.

Probe were converting F1 (original game, not F1'97, as well as Destruction Derby II-proto.footage doing the rounds i believe, missing a lot of textures and CPU cars, so guessing early stage footage.

I thought assault rigs got a japanese release on Saturn. I may be wrong though.

[The Laird]

Also, if your talking PS1-to-Saturn conversions:

Assualt Rigs and Adidas Power Soccer were claimed to have been finished, but never saw release.Sentient in development at 1 point.

Probe were converting F1 (original game, not F1'97, as well as Destruction Derby II-proto.footage doing the rounds i believe, missing a lot of textures and CPU cars, so guessing early stage footage.

I thought assault rigs got a japanese release on Saturn. I may be wrong though.

That it did - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVLrB6YLBRo

[Lost Dragon]

Good to see at least one of those Saturn titles appeared at least somewhere.Looking at Core talking of developing Ninja '..Saturn was lead development platform until the apparent impending death of the Saturn made a commercial move to the playstation a wise choice' (and allowed them to added advantage of hardware and pull off several special effects, which would be hard to produce on Saturn), it looks like a Jap release of A.Rigs, best choice in terms of recouping some of the dev.costs in porting it to Saturn.

Not sure on sales figures for PS1 version, but might have been a 'niche' title, so needed to be released in strong market on Saturn, hence Japan.Just speculating.

[Lost Dragon]

it isn't much of a battle is it, the Playstation wipes the floor with the Saturn, no question about that

Depends.Good few developers praised Saturn for it's 2D, fact it had more Ram and higher processing power, over the Playstation, but admitted it was a beast to get the best out of and could'nt equal the PS1 in terms of polygon power etc.Guess it really depended what sort of game you were looking to make.PS1 better at certain styles, Saturn others.It was def. an era when your 3D performance was seen as THE benchmark, of that, there's little doubt.

[will2097]

I think people forget that most mortals were living month to month via magazines with new info on these consoles.

Hype wise, Playstation nailed it in the magazines. Sega less so.

On release, Sega had pretty meh versions of Daytona and Virtua Fighter by the time it hit the UK.

Sony had pretty good versions of Ridge Racer, Toshinden and Wipeout.

PLus Sony was everywhere. People wore Sony jackets, carried Playstation branded record cases, put Sony stickers in the back of their Rover Metro's and bopped away to Sony's visualisations in the student bar. Sega just didn't get a look in.

[Lost Dragon]

Sega were initally doing 'o.k' in the magazines in terms of hype, for the original 3DO beating spec.Saturn, but once details of just how powerful Sony's new beast was, that soon changed.

Ok, here's a question: your Sega, you've just seen Sony pretty much appear from nowhere, with a more powerful piece of hardware, (based around it's experience with Silicon Graphics chipsets etc) and they've put 3D as the focus.Your Saturn, which has been designed from pretty much off-the-shelf parts (to get the power/cost ratio effective), is a 2D powerhouse -because in Japan (a region you've seen your MS/MD do poorly compared to it's rivals..), 2D Beat-em-up's/ Shoot-em-up's/ sprite based RPG's are still much sought after.Plus you've developers like Konami, Treasure, Capcom etc asking that your next-gen platform has very strong 2D abilites.You know you've not the marketing resources to match Sony, so do you take Saturn back to the drawing board and go for a later launch, but have it outspec the PS1/equal the N64?.

[outdated_gamer]

Ok, here's a question: your Sega, you've just seen Sony pretty much appear from nowhere, with a more powerful piece of hardware, (based around it's experience with Silicon Graphics chipsets etc) and they've put 3D as the focus.Your Saturn, which has been designed from pretty much off-the-shelf parts (to get the power/cost ratio effective), is a 2D powerhouse -because in Japan (a region you've seen your MS/MD do poorly compared to it's rivals..), 2D Beat-em-up's/ Shoot-em-up's/ sprite based RPG's are still much sought after.Plus you've developers like Konami, Treasure, Capcom etc asking that your next-gen platform has very strong 2D abilites.You know you've not the marketing resources to match Sony, so do you take Saturn back to the drawing board and go for a later launch, but have it outspec the PS1/equal the N64?.

I think Sega could have made two Saturns, one for the Japanese and one for the Western (i.e. US & EU) market. The Japanese one could have stayed pretty much the way it was but the Western one could be delayed and be beefed up to outspec the PS and rival N64 in 3D. They could have went with a cut-down version of their Model 2 hardware or even a cut-down version of the Model 3 hardware, for example the "Real 3D" graphics accelerator and Intel or IBM CPU.

Initially, the US R&D team wanted a SGI chip in Saturn (which later ended up in the N64) but SoJ decided to go with two Hitachi SH-2 processors, since they had good relations with that company. The first option was surely more attractive for the Western market which was a lot more hyped about fast 3D games than the Japanese market (atleast that's my impression).

Even Yu Suzuki stated that [quoted] "one very fast processor would have been preferable", as only a few were able to tap into Saturn's odd and expensive hardware setup.

[Lost Dragon]

Pure Entertainment were of the opinion the Saturn was a better machine than the PS1, thinking of it as a souped up SNES, but they pointed out that Sega's libaries did'nt use the DSP chip!, which they were using for lighting and transparency effects.

So, did Sega's own toolsets given to developers have a knock-on effect on Saturn games i wonder?.Those developers who stuck to using the libaries, rather than coding for individual chips, were'nt getting true potential from Saturn.

[General Opulence]

Remember reading Edge magazine (when it was decent at the start, before it got all high and mighty on itself!) and being a long time Sega fan was looking forward to the Saturn and seeing the first shots of Virtua Fighter and Clockwork Night i think it was and thought yes they look good, but then turned the page (and you have to remember this was the end of 1994, the biggest game in the arcades and best graphically was Ridge Racer) ....my jaw dropped when i saw screenshots of Ridge Racer on a PSX (Playstation for oldies, or PSone for newbies!) and Tekken ( another game big in our local arcades) then yes it blew any chances away of me buying a Saturn in those 30 seconds!
I later picked one up for £99 xmas 97 i think sega rally and vf2.

[The Laird]

I was the opposite, I was totally uninspired by the PS1. The Saturn line-up made me want one so bad, I mean Sega's arcade games in the home - you can't go wrong.