Did you buy a Saturn, after getting a 32X?

[gamevet]

People mention that the 32X's sudden failure, was one of the main reasons buyers stayed away from Saturn, but did it really? Did you buy a Saturn, after purchasing the 32X? Or did you not buy a Saturn, after getting the 32X?


I can't change the poll option names now. Just click on the 3rd option, if you bought the Saturn and didn't even think about getting a 32X.

[Black_Tiger]

I always planned to buy a Saturn asap.

Never regretted getting a 32X asap.

When I moved to the big city in 1996 I searched for 32X games I didn't previously have access to (and bought a 3DO and Jaguar).

[Hairlesswookiee]

I never even bought a 32X. I remember my best friend rushed out and bought one on release, but after playing a few games with him I decided to wait for some more stuff to come out before pulling the trigger. Then the Saturn was coming out soon so I figured instead of buying the 32x I'd just hold out for the Saturn. I ended up grabbing a 32x later when it was less than $20 at Toys R Us.

[Gryson]

Everyone talks about the 32X being one of the reasons why the Saturn failed, but did it really.

The 32X caused the Saturn to fail because Sega of America invested tons of money and effort into getting games on the 32X. Then, when the 32X failed, they had to immediately backtrack and convince publishers and developers to now put games on the Saturn, which they obviously weren't very successful in doing. The issue of public perception is a distant second to that. If your console doesn't have the games, it will never succeed.

I never even bought a 32X. I remember my best friend rushed out and bought one on release, but after playing a few games with him I decided to wait for some more stuff to come out before pulling the trigger. Then the Saturn was coming out soon so I figured instead of buying the 32x I'd just hold out for the Saturn. I ended up grabbing a 32x later when it was less than $20 at Toys R Us.

Great example! This is exactly why Sega felt the need to rush a May 1995 release for the Saturn. They couldn't exactly pull the 32X from the market, but once it was clear the 32X was a failure, they wanted to minimize the number of early adopters getting it and instead push them towards the Saturn. Not a pretty strategy by any means - but damage control.

[gamevet]

The 32X caused the Saturn to fail because Sega of America invested tons of money and effort into getting games on the 32X. Then, when the 32X failed, they had to immediately backtrack and convince publishers and developers to now put games on the Saturn, which they obviously weren't very successful in doing. The issue of public perception is a distant second to that. If your console doesn't have the games, it will never succeed.

I worded it wrong. I was mainly talking about the 32X souring people's view of Sega, to the point that they didn't get a Saturn. It has been corrected.

[Moirai]

People mention þat þe 32X’s ſudden failure, was one of þe main reaſons buyers ſtayed away from Saturn, but did it really ?  Did you buy a Saturn, after purchaſing þe 32X ?  Or did you not buy a Saturn, after getting þe 32X ?


I can’t change þe poll option names now.  Juſt click on þe 3rd option, if you bouȝt þe Saturn & didn’t even þink about getting a 32X.

I was too young at þe time of þe Saturn ſo I voted option 3 but I’m curious to ſee what oþer people ſay about þis. An uncle of mine had a Saturn & ſome of my earlieſt memories are of playing & ſeeing Saturn games... Many years later he gave me a 32X þat apparently he had back in þoſe days too but I never remember ſeeing it or hearing þem mention it at all. Apparently he juſt bouȝt it, played it like one & put it in ſtorage. Þat þing made horrible whining ſounds & video noiſe þat even recapping wouldn’t fix.

[Team Andromeda]

The 32X caused the Saturn to fail because Sega of America invested tons of money and effort into getting games on the 32X. Then, when the 32X failed, they had to immediately backtrack and convince publishers and developers to now put games on the Saturn, which they obviously weren't very successful in doing.

That is so spot on.

[RvR]

I was too young at þe time of þe Saturn ſo I voted option 3 but I’m curious to ſee what oþer people ſay about þis. An uncle of mine had a Saturn & ſome of my earlieſt memories are of playing & ſeeing Saturn games... Many years later he gave me a 32X þat apparently he had back in þoſe days too but I never remember ſeeing it or hearing þem mention it at all. Apparently he juſt bouȝt it, played it like one & put it in ſtorage. Þat þing made horrible whining ſounds & video noiſe þat even recapping wouldn’t fix.

Im surprised you are using thorn, old s, and the throaty sound letter but not ƿ.

[Moirai]

Im surprised you are using thorn, old s, and the throaty sound letter but not ƿ.

Wynn is older þan þe ſtyle I go for. I ſeek to create a modern ſtyle influenced by claſſical ſcribal traditions. Ȝ was uſed for many þings, including conſonant Y ſounds. You was once ſpelled ȝou. Yeſterday was once ȝeſterday, etc. Initial ȝ's became y's & medial ȝ's generally became gh. I uſe ȝ as a modern ſcribal abbreviation for gh in words where it makes etymological ſenſe. Wynn looks too much like P, it would piſs people off more þan I probably already do. 😉

[Hairlesswookiee]

Great example! This is exactly why Sega felt the need to rush a May 1995 release for the Saturn. They couldn't exactly pull the 32X from the market, but once it was clear the 32X was a failure, they wanted to minimize the number of early adopters getting it and instead push them towards the Saturn. Not a pretty strategy by any means - but damage control.

Yeah back then I was in high school working part time at a grocery store so money was very limited therefore I couldn't afford to buy every system right away. I didn't even get a Sega CD until around the time the Dreamcast was coming out. Wanted one of those when it was released as well, but I decided to get a SNES instead of the SEga CD (mostly because everyone I knew had a SNES and we could swap games).

[axel]

I didn't buy a Saturn at launch. For me it was a combination of factors:

-16-bit still looked pretty good to me. I was having plenty of fun with my Genesis, SNES and Neo Geo. The next gen systems at the time, the 3DO and Jaguar, had failed to impress.
-I wasn't the biggest fan of CD-ROM for gaming yet. I had seen the Sega CD and didn't think the load times and grainy FMV were worth it. The best CD-ROM title I had played was Myst, and that already ran on my PC. Actually, my PC was looking better than ever as a gaming platform, thanks to Doom II.
-The 32X was a true WTF moment. Sega had advertised it as a supercharger that increased the power of the Genesis 40x. I tried a few of the games.... and realized Sega had exaggerated more than a little. Within about three months it was clear it was DOA.

So here comes the Saturn and it's yet another "next gen" console. It was clearly more powerful than previous offerings, but still didn't have that killer app to grab my attention. Plus, the 32X and Sega CD had left a bad impression that Sega was willing to pump out hardware with no plan to properly market it or support it with high quality software. I figured it was smart to wait and see what happened.

I didn't jump into the 5th gen until the following year, when a friend invited me over to play Mario 64 and I knew I had to have it. The year after that, 1997, I started wondering what had happened to the Saturn, but by then the hype was over, everyone was onto the PSX. I could barely find any Saturn games for sale and didn't know anyone who had one. I wish it had gone differently (I'm on a Sega forum after all) but at the time Sega's business decisions managed to turn me from a loyal customer to someone who wasn't willing to take the risk.

[Fozzy]

My brother had a Saturn. I had a Genesis and stopped there till the PS2 era. Didn't even know about the 32x.

[profholt82]

I had a 32x back then. And in spite of how it ended, and its current reputation in gaming history, during its initial run, it was quite a machine to have. You see, this was when Doom was the biggest, most revolutionary game on the market. It was everywhere, even non-gamers took notice of it. Most of the kids I knew at that time with PCs, did not have one capable of running Doom properly. While those 386'es could run Wolfenstein adequately, they weren't handling Doom. This was the shareware era, where publishers offered the first level or two for free, and we'd pass around floppies of new games at school and such. My PC took a big dump trying to run Doom.

Well, when I got the 32x, the first game I got for it was Doom. Well, also Star Wars, I got two, and that game was awesome too. But it was Doom that blew everyone's minds. Playing it on my bedroom television was unreal at the time. It felt like a major leap into the future of gaming in a way that going from my Atari 2600 to NES to Genesis didn't quite reach. My house was the place to be in the spring of 1995, as my friends were all as blown away as I was.

Okay, now with the good out of the way, let's talk about the bad. It didn't take long for Sega to abandon its loyal customers, and screw us all over. So many promising games were announced for the 32x that ended up getting scrapped. I remember reading about a new Castlevania game that was coming to the system that I was really excited for. Never happened. Sega up and shut down the console after a year or so, and I sure as shit didn't want a Saturn from them after that. I felt betrayed. This was that era when we defended Sega on the playground and called the Super Nintendo a baby toy. How could my beloved Sega have done us like this? I did manage to get a bunch more 32x games after it was cancelled for cheap at K-Mart. I remember they were all $20 a piece. And I passed on Spiderman. Haha, derp.

While I loved playing Virtua Fighter and Daytona at the bowling alley and mall arcade, I didn't end up getting a Saturn. And even though my 12/13 year old self felt abandoned and jilted by Sega, had I gotten one as a present or something, I'm sure I would have been excited. But I certainly never lobbied for one or anything. It was just something I looked at in Gamepro magazine, and maybe messed with in a store kiosk. I was actually far more interested in the 3do at that time, not that I got one of those back then either. Sometime in high school, I got a Playstation, and I was very happy with that, and have a ton of awesome gaming memories from that console. There were tons of exclusive games on it that were so much better than anything I ever saw come out on the Saturn.

Sometime in my 20s I ended up picking up a Saturn, probably at least 15 years ago now. And I love it. I think it's a great system. It really was its own thing in comparison to the Playstation, with an emphasis on arcade style gaming, which I have a huge appreciation for now. But the thing is, I don't regret not getting one when it was new, and I certainly don't feel bad for Sega. They effed themselves and their loyal customers during that time.

On a side note, sometime around 07-08 or so, I was working with a guy, and somehow we got on the topic of old videogames. He was talking about how he had a Saturn, and how pissed off he was when Sega pulled the plug on it. He remembered when they said, "Dreamcast is our future, the Saturn is dead" or something along those lines. He said that he felt betrayed, and vowed to buy a PS2 instead of the Dreamcast. So, while myself and Tommy (the guy who said that), were only two Sega customers, I have to think that many others felt the same way we did. Regardless of how much I love their games, and enjoy playing their consoles to this day, there's no getting around the fact that Sega treated us like crap.