Why did "Sega Saturn" fail? CEO of the time talks

"Sega Saturn" which appeared earlier than Sony's "first generation PlayStation" gathered fans' expectations as a new hard of Sega over the past six years from "mega drive", but "the next generation war" including "NINTENDO 64" We decided to lose the shadow to "Dreamcast" that we released later. How did Sega erroneously steer, Tom Karsunki, CEO of Sega of America, talked about that time.

How A Series Of Bad Decisions Led To The Sega Saturn Failure - Features - www.GameInformer.com
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2017/07/03/gi-classic-the-saturn-spiral.aspx

Sega changed from the cartridge system adopted by MegaDrive (GENESIS) to the CD-ROM system by Sega Saturn. Although it had a reputation for graphics and sound from the time of mega drive, Sega Saturn made it possible to improve the performance of polygon rendering, sound quality, 3D graphics by adopting CD - ROM, deferred to the performance of the arcade game machine at the time I realized the machine. Sega Saturn, which appeared in 1994, was recognized by Japanese gamers and showed the popularity that 200 thousand units for the first shipment will be sold out shortly after release.

ByJonathan Heuschen

In Japan, Sega Saturn was showing signs of success with recognition of the popularity of Virtua fighter, but Mr. Tom Karsunki, who was then CEO of Sega of America at the time, knew that "It will not succeed in North America" is. Japan's management team was planning to release Sega Saturn in North America in the same year as PlayStation in September 1995. Mr. Kalinski, who had a great achievement in the market competition between Sega and Nintendo, said, "The next year's It should have been thought that "should be carried over in 1996".

However, from the speculation of the Sega management team who wants to win the market battle early, Mr. Kalinski at E3 of May 1995 undertook the role of announcing "to be released soon in North America" ​​simultaneously with the announcement of Sega Saturn. Mr. Kalinski seemed to have opposed the schedule of the release date strongly, but this opposition was never heard and Sega Saturn was released in North America in May 1995 before the PlayStation and Nintendo 64. Although Sony was pulled one step by the release date, CEO Olaf Olafson of Sony Interactive Entertainment at the time fought by announcing the PlayStation price at 293 dollars at the E3 conference. This was a price cheaper than Sega Saturn by 100 dollars, and the audience of the conference gave a grand cheer.

ByKamil GMCL

Advancement of the sudden release date confuses Sega's fans, but this was only the introduction of Sega's failure. It is Sega Saturn, the haste launch in North America began, but it seems that it was very difficult to find a store with inventory because it can only be purchased at a limited number of retail stores. Also, the software lineup was not enough, and the SEGA mascot "Sonic" series new work was not included in the launch title. Sega Saturn is the only one among Sega's successive game machines, which has appeared as "a hard machine without a main title".

At this point many fans got a chance to close Sega. Mr. Kalinski says, "Everyone knows that we need to prepare sufficient amounts of hardware and software to succeed." "If Sonic was appearing at the same time as Sega Saturn, It will be a big support to look different. " "Daytona USA"Virtua Fighter" "Panzer Dragoon"Several hits from Sega Saturn have appeared, but customers' interest has been defeated by the waves of PlayStation's huge hits.

In 1996, Mr. Kalinski also closed the Sega with Mr. Barney Stoller who was former executive of Atari · Sony. As a result of the final next-generation machine war, PlayStation reached about 100 million units worldwide, while NINTENDO 64 was about 33 million units, the worldwide sales of Sega Saturn was about 9 million units It stayed in. In 1999, Sega released the final "Dreamcast", but the result was that the world sales volume is comparable to that of Sega Saturn. As a result, Sega completely stopped the production of hardware and changed to a third-party game development company.

ByChapuisat

Although it is a Sega lagging behind the rivals such as Nintendo and Sony in the development of such a stationary game machine, in Brazil it still shows the unrivaled strength in the game machine market, and still seems to be loved by many people .

Why was Sega overwhelmed Nintendo at Brazilian game machine market? - GIGAZINE