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The Sega Saturn (Japanese:セガサターン)
was released on
November 22,
1994, in
Japan; 170,000 machines were sold the first day.
At one time, the
Sega Saturn had obtained second place in the console wars, placing it
above
Nintendo's
Super Famicom in
Japan and Nintendo's
Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in
North America and
Europe, but the Saturn was losing power because of another newcomer -
Sony's
Playstation.
The Sega Saturn was originally designed to be the ultimate 2D Console,
but was refitted to have better 3D capabilities, as rumours about the Sony
Playstation were spread, and then rushed to the market, which led to very
few games being available when the Saturn started.
The Saturn's inner design with two CPUs and 6 other processors made it
hard to get the maximum power out of the Console, since parallel design
was too complex for many games developers - and still is.
Yuji Naka is rumored to have said "I think only one in 100 programmers
are good enough to get that kind of speed out of the Saturn." Third-party
development was also hindered by the lack of a useful
Software Development Kit. Because of this, many Saturn games needed to
be written in
assembly language to achieve decent performance on the hardware.
Frequently, programmers would only utilize one CPU to avoid some of the
trouble in programming for the Saturn.
The Saturn soon started losing out to the Playstation; the main
disadvantage of the Sega Saturn compared to the Playstation was the lack
of hardware-aided
transparency. Later games like Burning Rangers used software emulation
to offer transparency effects.
In
May
1995, Sega launched the Saturn in the
USA, a full 6 months ahead of schedule. This was announced at that
year's
E3
(Electronics
and Entertainment Expo) where Sega representatives were engaged in a
public relations battle with
Sony. This surprise move resulted in very few sales, however. This was
due largely to the high price of the system and the lack of available
software. Also, Sega chose to only ship Saturn units to selected
retailers. This caused a great deal of animosity toward Sega from
unselected companies, including
Kay-Bee Toys. In
1996, a peripheral called the Sega NetLink (a 28.8 kbit/s
modem) was released for the Saturn. Originally meant to save the
console, it backfired largely because of the high price and lack of
compatible games. A
web browser was available with the unit, programmed by
PlanetWeb, who also programmed the web browser shipped with the
Sega Dreamcast. A mouse and keyboard adapter were also made for the
Netlink, which can still be used to view web pages with many Internet
Service Providers. Very few units were sold during the Saturn's life in
the market, though.
The Saturn was largely a failure in the U.S. market for a variety of
reasons. Perhaps first among them was the distrust that gaming consumers
were developing for Sega after a series of add-on periphirals to the
Sega Genesis that were discontinued after only lukewarm support. Such
add-ons included the
Sega CD system and the
Sega 32X. The
Sony Playstation also had many more popular software titles much
earlier in the race than Sega did. Cost was also a factor, with the Saturn
initially costing US$400 compared to the Playstation at US$300. Consumers
also noticed a change of marketing strategy at Sega, which traded the
successful rebellious image of the
Sega Genesis (for example, the
Sega Scream television commercials) for a more conservative attitude.
Despite being considered a failure by many in the industry, the Saturn's
continued success in Japan should be noted.
The Saturn was later superseeded by the Sega
Dreamcast, which may also be considered a failure, despite having
featured great technical abilities and a wealth of high-quality software.
The Saturn was more popular than the
Sega Megadrive in
Japan, while the
Sega Genesis, the Megadrive's North American counterpart, enjoyed more
success than the Saturn in North America. This was partly due to
advertisements with a character named
Segata Sanshiro in it. Segata became well known throughout Japan.
Specifications
EIGHT PROCESSORS
- 2x 28.6MHz, 50-MIPS
SH2 32-bit
RISC processors
-
SH1 32-bit
RISC processor (controlling the CD-ROM)
- Custom VDP 1 32-bit video display processor
- Custom VDP 2 32-bit video display processor
- Custom Saturn Control Unit (SCU)
-
Motorola
68EC000 sound processor
-
Yamaha FH1
DSP sound processor
MEMORY
- 2MB (16 Megabits) RAM
- 1.54MB (12 Megabits) video RAM
- 540KB (4 Megabits) audio RAM
- 540KB (4 Megabits) CD-ROM cache
- 32KB nonvolatile RAM (battery backup)
AUDIO
- 22.6MHz Yamaha FH1 24-bit digital signal processor
- 11.3MHz Motorola 68EC000 sound processor
- 32 PCM (pulse-code modulation) channels
- 8 FM channels
- 44.1 kHz sampling rate
VIDEO
- VDP 1 32-bit video display processor
- Sprite, polygon, and geometry engine
- Dual 256KB frame buffers for rotation and scaling effects
-
Texture mapping
-
Gouraud shading
- 512KB cache for textures
- VDP 2 32-bit background and scroll plane video display processor
- Background engine
- Five simultaneous scrolling backgrounds
- Two simultaneous rotating playfields
- 200,000 texture-mapped polygons per second
- 500,000 flat-shaded polygons per second
- 60 frames of animation per second
- 24-bit true-color graphics
- 16.7 million colors
- 352 x 240, 640 x 240, and 704 x 480 resolution
STORAGE
- Double-Speed CD-ROM
- 320KB per second transfer speed
-
Audio CD compatible
-
CD+G compatible
-
CD+EG compatible
- CD single (8cm CD) compatible
-
Video CD (required optional
MPEG add-on) ,
Photo CD, Electronic Books, digital karaoke (optional)
- 512KB memory cartridges for game save (optional)
INPUT/OUTPUT
- High-speed serial communications port
- Internal 32-bit expansion port
- Internal multi-AV port for video CD (MPEG)
adapter
- Composite video/stereo (standard)
-
NTSC/PAL
RF (optional)
-
S-Video compatible (optional)
-
RGB compatible (optional)
-
HDTV compatible (optional)
- Analog control pad
POWER SOURCE
- AC120 volts; 60Hz (US)
- AC240 volts; 50Hz (EU)
- AC100 volts; 60Hz (JP)
POWER CONSUMPTION
DIMENSIONS (US/European model)
- Width: 260 mm (10.2 in)
- Length: 230 mm (9.0 in)
- Height: 83 mm (3.2 in)
There were several models of the Saturn. The first Model was a bit
clumsy and superseded by Model 2. U.S. and European models were colored
black, and models for the
Japan market were white. A number of limited edition consoles in other
colors were sold in Japan.
Late in the system's life, a "4-meg" cartridge was introduced to
increase the system's RAM and make possible flawless arcade translations.
This unit was only officially introduced in Japan. Several cartridges of
various purposes were manufactured by other companies in all regions.
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