Information About ™Sega Saturn |
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The Sega Saturn ( of the 32-bit Era . It was released on November 22 1994 in Japan , May 1995 in North America and July 8 1995 in Europe . Approximately 170,000 machines were sold the first day of the Japanese launch. 5,000 were sold in the weekend following the UK launch. At one time, the Sega Saturn held 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 slowly lost market share to Sony 's PlayStation and, outside Japan, the cartridge-based Nintendo 64 . The Japanese Saturn was rushed to the market, just a few weeks ahead of its rival, Sony's PlayStation. This led to very few games being available at launch. The system was supported in North America and Europe until late 1998, and in Japan until the end of 2000. The last official game for the system, ''Yukyu Gensokyoku Perpetual Collection'', was released by Mediaworks in December that year. Interestingly, a game called ''Sega Saturn: Lost & Found VOL #1'' was released in the US by Older Games in August of 2004 (although it is not playable with a retail, unmodified Saturn). DEVELOPMENT Sega 's 27-member Away Team , comprised of employees from every aspect of hardware engineering, product development and marketing, worked exclusively for two years to ensure the Sega Saturn's hardware and design met the precise needs of both the U.S. and Japanese markets and would launch with some of the world's best software. The Saturn was a powerful machine for the time, but its design, with two CPUs and 6 other processors, made harnessing its power difficult. Rumours suggest that the original plan called for a single processor, but a second one was added late in development to increase potential performance. Yu Suzuki is reported to have said: One very fast central processor would be preferable. I don't think that all programmers have the ability to program two CPUs - most can only get about one-and-a-half times the speed you can get from one SH-2 . I think only one out of 100 programmers is good enough to get that kind of speed out of the Saturn. Third-party development was further hindered by the initial lack of useful Software Libraries and Development Tools , requiring developers to write in Assembly Language to achieve decent performance. Programmers would often utilize only one CPU to simplify development in titles such as '' Alien Trilogy '' The main disadvantage of the dual CPU architecture was that both processors shared the same Bus , and besides 4K of on-chip memory, all data and program code for both CPUs was located in the same shared 2MB of main memory. This meant that without very careful division of processing, the second CPU would often have to wait while the first CPU was working, reducing its processing ability. The hardware also lacked light sourcing and hardware video decompression support. Nevertheless, when properly utilized, the dual processors in the Saturn could produce impressive results such as the 1997 ports of '' Quake '' and '' Duke Nukem 3D '' by Lobotomy Software , and later games like '' Burning Rangers '' were able to achieve true transparency effects on hardware that used simple polygon Stipples as a replacement for transparency effects in the past. From a market viewpoint, the architectural design problems of the Saturn meant that it quickly lost third party support to the PlayStation. Unlike the Playstation's use of triangles as its basic geometric primitive, the Saturn rendered quads. This proved a hindrance as most industry standard design tools were based around triangles, and multiplatform games were usually developed with triangles and the Playstation's larger market share in mind. If used correctly the quad rendering of the Saturn would show less texture distortion than was common on Playstation titles, as demonstrated by several cross-platform titles such as '' Wipeout '' and '' Destruction Derby ''. The quad-focussed hardware and a 50% greater amount of Video RAM also gave the Saturn an advantage for 2D game engines and attracted many developers of RPG s, Arcade Game s and traditional 2D fighting games. A 4MB RAM cart, released only in Japan, boosted available memory even further for games such as Capcom 's ''X-Men Vs Streetfighter''. '' Tomb Raider '' was originally designed for the Saturn's quad-based hardware and as a result was incapable of displaying levels containing any triangular parts. This restriction remained in place for most of the 32-bit sequels. Due to the differences in rendering paradigm, it is ultimately meaningless to compare the Saturn's and Playstation's rendering capabilities based on any numerical measure. When programmed correctly, any technical advantage of either machine over the other is slight. PERFORMANCE IN THE MARKETPLACE ''.]] North America and Europe The Saturn was launched almost four months ahead of schedule in North America and Europe. This was announced at that year's E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) where Sega representatives were engaged in a public relations battle with Sony . This surprise move resulted in very few sales due to the USD $399 price of the system, versus the announced Playstation launch price of USD$299, and the lack of available software at launch. In North America, Sega chose to ship Saturn units only to four select retailers which caused a great deal of animosity from unselected companies, including , including the Sega CD system and the Sega 32X . Japan Although the Saturn was outsold by the PlayStation in Japan between 1995 and 1997, Saturn software enjoyed higher sales leading to the perception that the Saturn was the platform of choice for more dedicated gamers while the PlayStation had a more casual audience. Many of the games that made the Saturn popular in Japan, such as the '' Sakura Taisen '' series and numerous quirky Anime style RPGs, were never released in foreign territories due to policies put in place by then Sega of America president Bernie Stolar who believed that RPGs were not appealing to the North American audience. International As price drops continued throughout the 32-bit era, the system board design of the Saturn wasn't as easy to condense in a cost saving manner and Sega fell behind on price drops offered by Nintendo and Sony. By early 1997 the Saturn was trailing the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 in both North America and Europe to such an extent that senior management began planning a new platform and by E3 1997 had begun talk of the system that would become the Dreamcast . As Sega started aggressively moving that project forward a rift developed with many third party developers. As the Saturn was popular in the Japanese marketplace, many Japanese developers saw little reason for Sega to rush another platform to market. Many Saturn projects were cancelled in anticipation of the new console or through frustration with Sega.In a magazine aticle involving Will Muscelli, he summed up the life cycle of the Sega Saturn as being "disappointing". After further poor sales throughout 1997 many games planned for a western Saturn release were cancelled, including highly anticipated titles such as '' Sonic X-treme '', '' Policenauts '' and '' Lunar The Silver Star Story ''. A chain reaction of cancellations transformed a promising 1998 schedule of releases to a small handful of titles extending little beyond '' Panzer Dragoon Saga '', '' Burning Rangers '', '' Shining Force 3 '' and '' Magic Knight Rayearth '' — the only third party title released that year. Eventually the Saturn was discontinued in both Europe and North America in late 1998. EMULATION Because Saturn developers did not always have extensive vendor-supplied programming libraries and because of the complicated timing characteristics of the shared bus, it is generally not possible to emulate the Saturn with the same High-level Emulation techniques that allow usable Playstation and Nintendo 64 emulators on comparitively low-end computers. Hence for a long time it was impossible to produce a usable emulator, and those now available require much faster hardware than their Playstation and Nintendo 64 equivalents. The first recognisable emulation started in '', '' Fighters Megamix '', '' Battle Arena Toshinden '' and '' Vampire Hunter '' were supported. Public work on the emulator ceased when Sega bought the rights and began marketing it in Japan as ''Cyberdisk''. On April 2, 2002 , a new version of ''Satourne'' was released that was able to run a number of Saturn games with 3D acceleration and it remained the most advanced Saturn emulator until April 12 2003 , when a hacked version of ''Cyberdisk'' was released. Known unofficially as '' GiriGiriGav '' after the cracker who spread it, Gavionne, it supported many more games than ''Satourne'' and gained a lot of popularity despite not being distributed through mainstream emulation sites. ''GiriGiriGav'' was subsequently disassembled, debugged and renamed to '' Cassini ''. On July 12, 2004 , the first version of ''Cassini'' was released alongside its Assembly source code. Three more releases followed quickly, but most changes were to the interface. '' SSF '' became available in 2005 and is considered the most compatible Saturn emulator As Of 2006 . SATURN MODELS Asian models In Japan Sega licensed the rights to produce Saturns to their hardware partners - Hitachi , who provided the CPUs and several other chips, and JVC who produced the CD drives for most models, although functionally identical Sanyo drives were sometimes used. SunSeibu released a model with a 7-CD changer for use in hotels. The concept of a multi-game player for Hotel use is very common in Japan. North American models All North American models are black in color and were produce by Sega. European/Australian models European and Australian Saturns are identical as both regions share the same AC voltage and TV standard. There is no internal variation between PAL and SÉCAM machines as all were shipped with SCART leads. All models are black and externally quite similar to the North American variations. PAL and SECAM machines will have "PAL" next to the BIOS revision number on the system settings screen instead of "NTSC". GAME PACKAGING Japan '' - games were packaged in standard CD jewel cases]] Japanese software is usually packaged in a standard CD Jewel Case with a spinecard - a three-fold piece of light cardboard that hugs the spine of the jewel case and is held in place by the overall Shrinkwrap usually with a gold and black background and the Japanese Saturn logo and lettering printed vertically. Saturn collection games will have a red and white spinecard with white lettering, the Saturn Collection logo under that, and the 2,800 yen price featured prominently. Spinecards are valuable to collectors, and necessary if one wishes to sell the game as "complete". The spinecard bears the name of the title to which it is attached. The game manual is included in place of liner notes and the cover will usually carry a bar similar in design to the spinecard and the Japanese rating, if there is one. The back card usually features artwork or screenshots from the game and a black bar at the bottom containing necessary legal information such as copyright notices. Some games were packed in "double" CD cases or in a non-standard slightly thicker variant of the single case. The game ''Super Robot Wars F'' (a Japanese-only game produced by Banpresto ) comes in a special jewel case, approximately 1mm thicker, made necessary by its 54-page manual. North America '', showing all vertical edges]] In North America the existing tall, single hinged case design used for Sega CD games was adopted for Saturn titles. The cases incorporate a white spine containing a 30 degree stripe pattern in gray, with white outlined lettering displaying the words "Sega Saturn". The manual slides into the case in the same manner as the liner notes in a normal jewel case, and the cover often carries a back insert with information about the game. The manuals were substantially larger than standard CD manuals, and as a result had more room for art. These cases had several problems:
Games packaged with the system or a peripheral such as '' Virtua Fighter '' and '' NiGHTS Into Dreams '' often came in a standard CD Jewel case. Europe '', showing all vertical edges]] The European Saturn cases were custom designed and similar to a DVD case, composed of either a two piece Clamshell enclosure held together by a single large piece of card comprising both the front and back covers and spine, or a single-piece plastic case with a paper insert detailing covers and spine underneath a flexible plastic outer window similar to a commercial VHS video case except in dimensions. Some titles, notably those from Electronic Arts featured an extended deeper version of the VHS style case. When the case is opened the disk rests inside the case to the right of the hinge, while the booklet was placed to the left. Standard art design includes a solid black spine and white lettering displaying the words "Sega Saturn". SCREENSHOTS |
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