Description

Background

The development of the Saturn began in 1992 around a new Hitachi processor, the SH-2. This processor proved to be inferior in comparison to the processor of the upcoming Sony Playstation Later. Therefore Sega decided tot later add two video processors to better compete with Sony’s upcoming PlayStation. The Saturn was initially a success in Japan, but sales in North America and Europe lacked behind. This was partly due to the high price and lack of games. But why where there so little games? The internals of the Saturn where build around a complicated architecture consisting of dual-processors. Developing games for the console was a difficult task. tThis, together with the lack of an SDK, made few game developers stick to an already poor-selling console.

Premature end

Sega recognised the limited interest form the public as well as the industry for the Saturn. It proved to be a lost cause. In 1996 they decided to already focus on a new game console, the Dreamcast. This immediately led to a series of cancellations of previously announced games from other publishers in 1997 and thereby the death knell for the Saturn. A Sonic the Hedgehog game was planned for the Saturn, known as Sonic X-treme during development, but it was eventually canceled due to problems. A Sonic game did eventually make it to the platform, with the game title Sonic R. Other highly acclaimed games where Nights into Dreams, the Panzer Dragoon series, and the Virtua Fighter series.