I have a Saturn that I bought several years ago (it was my first Saturn, actually) from a flea market that was in terrible condition. It was dirty and had scratches all over, and the disc tray was broken, though it was still attached. The worst part was that the lens was totally destroyed. It looked like someone had chiseled away at it with a knife or something. Not surprisingly, it was unable to read any kind of disc. However, the OS was still fully functional, so it should be fixable with a new drive or lens. I already have 2 working Saturns, though, so it's not really worth the effort.
Recently got back into the Saturn and only this week finally plucked up the courage to attempt the 60hz mod on a model 2. Lifting that pin was like defusing a bomb, just glad it worked. Playing Manx TT in 60hz makes it feel like a different game. Can't beat old Sega arcade games.
It's sad how many people to this day still shits on it for no reason, and the funny thing about it is that the Nintendo 64 failed in areas as well Especially in Japan & Asia continents (Except for America of course) we've shown these people the tons of games they've missed out as well as the hidden gems and we STILL get the boot but OUGHTA be Nintendo it gets a f'kin free pass as usual! I really don't wanna bring an old topic back to life but looks i'mma have too for this one folks.
The people who shit on it most likely know nothing about it. I love both the Saturn and the N64 - they're both sitting together on a shelf next to my monitors. I don't understand why, 20 years later (18 in the case of the N64), people still have biases against certain consoles. It seems stupid to me. Then again, I'm kind of glad that they still have those biases, because that means Sega games haven't had huge price increases the same way Nintendo games have.
In a sorta weird way, I do most certainly agree with you by a mile cuz of fact the people still has HUGE biases about the console and yet it's actually a GREAT thing if you think about it for one we get less trolls/haters on the internet & YouTube smack talking the Saturn whilst two, the Japan import copies are hella cheap! (sometimes) and a few US ones and European Pal.. ones.. as well too sort of.
Speaking of development, does anyone know anything more about the Sarooo project? It would be really interesting to use the cart to load ISOs on the system, but all that's on the site says it's "sustained development" (thanks Google Translate!)
VCD dump - hehe, cool! I think there are two camps of gamer who will criticize a 20 year old console - those who don't remember it, and those who were never a fan in the first place. If you don't remember it, especially if you grew up with, say, PS2, 360, PS3 etc. then of course you're going to find it dated. And if you were a PlayStation or Nintendo 64 owner, chances are you didn't have a Saturn. It was really expensive to have all three - way too much for a kid at the time. People have favourites - SNES vs. Mega Drive, PlayStation 4 vs. Xbox One. Whilst it's much of a muchness now, there WERE a lot of differences back then. Saturn was always a 2D console and they basically had to tack 3D on as an afterthought. They didn't use polygons, unlike PlayStation, so it's going to look different. The Saturn 3D wasn't to everyone's taste back then, and looks very dated now. So do older PlayStation games. Don't forget, Saturn finished in 1998 in the West as opposed to 2004/2005 for PlayStation (I think it was 2000 or 2001 for Saturn in Japan and 2006 for PlayStation), so it had a longer run and they really pushed the hardware by the end. That said, it's still a great console, so it is worth persevering with!
The Saturn and N64 are similar in that they were both really successful in one region only, Japan and NA respectively. In my experience if you ask someone who shits on the Saturn to name 5-10 games for it they usually draw a blank after Sonic R and Sonic 3D. And that's usually their "proof" that it's crap, they can't name a list of games. Because it's not their fault they've never done any reading up on it, it's the Saturn's fault for not being a sequel farm and having a bunch of name franchises on it. I always wanted a Saturn since I got into Sega back in 2003. I finally bought a NA model 2 in 2012 and became enamored with it, then got a boxed Japan launch model 1 last February. The majority of my collection has always been Japan games and I didn't want to be dependent on a Pro Action Replay, so the grey model 1 was my first ebay purchase. Happy belated, Saturn.
Yeah your absolutely right about that, it's true that many westerners won't remember the Sega Saturn hell even my father didn't know what the heck a Saturn was but he does at least known what a Nintendo 64 and PlayStation 1 was. Then again i do blame fully on Sega of America for not doing commercials like Segata Sanshiro or similar so it could've be a hellva alot more popular or relevant for the most part. Though because the absence of advertisements like that is more than likely the reason why it heavily bombed and also for not bring in over the Japanese exclusive games to the west like Grandia (instead of porting it to PS1) and many of it's Arcade ports and Action/Adventure type games that i think would've done a bit successful imo.
I knew of only one kid in school that had a Saturn. I think he wore a Virtua Fighter or VF2 t-shirt to school one day. Everyone had Playstation or N64. There were no Saturn commercials, no ads, nothing. Nobody was talking about it. I didn't even know it existed until later on.
Sega is well over half the reason the Saturn bombed in the US (the rest being the PS1s unheard of success). They refused to bring most Japanese 2D games to the US (think of how great it would have been if Symphony of the Night came out in the West on the Saturn? Or any of the fantastic Sega games?), Sonic Xtreme got cancelled because it would miss Christmas (even though Sonic 3 came out in February and did alright) because they worked the project lead literally into the hospital, in the States it had those stupid godawful recycled Sega CD cases, and Europe got even worse ones, and then they killed it less than 3 years after it launched in the west, leaving Sega without a system in North America and Europe for over a year. The Saturn is a great piece of hardware with some amazing games, but Sega screwed up just about everything on it.
I've only recently (since maybe 2004-2005) gotten into the Saturn. I didn't own one when it was in production. My only experience with it at the time was a friend of mine who had one, and I got to see Nights and Baku Baku Animal. I thought it was cool, but I think I already had a Playstation at the point, so it wasn't really worth it to me to get another system. Plus it was pretty expensive. But I've since bought several Saturns and I have lots of games, mostly NTSC-J copies. The fact that I didn't grow up with it doesn't stop me from enjoying it. The Saturn has pretty good RGB quality, too. Something I've noticed: the ST-V (which is the arcade version of the Saturn) seems to have even better RGB video quality than the home version. I'm not sure why that is.
I bought my Saturn about a year after it stopped selling in Retail stores. Always wanted one, but could not afford it. I can still recall the Virtua Cop commercial that aired when it was selling here in the U.S. Searched for it on YouTube - here it is: Sega Saturn Virtua Cop commercial - 1995 I played my first RPG game on this console ... The Legend of Oasis -loved it and my first memorable action adventure game ... Tomb Raider. I loved Astal ... but have not finished it - need to get that out again and finish it. I also played my first imports from Japan with the use of the Action Replay cart. That opened a whole new world to me and I credit this console for my continued interest in import gaming as its carried on to other consoles. As of late I have gotten back into collecting, but man ... prices have sky-rocketed on some titles... some too rich for my blood. I have three Saturns ... US and two JP consoles; one's the limited released Saturn Derby CIB and in mint condition. A white Saturn that I bought a few months ago and modded. Japan definitely got the better looking systems - IMO.
