We adore the Sega Saturn here at Time Extension. While it only managed to sell a fraction of what the rival PS1 managed, it is home to some of the greatest video games of its generation, and many of those rank amongst the best games of all time.
As much as we love the console, it's fair to say that some of the decisions Sega made back in the '90s didn't give it the best chance of success. One particular event took place 30 years ago yesterday, with Sega surprise-launching the console in North America with less-than-ideal consequences.
Sega of America had originally pencilled in Saturn's US launch for "Saturnday", September 2nd, 1995. However, Sega's Japanese office wanted an earlier release to gain a march on PlayStation, and at the inaugural E3 show that year, Sega of America CEO Tom Kalinske shocked attendees by confirming that the company had already shipped 30,000 systems to select retailers.
This move ordinarily would be cause for celebration, but in reality, it only served to annoy the stores that hadn't been selected to receive these consoles, including Best Buy, Walmart, and KB Toys. The latter would refuse to stock Saturn, denting the console's commercial reach.
The early launch also resulted in only a small handful of games being available between May and September, as third-party publishers were still aiming for the original date. To make matters worse, Sega also confirmed that Saturn would cost $399, only for Sony to steal its thunder at the same E3 by announcing PS1's price: $299.
Speaking to Chris Dring for Time Extension back in 2023, Kalinske said:
We didn’t have enough stock and we didn’t have enough games. I had to make an awful decision, because I couldn’t give every retailer stock. So we picked a couple of retailers, and we launched with them immediately that day at E3… with just a couple of bits of software. That was the Saturn launch. That’s not how you launch a system. You need games and big marketing… I believe the story may have been a little different if we had not done that.
So, while Sega got its machine to market earlier in the US, the massive price difference will no doubt have convinced many people to wait a few months for PS1's release. Within two days of its North America September 9th launch, Sony's console had outsold Saturn, despite Sega's console being available for five months.
Saturn wouldn't recover in the US but was more successful in Japan, where it sold 5.75 million units—more than half of its total install base of 9.26 million.