It’s Time to Change the Narrative About SEGA Saturn…

The SEGA Saturn is almost 30 years old… WOW!
Today marks the 29th anniversary of its North American launch on May 11, 1995.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been that long since I picked up this scrappy 32-bit console. Over the course of those nearly 3 decades, there have been numerous changes in my life and my surroundings (new friends, new jobs, marriage, kids, new house, etc…), but one thing has surely remained the same, and that is my love for the SEGA Saturn; a console that defined my youth and remains a part of my identity even today.

Another thing that has sadly remained the same is the general narrative and conversation surrounding the console. A predominantly western-focused failure narrative regarding Saturn’s poor commercial sales and its ultimate responsibility for SEGA’s fall from the console hardware market has been on the lips of every game history blogger and Youtuber going back at least 2 decades. Before that, you even had the games press itself doing its best to bury SEGA and the Saturn under the weight of negative article upon negative article. With all that negative press, it’s not hard to see why SEGA are reluctant to take a chance on publishing anything that called Saturn its home…

When we consider that Saturn has only so much time left to bask in whatever remaining spotlight the retro gaming scene may afford it, it seems a waste for us as a community to spend that time re-hashing the same negative failure narrative that we’ve all heard over the past 3 decades; a narrative that fails to represent the broader global Saturn fandom as a whole (considering Saturn was an overwhelming success in Japan and even in places like Portugal and Brazil).

After all, Saturn sold approximately 9.25 million units worldwide, and that really wasn’t so bad, considering the size of the video game market back in the mid-90’s. The fact that you could even sell 9.25 million of anything and still be considered a failure just speaks to how much better Sony and its PlayStation did by comparison, selling nearly 103 million units worldwide!

But that’s just it, though…
The Saturn seems doomed to forever be judged by comparison to PlayStation, rather than simply on its own merits and the strengths of its own software library.

However, we have the opportunity to change that by changing the narrative moving forward. More folks need to PLAY the Saturn and judge it for themselves. We can’t be caught up in the reductionist habit of referring to the Saturn as the ‘failed console that came out before the Dreamcast’, when in terms of total sales, the Dreamcast was no more successful than the Saturn. We need to focus on the positives, sending a clear message to SEGA that we LOVE the Saturn and are interested in seeing MORE from their beloved Saturn franchises!

It may take the collective effort of the retro gaming community at large to stamp out this stigma that so many years of negative press have cultivated. While the preservation and remembrance of history will always be important, it is of equal importance that we move on, building new memories and sharing new stories about this storied 5th generation console that help to paint it in a more positive light.

Happy 29th Anniversary to the North American SEGA Saturn!