Saturn

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North American Sega Saturn.

The Saturn is a fifth generation home video game console developed by Sega and first released on 1994-11-22. The console uses CD-ROM as its primary medium for games, but can also read several other disc formats. The console was the successor to the Genesis (and its hardware add-ons), and was succeeded by the Dreamcast. Unlike later 3D technology, the platform's rendering system was based on square sprite scaling rather than triangle manipulation.

Sega managed to release the Saturn before the PlayStation or Nintendo 64, its two primary competitors, giving it an edge in the market. However, several factors led to the Saturn selling poorly. The system was notoriously difficult to program, it was poorly marketed in North America, and Sega failed to release a Sonic game for the platform. In the end, the Saturn was a commercial failure selling only a little over 9 million units, many of which had to be sold at a loss. This was compared to the Nintendo 64's 33 million, and the PlayStation's 102 million.

The Saturn's CPU consists of two Hitachi SuperH-2s, both clocked at 28.6 MHz. Its GPU consists of two custom chips, the VDP1 and VDP2. The APU is a Yamaha YMF292 controlled by a Motorola 68EC000. This system of chips allowed the Saturn to produce technically impressive output, but required such complex programming, that few developers took advantage of its power.

Personal

None of my friends at the time owned a Saturn while they were being sold, and I never played any of its games. The few games from the console I have played since have been through PC ports or emulation. I haven't really found any games for the system that I like more than those published on other consoles.

I have never owned or even played a Saturn.

Games

See all Saturn Games.

There aren't any games on the Saturn that are important to me.

Hardware

Review

I don't know enough about the console to review it.

Media

Links

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