Topic: Thinking of buying a sega Saturn

I'm into collecting old consoles especially the lesser known or perhaps largely ignored ones. Lately the Saturn has piqued my interest. I was always curious about it but as i understand it flopped in the US. If i were to get one would you suggest a Japanese or American version?

@Truegamer79 As far as functionality, there really is no difference that I can think of. Defeating the region lock will take care of your problems either way. The problem with Japanese systems is availability outside of Japan, so the shipping might get you there. Some variants may be more desirable too, making the US systems possibly cheaper to buy. An advantage of a Japanese system would be ease of using RAM carts, if for some reason your method of breaking the region lock fails or something. You can probably just get whichever ends up being the best deal for you, unless you really need a Japanese variant(the white ones are cool).

@Truegamer79 The only reason it flopped in the US was because of Segas poor marketing and the fact they moved the release date six months earlier without telling any of the game devs. Also due to deals they made with certain stores to carry the Saturn other stores who didn't have that deal felt burned by Sega.

Overall it was a good system, it's a pain to emulate so consoles and some games can get pricey. I resident 90's gaming guy @Neonpizza can probably give you more info.

@Tasuki
I saw a seller on ebay selling a Japanese one for 77 dollars and a US seller wanted 157 for it. That was even discounted by 85 dollars. I'm tempted to go for the Japanese one.

I'm taking it that you're in the US. Go American and get an Action Replay cart to allow you to play Japanese games. Japan did get some interesting console variants, no doubt, but having a US system allows you to take advantage of getting replacement controllers or other accessories fairly easily if need be (these consoles ain't getting any younger) and if you walk into a game store and they have any US games for sale for a decent price, you know you won't run into any issues for any reason. Saturn is a super fun system to collect for. Have fun!

From someone that bought a Sega Saturn when stores were giving them away (I have 3), my two cents is that the Saturn is not really worth collecting. If you have to have one, get a Japanese console and something like the Saroo cart. I can't explain what that is as per forum rules but Google will tell you anything you need to know. Japanese consoles are much more plentiful and inexpensive, and the cartridge slot is region-free. North American games are prohibitively expensive so I strongly suggest that you don't go that route (unless you are very wealthy, then by all means). If you are a Neo-Geo collector or GameCube collector then you probably know what to expect--all the noteworthy games go for triple digits. And good luck finding CIB games without broken longboxes.

@NeonPizza I never owned the Saturn myself, I remember my dad renting a Saturn and a few games from a local video store for my brother and me and to be honest I wasn't impressed. The best game to me was Daytona USA and I am not much for racers but that game was great. Plus no Sonic game at launch what was up with that?

About a week later I went over to my friends house and he had a PS 1 and that was the end for me and Sega. Playing games like Tekken 2, Suikoden, Twisted Metal and I had to have a Playstation. So a few months later when I got my first job at good old KMart I saved up a few paychecks and got me a Playstation along with Final Fantasy 7, and Twisted Metal not to mention a copy of the latest issue of Offical Playstation Magazine for the demo disc of course. 😎

Let me tell you there's nothing like the feeling of getting that new gaming magazine. Whether it be in the mail or from a store or newsstand, it's one of the few things I missed. Yeah understand why gaming magazines died out and it's a same that the younger generation can't experience them the way we did especially with those zany 90s covers!!! Towards the end of Nintendo Powers run the covers were so blah compared to the ones we got in the 80s/90s. No cg Mario could compare to the Claymation Mario of Volume one's cover. Then of course the you had the likes of Howard and Nester and the Classified information which is where I first learned of the Konami Code. Such a nostalgia trip I can go on for days.

But yeah going back to the Saturn I just didn't experience it much due to be fully engaged with Playstation. Sadly I even passed the Dreamcast by and didn't get to experience that till about 10 years after it's launch. For Sega it was always Genesis or bust.

@NeonPizza I had the 6 button Genesis controllers for my Genesis in fact I still use them to this day on my Analogue Mega SG. Come to think of it I don't know what happened to my original 3 button controllers that came with my Genesis, once I used the six button I never went back to the 3 button.

I actually own 2 Dreamcasts one original and then the black Sports model. The Dreamcast is an awsome console and it's probably my favorite retro console. I need to find some HDMI cables for them so I can hook it up to my current TV and play some Soul Calibur and Virtual Tennis.

It's quite possible that the Switch 2 will add Saturn and Dreamcast to the NSO2.

Not sure if that would affect your plans. Personally I'm too lazy and unhandy to go about collecting old consoles myself. But I see the appeal, there are loads of games just not available anymore except on that old hardware.

@NinChocolate I have the 8bitdo one as well and your right it feels a little off l, though I don't think I am as ambitious as you to do that to my controllers. I generally use the 8bitdo ones when I am to far from my TV to use the wired ones.

@NeonPizza Yeah I am not a big sports game fan but Virtual Tennis and NFL 2K on the Dreamcast were awesome. I also liked Metropolis Street Racer. I bet when that game come out it was pretty revolutionary for it's time for a racing game. I also had Shenmue which quite frankly I wasn't impressed. Maybe because when I got around to playing it I already played the Yakuza games and Shenume just felt so barebones compared to them. I can definitely see how it must have been revolutionary when it first came out but alas it's one of those that you had to play back then and get that experience.

I briefly owned a Saturn. Long enough to play some of the platform's best games. Dragon Force, The Legend of Oasis, Burning Rangers, and Shining the Holy Ark are each pretty great. But Panzer Dragoon Saga is the crown jewel of the platform, imo. Tragically isolated to the Saturn and will probably never get a port or remaster.

Mercifully, my all-time favorite shmup Radiant Silvergun was recently rescued and ported to current platforms. Publisher City Connection have also been doing awesome work porting the Saturn catalogue to current platforms. They're known as the "S-Tribute" series on the eShop. Batsugun, Guardian Force, Elevator Action Returns, Metal Black, Assault Suit Leynos 2, etc.