And why can’t I find it anywhere? I know it wasn’t very popular when it was out, but is there really a huge demand for it now? I remember 7 years so, I could walk into a retro game store and see a console for $45.
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Tbh with something like the Saturn, I’d recommend just grabbing a japanese one. They’re typically found much cheaper and are also often in better condition (and come in more colours!)
Definitely this! I just picked up a white Saturn recently and it’s in great shape. I paid quite a bit more in shipping, but overall it was still less than I would’ve paid to buy one from the US.
Wouldn’t the Japanese model also have a much larger library of games available and be able to use the RAM carts to boost performance?
i’ve only used the RAM cart in my US Saturn.
I have at least two carts for it, actually.
One is the 4 MB RAM upgrade, and one is 4 MB RAM plus memory card for saving games.
Then again, I don’t know if a mod chip was required, which I do have installed.
I also have the Japanese Symphony of the Night for the system, as well.
The mod chip required connecting one wire.
Mod chips used to be necessary for playing games on CD-R, but now that can be done with just a 4-in-1 cartridge using the PseudoSaturn hack. My recollection is that Saturn mod chips only defeat the copy protection check and you’d still need another solution (like the 4-in-1 cart) for disabling the region-lock.
To be honest, I haven’t even touched my Saturn in 20 years. So I haven’t been keeping up with any of the tech available for it. I have tried to keep all of it in good condition, in case my kids ever want to play on it or I donate it to a collector or something.
I’ll look up the PseudoSaturn device.
The last few times I’ve played my Saturn games was on an emulator.
The Sega Saturn did a lot worse than the PlayStation outside of Japan, even compared to the Nintendo 64 - only about 2 million Saturns are thought to have been sold in the United States. And over time the disc drives have been failing on them from age. Doesn’t help that Sega stopped making Saturns back in early 1998, long before the Nintendo 64 (2002) and original PlayStation (2006) were discontinued.
Combine that with the ever-growing retro gaming hobby/bubble, and now a lot of the working ones are, by this point, in the hands of enthusiasts of the system who don’t really intend to sell, or collectors who would want a lot of money for them.
I’m guessing that its rarity is boosting pricing. Have you considered emulation for gaming, or is it that you wanted the physical console?
I think Saturn emulation is one of the more difficult ones to get working right. I would go emulation, but a lot of the games I want to play are multiplayer and multiplayer on a PC just isn’t as fun.
It flopped. It adds mystique to the system, since so many did not play it when it was actively supported. You see this a lot with game systems that crashed and burned… the Turbografx-16, the 3DO, the Nuon, and one of Sony’s rare bombs, the Playstation TV.
Like NBC used to say, “if you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you!” That’s doubly true for game systems. People want to know what they missed.
They’re kinda rare. They didn’t make a lot. SEGA of America’s CEO even complained to the president of the company in Japan about this before he was shitcanned, according to some recently released company reports from that period.
Yeah, Nintendo stuff might actually be cheaper because it was more in demand and common, whereas that’s just less of the Sega units around in people’s basements etc
