Sega Saturn NetLink - A History Lesson On Sega's First Online Endeavour

[TronixGuy93]

Your blame should be squarely on Bernie Stolar en wikipedia org/wiki/Bernie_Stolar

[ProjectCOE]

@TronixGuy93 Yeah I know all about good old Bernie. Funny how he was instrumental in making the launch of the original PS such a success, but completely destroyed the Saturn. I'm so thankful he was outed from the industry.

[TronixGuy93]

@ProjectCOE No kidding. As far as I know he could be working for Wal-Mart now as a store director he slipped down the ladder so far. He's lucky or maybe not-so that he didn't step on some Yakuza, Triad or Tong while working in a predominantly Asian market as a head of the company. Maybe he was nothing more than a puppet anyway, explaining his incompetence when they cut the strings off.

[TronixGuy93]

@TronixGuy93 He couldn't even pass muster for a damn toy company president.

[ProjectCOE]

@TronixGuy93 I'll never forget how he basically killed the Saturn right there at E3 1997, before the first NetLink games were even made available, and how he wouldn't allow 2D games on the system nor would he focus on RPGs. All of these things could have turned the Saturn around big time, which would have lead to an easier transition to Dreamcast and likely Sega could even be in hardware to this very day.

[TronixGuy93]

@ProjectCOE Scary, isn't it? IMHO the Saturn had better potential than the Dreamcast EVER did, which I don't think ever stopped dreaming, though I do have to admit they had quite a few games for both, if they could have only timed it better. SEGA might have been the first company with 2 full sized consoles released simultaneously all-the-while selling the shit out of both!

[TronixGuy93]

@TronixGuy93 Correction "released NEARLY simultaniously"

[tendresseak27]

The cheapest game for that is duke nukem who is hard to find for under 40$. Im not gonna spend 40$ on a game like duke nukem 3d although i must admit im really curious to see how the game plays online, if theres any lag or whatever. Bomberman seems nice, but that one goes for around 80$ so thats even worse.

[ProjectCOE]

@tendresseak27 Yeah the only game that's affordable today is Duke Nukem 3D, and while it costs around $40 it is brand spanking new, which I found to be worthwhile. I plan to do a video on it and a bunch of online videos and whatnot so at the very least it's worth it for me because I'll have some fun with the game and making all these videos. For everyone else though, indeed the price of entry is extremely steep.

[AFMSB]

Man...Sega was just plain dumb back in the day. Really dumb. Release the adapter without any online games? 200$ price point? Seriously?

It's nice to see this very niche community alive to this very day, but sadly for non-Saturn owners it's just too costly and complex to set up. I understand how curious you are since you're a Saturn owner and already have the tools to get into it, but personally it's just not worth the hassle anymore.

[ProjectCOE]

@AFMSB Yeah this is clearly for those that already own a Saturn and have a game or two without realizing it. For new gamers to come into this now it will cost them an arm and a leg. The five NetLink games are the killing factor. Everything else is pretty cheap assuming you have access to a dial-up connection. If not, well then it's just impossible.

[ProjectCOE]

@AFMSB (Part 2) The technology was expensive back then so the price point was justified, but they should have waited for software and they likely could have changed the pricing when software finally was good to go.