This is so commonly said in the West that I think people don't even question it, but it is not correct. Sega was dominating 3D game development in 1994 and 1995, both in the arcades and on home consoles. That is the single reason why the Saturn soundly defeated the PlayStation in 1995 in Japan. Sega released far more polygon-based home console games than any other developer in 1994 and 1995, including Namco and Psygnosis (~12 on the Saturn and ~5 on the 32X). Nothing could be further from the truth than saying Sega was unprepared for 3D. It was more prepared than any other developer. Here is Sega producer Yoji Ishii (who produced many of the Saturn's best games, including the Panzer series), speaking last year in Beep21: Ishii took 30-40 arcade developers who had 3D experience to Sega's console division in early 1993, nearly 2 years before the Saturn was released. Development on Panzer Dragoon actually began in the first half of 1993. It is simply impressive that Sega went from having zero console developers with 3D experience in 1992 (as reflected in the survey Hideki Sato conducted) to having what was likely the largest team of 3D game developers in the console industry in 1994.
Wow, okay, I stand corrected. I'm on team Saturn now. It's just a shame the Daytona port ended up being such a graphical mess (even though it was still fun to play and had the right feel once you got over the glitchy pop-up). I think it was probably a major factor in the system's poor reception in the West.
There was no way SEGA could beat SONY, but Nintendo was there was the taking. The 16-bit market even buy 1994 was old and getting full of the same type of right to left scrolling game, even in the Arcades people weren't playing 2D games like shooters or 2D scrolling beat them up's like there were. I used to watch the likes of Gamesworld and read so many mags and so many reviews were staring with Yawn, can't developers make anything new Nintendo was in a slightly different position as the SNES came 2 years after the MD, but if you were an MD owner and a non-Nintendo nut gamer who started life on the C64, Atari ZX Spectrum by 1995 you had enough of the same style of 2D games you were becoming a young adult and we getting ready to move on in all sorts of ways It wasn't also about saying 2D or the MD is dead either, just leave that sort of stuff to the 3rd parties. You didn't see Nintendo make any In-House games for the SNES as soon as the N64 hit Japan and the same was true for Nintendo for making In-House N64 games when the Cube hit, MS dropped the OG Xbox like a stone when the 360 was ready. SEGA was looking to support the Mega Drive into 1997 with In-House software, it was nuts. Just let the 3rd parties make the software while SEGA just provides hardware support. It wasn't even like the late Mega Drive software sold in great numbers either, how well did The Ooze, Comic Zone, and Vectorman 2 actually sell? If we didn't have the 32X. SEGA Saturn would have been launching with VR Delux, VF, Daytona, Doom, Star Wars Arcade Ect. The launch lineup is better and also SEGA wouldn't be splitting its resources between two different systems or piss off retail with 2 different systems, for me a Comic Zone on the Saturn with 24 bit visuals, CD soundtrack and a 2 player mode would have been a better idea than a late MD title. And we did see the decline in Nintendo profits, but people always say how many millions DKC sells, while overlooking Nintendo games can sell millions on flops consoles like the Wii U, I mean Mario Kart moved over 8 million units on that. Nintendo saw a 41% reaction with its profits 1994 from 1993 and 32% drop in its share price as a result. 16 bit titles were not selling in huge numbers like they once were for 3rd parties and that was leading to a drop in royalties for SEGA and Nintendo, never mind the amount of unsold MD carts SEGA had in warehouse, it was said they had 3 million unsold SF2 carts, given the memory size that's a ton of money lost with one game
