The thirteenth anniversary -- unlucky thirteen, mind you -- seems a good time to look back at one of the biggest disasters in the videogame industry: The American launch of the SEGA Saturn. Designed as an attention-grabbing surprise that would cut the PlayStation off at the knees, the early debut of the SEGA Saturn in May of 1995 is widely considered the leading cause of the console's terrible failure in spite of a solid library of arcade hits and some original games that have gone on to be considered classics.

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The 32-bit generation was all set to kick off in 1995. SEGA would release the Saturn on September 2 and the then-upstart gamemaker Sony will debut its PlayStation console only a week later. However, at E3 in May, Sega president Tom Kalinske revealed that the September release date was actually false and the console would ship early. Much earlier. As in, that very day.The surprise launch stirred up some excitement to be sure, but it wreaked absolute havoc on the third-party publishers that SEGA would need to support the Saturn and it infuriated retailers that would left out of the first shipment due to supply issues. (SEGA's slight of KB Toys, a mall-based retailer, resulted in the toy shop never carrying the machine.) Without any heads up over the surprise launch, the Saturn debuted with a small library of first-party software and absolutely no third-party titles caught up to the shelves for months. This move is likely one that cost SEGA a number of games that ended up going to the PlayStation, whether out of spite or just the inability to get anything together in time to meet the general launch window.The jumpstart also gave Sony a great window to react to the Saturn's high price tag. It was $399, which was exceedingly expensive for a game machine in 1995. In reaction Sony announced that the PlayStation would roll out at $299 and then had a full summer to assemble complete launch library with the burned third-party publishers.The Saturn launched with only a handful of games. The system pack-in was a flawed, but certainly playable, port of the arcade smash Virtua Fighter. The console was flanked by Daytona USA Panzer Dragoon , Clockwork Knight, and Worldwide Soccer . Daytona USA certainly clued gamers into the Saturn's inferior 3D hardware, but like Virtua Fighter, it played quite well. Clockwork Knight was a classic-style platformer. The biggest surprise of the launch salvo was Panzer Dragoon, a game that became a cult classic and spawned a series popular with hardcore gamers. The Saturn box promised future titles, like Bug ! and Mr. Bones, but it wasn't until later in the summer that Saturn owners were able to pick up new games like Astal The fallout was soon measurable. By September, the Saturn has only moved approximately 80,000 units -- although those slow sales were due in part to limited supply as well as the prohibitive price tag. Sony quickly eclipsed those numbers by selling over 100,000 units at launch and never looking back after the first holiday season of the 32-bit generation. SEGA's gambit failed. And the failure dogged them for the entire generation and hobbled their chances with the Dreamcast, a machine that was far better designed than the Saturn and launched with great third-party support.I actually have first-hand experience with the Saturn launch. I was working at Software Etc. in a mall when SEGA made this announcement. And sure enough, a couple of boxes from SEGA arrived at our store within hours. The first box contained only four Saturns. The second box was all software, and more copies of each game than actual pieces of hardware we had on-hand. I think there were six or seven copies of Daytona USA in there.Naturally, we were thrilled. And guess what? Not a single Saturn made it to the floor. We employees bought every single unit so by the time customers had figured out about the surprise launch, there were only games left to buy. It sounds like a jerk move now, but this was pre-Internet explosion and we figured the store would get replacement hardware within a few days. But we never did. We never received additional Saturns for over a month. And so, eventually, customers just stopped asking. I don't know if the Toys R Us across the street ever received any additional unit beyond their launch supply and that's where these customers -- our very loyal customers -- were going. Or if they just stopped caring.What I do know, though, is that by September were had over 50 PlayStation pre-orders before we were told to stop taking them. And when the PlayStation finally went on sale, none of those pre-order customers were disappointed. We did not have any extra, but at least Sony was prepared to serve a solid launch audience that would propel the system through the important first holiday season via word-of-mouth.

SEGA Saturn launch commercial.

However, I can tell you that I played my Saturn religiously all summer. I loved it. I played every single launch game through time and time again, especially Panzer Dragoon, a game that is still near and dear. And as a monster Daytona USA fan, I could see past some of the ugly polys in the Saturn port and appreciate the great gameplay and awesome soundtrack. ("I wanna fly sky high!") But I do remember being quite antsy about getting new games in stock. I would tear through shipments every week in hopes a new Saturn game would show up. When Astal -- a gorgeous 2D platformer that was criminally ignored -- arrived at our store, I treated it like some sort of holiday.1995 - 1998 But there is just no way around the disaster of the Saturn surprise launch. SEGA's decision to abandon the hardware game after the Dreamcast can be traced back to this terrible decision. It offended retailers and third-party publishers alike, and without the support of them, your machine is doomed. The Saturn stumbled throughout its entire lifespan, despite hosting some excellent games like the Panzer Dragoon series, great ports of Virtua Fighter 2 and SEGA Rally, and fan-favoruite NiGHTS into Dreams. As a result of the Saturn's slow pace and the rapid rise of the PlayStation, Electronic Arts to forgo SEGA entirely in the following generation. By the time the Saturn was put to pasture in 1998 to give the giant the time and money to concentrate on the Dreamcast, SEGA's fate was sealed.