Recent Revelations Shed New Light on SEGA of America’s Fate

TL:DR – Just some of the takeaways from the ’97 Brand Review Documents

• Tens to Hundreds of Thousands of Genesis, Game Gear, Nomad, 32X in warehouse with few to no orders
  • Sonic & Knucles – 250,000 copies in warehouse & Zero Orders
  • Game Gear Games – 941,000 in warehouse & 7,000 Orders
  • 32X & 32X Bundles – 400,000+ in warehouse & Zero Orders
  • Saturn – 25,000 in warehouse & 1,000 orders
  • Saturn Peripherals – 250,000 in warehouse & 500 orders
  • Saturn Games – 187,000 in warehouse & 70,000 orders
• 32X Overstock Being Considered for Scrap Value
• Massive Amounts of SELL-IN stock coming back from retailers as unsold merchandise
• Saturn games sales were dismal in first fiscal year ’96 (1995-96)
  • Daytona USA – with 80,000 copies sold is best selling game on Saturn
  • Sega Rally – Rushed incomplete for US holiday season & only 42,000 copies sold
  • Sony NFL Gameday sells almost 200,000 copies beating every game on Saturn
• Saturn at $399 sells $60,000 before PS1 is released. PS1 sells 130,728 in September alone.
  • 2 Price drops in 1995 – $349 in Oct & $299 in Nov (matched with PS1)
  • 1995 Grand Sales: Sat – 237,000 / PS1 – 645,000
• Saturn struggles to find the success with sports titles it had on Genesis
• No American Football game released in 1995 or 1996.
• US thinks NiGHTS is for “younger audiences”, then reconsiders when Crash Bandicoot is released
• Mystaria shows as Zero Sales with is a bad metric for RPG games in the west
• SoA was aware of & acknowledges their communication issues with SoJ
• SoA looks to reposition Saturn as a technically superior / high tech internet appliance
• SEGA waited until 1997 to deploy 4,000 in-store kiosks in response to Sony’s tens of thousands

Then on Monday, July 10, we learned of a translated 2022 lecture by former SEGA president, Shoichiro Irimajiri, who laid everything bare in terms of SEGA of America’s ultimate failings and dispelled certain long-running rumors about what did and didn’t happen in regard to the Saturn in America. When paired with SoA’s own self-audit, it paints a very different picture than what we have come to know over the past 3 decades.

Irimajiri Clears the Air Regarding SoA/Saturn (click to read)

TL:DR – Here are the main points from Irimajiri’s business lecture

• SoJ wanted to release Saturn simultaneously in 94, but SoA did not want to move on from Genesis yet.
• SoJ granted them a year wait for Saturn while they would market an enhancement for Genesis (32X).
• Big retailers require SEGA to have double inventory in warehouse & buy back all unsold merchandise.
• Saturn launches in Japan and it’s a hit. US consumers learn of this and don’t buy stop gap 32X.
• Months go by with 400,000 32X in warehouse and NO orders. SoA debt mounts to hundreds of millions.
• Japan orders US to release the Saturn to keep them from falling further into the red.
• US doesn’t want to do this but it forced, so they spin it as a surprise E3 launch.
• Japan learns of US overstocked warehouses, zero orders & massive debt. They order Tom to restructure.
• A year goes by with no progress to restructure for profitability, and SoA asks Tom to resign.