If you could change some things about the Sega Saturn, what would they be? Part Q&A segment and part wish fulfillment, I take a look at the things I think could have made a big difference in the life of the Saturn.

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Opening "Sega" jingle is from Astal for the Sega Saturn.

Ending Music during the credits is from Batman for the Sega Genesis.

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By: Jan Neves
YouTube Page -    / jan3d  

Intro by Evan S.
https://portfolio.tsestudios.com/

Episode Notes:

1. Redesigning things into one VDP would have been complicated, which is why I pushed the launch back a year. It would have been more complex than simply mixing VDP 2's abilities in, as the Saturn Control Unit also housed the DSP, which I want moved directly into the new VDP and have its own cache of memory to work with.

2. This path likely would have changed many of the Saturn releases you know, and in some cases, love. No change would come without sacrifice.

3. You'll notice I put a larger emphasis on Sega of America moving over well known IPs from the Genesis. This is an important part of the plan because I believe a big issue with Saturn was its lack of connection to previous Sega properties.

4. One SH-2 could perhaps be seen as too slow, but I do not believe so. With the DSP directly assisting our new VDP, we should actually see some improvement in polygon rendering. The Master/Slave setup of the original SH-2 design was hamstrung by a single shared bus, so I feel any extra power afforded the Saturn due to this setup only helped the most talented developers programming in Assembly. We need a console accessible by all developers and one CPU accomplishes this.

5. You may ask why not go deeper. Why not go into the later life of the Saturn with changes. I felt I didn't need to because these changes would have put things on a path to a library that was already incredible. Saturn's games in 96 and 97 would have begot more sequels and the better sales would have secured more 3rd party support.

6. Videos like these are for the sake of conversation. In no way do I feel this would have been an easy fight, nor do I begrudge the folks who originally handled it. Business can be tough and there are often roadblocks and circumstances that completely derail you. Reality is always significantly harder to succeed in.

7. The diagram that was used for the Saturn's architecture was created by Rodrigo Copetti.
He has some cool write ups about it and other consoles.
https://www.copetti.org/writings/cons...