Happy 15th Birthday Sega Saturn!

[Yakumo]

Yes, the Sega Saturn is 15 years old. how time flys! Back on November 22nd 1994 the world saw the birth of the Sega Saturn. One of the biggest under rated consoles of all time!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Saturn!!

[Max P.]

Wow, time flies. I was one of those who totally overlooked the Saturn until discovering the Japanese model and the incredible range of Japan only software - now up there with the SFC and PCE in my top three all time consoles.

[Fastware]

Took a year to get going but was fantastic after that, last bastion of 2D TV gaming. My Saturn get's a lot of love.

[Kongster]

Happy Birthday, Sega Saturn. A lot of people didn't appreciate you, the ignorant gits, but I most definitely did. I still do. You provided me with so many happy memories... seeing Virtua Fighter running for the first time complete with awesome bone crunching sound effects in 1994 was awesome. 1995 was even more awesome with the advent of the the "big three" - Virtua Fighter 2, Virtua cop and Sega Rally - all state of the art (at the time!) Model 2 games excellently converted to the Saturn. Oh happy memories.

Credit, to Capcom for sticking by you right to the bitter end. Credit also to the Official Sega Saturn Magazine who gave you brilliant coverage, brimful of top games especially towards the bitter end (Panzer Dragon Saga, X men vs Street Fighter, Radiant Silvergun).

Once again....Happy Birthday, Sega Saturn.

[Dogg Thang]

The official Sega Saturn Magazine was possibly my favourite games magazine of all time. I love my Saturns and I'm so glad I made that choice to get it back in the day when I bought it for Street Fighter Alpha. I remember someone asking why I would buy that game - after all, the SNES could do that. But SFA was (I think) the first game I ever saw that had a modern home version that was exactly like the home version. For me, that was a huge landmark in gaming and it's when everything began to change.

Then I got Panzer Dragoon Zwei when that came out and I fell in love with that experience. And so many more. Some of my favourite games are for the Saturn - Nights, Exhumed, more.

And then I got a JP Saturn for the Capcom vs games. Games I still play. The Saturn was a really big deal for me and it has a special place in my gaming heart.

Happy Birthday old friend.

[sj33]

I didn't get mine until Christmas 1997 because I was too young to afford one myself, and too expensive for my parents... but the Megadrive was my life in the early 90s, and I actually bought Sega Saturn Magazine during '96 and '97, despite not owning a Saturn, to drool over the games that I might be able to play one day.

I finally got one with Sega Rally, Sonic Jam and Sonic R (and I already had Christmas Nights and some demos from Sega Saturn Magazine). In a sense, it was a good time to buy the Saturn because there were so many second hand Saturn games in the game stores at the time that even I managed to amass a collection of 20 or so games within a year, all stuff that I'd been reading about in Sega Saturn Magazine for the few years previous.

Sega Saturn Magazine was so crucial, especially in 1998. They knew that the only people still playing the Saturn at that point were the (lack of better term) 'core', and they tailored their content for that audience. I was introduced to so many Japanese games, non-mainstream games, 2D games, RPGs, shumps etc that I'd otherwise have never heard of. I was not new to Japanese import gaming - the first games console I ever played was a Japanese imported Megadrive in 1990 with Rainbow Islands, Tatsujin, Toki and Last Battle, but in 1998 when most people still lacked the internet, magazines played such an important role in making people aware of lesser-known games, and this applies to Sega Saturn Magazine especially. And of course, it was Rich Leadbetter's praise of Lobotomy Software that resulted in us getting excellent ports of Duke Nukem 3D and Quake.

So many memories. Christmas will always be about Christmas Nights and Sonic R for me. I remember the first time I played the Panzer Dragoon Saga demo, on a weekend morning, myself having very little exposure to RPGs at the time, I was captivated. No other console has as many memories for me.

[CMcK]

The Saturn is probably my all time favourite system. Stupidly I must have owned about 6 versions of the system but finally settled on a minty white Japanese system. So many great arcade ports and of course all those great shooters. Even the pad is verging on perfection.
Loads of wee things add up to make the system an utter gem. The design, especially in white, has aged really well and still looks good today. Way better looking than the horrid grey slab that was the PlayStation.
The excellent quality RGB output took the micky out of the PS and N64. The fact that the Saturns RGB encoder was an off the shelf Sony part is quite ironic!
The joypad plug and socket design is probably the best ever as well. Large enough to hold easily with out being ungainly and doesn't require much effort to insert or remove a plug unlike the horrible old 9 pin plug on older system.
Built in storage was a bonus. Low capacity memory cards were a rip off. OK I have the 8 meg memory card for my Saturn but to be honest I don't know why as it's no where near full. And never will be.

Here's hoping my Saturn is still offering up quality 2d shooter action in another 15 years time.

[Team Andromeda]

The best console ever ,even now. It really doesn't get any better than a Saturn and a copy of Souky.

Up yours SONY and NCL

[Silanda]

Damn this makes me feel old. The Saturn was probably the first major console launch I was really pumped for, and it doesn't seem that long ago. Ironically I pretty much ignored that Saturn after it was launched over here and got a PC instead. I got a Saturn a couple of years ago though, damn fine console with all those imports.

[usman]

.....

[Alex_976]

Part of me wished they had stuck a model 2 board in the shiny black case. The launch games looked shocking next to the playstations. Thats the reason all my friends went for the PS over the Saturn.

[Kongster]

The Saturn was a complex beast, too complex for most third parties it seemed. But in the right hands, the Saturn produced some amazing things. Take Virtua Fighter 2 for example, it was a stunning conversion running at the Saturn's highest res and at 60fps too. Fantastic.

[CMcK]

Part of me wished they had stuck a model 2 board in the shiny black case. The launch games looked shocking next to the playstations. Thats the reason all my friends went for the PS over the Saturn.

That would have made a Neo Geo AES look cheap. And I think the 2 colour texture limitation would have hampered it after a while as well. Especially with 2d games.

[Silanda]

Part of me wished they had stuck a model 2 board in the shiny black case. The launch games looked shocking next to the playstations. Thats the reason all my friends went for the PS over the Saturn.

That would have been nice, but the Model 2 board cost thousands back then.

[Wools]

I didn't get mine until Christmas 1997 because I was too young to afford one myself, and too expensive for my parents... but the Megadrive was my life in the early 90s, and I actually bought Sega Saturn Magazine during '96 and '97, despite not owning a Saturn, to drool over the games that I might be able to play one day.

I finally got one with Sega Rally, Sonic Jam and Sonic R (and I already had Christmas Nights and some demos from Sega Saturn Magazine). In a sense, it was a good time to buy the Saturn because there were so many second hand Saturn games in the game stores at the time that even I managed to amass a collection of 20 or so games within a year, all stuff that I'd been reading about in Sega Saturn Magazine for the few years previous.

So many memories. Christmas will always be about Christmas Nights and Sonic R for me. I remember the first time I played the Panzer Dragoon Saga demo, on a weekend morning, myself having very little exposure to RPGs at the time, I was captivated. No other console has as many memories for me.

Brilliant memories, Shakey.

I was very much in your position back then as my Mega Drive had run its course and my parents were willing to buy me a new home console of my choice. I was left with 2 options, a Sega Saturn for ?99 with Sega Rally at Argos or a PSone for ?130 with Ridge Racer at Electronics Boutique.

I'm sure you guys are most aware of what it's like when you ask a child to choose one item from two but this was a tough one! It was either the machine that will play the future Sonic games or the new machine with an exciting and new line-up. After a week of decision making I'm afraid to say I choose the PSone in the end and although I had a just as good time and was left with fond memories of the PSone, the Saturn had to wait to be played a few years later.

When I picked one up I was joyous as the games had long since stopped being manufactured and they were as cheap as chips. I hunted down in my local Indie, Kart Klub for the faithful, a UK Saturn modded for 60hz and multi region and in the store I picked up Sonic Jam, Virtua Fighter 2, Sega Rally, Nights and Manx TT. I had some great times on those games and my favourite memories of the system are either playing Sega Rally for the first time like I had always wanted to since a Kid or playing Guardian Heroes with my little brother, great times!

For me the Saturn has aged quite a bit as its 3D Technology was a step behind the PSone but the simple 3D has its own charm. Besides this I, and I'm sure many others, will fondly remember the Saturn as the first console to bring home faithful arcade ports and the first real 3D machine in the living room.