SEGA of America Internal Documents Made Public

Early on the morning of July 3, 2023 an Internet Archive contributor by the name GoldenDreamcast posted an enormous information dump consisting of 272 pages of previously classified internal documents from SEGA of America titled “Sega Fiscal Year 1997 Brand Review” .

The shear number of revelations in this dump is staggering, and the SEGA and Saturn community will likely be combing through them for years to come… Many of these documents reveal the dire straights that SoA (and SEGA as a whole) were in, and it is apparent the lack of control they had to right the ship near the end.

Here are just a few samples of the fascinating and illuminating information contained in this document:

1996 E3 Floor Plan

Email from Tom Kalinske

TV Commercial Story Boards

www.youtube.com

Saturn vs. PlayStation – 1995 Sales & 1996 Projections

Concern over Lack of Football Title

1996 Saturn Brand Review: Key Issues

Acknowledgement of Communication Issues

Consumer Research & Acknowledgment of Sony’s Postition

Numerous Brand Promotion Partnerships (General Mills, Post, Oscar Meyer, etc…)

Saturn Merchandise Inventory Report

Saturn Critical Software Issues & Required Actions

Saturn’s Key Issues for Fiscal Year ’97

Virtua Fighter 2… REMIX?!?

The shear VOLUME of this information is so massive that it’s impossible for us to parse and digest all of this data at once, but here are a few of the insights that our own Danthrax has noted:

Only 97,000 32X add-ons were sold through 1995, and SoA was considering the “scrap value” of their remaining stock, with loads of 32X hardware just sitting in warehouses.
Sega sold 78,780 Saturns through September ’95, then SONY overtook with 130,728
SoA considered NiGHTS to be a title targeted at a “very young audience”.
No stock of Saturn consoles at WalMart as of March 1996
SoA knew they had a massive problem with their sports lineup, and they even considered acquiring Accolade just to gain a football title.
If SoA had waited a year, SoJ could have developed NetLink to utilize the serial port, rather than the cartridge port.
SoA considered NetLink support for GunGriffon, Baku Baku Animal, Decent (never released on Saturn), Command & Conquer & Duke “Newcomb” 3D (the only title that actually got it).
SoA wanted to sell the Sega Pluto for a whopping $550 during Fiscal 1997.
Riglord Saga 2 was on the calendar for November 1996 and later March 1997
Terra Phantastica “reserve title” for Fiscal 1997

…and the list goes on and on and on, as we pour over more and more of this document. This article to be updated as we digest more of this information dump.

SaturnDave

A massive Saturn fan since Christmas '96, Dave is enthusiastic about growing the community and spreading Saturn love and knowledge to fans old and new. Co-founding the SEGA SATURN, SHIRO! podcast back in 2017 and creating the SHIRO! SHOW in 2020, he seeks to create interesting and engaging Saturn-related content for the community. Dave's interests circle around game preservation, and he is a huge fan of game magazines and developer interviews.