Retro Ads: The Craziest Sega Saturn Commercials

Successfully marketing the Sega Saturn was a difficult task for Sega in the mid-'90s. Their plan, then, shifted to attacking Sony's foray into home consoles by mocking the number of processors it had. Turns out you just need one to succeed.

The following commercials are insane. In Japan, Sega even developed a special mascot for the console named Segata Sanshiro who could beat down Chuck Norris any day.

1) Segata Sanshiro

"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnEoevwCaSk"

He is a true badass. His theme song proves it.

2) Nights into Dreams

"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iH1Flaq24M"

I really don't like the flying, screaming Sega heads....

3) Free Games

"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ny6wsFidOA"

How long would you let someone do this to your ear?

4) Sega vs. PlayThing

"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFzKraJOC2M"

See, they really weren't subtle about attacking the PlayStation.

5) Promotional Video

"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99iiUtPR-fM"

This is eight minutes of pure confusion.

6) Sonic R

"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsbt0V4dSuc"

I'm not sad that the '90s are over.

7) Crazy Trains

"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrn6cQtDfaI"

Thomas the Tank Engine goes rogue.

Tags: NiGHTS into Dreams, Sonic R, Sega Saturn, Retro Ads, craziest commercials

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Jonathan Oyama

September 20, 2010

Segata Sanshiro is a total badass. lol.

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Ed Grabowski

Wasn't the PS1 technically more powerful than the Sega Saturn? I was always under the impression it was. If so, wasn't Sega just flat out lying here?? They keep saying it is more powerful, with more everything. So...does anyone know technically which was was the most powerful one?? I know that the Saturn was originally desinged as a 2D system, and at the last minute they beefed it up when they heard the PS1 was going 3D.

Well, the Playstation was more powerful. You could say that the Saturn might have a faster processing speed, since it has two 32-bit processors. However, the real problem with the Saturn involved the same bus and each processor had problems accessing the main system RAM. This led to an awkward configuration involving the division of processing power. For instance, in Virtua Fighter, each individual CPU would have to process for one of the two characters on the screen.

There's a whole lot of other problems. The Saturn used quadrilateral polygons instead of triangles and whatnot. The software developers didn't receive much support from useful software libraries and development tools. There were occasions when the Saturn performed better, but in most cases, it didn't have enough features to attract third party developers.

Edit: Omfg, I remember that stupid screaming head. Oh, bad memories...

Now that I think about it, these are like really, really bad political ads. You have to ask, "What on earth were they thinking when they made these?"