Insight, hindsight, or blindsight
Rao Wu
rwu@ix8.ix.netcom.comGreetings Sega Saturn fans! We'll I guess we all know the bad news, that no news, wasn't good news. For those of you who don't ( Yeah that PSX owner who stumbled in here by accident ), the rumored VF3 and Upgrade announcement was expected at the Tokyo gameshow but was nowhere to be seen, heard, felt, smelt, or materialize in any way, shape, or form. Yu Suzuki who was present at the show, apparently didn't even sneeze an audible closely resembling anything sounding like VF3. Is it truly canceled? Is it still coming out and going to be previewed at the E3 show in June? Boy, the Sega soap opera gets more and more intense as the year unfolds. If Sega is trying to create hype, believe me, THEY ARE ACTUALLY DOING IT CORRECTLY. Don't get me wrong, Sonic Jam, Project Sonic, Panzer Dragoon RPG, etc., was all great news, but nothing compares to an arcade port of VF3. So where does that exactly leave us Saturn owners? (Please read this all, cause it starts out pretty grim.)
Well, INSIGHT would tell us Saturn owners that the announcements of VF3's early Saturn port's demise is most likely accurate. Think about it, Sega realizing that the Saturn's image is by no means going to catch up to the Playstaion's pristine sleek brandleader image in the Videogame industry, or Nintendo 64's golden boy contender with the American Public, has probably indeed thought that an upgrade enhancement would have consumers shouting 32X, and not wanting to shell out their hard earned cash to upgrade their system. They also probably have speculated that come Xmas time, the general public wouldn't spend 200 dollars for a Saturn packed with upgrade ( assuming they drop the price and package the upgrade of course ) when they can buy a PSX or N64 for probably 100 dollars or so. Sega also probably realizes that in America at least, the public is just plain STUPID, and VF3 is not high in demand at all. Perhaps the purported upgrade couldn't do the VF3 game any justice at all and was too underpowered. . . so what does Sega do, they prepare their new system ready for round 3 of the video game console wars. But Sega still needs a flagship game for it, so they launch it with a VF3 game that can sell some systems, but they have to do it soon as VF3 hype will start to fade by the end of the year. So they remain quiet. Afterall, Sega still needs their cash cow, and for now, that is still the Sega Saturn. Reports that VF3 will not materialize on the SS will kill many of the few loyalists that Sega already has. Reports of a new system would slow the Saturn's anemic sales even more. Sega, Yu, and AM2 have no choice but to remain silent. This DOoOoOoM talk, already has me depressed, but I actually don't believe any of it one bit.
In HINDSIGHT, Sega has indeed been guilty of everything from controversy,conspiracy, and plain old super secret ninja stuff, when it came down to overhyping a game prematurely. Sega publicly even announced that this was a major mistake when dealing with game marketing. With the intense speed of the internet, you all know that news travels fast. Remember this past weekend, we all waited, holding our breaths, looking, yearning and anticipating, some form of tidbit breakthrough news, from our friends around the world. Our fellow Saturn fans from the U.K., Japan, Hong Kong, and virtually everywhere else, tried to inform us, and keep " on the ball " with any kind of rumor rumblings; even watching Sega Infomercials at 3 o'clock in the morning ( Thanks guys! ) My long winded overexasperated point, is that Sega, has to be particularly careful with the release of this news. C'mon, we're all dying for it, I know, but hype now, will only calm things down towards the holidays. GUYS/GALS, its only April. . . Look back towards your past Video game magazines in the year 1995. Reports/ pictures/ and hype was released in the NOVEMBER issues of most magazines for the then breakthrough VF2, which were released ( the mags that is ) in October. I have the Gamepro and Next-Generation magazines to prove it, and they preview VF2 as it is just about to be released. I know, they didn't give it its deserved hype, but in April ????? I'm sorry, that's just too early. Remember what I said earlier, about Sega masterminding this silent hype engine? This is all part of it. Think back folks, the pre-N64 silence that spawned into the most successful launch in American gaming history. . . this is EXACTLY the same approach. Furthermore, Ed from Hardcore Saturn Gaming, uhhh excuse me, Harcore Video Gaming, has touched up on the subject of Sega holding their cards close to the vest unless they want to give their rivals too much preparation time to catch up with ploys of their own. WHAT DID I JUST SAY??? I'll elaborate. Before the Saturn was launched, Sega had indeed learned of the PSX 3d capabilities and added their extra Hitachi Risc Chip to try and match Sony as a last minute resort. This rush in hardware development, lead Sony to actually have the edge in 3d capabilities and the Saturn sucking wind trying to catch up. Now that the rumor of the PSX getting an upgrade for Tekken 3 is in the air, Sega probably doesn't want to blab their tech specs just yet - waiting for the midnight hour at hand to possibly befuddle Sony. In hindsight, everything is going as it did back when VF2 was being released. We're all just understandably more impatient!
Positive talk for the Saturn wasn't my intended goal. . .just my gut feeling. If you've read any of my editorials in the past, you'll see that I have blasted Sega for their mistakes and have no intention of trying to suck up and defend the Saturn's position. Is it indeed BLINDSIGHT that I am following, and refuse to see the light that is apparently so obvious, because I am a biased Sega Saturn fan ? Could be I guess. But look at the ramifications of VF3, it is indeed the benchmark sign for the future of the Saturn. I know I've said it before, but I STILL insist, that the Sega Saturn's finest hour is still at hand.