The console wars have been going on long before the current beef between Microsoft and Sony. But, while Nintendo and Sony are vying for the top spot these days, there was a time when Sony was the one looking from the outside in, being threatened to be pushed out of the circle by the big players, namely – SEGA,
Newly leaked emails from Sega of America from 1996 reveal that the company was so confident in the SEGA Saturn that it declared it was winning against Sony’s PlayStation.
This came just a few years before SEGA eventually pulled out of the console market following back-to-back commercial failures with the Saturn and the Dreamcast, both of which failed to upend the original PlayStation.
An email from Tom Kalinske, former CEO of Sega of America, said that the Saturn is “killing Sony” and has been sold out while Sony was hardly selling its stock of PlayStations. The CEO asked the email recipients for suggestions on how to showcase the success of the company at E3.
This is huge. A 272-page PDF of classified Sega of America docs from ~1996 was just posted online.
There is so much info here that it's almost overwhelming. Manufacturing costs, retail margins, sales, product strategies, emails, etc.https://t.co/2XWbpu9QdK pic.twitter.com/akhxdK7fwd
— John Harrison – Mega Drive Shock (@MegaDriveShock) July 3, 2023
Here’s what Kalinske wrote in 1996:
It is one thing to hear/read about how well we are doing in Japan vs. Sony, it’s another to personally witness it. I just visited 10 retail stores in Tokyo (most in Akihabra); it’s now spring break so the crowds of teens/college kids are huge. We are killing Sony. In every store, Saturn hardware is sold out and there are stacks of Playstation.
The retailers commented they can’t compare the true sales rate because Saturn sells out before they can measure accurately. Our interactive displays are better, our software displays and stocking far superior. It is not unusual to see 40-50 copies of Panzer Zwei or Virtua Fighter 2 stocked in even small stores and they are selling fast. I wish I could get all our staff, sales people, retailers, analysts, media, etc. to see and understand what’s happening in Japan; they would then understand why we will win here in the U.S. eventually.
How do we show that at E3?
To be fair, the Sega Saturn was very popular and sold really well in 1996. The sales were mainly driven by the popularity of Virtua Fighter and the console did outsell the PlayStation in Japan. However, the success was short-lived and PlayStation rose in popularity with the release of Final Fantasy VII in 1997.
Sega eventually left the console market in 2001, five years after the email was sent, opting to focus on game development. Kalinske resigned as CEO of the company just six months after the leaked emails. He revealed in a 1999 interview with the Wall Street Journal that he was not a fan of the Saturn architecture and believed no one would successfully market the console.
The entire 272-page PDF document has some interesting insights into what went on during the mid-90s console war and the strategies that the company employed during that time. At one point, Sega even tried to undercut Sony by selling the Saturn for $249 compared to the PlayStation’s launch price of $299.
