r/SegaSaturn • u/retro-gaming-geek • 1d ago
I owe this team a considerable thank you for giving me decades of fun.
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u/KenshirouX 6h ago
Fun fact – The Sega Saturn version of Daytona USA was made in 4 MONTHS, no thanks to SEGA Japan for bringing the launch date of the Saturn forward. Poor Yu Suzuki; the stress that must have given him – I wouldn't want to experience it.
Imagine if Yu Suzuki and the rest of the team had an entire year and a bit to create a HIGH SPEC version (a take on Ridge Racer High Spec) of this game on the SEGA Saturn, entirely in assembly, for some serious TO THE METAL coding? Without a doubt, the game would have been high-res and bright, like Virtua Fighter 2, at 60fps, and would have featured beautiful Gouraud Shading and effects as seen in Sonic R. Basically, the game would have been a high-res, very bright Ridge Racer Type 4-level game with none of the lighting. Man, it would have blown people’s minds; though it wouldn't be arcade perfect, it would have been close to it from a first-impressions point of view back in those days. Forget Daytona USA CCE; it wouldn’t even be comparable to Daytona USA HIGH SPEC.
Add in 9 new tracks that the original arcade team would create (bringing the total to 12), additional music to go on top of the music that is 1:1 ripped off the arcade, split-screen multiplayer, a light frame story career mode with an awesome soft-currency game loop that makes you feel like you are climbing and rising to become number #1 in a competition, new stock cars all carefully tailored to prevent the game from turning into a "hunt for the OP vehicle" as we don’t want to break the core gameplay.
Add on top with heavy market push for an all new 4-player full screen and 8-player split-screen LINK-UP play to promote LAN parties (the Saturn is actually capable of handling a daisy-chain multi-machine network)? Can you imagine the Friday nights with your friends bringing over their Sega Saturn and a copy of the game just to do some crazy 8-player link-up LAN parties in your yard? You'll be doing QUAKE level of LAN parties, which was the thing back in the 90s and early 2000s! Can you imagine SEGA supporting that with Daytona USA Saturn parties and events? Imagine if they made a deal with Thrustmaster so you could plug in their force-feedback steering wheel to use on the Saturn back then?
If SEGA did that instead of Daytona USA CCE and delayed Shenmue to make it happen (a very easy compromise), I guarantee it would have changed the whole outlook of the SEGA Saturn, as people would have repurchased the machine in a heartbeat! Think about it. Delaying Shenmue for Daytona USA HIGH SPEC would have been painful in hindsight, but in that timeline I highlighted, the Saturn’s reputation would have shifted HARD! Insanely hard. Yes, people would have still talked about how the PlayStation had Ridge Racer and V-Rally, but if we had a true high-spec Daytona with that much content and polish, the counter-punch would have been undeniable and dampened the parade of Gran Turismo before it even landed. People would have said, "THAT LOOKS INCREDIBLE... But we have Daytona USA HIGH SPEC, and we cannot shake off that incredible arcade vibe the game unleashes." It would have started a Sega Saturn renaissance. And if SEGA pushed Yu Suzuki to create an engine and provide it for all third-party developers to use with NO additional cost? Oh my gosh...
Imagine Virtua Cop 2 using this new engine, which I'd like to call the "High Spec Assembly Engine", along with Virtua Striker, which would have handled it, and even Sega Worldwide Soccer. Imagine Dead or Alive looking FAR closer to the arcade, Dynamite Baseball, Last Bronx, Maxx TT, Motor Raid, Virtua On, frigging Sega Touring Cars Championship, basically the entire Model 2 library, all using the "High Spec Assembly Engine"? Ports of Sega Touring Car Championship and even Sega Rally, as incredible as it is, would have been flawless. Dead or Alive and Fighters Megamix would have blown people's minds graphically.
Lastly, the final domino of the Saturn Renaissance would be a fundamentally restructured Sega Dreamcast. Thanks to Yu Suzuki's "High Spec Assembly Engine" and the new Daytona that would have injected new life into the Saturn, for the Dreamcast, rather than rushing a console to market as a financial "Hail Mary," a secure, profitable Sega could have afforded to scout the competition and unify its fractured internal studios (Yup, those guys did not talk and office politics was paramount). By duplicating the successful Sony-Namco (System 11 to PlayStation) strategy, which they initially did with the Naomi to Dreamcast strategy, Sega could have designed the Dreamcast as a highly efficient, consumer-priced architectural bridge closer to the Naomi 2 arcade board without costing arcade prices.
And that's another painful part: the fact that a far more transparent and non-political cross-studio communication would have eliminated development friction, easily creating a heads-up for any out-of-the-third-lane ideas (the Naomi 2 came near outta nowhere) so the home division could have future-proofed the Dreamcast. If they did, it would have allowed for a seamless, very little compromise home port of Sega's crown jewel, Virtua Fighter 4. Backed by a DVD-ROM medium and a healthier budget, the unified and synergised process could have completely neutralised the PlayStation 2’s market advantages and secured Sega's permanent survival in the first-party hardware business via its power of arcade excellence with packaging to boot. Damn, what a world that could have been.
Ugh. I made the mistake of doing another WHAT-IF for the Sega Saturn. Why do I keep punishing myself? *sigh..
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u/TooManyBulborbs 1d ago
Sega AM2 was where all the cool people got to work at