Notes:

This page is part of Next Generation magazine's coverage of the 1995 Electronic Entertainment Expo , the first E3. The biggest story of that year's event was arguably the Saturn's release being moved up from September to an immediate release that day, with six games at launch and a $399 price tag.

Although this maneuver is seen as catastrophic in retrospect, Next Generation magazine seemed to indicate that this turn of events favored Sega. Elsewhere in this issue, they imply that Sony's PlayStation will have to make up for lost ground against the Saturn's early release, even at a lower price point.

To be fair, note that in Japan, the Saturn outsold the PlayStation each year until 1997, when Square and Enix started releasing their big JRPG's for the platform. The only really big PlayStation games in this early era were Arc the Lad in 1995 and Resident Evil, Tekken 2, and PaRappa the Rapper in 1996. Even a lot of third party support was still being directed towards the Saturn: major third party games for the Saturn at E3 1995 included FIFA, Gex, Myst, PGA Tour, Rayman, Robotica, etc.

The moral of the story is probably that what seems obvious in retrospect may not be so in the present.