SegaSaturn.co.uk has been set up to serve as an online user community for the fans of the Sega Saturn games console.
Although the Saturn fan base is extremely vibrant the world over there appeared to be a distinct lack of websites dedicated to the system, and that's where we step in.
The Sega Saturn is a 32-bit games console manufactured by The SEGA Corporation and first launched in Japan on the 11th November 1994.
At its launch the Saturn was an extremely powerful console featuring dual 32-bit RISC processors and a CD quality 32 channel sound processor.
It's processing power was far in advance of it's contemporary rivals at 50-MIPS (Million Instructions Per Second) Compare this to the PlayStation's 30-MIPS, Atari Jaguar's 26.6 MIPS, PC Engine's 15.5 MIPS and the Amiga CD32's 3.5-MIPS and it becomes obvious how much potential the ill fated Saturn had to become the dominant console in the mid '90's games market.
The Saturn was able to achieve true transparency effects later on in it's development unlike any of its contemporary rivals.
The Saturn's quadrilateral rendering shows less texture distortion than the widely used triangular system used by other consoles at the time. Tomb Raider was designed specifically for the Saturn's quadrilateral-based hardware. Quadrilateral ability allowed the Saturn to render First-person shooter games better than other console at the time, a larger amount of video RAM also allowed larger levels than in any other console releases.
Only 240 Saturn games saw release in Europe, and only 245 in the USA.