We are heading across the Pacific to look at the “Golden Land” of the Sega Saturn—the Japanese library! We’re discussing the unique physical allure of Japanese imports and five 2D masterpieces that never made it to the West on SEGA TALK!
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On February 13th, 2026, the main designer of every Sega home console, Hideki Sato, passed away at the age of 77. News of his passing was first reported over that weekend by Japanese gaming news outlet Beep21, then later by a few English language news outlets like Kotaku.
Sato-san was the main man behind the overall design of all of Sega’s home consoles. The SG-1000, Mark-III/Master System, Genesis/Mega-Drive, Saturn, and Dreamcast were all designed by him and would, undoubtedly, be very different forms of tech without his influence. He fully took charge of Sega’s R&D department as part of that job during the Genesis years. Before all that, however, he had worked on arcade hardware at Sega right after joining the company in 1971 straight out of Tokyo Metropolitan Technical College. He would also serve as the company’s president from 2001 to 2003, as Sega was making their rough transition from a console hardware company to just a game development and publishing company, where his penchant for leadership was especially crucial.
While he may not be the only man responsible for these consoles being the way they were, he was still a highly important figure in their construction. His intuitive thinking drove Sega’s hardware team to push boundaries and construct beautiful designs that stood the test of time. That forward thinking became part & parcel of the kind of philosophy that drove Sega and won them so many lifelong fans throughout the decades. No matter what your favorite Sega console is, you can thank Sato-san for just about anything you love best about it.
If you’d like to hear more about this legendary designer, you can read more after the break. For now though, on behalf of Segabits and Sega fans all over the world, I will give personal thanks to Hideki Sato for his services to gaming. I can only hope his final hours were peaceful and that he may rest in peace now. Much condolences go out to his surviving friends and family as well.
In this episode of Sega Talk, we track the radical evolution of SEGA’s North American branding, from the clinical “graph paper” grids of the Master System to the high-tech “black box” era of the Genesis. We dive deep into why Sega abandoned its uniform look for the iconic red-stripe rebrand of the 90s, the switch to the massive plastic long-boxes of the Saturn, and finally, the Dreamcast’s sleek transition from bright orange swirls to the edgy “SegaNet” black. It’s a nostalgic look at how Sega used graphic design as a weapon in the console wars, shifting from a toy company aesthetic to a lifestyle brand that defined a generation.
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I’ve long waited for the day I could talk about an impressive new indie game for the Sega Saturn, and the wait is finally over.
Vigilant Paradise is a new Miami Vice inspired FPS designed for the Saturn by one Riccardo Campione. Of course, although I say it’s new, the game actually made its debut with little-to-no fanfare in November 2025. It sat quietly on itch.io until someone going by dmar3000 just happened across it from simply searching for “Sega Saturn” on itch one day and then posted about it on Reddit. From there, it caught the attention of our good friends at Sega Saturn Shiro, who then wrote about the game themselves. It goes to show that sometimes going off the beaten path can lead you to some interesting hidden discoveries.
If this looks interesting to you, you can read on past the break to find out more about this hidden homebrew gem.
Sega fans will know that the infamous King of Pop Micheal Jackson had quite the interesting history with Sega during the 90’s, but this may be something many of you weren’t privy to.
In a recent interview with designer Kazunori Sasaki with News Post-Seven, as reported on by MJ Vibe, Sasaki-san spoke about how he met with Jackson during his HIStory World Tour stop in Japan in December 1996 to do some photography and motion capture work for an unreleased game, presumably a new entry in Sega’s Digital Dance Mix game series for Saturn. The above photos of Jackson were taken during that shoot and were never publicly shown before. (The Ghost album cover has been available to the public for many years, but News Post-Seven just attached it to the pictures, for some reason.)
For those unaware, Digital Dance Mix was a planned series of rhythm games with each entry themed after a single popular singer. However, only one game in that planned series ended up releasing exclusively in Japan, based around the Japanese pop singer Namie Amuro. Apparently, she was popular enough to be known as the “Queen of J-Pop“, so she and Jackson may have been equals, depending on who you ask.
For more info from the interview, be sure to moonwalk right past the break.
In a rather unexpected move, the source code of the Slavedriver game engine, developed by Lobotomy Software for use with the games they developed for the Sega Saturn, has been uploaded to Github and the Internet Archive as open source code.
Lobotomy Software first used this engine to create their own original FPS game, Powerslave (Known as Exhumed in Europe), and used a modified version of the same engine to create the Saturn ports of Duke Nukem 3D and Quake, both legendary classic FPS titles for MS-DOS which ended up also being reputable games on Saturn. Lobotomy since closed their doors in 1999, so the group responsible for uploading the code from this engine goes by “Lobotomy Software Open Source Group” and consists of an unknown party. For what it’s worth, they claim to have the blessing of Ezra Dreisbach, who was the main programmer for Lobotomy’s 3 Saturn FPS titles and seems to have left the video game industry behind him after last being credited for the Xbox 360 port of Death Tank, a game he previously designed for Saturn and hid within Saturn copies of Powerslave and Duke Nukem 3D.
It’s important to stress that only the engine code has been uploaded online, and it’s the 1996 version of the engine that was used for Powerslave, not the amended version used on Duke Nukem 3D or Quake, which both came out the next year. None of the assets from any of those three games are included. The engine is available now under GNU General Public License 3.0, which basically allows anyone to look at, share, and modify the code to their heart’s content. You’re also allowed to share any modifications you make to it.
For more info, including the perspective of experienced Saturn homebrew developers whom you would think this engine code would be a huge boon for, check in after the break.
Digital Eclipse is name that holds a spectacular reputation among fans of retro gaming. The Atari SA owned development studio has been behind some of the most highly regarded retro game collections in recent years, including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection, Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration, and their most recently announced games Golden Tee: Arcade Classics and Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection. (Of note to Sega fans, that upcoming Mortal Kombat collection… sorry, I mean “Kollection…” will include the Genesis/Mega-Drive, Game Gear, and even 32X ports of multiple Mortal Kombat titles)
When speaking with Games Industry.biz regarding their work on Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection, Digital Eclipse head of production Stephen Frost mentioned he’d love to be able to do a collection of Sega’s fighting games on the Sega Saturn. This isn’t a confirmation that any such project is actually in development, but it is cool to hear nonetheless.
You can see his exact quote past the break here.
UPDATE: The contest has ended! Thank you to those who entered! The winners are: SaltyTaro (white controller) and Bree D. (black controller) Retro-bit will be in touch for your details!
We’re celebrating 30 years of SEGA Saturn in style by partnering with Retro-bit to give away two SEGA Saturn wireless pro controllers! All you have to do is visit this website and complete the various tasks to enter your name into the drawing! Don’t worry, it’s mostly visiting SEGAbits and Retro-bit social media accounts and following or posting. Two winners will be selected and those winners will either get a white or black controller. Good luck to all who enter and a big thank you to Retro-bit for partnering for the giveaway!
The year is 1995. Movies such as Billy Madison, Bad Boys, Desperado, Jumanji, and Toy Story hit theaters. TV shows like Fraisier, Babylon 5, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the Earthworm Jim cartoon, and the Street Fighter and Darkstalkers cartoons premiered on TV. Anime such as Saint Tail, Slayers, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, and Virtua Fighter premiered in Japan and Ghost In The Shell premiered in Japanese and UK theaters. Songs like “Gangsta’s Paradise” by Coolio, “Fantasy” by Mariah Carey, “Waterfalls” by TLC, “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” by Smashing Pumpkins, and everyone’s favorite holiday song that they never get sick of hearing after midnight every November 1st: “All I Want For Christmas Is You” also by Mariah Carey, topped the charts. Video games like Chrono Trigger, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest, Command & Conquer, Rayman, and Time Crisis came out. Sega released Genesis games like Beyond Oasis, Comix Zone, and Garfield: Caught In The Act and arcade games like Virtua Cop 2, Fighting Vipers, and Cool Riders. We were also 5 years away from entering the 21st century. We’d come a long way, but were we ready for the future?
Sega Saturn released on this day in North America three long decades ago, but as many of us know, it wasn’t originally supposed to be this day. It was originally decided to launch the console in September of 1995, but Sega of America surprised everyone by moving the launch up to May, a costly mistake that kneecapped the Saturn at the starting line. Even so, Saturn goes down in history as a beloved 32-bit system with some impressive games that stood the test of time, such as the Panzer Dragoon series, NiGHTS Into Dreams, Sonic R, Mr. Bones, Guardian Heroes, Burning Rangers, Fighters Megamix, and ports of incredible arcade games like Virtua Fighter 2, Virtua Cop 1 & 2, Fighting Vipers, Sega Rally Championship, and The House of the Dead. Saturn went woefully unappreciated all around the world other than Japan, however, and sold somewhere between 9 and 17 million consoles worldwide, putting it third place behind the competition of the time, but that doesn’t mean we have nothing to celebrate today.
Join us, if you will, beyond the break for a look back on the Saturn’s history and its impact on the gaming world today.
After more than a decade of work from several fan translation teams, Atlus’s beloved Sega Saturn classic RPG Princess Crown (1997) is finally translated into English. The final release of the translation is available to download now and patch into your digital copy of the Saturn game files that you mysteriously obtained.
As reported by Sega Saturn Shiro!, release candidates of the translation were made public at the start of this month of April 2025. On April 18th, the final version of the translation had been completed and put up on the Github page for the project. Before all that, though, a different group consisting of SamIAm and CyberWarriorX had began efforts to translate the game and uploaded an unfinished build in 2014, only to leave their efforts for the current team to eventually pick up and build upon last year, making this a rather special translation in and of itself.
If you love this classic game from the team who would, years later, bring you games like Dragon’s Crown and Unicorn Overlord, then you’ll want to check out this fan translation for sure, so head on in after the break for the download link.
Plug in and power up for the second installment of our deep dive into the wild world of SEGA accessories! This episode takes you on a nostalgic journey through the best, the weirdest, and the most innovative add-ons for the Game Gear, Saturn, and Dreamcast. From the must-have Virtua Stick and Virtua Gun to the quirky Samba de Amigo maracas and the infamous Dreamcast karaoke unit, we’re breaking down the hits, misses, and hidden gems of SEGA’s hardware legacy. Whether you’re a die-hard SEGA fan or just love retro gaming, this episode is packed with insights, memories, and a few hot takes you won’t want to miss. Tune in and relive the glory days of SEGA’s most iconic accessories!
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On this SEGA Talk, we blast off into the depths of the cult classic mecha masterpiece, Bulk Slash! We’ll delve into the fascinating development history of this unique Saturn title, explore the passionate community that brought us the incredible fan translation, and pay homage to the visionary creators behind this overlooked gem.
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On this SEGA TALK we go hands on with SEGA’s many controllers! We take a look at the base controller for each major console, pointing out the weirdest and most essential controllers and share our personal preference. Stick around until the end, because we will crown best SEGA controller of all time! On SEGA TALK!
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If you yearn to revisit the glorious need for speed that Sega provided you with stellar 90’s arcade racers like Daytona USA, Sega Rally Championship, or Manx TT Superbike, you’re not the only one. A few developers have begun taking a crack at recapturing that spirit with some brand new games. Today, we’re putting a spotlight on one of the newest games of that bunch: Parking Garage Rally Circuit. Developed by Walaber, whom we’ve had the pleasure of speaking to about this game before, PGRC aims to be the Sega Saturn racing hit that never was. A frantic time trial racer that aims to emulate the look of 90’s 3D console racers to an extreme degree, a lot of passion for that unforgettable time in gaming history is as clear as the blue, blue skies the game graces you with, but does that passion equal a game that’s as worthy of your time as most any racer Sega had developed during that decade? Find a cozy parking spot to sit back, relax, and read through our review of Parking Garage Rally Circuit after the break.
(A Steam copy of the game was provided by Walaber for the purpose of this review. They have not influenced the review in any other way and have not read it before it went online.)
Prepare to be amazed as we unearth the hidden gems of the SEGA Saturn’s 3D library. From classic favorites to underrated masterpieces, we’re covering it all. Tune in to SEGA Talk for a wild ride through time.
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