[gryson]

Console Wars leaves a lot out. For one, Sega of America was in financial trouble as early as the 2nd half of 1993 when revenues nosedived. The company ended up laying off 70% of its 900-member workforce by the end of 1995. Despite having one of the largest game development divisions in the world, it utterly failed to consistently release hit titles (its internal studio, STI, was infamous for having more unreleased than released games).

The CEO of Sega of America, Tom Kalinske, was strongly against marketing the Saturn in North America due to its expected high price tag. He persuaded the parent company to develop and release the ill-fated 32X, and then he put most of the company's resources into supporting it. When the 32X bombed upon release, the decision was quickly made to bump up the release of the Saturn, but Sega of America had almost no software in the pipeline. Ironically, in the end, the Saturn matched the PlayStation in price for most of its life.

A few articles on the topic for anyone who's interested:

https://mdshock.com/2021/04/14/segas-financial-troubles-an-a...

https://mdshock.com/2022/05/09/a-second-atari-shock-the-decl...

https://mdshock.com/2022/08/16/a-cloud-appears-over-sega-of-...

[jsnell]

Unsurprisingly when ex-Sega America employees are one's only sources, the story ends up with Sega America marketing people as the heroes of the story :)

[WoodenChair]

Worse, the book Console Wars doesn't have any in-text citations. So, you never know who's perspective you are getting.