https://www.pcgamer.com/we-are-killing- ... -download/The strangest things will just drop onto the internet's collective lap. As highlighted on Twitter by MegaDriveShock, a whopping 272 page PDF of classified Sega of America documents from the mid-90s has simply materialised on the Sega Retro wiki, a community-ran database full of info that aims to "cover everything possible about Sega from the 1940s to today."
One fascinating nugget of gaming history inside is an email sent by Tom Kalinske—former CEO of Sega America—on the subject of the Sega Saturn console. The Saturn was a flop in the US, unfortunately releasing just before the Nintendo 64 a year later and coming with a host of troubles otherwise. As MegaDriveShock mentions in the Twitter thread: "The retail margin was only 6%! Meaning retailers made only $15 per Saturn sold."
In the email itself, Kalinske wrote: "We are killing Sony. In every [store in Japan], Saturn hardware is sold out and there are stacks of Playstation. The retailers commented they can't compare the true sales rate because Saturn sells out before they can measure accurately. [...] I wish I could get all our staff, sales people, retailers, analysts, media, etc. to see and understand what's happening in Japan; they would then understand why we will win here in the U.S. eventually."
Here's a direct link to the PDF
https://segaretro.org/images/8/8c/SegaF ... iew_US.pdf
this quote in particular made me laugh
SOA CORPORATE MEMORANDUM
“TO: == Neil Cohen «= COPY: ~—M. Ribero oe - -
y
D. Fornasier FROM:
Tom Kalinske /“; .
/
April1996 Wu
1,
|
DATE:
SUBJECT: SATURN “AIRPORT” STORYBOARD
1. f - $249.00 price must be added visually and verbally.
2. Amount of time committedto game footage seems to have decreased: we need 50% of time on footage. The quality of footage is also crucial. Isn't this to be on VF-2 and Panzer Dragoon-2? Who is selecting scenes?
- 3. Casting of pilots is very important, let’s get younger pilots our target audience can identify with. When did we decide on Hare Krishna cult members? Who in our audience identifies with them? They might be good for attention/Humor, but not for selling product. Don’t we need _someone more typical of our audience, i.e., college age, in this spot?
4.Again,since we know Nintendo is going to position Nintendo64 as“The Ultimate Game Machine”, shouldn’t we pre-empt that claim?
—
TU Kk