Cheers for that little insight there mate, I never realised those factors would be reasons! In my mind, I thought it would be due to simply not being able to compete with the Playstation 1.
I didn't get the Sega Saturn 'til I was 8-9; this would have been in 1999/2000, by which time they had already stopped making games some years before. I always remember walking home with a mate and his Dad one day from school, and his Dad being incensed that he had shelled out for the Sega Saturn only a few months earlier, and then they stopped making games. When I got mine, I was thrilled just to have something different, as my only console before that was my older sisters old Mega Drive. Parents preferred to spend on toys instead, rather than consoles, which I totally understand.
I had shitloads of games mate! Too many to name, and some were pretty crap..Glad i'm not the only one here who has experienced Athlete King! It was more my Dad's kinda thing though, he was more of a button basher than me...he broke many records on many arcase versions of that game.
My favourites were: Worldwide Soccer '97 (remember playing as England and beating Spain 23-0 once!), Worldwide Soccer '98 (which had club teams aswell as international teams...I played this in our "Gillingham promotion year", and I edited the names of the Chelsea players to match ours :) ). Had Duke Nukem 3D, Croc (awesome, but my disc was faulty), Shining Force 3 (kind of Final Fantasy-ish - over 52 hours long, RPG fantasy thing). I got that game out a few years ago one day after Uni, and had to purchase a new lithium battery for the console (annoying thing about the Saturn - saving to the system was risky incase the battery ever went), and I played it through to find that about 18 hours in, my disc was bugged :( However, this game is INCREDIBLY rare in the UK, and is actually worth £175, so I intend to flog it ;)
My all time favourite was "Guardian Heroes". My God. Anime-ish (not my usual type of thing), hack 'n' slash adventure game, with a great storyline, and the opportunity at certain parts of the game to make your own decisions as to where you wanted to go next, which could result in numerous different endings to the game....crazy fight scenes too, just imagine flying around the screen, kicking arse, of about 40 different guys. Amazing. Very weird too, every now and then you'd encounter this band of ridiculously muscly guys in one-pieces, and always end up having mass battles with them.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx0jJgBa4YM[/youtube]
Some clips of the game - even that doesn't do it justice.
