> Was the mainstream market interested in shmups or JRPGs (neither of which Sega of America brought over?) no. One of the best selling games of that generation

> Was the mainstream market interested in shmups or JRPGs (neither of which Sega of America brought over?) no. One of the best selling games of that generation was a JRPG (FF7), and it was most definitely a popular genre. Interest in it didn't begin waning until the next generation. > The kids wanted Mario 64, Mario Kart and [insert your favourite big 3D tentpole game from the Playstation side]. There were hundreds of "tent-pole 3D" games released for the N64 and PS1; yet people only remember a dozen or so. By your previous logic on JRPGs (which, again, were very popular in the "32-bit era"), this is not a mainstream..."genre". Your memory of the whole era feels super anachronistic. The Saturn didn't fail because of it's games, it failed because it didn't have enough of them (by chasing third party developers away) and (as you touched on), the majority of the best ones never left Japan.