In the early 90s, Sega managed to do the impossible by actually giving Nintendo a run for its money during the 16-bit era, whereas the prior 8-bit wars was a no contest. But then they screwed it all up during the 32-bit era with one of the most bizarre strategies ever for any video game hardware manufacturer.
Treating the video game market like the car industry, Sega envisioned different classes of consumers. Though who were willing to spend the big money on a super deluxe machine, like a fancy sports car, and those who couldn't afford to do much, except upgrade their existing hardware, or stick with their jalopies, if we are to stick with the automobile analogy.
Hence why Sega came up with the 32X initiative, a 32-bit upgrade path for the 16-bit Genesis. Which would have been appealing if not for the fact that everyone knew that a brand new system, the Saturn, was on the way. That and how gamers will always find the money to get the latest and greatest, regardless of economics.
Still, Sega went ahead with the 32X and, in the process, splintered their own market share and confused their customers to a damaging degree. At a certain point, they were trying to support six different platforms at once (Genesis, Sega CD, 32X, 32X+Sega CD, Game Gear, Saturn), and the end result was a company who literally shot itself in the foot, allowing both Nintendo and newcomer Sony to steal the 32-bit thunder.
So perhaps it's not crazy to hear the existence of some other form of hardware that was in the pipeline. Just revealed is the Sega Pluto, which would have combined the Sega Saturn and the Netlink hardware in one box. According to Destructoid, this revelation comes from a former Sega employee, who has held onto the prototype hardware for the past 14 years.
"This thing is a beast, and definitely the heaviest console I've ever held in my hands. The front features two controller ports, and on top you have a flip-top drive bay, a cart slot, a Power button, and the venerable Reset button. Note that the logo still says Saturn, so I'm guessing the Pluto codename was simply that, and they were thinking of branding it with the Saturn name. (The logo is printed on production-style though, so I'm guessing they were fairly serious about this one.)"
Apparently only two was made, and the owner in question, has the second one. It apparently works too, but because it was an American system, and therefore only accepts American software, and former employee is currently in Japan, he is unable to fully test drive the system.
At the time, Sega had a habit of naming hardware after planets during the prototyping phase. Saturn is the only instance in which the name was made public. Before the Pluto we had the Neptune, which was basically an all in one Genesis and 32X.
In the end, the Pluto is yet another curious piece of the puzzle that is Sega’s history. One also has to wonder if Project Unity has Netlink capabilities.
