Over the years, the game industry has gotten much better about saving and archiving materials and data for future reference. However, that wasn’t always the case, with many pieces of gaming history ending up casualties of a once prevalent lack of foresight that they would ever be ‘worth’ anything to anyone…
E3 ’96 Logo & Los Angeles Convention Center
E3 ’96 South Hall Map
Up until now, the most detailed map we’ve had of the ’96 show floor is a basic magazine graphic from Game Informer showing the entire South Hall with SEGA right at the center of the action, albeit with less real estate than the year prior…
E3 ’95 South Hall Map
SEGA of America’s Floor Plan for E3 ’96 – Dated April 4, 1996
Well thanks to the recent massive document dump by GoldenDreamcast, we now have SEGA of America’s floor plan for E3 ’96, and much of what we can see in the video reference footage down below can be seen right here on this hand-drawn floor plan.
SEGA of America at E3 ’96 – Video Reference Footage
Check out this mashup of reference footage from the Computer Chronicles, CDConsoles & Tronix. There are so many fun little details if you look really close…
“Work In Progress”
While most things from the original April 4th document seem to have carried over to the May 16th event, some changes were apparently made. It’s no surprise, considering the floor plan says “WORK IN PROGRESS” at the bottom, and several elements seem flexible to change, which is par for the course at a game conventions. The most apparent change is that the NiGHTS station was moved over to the South East entrance to stand next to the Sonic X-TREME station, thus creating a very strong visual impact.
Aerial View of SEGA’s Show Floor
In this aerial view of SEGA’s showroom floor, we see the large metal stage truss that roughly defines the inner square boundary of SEGA’s space, in addition to several outlying booths, featuring large anchor attractions designed to pull in the passing attendee.
South East Entrance
As one entered SEGA’s floor from the south east entrance, they would be greeted by the large NiGHTS station to their left and Sonic X-TREME station to their right, followed by several individual stations just in and outside the square perimeter. High above and right in the middle was an enormous flashing SEGA logo sign beckoning attendees from a great distance.
NiGHTS into Dreams…
An eye-catching, circular station with 4 custom built purple demo kiosks with NiGHTS marquees facing inward (only 2 shown in original plan). Atop the station, rigged from the ceiling hangs a flat figure of NiGHTS flying through illuminated orange rings. Large yellow crescent moons adorn the outer part of each kiosk, with the south-most kiosk featuring a monitor cutout with the attract mode on loop.
Sonic X-TREME
A towering monument of a display station, Sonic X-TREME stood at the south entrance to the right, and featured a giant banner with the Sonic X-TREME artwork and logo, in addition to a large SEGA Saturn banner atop. Adorning the metal trusses were diagonally striped triangular flags, reminiscent of the Saturn’s box design. The station featured several playable kiosks with the Metal Sonic boss fight.
SEGA Saturn NetLink Modem
The SEGA Saturn NetLink booth took the form of the giant tilted rings of Saturn with several illuminated ‘phone lines’ emerging from the top and ‘sending data’ off in every direction. It could be seen from a distance and shows up in the background of much show footage. Also present was a large banner announcing “The Revolution Begins”, as part of SEGA’s internet campaign to assert their technical dominance over their competition. At the center of the station sat 4 outward facing kiosks, each with US Saturn & NetLink Modem cart, along with Japanese keyboard, mouse & mouse pad. Despite being listed on the ‘work in progress’ floor plan, the PLUTO is not present in any reference footage and was probably left out due to it not being fully functional at the time.
Working Designs, Tecmo, Headbone Interactive
Just behind and to the left of the NiGHTS station was a large 3rd Party Publisher station featuring Tecmo & Working Designs, with SoA’s affiliate Headbone Interactive along the back side of the station. (not visible in photos). The floor plan also suggests the addition of a separate Working Designs kiosk, which can be seen near the bottom in the photo below on the right.
Virtua Cop 2, Fighting Vipers & Virtual-On Arcade
Just inside the inner boundary stood a very large station consisting of 3 separate stations, with Virtua Cop 2 prominently facing the main south entrance. The floor plan seems to question the availability of Virtua Cop 2 for Saturn and mentions VCop 1 as a backup. Based on reference footage, however, it does seem like VCop 2 made it to the show on Saturn, complete with orange stunners. Around the side were a couple of Fighting Vipers and Virtual-On Arcades. The floor plan indicates availability of Vipers for Saturn is contingent upon getting ‘Black SoJ Hardware’ and suggests swapping in Virtua Fighter 2 instead. Since there is no reference footage of Vipers on Saturn and VF2 was present, that’s likely what happened.
Heart of Darkness, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 & Several Others…
Unfortunately, we don’t have clear images or reference footage for many of the kiosks at this MASSIVE third party station, however, we can see that the Heart of Darkness display was a giant tower that seemed to anchor the entire station, while several of the other titles took the form of smaller playable kiosks facing outward and wrapping all the way around the back of the Heart of Darkness tower in a large circle. We can see Ultimate MK3 as a visible example of one such kiosk. Both the NetLink and Baku Baku stations can be seen in the distance to the left and right.
SEGA PC Entertainment
Easily the largest footprint on SEGA’s entire show floor was their SEGA PC Entertainment station, which featured numerous PC ports of both GENESIS and SATURN titles, including Sonic CD, Bug!, Baku Baku Animal, Daytona USA, World Series Baseball and Garfield all running on the same style demo kiosks as the Heart of Darkness station. According to the floor plan there was even a tiny ‘OFFICE’ booth worked into the station, perhaps for hammering out some licensing deals right there on the show floor..? Who knows?
SegaSoft: Sacred Pools & Three Dirty Dwarves
The SegaSoft station featured a large double-sided tower display with The Sacred POOLS on the front (facing outward) and Three Dirty Dwarves on the back side (facing inward). According to the floor plan, Sacred POOLS would be ‘video only’, however, there have been accounts from folks who attended claiming they played the demo at E3 ’96, in addition to attending a VIP lounge party later in the evening.
Baku Baku Lounge
Just down the road from the NetLink & SegaSoft booths on the South West side of the hall was the Baku Baku lounge, featuring playable Baku Baku Animal kiosks for Saturn & Game Gear.
World Series Baseball II & Worldwide Soccer 2 (’97)
Right behind the Sonic X-TREME tower stood another tower with t WSB II on the front and WWS ’97 at the back. What reference footage we have of this is quite poor, however, here’s what we’ve found. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to make out the WWS ’97 display…
Daytona USA 8-Player Arcade
Along the far east side of the floor just to the right of the Sonic X-TREME station sat a massive 8-Player bank of Daytona USA arcade cabinets with additional video display monitors along the top for the viewing pleasure of spectators waiting in line for a turn.
Bug Too! & Mr. Bones
On the far west side of the floor just south of the Baku Baku Lounge stood the Bug Too! & Mr. Bones towers. It’s clear from the footage and photos that these towers basically consisted of a large rectangular stage truss wrapped in purple ‘pool noodles’ on the sides with large SEGA Saturn signs and enormous banners showcasing the featured title.
Virtua Fighter 3 Arcade Rolling Demo
Virtua Fighter 3 Arcade made an appearance, however, it seemed to be just a rolling demo, rather than playable cabinets. Pity… Also, it’s perhaps the only display where there wass clearly NO PHOTOGRAPHY allowed by attendees or press. (I doubt that stopped folks…)
Virtua Fighter 2
It’s really strange that there was almost no footage or photos of VF2 at E3 ’96, despite being such a big game for Saturn, however, it was nearly a year and a half old on Saturn by that point, and they just happened to place the station right next to the Virtua Fighter 3 display… Tsk Tsk… Not a great plan…
Virtua Fighter Kids
Completely absent from the floor plan, but quite conspicuous at the show was a large Virtua Fighter Kids tower, but based on the design and rigging, it looks like it might have occupied the back side of the Sonic X-TREME station…
Genesis, Nomad & Game Gear
It’s unfortunate that very few photos or footage exists of the 16-Bit & handheld stations, as a result of them showing their age by the time ’96 rolled around. Neither attendees or publications seemed to take photos of these kiosks, since they were too busy focusing on the cutting edge attractions…
Several Other Stations on the Floor…
There were several other stations on the show floor that simply lack any intelligible archived footage, however, here they include in no specific order:
- Destruction Derby & Wipeout
- Panzer Dragoon 2, Gun Griffon, Golden Axe, Legend of Oasis
- SEGA Rally Championship (x6)
- SEGA Rally & NBA Action
- Manx TT Superbike Arcade (x4)
- Third Party Sports (Triple Play, Konami Football, Big Hurt, VR Golf, Soccer & Baseball)
- NHL Powerplay ’96 & Slam ‘N Jam ’96
- Video Demo Station (NiGHTS, Baku, Bug, Sonic, Virtua Cop 2 & Vectorman)
- Kids Station (Dalmations, Muppets, Pocahantas, etc.)
- Random Basketball Court..?
A massive Saturn fan since Christmas ’96, Dave is enthusiastic about growing the community and spreading Saturn love and knowledge to fans old and new. Co-founding the SEGA SATURN, SHIRO! podcast back in 2017 and creating the SHIRO! SHOW in 2020, he seeks to create interesting and engaging Saturn-related content for the community. Dave’s interests circle around game preservation, and he is a huge fan of game magazines and developer interviews.
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