Strange things are falling into the collective lap of the Internet: as MegaDriveShock noted on Twitter, an informative community-run database dedicated to "all things Sega, from the 1940s to today," the The Sega Retro wiki, a database run by a community dedicated to "covering everything about Sega from the 1940s to today," contains a whopping 272 pages of confidential Sega of America documents from the mid-1990s in PDF format.

One of the fascinating nuggets of gaming history is an email from Tom Kalinsky, former CEO of Sega of America, regarding the Sega Saturn game console. The Saturn was a flop in the U.S., unfortunately launched just before the Nintendo 64 a year later, and had many other troubles, as MegaDriveShock noted in a Twitter thread: "The retailer's margin was only 6%! In other words, retailers were only making $15 per Saturn.

In an email, Kalinsky writes: "I was not able to find a Saturn in any of the stores [in Japan]. Every store [in Japan] is sold out of Saturn hardware and has a pile of Playstations. Retailers have commented that they cannot compare true sales rates because Saturn sells out before they can accurately measure it. [I would like all staff - sales people, retailers, analysts, and media - to see and understand what is happening in Japan.

Ultimately, they will not win in the US. In fact, Kalinsky would leave the company at the end of that year. The email was sent on March 28, his resignation on July 15, less than four months later. In an interview with TimeExtension last year, he discussed his departure after Sega Saturn went off the rails.

"We were very successful, so I didn't understand why all of a sudden Japan had to make a decision... I had to introduce [the Saturn], but we didn't have enough hardware, we didn't have enough software. [And he mentions that Hayao Nakayama, then president and CEO of Sega Enterprises, used Kalinsky's success in the U.S. to reprimand the Japanese staff. Hayao Nakayama used Kalinsky's success in the US to reprimand his staff in Japan." He then beat up all the managers and directors, saying things like, "Why can't you guys generate revenue like Tom in America?" [...]. After a while, you start to dislike Tom in America.

And this PDF adds an interesting footnote to this historical friction between the two sides of the sega. Kalinsky, by his own account, was forced into a situation where he had to introduce the product before it was ready. The email itself serves as a glimpse into his frustration in the months prior to his resignation, a surprisingly emotional moment preserved in amber.

The remaining PDFs are a treasure trove for game historians. They include product planning reports, advertising storyboards, business strategies, and brand reviews. On the Internet, Sega's change of strategy for Knights, which was based on Crash Bandicoot; brutal slides about the scrap value of Genesis 32X; the fact that there were no Sega Saturn versions of Shenmue, Jurassic Park, and Vector Man Several gold mines have already been discovered, including the revelation of the

There are over 270 pages of this stuff, and it just showed up. But I can't imagine Sega would be particularly pleased, even if the plans in it were from another era.