Why exactly would you blame consumers for the Saturn tanking? It was Sega's fault. You can't expect the consumer to buy something that doesn't really cater to his/her interests, can you? Product loyalty on the basis of
just a name is downright foolish (not to mention fanboyish).
They were there, just not large in number.
That's the thing, though. If I like RPGs, and there's a console that has a lot of RPGs and another that has only a few, I'd likely take the console that has more RPGs, because it's obvious that that particular niche is being supported. In the case of the Saturn, even if there were sports games it wouldn't matter to sports game fans unless they knew that there would continue to be sports games for them to play. Small numbers do not really mean support, do they?
As for marketing, granted that Sony had a huge marketing campaign, but the Saturn's marketing campaign was rather negligible even by previous standards in the industry. Besides, all the money thrown into marketing won't do a bit of good unless it's done
well. Had Sega done their marketing properly, it's possible that the Saturn could've had a longer run.