/vr/ - Retro Games

Reminder

>>10822237
>Of course. 1993 and 94 was too early.
They weren't talking about releasing it in 1993, they were however discussing starting to prepare for transitioning to it, as is the norm for a next generation system coming out. The original idea was a global launch in 1994, or US launch in 1995. Sega of America though insisted they stick with the Genesis.
>So it was SoJ's idea like everyone said.
It was a group effort. Sega of Japan designed a Genesis with more colors to try and help Sega of America stay competitive. Sega of America themselves had been pushing for doing an add-on to beef up the Genesis for some time. There's an interview with Al Nilsen where he mentions he killed the 32X idea at least 4 times before he left the company. He left the company in 1993 before any of this stuff happened. Meaning Sega of America was pushing for doing that even before this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiMrRealMZs
>SoA never requested new hardware and were fine with the Genesis for 1 more year.
It wasn't just 1 more year, they legitimately thought the could hold off against the PS1 until 1996/1997. Sega of Japan being rightfully concerned about the upcoming PS1 felt they needed something to stay competitive.
>It was too expensive. $399 launch was dumb
Not in fall of 1994, which SoA had no problem releasing the CDX at that price in 1994. Secondly $399 only lasted a few months until fall of 1995 when it dropped to $299, the originally planned launch. If they just waited that out they would have been able to launch at $299. Sega was able to consolidate the hardware which combined with falling RAM prices allowed them to drop the Saturn's price fast and even beat the PS1 to the $199 price point in March of 1996. For most of the time both were on the market in the US, Saturn was able to match PS1's price.