Should Sega have stuck with this plan?

[Anonymous No.10769592]

Could easily have saved the whole company...

[Anonymous No.10769607]

>>10769592
Imagine if they would have had the Saturn be able to play Genesis and 32X games.

[Anonymous No.10769610]

>>10769592
the whole thing was fucked

[Anonymous No.10769648]

>>10769592
This should have been the Model 3 Genesis for late half of the 90s.

[Anonymous No.10769674]

>>10769592
no, it fucked over all goodwill they had with stores and developers AND consumers. assuming they keep it as a budget console completely replacing the genesis, it still would've needed support from devs and stores, who gave no shit about it due to the Saturn.

no 32x, move Genesis to handheld space and keep it supported for the rest of the decade (would've had a far better chance against Gameboy with proper marketing), and give Saturn full support starting from 1994 by making new in-house titles and translations so they have more games ready for the first year. if they do these in America, they would've been far more successful.
a Megadrive Converter Cartridge for the Saturn would've done wonders too especially if they can get it done for the US launch.

[Anonymous No.10769684]

>>10769674
>move Genesis to handheld space and keep it supported for the rest of the decade (would've had a far better chance against Gameboy with proper marketing)
Kek. Just make a Game Gear 2 with another incandescent bulb and six face buttons. I'm sure that would sell like hotcakes.

[Anonymous No.10769714]

>>10769684
It's not incandescent, it's fluorescent.

[Anonymous No.10769721]

>>10769674
>move Genesis to handheld space
Wouldn't work, for a painfully simple reason that has nothing to do with hardware. Back then, games didn't use dynamic scaling for their UI elements (and game window), so any game intended to be played on a TV would look like ass on a tiny LCD. Game Gear ran into this issue as well, when people tried playing SMS games on it (via the adapter).

[Anonymous No.10769731]

Oh yay, it's another "SEGA shoulda, woulda, coulda" thread.

[Anonymous No.10769737]

>>10769674
The only good thing outta this woulda been to support the genesis until the end of the decade

[Anonymous No.10769798]

i mean, the entire point of the 32x was "everyone already owns a sega so it's a cheap upgrade", kind of defeats the point to have an all-in-one

[Anonymous No.10769813]

>>10769714
I was taking the piss, Anon. Unless it's genuinely interesting or makes sense, I never post seriously in threads like this because it's mental wankery of the most stupid kind.

[Anonymous No.10769819]

>>10769592
Should've made the 32 Sex instead. Literally a 32X but you can have sex with it and it gives toe-curling orgasms so strong, you faint. It would've saved the Saturn.

[Anonymous No.10769824]

>>10769607
That was the entire point of the Neptune

>>10769674
Other anon already responded, but Nomad already existed

To those saying Saturn should've been backwards compatible, the very reason they did not do that is because the Genesis itself was forward compatible. You wanted more games you'd buy an add-on or a CDX. Saturn and N64 both had expansion ports for new games, not old games. Otherwise there would be no reason to buy one at all

[Anonymous No.10769825]

>the Saturn 32X
imagine what could have been

[Anonymous No.10769940]

>>10769607
That would require grafting on pretty much an entire genesis. Incredibly stupid.

[Anonymous No.10770016]

>>10769684
>>10769714
>>10769813
Didn't one of the more shittier handhelds like the lynx or something actually have incandescent back lighting?

[Anonymous No.10770024]

>>10770016
Again, it's fluorescent, not incandescent.

[Anonymous No.10770059]

>>10769592
Neptune was a good idea but definitely requires 1) Sega not moving forward with the add-on version of what became the 32X(so people see the Neptune as a new system that happens to be backwards compatible with the vast majority of Genesis/Mega Drive games and accessories including presumably the SEGA/MEGA-CD rather than yet another add-on that won't see much support), and 2) Sega canning the Saturn as we know it so that they don't cannibalize each other's sales(and let's face it there's basically no plausible way for Saturn to have ever been able to beat the PlayStation, the moment Sony made the $299 announcement the Saturn was doomed)

basically in this scenario I see it as while the Neptune hardware pales in comparison with what the CD based 32 bit systems(or for that matter the N64) can do in terms of graphics and speed, it would have the sizable advantage of being stupid cheap both for Sega to make and for them to sell(many estimates placed the likely launch price for the Neptune if it had reached market at about $150 bucks) while it wouldn't be a direct competitor with either the PlayStation or the N64 it would be able to cement a solid spot as the budget console and thus secure Sega time and money needed to get this universe's version of the Dreamcast in a position to actually compete

[Anonymous No.10770063]

>>10770024
ok but didnt one of them have incandescent ligthing?

[Anonymous No.10770067]

>>10770063
None of them had incandescent lighting. Fluorescent, yes.

[Anonymous No.10770513]

>>10769592
>Could easily have saved the whole company...
How?
I mean, don't get me wrong, it looks cool and sleek, and having a Genesis that can run 32x is quite nice for collectors nowadays, so I get why some mod their Genesis to be like this, but how would this have saved SEGA when most hated it back then? It was one of SEGA's biggest failures...

[Anonymous No.10770535]

>>10770513
I don't think people hated the 32X, though I feel like releasing it as a console instead of an add-on may have helped

[Anonymous No.10770591]

>>10769610
This might have saved them.

[Anonymous No.10770614]

>>10769610
This might have saved them. some of your informations within that pic are incorrect.

Sony was the the first co sole manufacturer to figure out you need to sell the consoles at a loss. This was a newfangled marketing tactic at the time. As you know, all the other console manufacturers soon followed suit in the next generation of consoles. The xbox, had particularly nice silicone for cheaps..

[Anonymous No.10771161]

>>10770535
I mean, it made sense as a 3rd Genesis model, but if that meant an increase in the Genesis' price then it wouldn't have been worth it, the library was too weak and small to justify it still.

Anyways, if they had given the 32x proper titles and support, more than what they did at least, and for longer, this could've been a fun machine, otherwise it's just a bit pointless, especially then.

[Anonymous No.10771195]

Just go the Nintendo route and use a 32X-based add on chip in select games
Then they can be played on any stock Genesis

[Anonymous No.10772297]

>>10769610
It's worse if you know the msrp

[Anonymous No.10772306]

>>10771161
They could've probably sold it with Sonic & Knuckles as a pack-in title or something preparing the way for Chaotix and more. The challenge would've been the same, having two 32-bit systems on the market, though a dedicated Genesis-style machine with backwards compatibility would've been neat to see, especially for Sonic/Genesis fans. A proper CD/32X combo machine likely would've ended up like the 3DO, but it would've been cooler to see something like this coming from SEGA themselves, with a few fun surprises like Astropede and Treasure Tails.

[Anonymous No.10773429]

>>10772306
>The challenge would've been the same, having two 32-bit systems on the market
Indeed, that's the main issue of the 32x, it just alienated consumers as SEGA competed against themselves for no good reason.

I think the Saturn wouldn't have failed so badly if the 32x wasn't a thing really...

[Anonymous No.10775738]

>>10769592
It really could... IF they hadn't made the Saturn at all that is. SEGA competing against themselves is, and always will be, quite stupid, but if they had a choice of either never making the 32x, but going through with the Saturn, or never making either the Saturn or 32x, instead having the Neptune as their next major console, their chances over Sony would've been a lot better than with the Saturn...

It's simple really, this would've likely been cheap compared to the Saturn, US$200 or US$250, and would've been backwards compatible with all of your Genesis titles/accessories, it would've won.

Of course, for it to actually win, even with a good premise, they couldn't do a surprise launch... and they couldn't forget about Sonic, Streets of Rage and all of their other IPs we didn't get on Saturn.

[Anonymous No.10775956]

>>10769592
Actually, I think killing the 32x completely could have helped the Saturn in the long run.
>>10770059 is right, the Saturn was never going to beat the playstation but the 32x pissed of a lot of Sega fans that could have supported the Saturn in it's early years.

[Anonymous No.10776012]

sega was always bad and was only relevant for one brief moment in the 90s purely because nintendo had no actual competition.

[Anonymous No.10776058]

SEGA OF AMERICA IS FUCKING RETARDED

[Anonymous No.10776065]

>>10775738
A lot of Saturn games probably wouldn't exist if you went with carts. Panzer Dragoon Saga wouldn't be a thing.

[Anonymous No.10776079]

>>10776065
It would if you draw upon the CD 32X combination.

[Anonymous No.10776084]

>>10775956
>>10776058
Both 32X and saturn are retarded. SoA just wanted to keep selling the genesis and maybe that would've been the best strategy, they were wary that saturn's high price and programming difficulty would make it unpopular, and they turned out to be absolutely right. Saturn needed a lot more time in the oven to dump that sprite based GPU shit and bring the cost down. An SH-3 powered fully 3D saturn would've been a decent console.

[Anonymous No.10776096]

>>10776065
Fair, it would lose many qualities the Saturn had in its hardware, and CDs, unless you used the CD 32x combination like (>>10776079) mentioned, I still think it was the better decision though, it's a lost cause to go through with the Saturn the way they did, and even they knew it, making it just as cheap, or cheaper, than PS1, and compatible with Genesis, was probably their only chance to win.

[Anonymous No.10776108]

>>10776012
I disagree.

[Anonymous No.10776119]

>>10775738
>>10776096
LOOOOOOL

[Anonymous No.10776125]

>>10776096
>sharturn
>qualities

[Anonymous No.10776617]

>>10776084
One of the most reasonable takes in the thread. SoA could have sold Genesis for 1 more year in America and didn't need 32x at all. Saturn also needed more development to fix the design issues to make it more developer friendly.

[Anonymous No.10776667]

Sorry what’s the winning track with the Neptune here? They release the Neptune a year before PlayStation at a cheap price with virtua fighter and the backwards compatibility wins them the US and the virtua fighter existing at all wins them Japan? I guess I could see that, Sony was definitely the unknown at the time. Isn’t the 32x going to run out of processing steam way faster than the PSX though? I suppose we never truly saw all the 32x was capable of, and if it’s positioned as a budget option that doesn’t necessarily matter, but I’m not sure if that strategy would have worked rather than cheapened the brand in the eyes of people who were obsessed with 3d graphics pushing the limit at the time. If you thought Daytona on the Saturn was bad, how bad is the 32x gonna look?

[Anonymous No.10776690]

>>10776667
Sega was a much smaller company that Sony. They could never afford to spend money like Sony. The idea is to make a more affordable and cheaper system that can still produce decent enough 3D graphics...without being a huge financial burden for Sega.

Similar to how Nintendo always makes slightly weaker consoles, but each console sold makes a small profit (even the Wii U). So Nintendo doesn't have to worry about not matching sales numbers of their competitors.

>I guess I could see that, Sony was definitely the unknown at the time

The Playstation 1 didn't immediately take off until games like Tekken and Final Fantasy 7 were released. Basically 1 to 2 years into the PS1's life.

If Sega can keep their system very affordable to manufacture and focus on really good games during that time, then they can entrench themselves against Playstation. Perhaps not piss off 3rd party developers either.

Even if FF7 and Tekken were released, imagine if Sega already had Virtua Fighter/Sonic/Streets of Rage/Sega Rally/Daytona USA/Panzer Dragoon/Shining Force/etc to counter it.

[Anonymous No.10776714]

>>10776690

Yeah that makes sense, they probably would have had to have shifted away from targeting immediate home console ports of their arcade games, or rather focused the Neptune around super scaler and easier 3d stuff. Maybe they create a Neptune based arcade system and give it a long life and that allows for instant home ports more or less. It’s funny I almost said “yeah nintendos IPs are so strong they can get away with that” but I often forget how big sega was in America and maybe Europe at this particular point in time. A Neptune sonic and streets of rage probably would have been a big system seller if done right (not fucking chaotix).

[Anonymous No.10776754]

>>10776714
>I often forget how big sega was in America and maybe Europe

Sega of Japan will never admit this...but America and Europe (to a slightly lesser degree) hard carried Sega through the 90s. No joke. Especially America. At one point, Sega had a bigger market share than Nintendo.

I have no clue what caused the branch rivalries between Sega's different offices, but the reality is that the majority of Sega's sales came from overseas markets.

[Anonymous No.10776778]

>>10769592
It could have helped but it would have required a lot of changes surrounding it.

Problem 1: Sega of Japan and Sega of America had two different problems. The Mega Drive was done in Japan and Virtua Fighter was hot shit but stuck in the arcades. SoJ needed to get it into people's homes. Their solution was to launch the Saturn ASAP.

Problem 2: Sega of America wanted to keep the Genesis alive because it was successful in North America and retailer requirements forced them to manufacture a shit ton of units or else they wouldn't stock them. They weren't on the Saturn train yet because of this.

The 32X could have bridged the gap. We know that it can handle Virtua Fighter since it not only had a decent version of it, it's port was actually better than the initial Saturn one.

Step 1: Shitcan the CDX and Nomad.
Step 2: Launch the 32X in fall 1994 with Virtua Fighter. The base 32X for people with Mega Drives/Genesis systems and the Neptune for new customers.
Step 3: Delay the Saturn so that Hitachi can come up with a better solution than the dual SH-2s and launch worldwide Fall 95 with Virtua Fighter 2.
Step 4: Fill that year with 32X arcade ports from Capcom and SNK and other games that don't require next gen hardware but couldn't be done well on the 16 bit consoles, and slowly sunset it after the Saturn launch.

That could have put SoJ and SoA on the same wavelength so there would be less intracompany conflict overall and just maybe the Saturn and Dreamcast could have been stable.

[Anonymous No.10776793]

>>10776778
Even reading this I think it’s too many moving parts, customers would be confused and pissed and say look at all the years between the nes and snes why do I have to buy all this shit in a two year period? I don’t think there’s a timeline where both the 32x and the Saturn exist in anything that looks like success for sega, it would have to be one or the other. I agree with shitcanning the CDX and nomad.

[Anonymous No.10776809]

>>10776793
The 32X would really just be used as a stopgap in this scenario. Nintendo actually did the exact same thing with the Virtual Boy, which only existed to cover for the N64's year long delay. Now nobody would argue that the Virtual Boy was successful but it didn't hurt Nintendo. Sega fucked up by releasing the 32X and Saturn right on top of each other. Had they spread it out by a year and used the 32X to cover for the Saturn staying in the oven instead of rushing it out to beat the PS1 to market, it wouldn't have been as poorly received. Especially in Japan if it had been the exclusive way to play Virtua Fighter at home. They'd have eaten it up. Shit, half of Japanese Saturn owners only bought it for Virtua Fighter anyway. So they'd have bought the 32X/Neptune for VF1 and then the Saturn for VF2 the following year. But under those circumstances the Saturn would have had more time to shore up the architecture and build up a better library for the launch window.

[Anonymous No.10776814]

>>10776778
The Sega Genesis may have been released in 1988 in Japan. But to the rest of the world it was still kinda new. The Genesis was still relatively new in Europe. My country got the Sega Genesis about 2 years after every other country got it. And India didn't even get Sega Genesis until 1994.

[Anonymous No.10776829]

Could a Neptune CD have worked as a Saturn alternative? Basically a Sega CD but with the graphical prowess of the 32X
I know there actually were games that supported both addons, but for whatever reason they're all slightly upgraded versions of Sega CD FMV games

[Anonymous No.10776831]

>>10776793
Fundamentally the real issue was that SoJ NEEDED something ASAP. They chose to rush the Saturn. That wasn't really a good move long term and it caused friction with SoA. Figuring out a way to push the Saturn back, which it really needed to be, is the trick here. The 32X is the path of least resistance to doing that since it's a real piece of hardware we know existed but really anything would be better. The real problem was that in 1994 SoJ had no presence in the console market and panicked. Anything to soothe their nerves would have been welcome.

[Anonymous No.10776837]

>>10776829
It would have to be an all in one and not look retarded. Probably never release the sega CD either. Just go straight to Neptune CD. But even then staying cartridge keeps the system cheaper and more reliable, now you’ve introduced two possible formats to both developers and consumers which complicates everything. It’s kind of why I think Genesis > Neptune > whatever the CD console after would be the best flow of things, that CD only console shows hey this is a new era, no add ons/attachments or backwards compat you’ve had fucking years of the genesis at this point.

[Anonymous No.10776838]

>>10776829
Impossible. The Genesis wasn't really designed to be expanded. the Sega CD and 32X had some major bottlenecks because the expansion port was originally meant for a floppy drive, not an add-on. So they don't have full access to the Genesis's CPU and VDP. They can't freely interrupt and have to ask pretty please. It's an unfortunate problem stemming from how the Genesis was originally designed. At best a Neptune CD would cap out doing arcade quality Neo Geo and CPS2 ports along with some VERY rudimentary 3D games that don't even stand up to the 3DO, let alone the PS1. No way it would carry Sega through a generation.

[Anonymous No.10776850]

>>10776838
>the expansion port was originally meant for a floppy drive, not an add-on.

It never fails, every Sega thread is full of idiots not knowing shit about the hardware. Tell me, is a floppy drive not an add-on?

[Anonymous No.10776856]

>>10776850
Semantics. A floppy drive would be a pure format change, not have the kind of hardware inside a Sega CD or 32X. But yes, it's technically an add-on, contrats. You got me. Here's your 'you'.

[Anonymous No.10777101]

>>10769592
>worse 3d capabilities than an snes cart with a superfx chip
>save the company
lmao no

[Anonymous No.10777258]

>>10769592
Even if you ignore that Sega was competing with itself with the Saturn, releasing a 32-bit Genesis with 16-bit backwards compatibility, would mostly encourage developers to keep making 16-bit games. They could only sell 32-bit games to owners of "new" systems, but they could sell 16-bit games to owners of both old and new systems.

[Anonymous No.10777662]

>>10769592
Sony was always going to smash incompetent Sega. Writing was on the wall for them. Smartest bet would have been merging with Sony.

[Anonymous No.10777694]

>>10777101
>worse 3d capabilities than an snes cart with a superfx chip
Wrong. Superfx is weak as fuck, it's not even as powerful as sega's svp chip.

[Anonymous No.10777747]

>>10777258
That makes no sense. There is always a thirst for more power, to more fully realize their vision. Ask yourself why wasn't MGS2 a PS1 game when the PS2 can play PS1 games and some 80 million PS1 existed then.

[Anonymous No.10777898]

>>10769592
no. give sega cd more development and ride out the genesis and devote all efforts toward the saturn and its marketing. sega would've retained much of the western market. I do

>>10769731
its talked to death for a reason..its damn tragic.

[Anonymous No.10778048]

>>10776084
> sprite based
We need to stop using "sprite" when describing the saturn gpu, there is no clear distinction between sprite and polygon, its just useless and confuising terminology. The saturn used forward texture mapping, this is a clear and meaningful descrition rather than sprite/polygon nonsesne.

[Anonymous No.10779187]

>>10777662
>Smartest bet would have been merging with Sony.
I recall reading that Sony offered it and SEGA refused.
Kek.

[Anonymous No.10779920]

>>10769592
>just make the same thing 3 times that'll save the company
Should have delayed the Dreamcast for 1 year and never made the 32x to begin with.

[Anonymous No.10779990]

>>10769610
what wouldve saved sega is not making the mega drive addons or the nomad or all the shitty combination consoles that a grand total of 3 people bought internationally. sega of america killed sega with their obsession with milking the mega drive for every penny possible.

[Anonymous No.10780002]

>>10779990
ironically, this was the same shit that killed atari. milking the same hardware over and over for over a decade to the point nobody wanted to buy that shit. and then of course when they did finally upgrade, they made a needlessly complex turd with the jaguar. maybe its just a problem with american business in general. trying to find a way to squeeze the most money from idiots with minimal effort.

[Anonymous No.10780597]

>>10769592
They should have scrapped the idea of the 32X altogether and gone back to the drawing board on the Saturn to design it in such a way that it'd be backwards compatible with Genesis and Sega CD games.

[Anonymous No.10781329]

>>10780597
In an ideal world, yes, but that wasn't going to happen since SoJ needed a console to port Virtua Fighter to. With the Mega Drive lagging if it even had any life left in it by 1994 and a white hot arcade game everyone was itching to buy, Sega couldn't afford to just hit pause on their console presence. The better option would be to do like you said and send the Saturn back to the drawing board, but instead of scrapping the 32X release it as the exclusive platform for Virtua Fighter and use that as a stopgap to cover the Saturn delay.

I know that the 32X has a shit reputation because of how it was released but it really could have been useful had Sega been a bit more forward thinking and patient with the Saturn. The Japanese would have bought 32Xs and/or Neptunes for Virtua Fighter for sure had it been exclusive. That would have gotten it enough of an install base to attract some more support, at least enough to cover the 12-18 months necessary before the revised Saturn launched. And at that point SoJ and SoA could have been on the same page.

[Anonymous No.10781374]

>>10779187
>I recall reading that Sony offered it and SEGA refused.
>Kek.
Sony didn't offer a merger. They offered a partnership to develop a console with Sega

At the time, it was clear to everyone that Sony just wanted to use game companies reputation to break into the game market. Sony wanted to learn trade secrets, steal game technology, and then launch their own console. That's why Sega said no.

It's also why Nintendo broke off their relationship with Sony. Sony was being disingenuous and demanded 100% licensing rights to the Nintendo CD add-on they were making for the SNES. Sony snuck this clause into their contract with Nintendo, and Nintendo only realized after the contract was signed.

This would give Sony ALL the profits from sales of the Nintendo CD add-on (instead of the normal 50/50 split), and gave Sony the rights to the design. This meant that legally, Sony could make their own console with the same design if they wanted.

Nintendo said f*ck that and cancelled the partnership.

[Anonymous No.10781396]

What if the Playstation never existed?

[Anonymous No.10781402]

>>10781374
If Sony says "Join me or die", then you pretty much have to join them. Or you can pick die and end up like Sega.

[Anonymous No.10781515]

I will always say that the Saturn needed to be built around the Motorola 68000 architecture. Most developers were well experienced with the architecture, and it would have been much easier to develop games with compared to the retail Saturn. Using a 68000 derivative may have also allowed for full backwards compatibility with the Mega Drive, thus there would have been no need for a redesigned Mega Drive, or 32x.

[Anonymous No.10781547]

>>10781515
Didn't the 68k architecture have scaling issues though? I've heard the 68060 is supposed to be as powerful as a Pentium, but I think there's a reason Macs and Amiga accelerators moved to PowerPC.

[Anonymous No.10781571]

>>10781547
>but I think there's a reason Macs and Amiga accelerators moved to PowerPC.
You mean aside from pure profit?

[Anonymous No.10781579]

>>10781571
>Didn't the 68k architecture have scaling issues though?

[Anonymous No.10781603]

>>10769607
>>10769940
The Saturn already had the Sega Genesis CPU as part of its audio sub-system. If they really wanted to they could have included Genesis backwards compatibility. Hell, the console was going to have a cartridge slot regardless.

The PS2 did something similar where it used the PS1 CPU as part of the I/O sub-system so that PS1 games could have their code executed natively.

[Anonymous No.10781613]

>>10781579
>Didn't the 68k architecture have scaling issues though?
Why are you asking me that question?

[Anonymous No.10781617]

>>10769610
>release 4 consoles / add-ons in 6 years
>barely support a couple of them
>huh how come no one wants to buy our new console

[Anonymous No.10781641]

>>10781547
The later 68000 chips were fully capable of rendering 3D graphics, at or even exceeding the final Saturn's capabilities. SEGA of Japan's foolish decision of foregoing a familiar architecture for "exotic flair" ended up costing them an entire generation, and ultimately their company. There should have been no room for Ken Kutaragi-levels of prima donna and "exotic for the sake of being exotic" hardware specs. SEGA needed to be the company that offered fast-paced games, and easy hardware for third parties. If they had this plan firmly in place, there wouldn't have been a knee-jerk reaction by SEGA of America which spawned the 32x.

[Anonymous No.10781649]

>>10781641
>a knee-jerk reaction
There is no need to make negative stereotypical comments about male homosexuals in this thread. I strongly suggest that you consult with your resident 4chan janitor and come up with an action plan that results in you becoming a more tolerant individual. I expect your 290 report on my desk in the morning.

[Anonymous No.10781652]

>>10781603
Yes, because the genesis is a 68000 and nothing else.

[Anonymous No.10781801]

>>10769592
What they needed to do was tell the arcade division to calm the fuck down and stop using expensive state-of-the-art supercomputer tech for their boards
Their arcade stuff looked very advanced for its time because of it, but it made home ports difficult if not impossible

[Anonymous No.10783415]

>>10781396
Sega's incompetence still would've fucked them over even if the PS1 never existed.

[Anonymous No.10783743]

>>10769592
No, it was too expensive to be a budget system, Sega couldn't get the price down the actual price was near $300 which is why they canceled it and the specs were not beefy enough to wow adult and teen gamers.
What they should have tried is make a CDX under $150 and make new cheap games for it that skewed to younger demos that would retail under $40
It would eliminate the main problem with The Plan, that new Genesis carts were routinely over $70 towards the end of the life cycle, you can't be a budget option if you had the most expensive games on the market.

[Anonymous No.10783798]

>>10781617
You could buy a Sega console even if you wanted to the Saturn's surprise lauch pissed of retailers so much they refused to stock it and the Dreamcast.

[Anonymous No.10783802]

>>10783798
>couldn't

[Anonymous No.10784671]

>>10783743
>What they should have tried is make a CDX under $150
I don't think that was possible back then. Even Sony Discmans were like $100 at the time and Sony was able to produce them inexpensively. The CDX served no purpose anyway. It was too big and expensive to be a worthwhile portable CD player and Genesis/Sega CDs were cheaper if you bought them separately. It's pure gimmick for the sake of gimmick. The Nomad was a mistake, too, but at least there you can see the rationale behind it.

[Anonymous No.10784678]

The Saturn not using its cartridge slot to play games was pretty bizarre. If not outright Genesis backwards compatibility, perhaps it could have been used to play games in an alternative format. 32X games could have been "budget" games that use the Saturn's cartridge slot instead of a Genesis addon, perhaps?
I can't say I know what would work; I'm not much of a hardware geek.

[Anonymous No.10784750]

>>10784678
>budget game
>on a format more expensive than CD

[Anonymous No.10784774]

>>10769648
I mean at that point, why the hell not try it? Maybe it could have kept some easy money coming in?

[Anonymous No.10784798]

>>10769798
But no one bought the 32x, so if you combined them you could continue to sell the cartridges of both. Im thinking of people who didnt have wealthy parents like me, who wouldve loved to see the bright future beyond the 16 bit era. Maybe im thinking of it all wrong but i see this as if nintendo built an snes with a supergameboy built in.

[Anonymous No.10784812]

I'm honestly surprised that Sega had a moment of clarity and didn't release the Neptune considering how quick they were to pull the trigger on any random device that came down the pipeline.

[Anonymous No.10784816]

>>10784678
it's cartridge slot was for memory expansion since the Saturn internal memory was powered by a wrist watch battery that would die every three weeks.
it's probably the most baffling design flaw

[Anonymous No.10784818]

>>10771161
The price is the sticking issue for me too, itd have to be more than a genesis or snes but less than anything else. Im not sure what a comparable price would be. >>10772306
A pack in would be essential, assuming the customer had a few genesis titles already. Id remind people that the cd add on is available but try not to suggest that cd add on was necessary for a new 32 bit experience. If you sell enough base units you will sell a few add ons.

[Anonymous No.10784819]

>>10784750
Oh, it is? My mistake. Like I said, I don't know a lot about this.

[Anonymous No.10784840]

>>10784678
It is an expansion port, not unlike the one on the front of the N64. The RAM carts are basically add-ons themselves, just not quite in the same vein as the CD and 32X. If you remember the og SEGA CD could also use the cartridge slot for RAM, but this was mostly to store save files. The Genesis itself also occasionally did cool stuff with the cartridge slot like Sonic & Knuckles' lock-on cart.

Nobody was really doing backwards compatibility back then, it was all about forwards compatibility, adding more stuff to make newer games chunkier and more graphically intensive. If you wanted a backwards compatible SEGA console (which was really just a Genesis with the add-ons already included) your best bet was either >>10783743 or the Neptune.

>>10784798
It is actually probably closer to the N64. Cartridge-based, does some basic 3D, no FMV, no CD audio, just basic games.

[Anonymous No.10784847]

>>10769592
No it was a desperate attempt to sell the 2 million Genesis consoles SoA had to buy back from retailers.

[Anonymous No.10784892]

>>10784678
There were plans for cartridge games but like a lot Sega plans they just never materialized.

[Anonymous No.10784894]

>>10784847
This makes the most sense.

[Anonymous No.10784970]

>>10784840
>Nobody was really doing backwards compatibility back then

From what I remember it's less that people didn't want it so much as the old systems were so ubiquitous it was kind of unnecessary. People didn't cycle through their tech so quickly or trade shit in, and the consoles themselves tended not to wear out easily. Most people who bought an SNES or Genesis still had it. Shit, most people who bought an Atari still had it.

Younger retro enthusiasts today would be shocked by the average family's hardware hoard in the 80's/90's. At me and my friend's houses we'd have gen 1 stuff and tabletop games in the garage, an 8 and 16-bit system, a C64 and a game boy somewhere. We weren't really trying to hoard stuff, there was just no reason to get rid of it if it worked.

[Anonymous No.10784997]

>>10781402
>If Sony says "Join me or die", then you pretty much have to join them. Or you can pick die and end up like Sega.
Nintendo told Sony to screw off and they survived just fine.

[Anonymous No.10785016]

>>10784997
They were able to hide in the handheld space for a few gens waiting out Sony's dominance, but it definitely wasn't without consequence for them.

[Anonymous No.10785123]

>>10783798
I can *almost* see the logic behind the surprise launch. You have a press conference, get everybody jazzed up about the thing, then tell them "if you think it sounds cool, go buy one right fucking now." The issue is it being a surprise to everyone, not just the customers.

I guess they thought if they'd actually coordinated with developers and retailers it would have been impossible to keep it a surprise but if so that wasn't worth the trade-off. If they wanted to beat the playstation to market just moving up the release date and just getting whatever launch titles they could ready without blindsiding anyone would have been the better move. Although what really baffles me is they did let *some* retailers into the loop, which is just inexplicable unless they were trying to broker exclusivity deals or something. How could they not figure that would piss off everyone else?

[Anonymous No.10785172]

>>10785123
Surprise launches actually became a really big deal later on for Apple. They'd have a press conference about a product and then at the end says "and it's available... right now". And everyone would get whipped up in a frenzy and go buy it. So it does work, you just have to plan it out a lot better.

[Anonymous No.10785201]

>>10785172
It's obvious that Sega had piss poor planning skills

[Anonymous No.10785219]

>>10785123
It's cool in an "I'm 14 and think waiting until the fall sucks" sort of way. But even putting the logistics of surprising retailers, even surprising your customers is a problem considering the surprise came in May. Not exactly a big buying month. If anything people save up around that time in anticipation of summer vacations and shit. Sega's gamble was probably something like "if everyone buys Saturns in May then they won't buy PlayStations in September" but we all saw how many things could go wrong with that strategy.

[Anonymous No.10785231]

>>10785172
One difference is that Apple has it's own retail and distribution channels so all the logistics are done beforehand. The only one getting surprised is the customer. And even then it's not REALLY a surprise nowadays. There's a certain cadence to Apple's product launches. Microsoft did do something similar with the Xbox 360 redesign when they announced it was for sale during it's reveal but that was just a redesign, for one, and a VERY necessary hardware fix, for another. I think what really blindsided Sega was that people just plain didn't want the Saturn barring a pressing reason. Had the world at large been chomping at the bit to get a next gen system it might have worked out better. But the SNES and Genesis were still strong. People weren't exactly rushing out to buy 3DOs. It was expensive, yes, but it says a lot that most people were pretty happy with waiting. There was interest in the Saturn but not to where people were going to bum rush the store for one.

[Anonymous No.10785258]

>>10785016
Nintendo sold a very respectable 33 million N64 units. They weren't afraid.

Gamecube sold 22 million units.

Then the Nintendo Wii absolutely slaughtered Sony's PS3 in sales

Nintendo was never afraid. You know why? Because what matters is the games and mascots. Nintendo takes care of their franchises over many generations.

Sega ruins their franchises. They can't even keep Sonic alive. When was the last Crazy Taxi or Streets of Rage game? Decades ago. Sega screwed up.

[Anonymous No.10785286]

>>10785258
The N64 was a brilliant move because it carved out a niche that the PS1 couldn't encroach on. If you compare the PS1 and Saturn they fundamentally do the same kinds of games so Sony ate Sega's lunch because there wasn't much Sega could do that Sony wasn't able to match blow for blow. But the N64 had a small but notable stable of killer apps the PS1 couldn't ape, at least not right away. It took a long time for Spyro to come out, for example. There was no PS1 equivalent to Goldeneye. Nintendo lost a lot of marketshare but it made sure it had a very secure corner all to itself. And when up against a giant like Sony that's way smarter than letting it dictate the playing field and trying to beat it at it's own game.

[Anonymous No.10785335]

>>10785258
The last Streets of Rage game was four years ago and Streets of Rage 5 has already been announced along with new Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, and Golden Axe games, to say noting of Asha in Monster World and Alex Kidd DX which were both three years ago or series like Yakuza and Super Monkey Ball which are still ongoing. SEGA exists outside of the 90's, not everything they make hearkens back to the retro era. They have gotten better about bringing these series back to relevance though.

I was actually very excited for SoR 4 when it first came out as I really enjoyed the Genesis titles and aside from Sonic it was the one that I really enjoyed the most.

We can basically say SEGA, Sony, and Nintendo are all popular for different reasons. At least as far as /vr/ goes, there is no real winner or loser. I think a Nintendo PlayStation would've been beneficial for both companies but they turned out "okay" in the end, just not as good as it would've been. Nintendo is still stuck with underpowered hardware, Sony still doesn't make games. That doesn't look like it's going to change anytime soon.

I don't know if I would say Nintendo "hides behind" their handhelds but it has been a huge part of their success that people tend to conveniently ignore when discussing the N64 or the GameCube. GBC and GBA existed around the same time and for the most part were way more popular, especially among girls, teens, young adults etc.

[Anonymous No.10785350]

>>10785335
the philosophies are pretty simple, Sony pushes tech to sell TVs and sound systems
Nintendo pushes characters to sell merchandise
SoJ wanted to bring the arcade experience home where SoA saw what Nintendo was doing and wanted to that, but aimed at an older audience.

[Anonymous No.10785356]

>>10769592
Their plan should have been to dive-deep at that point into the arcade as a budget NEO-GEO arcade system like the MVS. It was their only chance. They tried it with the Dreamcast but it was just too late. Nobody cared about arcade gaming at that point. Would have allowed them to pivot, maybe.

[Anonymous No.10785368]

>>10785219
"if everyone buys Saturns in May then they won't buy PlayStations in September" might have actually worked if Sega hadn't alienated a lot of their loyalists with the awkward add-on stage between the Genesis and the Saturn. Anyone who was still butthurt about the 32X being abandoned probably was going to wait and see how the Saturn compared to the PS1 instead of just rushing out to get one as soon as it was available.

I said in a different Sega thread (these are all the same thread, really) that if there had been nothing released between the Genesis and the Saturn the whole timeline probably changes. Sonic CD becomes a Saturn launch title with Virtua Fighter still there as a showcase for its 3D capabilities, every Sega fanboy pounces on the early release because they've been waiting for years for a new console and it probably moves enough units before the PS1 comes out to at least not get trampled by it in the west. They should have played the long game instead of trying to cash in year-over-year but at least everyone learned from their example and stopped trying to sell consoles in installments

[Anonymous No.10785501]

>>10785286
Exactly. The games on N64 felt tailored to the system's hardware design and controllers. You couldn't have a 3D platformer or action-adventure game with the scope of Banjo-Kazooie or Ocarina of Time on PSX, and you weren't getting SOTN or FF7 on N64 due to the cartridges and the 3D showcase focus they were going for with the library.
Saturn only had a bunch of small hardware technicalities over the PlayStation. Gameplay-wise the biggest "innovations" that you couldn't get on the other consoles was Mission Stick games and the analog triggers on the 3D pad. For an outsider looking in, It just had no damn personality outside being the SEGA system.

[Anonymous No.10785528]

Not to get off the subject, but why was the Saturn slated to be a 2D machine at first only to pivot at the last moment into supporting 3D?

It just boggles my mind thinking about how Sega pioneered 3D in the arcade to the point Sony looked at it and went "Shit, we need to build the Playstation around this" while Sega themselves seemed completely oblivious to it until it was too late

[Anonymous No.10785535]

>>10785528
It wasn't. It's a myth started by illiterate journalists.

[Anonymous No.10785538]

>>10769592
God damn I hate Saturn haters so much

[Anonymous No.10785579]

>>10785535
>It wasn't. It's a myth started by illiterate journalists.

Except that the hardware designer confirmed it in an interview.
He asked every in-house studio what they want in a new console, everybody said better 2D except Yu Suzuki who wanted 3D.
Despite that they still wanted to do 3D but nobody in the company knew how, except Suzuki, and they couldn't pull him off his projects. So the Saturn team decided to modify the sprite hardware to draw deformed sprites which can approximate 3D graphics.
Then the playstation specs came out and everybody shat themselves. They needed a stronger CPU but it was too late to find one. But as luck would have it, the SH2 they already chose allowed for a second CPU to be on the same bus, so they added a 2nd SH2 and that was that.

[Anonymous No.10785590]

>>10785356
Yep this, like an anon said previously in the thread their space age tech was mind blowing but made ports extremely difficult. Saturn should have been one CPU one GPU, and their arcade boards should have been souped up versions of that, ST-V was too little too late. Namco hit that nail on the head with their PSX based systems and wouldn’t you know it their arcade ports were excellent and very popular.

[Anonymous No.10785743]

>>10785579
I think the "last moment" thing is the myth. Sure they added the second sh2, but the machine was capable of 3d before that was added.

[Anonymous No.10785821]

>>10785368
It's not that people were butthurt over the 32X. Most people didn't buy a 32X. They weren't burned by the failure of something they never paid for in the first place. But what happens over time is people get used to not buying stuff. Sega was all over the place releasing shit that most people didn't want or need. So if you had a Genesis but didn't buy a Sega CD or CDX or 32X then you were already conditioned to not rush out for a Saturn.

Plus I think they misunderstood their audience. Genesis owners weren't Sega loyalists. The Genesis -> PS1 pipeline was strong. Genesis owners often scaled older in the first place and heavily toward sports games. Those people weren't console warring. They just wanted to play Madden and NHL. It was the video game equivalent of casual full service bar & grill establishments. Nobody is loyal to Applebees or TGI Fridays. It's all interchangeable and they'll go whereever, so long as they can get a burger and beer. A recently leaked internal document more or less confirms this. The Genesis market was strong but didn't create brand loyalty.

[Anonymous No.10785829]

>>10785579
It's worth pointing out that those early conversations about what the Saturn should be probably happened in 1993, which is pretty fucking early. The original Virtua Fighter may not even have been out yet. So it's no surprise people would have at the time been like "make it like the Mega Drive but better."

[Anonymous No.10785865]

>>10785829
>It's worth pointing out that those early conversations about what the Saturn should be probably happened in 1993

They happened in 1991 when they finished the Mega CD. Playstation specs came out in mid 1993.

>>10785743
>I think the "last moment" thing is the myth. Sure they added the second sh2, but the machine was capable of 3d before that was added.

The second SH2 was literally added in "the last moment", and without it the Saturn would've been extremely poor at 3D. I mean it was extremely poor with two SH2s as well, so imagine how bad it would've been with only one. We are talking barely better than the 3DO.

[Anonymous No.10785931]

>>10785865
>extremely poor
games look about the same on both systems, PS1 just has an edge on transparency effects and polygon count.
You can read Wikipedia all you want, you will always be a zoomer.

[Anonymous No.10785942]

>>10785865
>without it the Saturn would've been extremely poor at 3D
>imagine how bad it would've been with only one
It wouldn't. I mean the Saturn is still bad, but it wouldn't be that much worse without an SH-2. The Saturn's weak point turned out to be in texturing and fill rate, which is squarely in the territory of VDP1. They thought that they could make games with more open environment (think Panzer Dragoon), with the VDP2 doing skybox and background things, so they wouldn't need that much power in VDP1.

[Anonymous No.10786047]

>>10785931
>and polygon count.
That's a pretty significant edge. You can't pooh-pooh that as a minor thing.

[Anonymous No.10786061]

>>10785942
For the types of 3D games that were popular in arcades at the time, and even the ones on PC and console like Star Fox and (if you count it) Doom, Sega wasn't exactly wrong to prioritize using VDP2 for that purpose. What happened is they failed to predict the direction console games were heading and how unlike arcade games they'd be. If you're making stuff like Virtual On and expect 3D gaming to generally be like that for the foreseeable future then the Saturn's architecture makes total sense. Even the early PS1 library was full of games like Jumping Flash which the Saturn could easily have done. Nobody expected Crash Bandicoot and Mario 64 would rewrite the rules.

[Anonymous No.10786062]

>>10781402
Nintendo didn't die and Sega joined Microsoft. That reminds me, the only place I see Sony called out for their early shenanigans is here, but in the wider world Microsoft is the only one shit on for doing the "same" thing. To me it sounds like Sony was being more duplicitious, while Microsoft was simply guilty of being rich.

[Anonymous No.10786096]

>>10785931
>PS1 just has an edge on transparency effects and polygon count.

And color count
And framerate
And texture quality
And resolution modes
And lightning
And special effects
And flexibility

>>10785942
>They thought that they could make games with more open environment (think Panzer Dragoon), with the VDP2 doing skybox and background things, so they wouldn't need that much power in VDP1.

Yeah, but that design decision was specifically born out of the problem of the console being shit at 3D.

Seriously, compare any two multiplatform games, the only time the Saturn looks better is if it's a 2D title needing more memory for animation.