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2367932 No.2367932 [Reply] [Original]

Would the Saturn and Dreamcast would of been more successful/prevent Sega from going 3rd party if the 32X and Sega CD weren't released? What were they thinking with these? They should of been working on the Saturn and made it good instead of these, which are pretty much physical DLC. They're the retro version of Amiibo.

>> No.2367939

>>2367932

Only problem with Sega CD is people didn't have a clue about making games that used cds well.

>> No.2367953

>>2367939
Didn't Sony help make the CD?

>> No.2367976

>>2367953

As far as I know they did.

Going back to the topic of games, it just boogles the mind how they insisted on churning out shitty game after shitty game pretending we wanted interactive movies.

Imagine for a second they released just only remastered versions of already sucessful games with some better stages that used for example the same tricks silpheed did or even just remastered OST with actual instruments (Contra The Hardcorps comes to mind -this one would have been all sorts of amazing-).

>> No.2367978

>>2367953
The CD was developed by Sony and Philips in the 70s as a way of storing music. Similar developments also led to the Laser Disc video format.
CD ROM as a format for data came up in 1985 and achieved widespread use for games with the PCE-CD in 1988. The Mega CD was released in 1991, a long time before the Saturn or 32X

>> No.2367985

>>2367939
The PCE-CD had been out for 3 years already in Japan when the SegaCD was released, and while some might argue that they didn't necessarily make the most of the storage capacity (probably to some extent because the hardware limited the complexity of media that it could realistically use), it still had a ton of great CD titles, and CDs had seen ample time in console market by the time Sega dropped theirs for developers to have at least begun to learn how to maximize their potential.

>> No.2367990

>>2367985

Yet, they still sold us what they sold us, kek.

>> No.2368001

>>2367976
>it just boogles the mind how they insisted on churning out shitty game after shitty game pretending we wanted interactive movies
Sega was just too ahead of their time.

>> No.2368007

>>2367932
>it's like Amiibo you guys!!
Oh great, it's /v/. The CD was fine, AVGN is not supposed to show you good games for the system. And the 32X was horrendously timed on top of the poor-to-nonexistent dev support.

>> No.2368008

>>2367985
I think the PCE had the advantage of the Japanese market and developers. Mega Drive and Mega CD weren't that big compared to Genesis and Sega CD so they got more non--Japanese developers who focused on gimmicks like FMV

>> No.2368014

>>2367932
Sega CD had good games, and was reasonable for what it did. For an add-on that costs twice as much as the base machine, it actually had reasonably good sales. It was always supposed to be a premium for early 90s wealthy NEETs that wanted just that little more out of their console.

Yes, there were a lot of stupid western companies making FMV garbage, but that's hardly Sega's fault. The Sega CD = failure is a misinformation meme that refuses to die.

The Sega 32X on the other hand pretty much had no redeeming qualities. It did not make sense on any level.

The only thing that could have saved the Saturn would have been to accept Silicon Graphics' proposal to design the hardware themselves instead of Sega doing it in-house.

>> No.2368035

>>2368014
32x would have made sense, but they killed it way too fast. If they switch the Genny 2 to the Neptune completely, and leave the thing on the market for at least one more year (letting it side-by-side with the Saturn as a low-end machine), then it could've fared much better.

>The only thing that could have saved the Saturn would have been to accept Silicon Graphics' proposal to design the hardware themselves instead of Sega doing it in-house.

The Saturn could've saved itself if it didn't have a complete fucking joke of a launch followed with NOGAEMS, at the expense of throwing away the entire Genesis market (which was #1 console in the states at the time).

>> No.2368047

>>2368035
>The Saturn could've saved itself if it didn't have a complete fucking joke of a launch
Well the early launch was caused by Sega feeling paranoid and lacking confidence about their chances against Sony. Having some SGI tech inside their system would have made them feel more assertive and not rushed their console out the door.

That being said, Saturn's Christmas 1995 was actually stronger than Playstation's. The NOGAEMS was caused by developers running away from the system for being a colossally complicated behemoth that still underperformed in 3D even when you got it going.

SGI tech would have given Sega what was N64 internal hardware except without the kookiness from Nintendo that held it back.

>> No.2368080

>>2368047
>Well the early launch was caused by Sega feeling paranoid and lacking confidence about their chances against Sony.

No, that was because SOJ was rushing things. The Saturn had a record breaking launch in Japan (due to Virtua Fighter), so they wanted to ditch everything and focus on it, especially with the Megadrive never selling well over there.

But this was a huge mistake in the states because the Genesis market was at its peak, and because VF was not any popular over there. They pretty much gave the market up.

Honestly they should've reworked the Saturn VDP1 to not suck, and design a MD-on-a-cart adapter for backwards compatibility. Those two would've made the Saturn so much better.

>> No.2368108

>>2368080
Why do people keep talking about backwards compatibility with MD as if it not being there was a huge mistake?

Who are all these huge MD fans who got driven off by the fact that the Saturn couldn't play games for a console they should have already had?

>> No.2368119

>>2368108
It's a good boost for a new console as they only have a few launch titles.

>> No.2368129

>>2368001
Kek

>> No.2368612

So is the Saturn worth buying? How is it to collect for? I know I can get a US Saturn, and pop a 4 in 1 Action Replay cart in it for imports, but can I play burnt discs on it?

>> No.2368650

>>2368108
Backwards compatibility means the system starts out with a gigantic library from the start, allowing users a clean upgrade path. It was one of the reasons why the PS2 was so popular (being a DVD player was the other).

>>2368612
Worth buying. If you want to collect for it, be prepared to have your wallet burned, since the most wanted games can be extremely expensive. But, you can get a ton of great games below the $60 mark, especially if you import, or you aren't bothered about lack of spinecard and such.

Action replay can play imports, you can also re-flash it to boot backups (but lose the memory cart and cheat functions in the process). It is a catch 22 though, since to flash the cart, you must be able to boot a burnt disc - either via modchip or swap trick.

IMO the cleanest route is a region free bios + a modchip, but that might not be easy to install for everyone.

Or just buy a model 1 and save up for the SD card loader... most expensive, but very much worth it.

>> No.2368691

>>2367932
>They're the retro version of Amiibo

Do amiibos boost the power and capabilities of the Wii U? It's like claiming that buying a new GPU for your computer is "just DLC".

Also the CD is pretty awesome and moderately successful. This is what happens when you get all your news and opinions from YouTubers.

>> No.2368861

I feel like Sega would've saved itself if it included 32x compatibility with Saturn.

>> No.2368869

>>2368861
I don't think so, Jim.

>> No.2368873

>>2368869
Is there a way to add stereo to the Sega Genesis Model 1 successfully?

>> No.2368874

>>2368650
The third-party "Memory Card Plus" can also enable imports.

>> No.2368884

>>2367932
>>2368691
I'm really getting tired of the SEGA/Wii U comparisons...

>> No.2368925

>>2368001
It was new technology. People are fucking stupid and upon gaining access to this new format their first thought wasn't "What kind of new things can this do" but "How do we take this existing thing and make it work?

Everyone became obsessed with fitting movies onto digital and the rudimentary interactivity of what were essentially early DVD players, rather than seeing the storage opportunities that it provided. Combined with the slow-speed of the early CD units, and the limited ram, and it was a bad social and tech combination that had growing pains.

>> No.2368942

>>2368925
Yet the turbografx CD didn't have this problem.

>> No.2368947

>>2368873
>Is there a way to add stereo to the Sega Genesis Model 1 successfully?

Yes, by using the headphone plug.

>>2368925
Streaming movies was one thing the CD tech excelled at, and it was easy to develop for. Add to that how controversial Night Trap was, and you can see how a lot of companies jumper on that bandwagon.

The Sega CD was a bitch to develop for.

>> No.2368948

>>2368942
TG16 sold very poorly. The turboCD even more so.
>>2368925
SEGA CD and 32x had shit lifespans and the games that were good weren't promoted.

>> No.2368958

>>2367932
>physical DLC
>before DLC
>non-downloadable downloadable content
So, content? The bastards!

>> No.2368964

>>2368948
Not in japan.

>> No.2368969

>>2368884
I know, it makes Sega look bad.

>> No.2368971

>>2368964
That would be the PCE. And Japan is the second most important market.

>> No.2368975

>>2368971
Am I suppose to post both names so people know what im talking about? Saying Turbografx CD/PC Engine CD is annoying.

>> No.2368980

>>2368975
No point in treating them separately.

>> No.2368981

>>2368975
They were drastically different markets. It's not like the Genesis vs Megadrive.

>> No.2368983

>>2368975
Just post whichever one is relevant to the market you mean.

>> No.2368996

>>2367932
This is the reason why I bought a psx over the saturn. The sega cd was a poorly executed idea and it left a shitty taste in a lot of people's mouths.

>> No.2368997

>>2368996
Some sega fan you were. BUY ALL THE SEGA STUFF BUY ALL SEGA.

>> No.2369025
File: 23 KB, 371x288, Sega-Power-Strip-Ad[1].jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2369025

Sega made the greatest video game hardware of all time.

>> No.2369037

>>2369025
That thing only had 5 plugs. You couldn't plug in all the 6 things it advertised, you had to leave one of them out.

>> No.2369045

>>2369037
The TV gets plugged into the wall.

>> No.2369056

>>2367932
No, Piracy and Shenmue killed Sega.
Fuck Yu Suzuki

>> No.2369059

>>2369056
>Piracy
I really want to know who started this shit.
SEGA was bleeding money well before the DC.Not that piracy was a big issue with the DC.

>> No.2369070

>>2369059
Hi, I was ~16 when the Dreamcast launched, and grew up with it. Everyone I knew pirated the fuck out of the games.
I also run an independant game store on the East Coast, and every fucking Dreamcast that comes in is accompanied by a spool of CD-Rs. The Dreamcast had a /major/ piracy problem. You needed no modchip, just a burned disc.

Sega was doing pretty okay in the japanese market from the Saturn, they would have survived if the Dreamcast wasn't a pirates wet dream and Yu Suzuki hadn't spent almost 10 fucking years jerking off to the idea of Shenmue.

>> No.2369071

>>2368869
Think about it. In North America 32x would've made sense if it were an ACTUAL middleman between Genesis and Saturn instead of trying to be its own console. Imagine the scenario being using 32x cartridges in the Genesis/32x system or upgrade to a Saturn and still have access to play 32x cartridges.

>> No.2369087
File: 719 KB, 800x564, aa69d746a131640d50061e3da165237a.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2369087

>>2369070
That's well after the fact.
When it was new burners were still expensive and getting the image was not easy.

With over 8million units sold and about 65 million total games sold. Piracy was not an issue.

For reference XBOX One as of last week has sold 4 million more hardware units but over 10 million less games.

I really hope we can put this piracy bullshit to rest now.

>> No.2369095
File: 373 KB, 904x702, metiedoughtywalker.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2369095

>Well if they'd just released the Neptune
>The CD could have been good if
>Saturn backwards compatible with 32X
>Here's how addons could have succeeded

no no no no no no NO NO NO NO NO NO

No addons, no 1.5 gen consoles, none of it. None. BIG LEAPS. That's how to do it. Release one console, if successful then bide your time polishing a future proofed successor that is a HUGE improvement.

This maximizes the value owners of each console get because they don't constantly have to buy expensive new hardware for incremental improvements where you look at screenshots and are like "eeehhh it looks a little bit better"

A generational leap should be instantly recognizable and blow away owners of the prior console. With no stepping stones in between. There is no such thing as an exception to this rule, no good violation of it, it's written in stone.

>> No.2369101

>>2369070
I'm not sure how Yu Suzuki is to blame for sega's management just blindly writing checks for the game and not realizing every dreamcast owner would have to buy multiple copies for them to break even. They were simply being stupid.

>> No.2369103

>>2369056
If it weren't for Yu Suzuki, Sega would've went under in the 90s. All their best selling arcade titles were made by Suzuki, and without those they would not have enough funds to keep the console releases going.

DC piracy was not a problem early on because internet speeds just weren't fast enough, and CD burners were not cheap. By the time it WAS a problem, Sega was already near bankrupt.

>>2369070
>Sega was doing pretty okay in the japanese market from the Saturn, they would have survived if the Dreamcast wasn't a pirates wet dream

Saturn was failing everywhere else in the world though, and gave up the market for Sony, who was coming up with the DVD equipped PS2. No one gave a shit about the DC, everyone was saving up for the PS2, that could also play their existing library of PS1 games.

DC could've sold better with more money for marketing, but Sega was stripped for cash and couldn't support it anymore.

The Shenmue development cycle was ultimately small potatoes compared to the massive losses Sega was suffering anyway.

>> No.2369106

>>2369037
>or Sega Channel
>or
it specifically told you to leave one thing out.

>> No.2369107

>>2369070
While Shenmue may be Suzuki's idea, it wasn't him that originally wanted to do the huge game project. Sega was the ones who wanted to make a huge game and no one was stepping up to do it. Yu Suzuki then volunteered to do the project.

>> No.2369121

>>2369095
Sega management was retarded, every time some competitor came up with something new, they just HAD to one-up it.

CD accessory on the PC Engine? We must do a cd accessory too!

SNES can do rotations? Sega CD must be able to do that too! Nevermind the fact that the Megadrive is completely ill suited for any type of graphic expansions.

SNES is adding extra chips to carts which enhance games? We must create one like that as well!

Everyone is complaining about the Megadrive having bad audio and few colours? Let's do another upgrade that boosts these capabilities!

Megadrive was difficult to upgrade? Let's give the Saturn a port that has access to every pin of every chip, even if such a high pin count connector is impossible to do!

Nintendo is making a portable console? We must have a slice of that pie! Let's make the Master System portable and call it Game Gear! It'll only need 6 batteries to run for two hours, but hey, it has a colour screen!

In retrospect, Sega had fuck-all long term goals and had no idea how to manage the console market. If it weren't for the Genesis doing so well in the USA, they would've dropped out of the market way faster.

>> No.2369125

>>2369121
All of SEGA's problems can be followed back to the tug of war between SoA and SoJ.

>> No.2369130

>>2369125
There wasn't a war.
SOJ was just completely incompetent on the console market.

>> No.2369139

>>2369130
Not really. If you look at all the bullshit that was done it was evident they weren't thinking on the same page.

>> No.2369140

>>2369121
Except that the Sega CD does do scaling and rotation better than the SNES does, and does have better audio (not even counting redbook, the actual soundchip in the thing is really good).

The Sega CD is a really good, really powerful console that was improperly handled.

The SVP chip is also really, really good, they just never really used it.

>> No.2369151

>>2369103
>>2369056
You're a dumbass. All of the money Sega lost from Shenmue was made back by Virtua Fighter 3 and 4's arcade revenue.

>> No.2369156

>>2369151
Oh durr, I quoted an extra person with that.


Honestly, I'd give more blame to studios like Sonic Team for fucking Sega up than AM2 and Suzuki. Sonic sells, but goddamn does it make a stain on Sega.

>> No.2369180

>>2369140
>Except that the Sega CD does do scaling and rotation better than the SNES does

It handles rotation at something like 15 fps since the VDP was not meant to take external graphics input - you have to manually load new tiles, and there isn't enough time to do that and keep the framerate up.

>does have better audio (not even counting redbook, the actual soundchip in the thing is really good).

The Ricoh sound chip in that thing did not support compression, so it was not THAT much better than the SNES - however you could use it on top of the YM2612+PSG+DAC, and the CD Audio, so it only had to a few voice effects exclusively, while the SNES was starved doing all ingame audio from the same chip.

>The Sega CD is a really good, really powerful console that was improperly handled.

The Sega CD was a clusterfuck hack that was running off of a purely data bus that lacked any cpu interrupts. If that does not give you an idea on how difficult it was to get basic code running on the system, then you should stop arguing about how good the system was.

>The SVP chip is also really, really good, they just never really used it.

It doesn't matter how good the SVP chip was, it fell into the same problem of the VDP not being able to accept external input, so they were limited in the framerate. And on the colour count. And by needing to convert the rendered polygonal graphics into tiles and uploading them to the VDP for display.

>> No.2369239
File: 125 KB, 640x496, 1426703581553.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2369239

>>2369095
>thread full of opinions
>posts opinion
>my opinion is fact

>> No.2369262

>>2369180
While there are certainly negative things about it, we're talking about an addon accessory from 1991, here. Expecting Saturn tier power is just not realistic. Compared to the SNES, released around the same time, it is a powerhouse.


I don't disagree with the "hard to run code on" assertion. But given that I've heard that said about the Saturn, N64, and other systems too, people somehow found a way.

>> No.2369329

>>2369151
In order for Shenmue to break even every single Dreamcast owner (worldwild) would have needed to buy a minimum of two copies. VF3 and VF4 did not do well. Virtua Fighter is not a popular series in Japan. If you want to make claims like that show me some solid numbers because you're pulling that out of your ass.

>> No.2369337

>>2369329
Not him but Yu Suzuki definitely said in an interview that VF4 more than covered Shenmue's costs.

>> No.2369423

>>2369180
>muh SNES has no bottlenecks!

>> No.2369431

>>2369329
>Virtua Fighter is not popular in Japan

Say that to the reports of it always being one of the top played games in arcades, if not the top played fighter.

And Yu Suzuki has gone on the record to say that Virtua Fighter's arcade revenue made the money back.

That's not to say that Shenmue wasn't incredibly goddamn expensive and a failure, but Sega made the money back. It's just that it's not a gamble they want to deal with again.

What you brought up was Shenmue making it's own money back, which would have been impossible. AM2's other games made back the money they lost fully though.

>> No.2369458

>>2367932
Regardless of the technical and market issues, the Sega CD library is easily one of my favorites. Apex 16-bit artistry and gameplay, practically unlimited storage for sprites, CD quality audio, animated cut-scenes, voice acting and tons of niche localizations. It was the perfect storm, and a huge antithesis to the clunky, ugly 3D games coming out in 94-95.

>> No.2369473

>>2369239

Sega already tried your way and is now sucking dicks behind the olive garden to make enough money for meth and a hotel room

>> No.2369486

>>2369329
>Virtua Fighter is not a popular series in Japan

Has anybody ever said anything less correct in /vr/ history? You are so far from correct that light from correct will take millions of years to reach you.

>> No.2369596

>>2369056
>Fuck Yu Suzuki
You take that back, brah. Blasphemy!

>> No.2369607

>>2369431
How come they can make all these shitty Yakuza games but not finish Shenmue? They can condense the story for christsake.

>> No.2369609

>>2369607
>Yakuza
>shitty

also it sells pretty well in Japan, whereas Shenmue didn't sell very well anywhere sadly.

>> No.2369674

>>2367932
Sega CD didn't hurt Sega too badly. People bought the thing. Not too many, but it wasn't a massive disaster. Early 90s, everyone wanted in on CD tech. Nintendo was ready to get in on it too.
The 32X was just an embarrassment that hurt Sega as a brand. Neat machine, there's a fair few enjoyable games on it. But, at the time of release, it had no reason to exist. The Saturn was coming out at about the same time.

You know what killed the Saturn? That early launch.
>yes, let's surprise everyone, even though there are fuck all games ready
The PS1 managed to make up in a week the sales lead the Saturn got from it.

and what killed the Dreamcast?
Piracy was an issue, but not crippling.
No DVD support, PS2 coming around the corner and it had it. DC sold like hotcakes first year, and then it dried up the closer to the PS2 launch you got.
The failure of the Saturn in the west hurt Sega's brand. The success of the Saturn in Japan hurt the Dreamcast which suddenly came in after only 3 or so years and ended support for the machine.

>>2368007
32X had a reason for poor dev support.
it's a fucking bitch to work with

The machine provides no support for the developer. It is impossibly simple.
there is just about zero hardware acceleration in the 32X, no 3D rendering, no sprite scaling, absolutely nothing, the 32X doesn't have a proper VDP (the VDP on the 32X is just for putting the framebuffer contents to the screen)
It's a pair of fast CPUs hooked up to a framebuffer and four extra sampled audio channels (pretty sure you have to drive them with the CPU as well).

getting performance out of the 32X comes down to literally
>how efficiently can you write SH2 assembly?
and that's it

>> No.2369690

As a kid in his video game prime during that era no one was "confused" by the Sega CD as thinking it was any sort of alternative to a Sega Saturn. Hell it came out in 1992 in America, 3 years before the Saturn. I clearly remember kids of the day thinking the Sega CD was completely badass and basically an "elite" thing only rich kids could have.

The reason the Sega CD wasn't very successful was because at that period in time video game purchasing was still primarily in the hands of our parents. The gamers themselves were not the one's with the cash like today. Because of this parent's weren't going to spend $300 for something they couldn't comprehend as anything more than an extra "toy" for the Genesis they had already bought just recently.

I fully believe that if the modern demographic of gamers existed back then (meaning 30 year old gamers with jobs and money) that the Sega CD would have been moderately successful. Reason being is as stated....gamers in the U.S. absolutely loved the Genesis and everyone that I remember thought the Sega CD was awesome. Give those same people money and purchasing decision power and I'm pretty sure a ton more would have been sold.

The 32x on the other hand was in fact a clusterfuck that confused a lot of people but I think worse than the confusion was something far worse in regards to having a tangible affect on the Saturn...it took away game development resources.

Think about it. Just 7-8 months before the launch of your next generation console you had game developers working on games for an add-on to your previous generation console instead of developing launch titles for the Saturn. Without the 32x the Saturn would have had a massive launch library with the benefits of games with a much longer development cycle. No the 32x library wasn't great but with 6'ish months of additional development time on the much more powerful Saturn it would have been a huge boost.

>> No.2369710

>>2369690
Continued:

Imagine these 32x games developed from the start on the Saturn and with 6+ months more development time.

Virtua Racing: 32x version is considered better than the Saturn variant. Imagine the development of the two not split up and rushed.

Virtua Fighter: Likely could have had a remix quality version at launch.

Knuckles Chaotix: A mediocre game, maybe even with more development time it still would have been, but it would have been a launch title with Sonic brand recognition. At least in terms of early marketing this would have been great for the Saturn.

Star War Arcade: Could have easily been a damn system seller. It was already great on the 32x but with extra development time on Saturn hardware? Sega could have marketed the absolute fuck out of this. A top tier 3D Star Wars game as a launch title? Whoever pushed this to the 32x should have been shot.

Metal Head: 3D mech game, cool at the time and would have made a decent 2nd tier launch game.

Doom: Nothing really needs to be said.

Kolibri with the Saturn's extra 2D muscle could have been quite the showcase.

>> No.2369765

>>2369140
>>2369180
>>2369674

I'd like to know more about the hardware and how they interoperated.

>> No.2369789
File: 14 KB, 480x360, hqdefault[1].jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2369789

Should have listened to Kalinske and never even started development of Saturn.

>> No.2369797

>>2369789
As written earlier, Sega should have just handed over Saturn development to SGI like Kalinske wanted.

Imagine an N64 with no downsides. It would have crushed Sony. It was in Sega's fucking grasp.

>> No.2369876

>>2369710
Virtua Fighter was released on the 32x like a year later than the Saturn version, so the Saturn version would not have benefited. They wrote Saturn VF in something like half a year, anyway, so it can be a launch game.

Chaotix would've been cool because then the Saturn would've at least had a Sonic title, more or less. Especially if they keep the original cast (it was meant to have Sonic & Tails in it).

>> No.2370245

>>2369473
Being this mad
>>>/v/

>> No.2370254

>>2369789
The 32x isn't good enough to compete with an actual console.

>> No.2370298

>>2369180
AND if that wasn't enough, Virtua Racing was $100-$120 at retail.

>> No.2370353

>>2370298
Wow.

>> No.2370367

>>2370298
For what it's worth, it did make almost all FX chip based games look crap, even that one stunt racing game.

>> No.2373140

>>2370367
All a game had to do to be better than Stunt Race FX was run at more than 8 fps.

>> No.2373153

>>2373140
Stunt Race is pretty bad. It doesn't look good or play well compared to SNES games that don't use FX.

>> No.2373187

>>2367932
NO! The Saturn and Dreamcast would not be successful if add-ons didn't exist. Genesis players were happy with the games library up until about 1998. Sega cornered their market with the original Genesis. Addons, 32-bit systems (Saturn/PSX), weren't important when the N64 also existed at the time. If you had Genesis and N64 games, the Saturn suddenly looked horrible. The addons were a seperate failure of Sega not keeping up and putting out expansions which increased the total cost to develop and own.

>> No.2374185

>>2367932
>What were they thinking with these?
Sega's way of thinking is not something mortal men will ever understand.

>> No.2374193

>>2369789
Would something like a strict upgrade to the Genesis/CD/32x have worked? Almost like an all in one unit but with better specs and fully backwards compatible (one cart slot for backwards compatibility of SMS, GEN, 32X, and SCD and new games from the CD drive)?

Just a thought

>> No.2374195

>>2374193
They could have used a more powerful 68k like a 040.

>> No.2374208

>>2370254
Bullshit it's not
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pOWZbydnlZE

>>2374193
That's what should have happened, assuming it was even needed once the Japanese devs really developed some 32x engines. The Playstation would have been more powerful and easier to develop for BUT Sega would have beaten them to market by years and years, maintained their brand trust and maybe had a chance of getting Dreamcast out even earlier, if Playstation had even been successful enough for Sony to want to do a PS2 in this theoretical alternate timeline

>> No.2375483

>>2369059
>>2369070
And let's not forget that the PS1 was heavily pirated too. Sure you needed a modchip, but in my experience everyone had a modded PS1 with a CD wallet packed with CD-Rs. It felt like I was the only dipshit paying money for games in the mid-90s.

>> No.2375492

>>2369101
It's hard to kill a project that you've sunk millions into. At first you project a profit, then you want to break even, finally you'll pin your hopes on a loss that's smaller than if you just wrote it off.

>> No.2375528

>>2375483
Piracy has never really been that big of a problem for video games.

>> No.2375557

>>2375528
Even 80s computers were still considered a profitable market even though piracy far outweighed the legitimate purchases.

>> No.2375561

>>2375557
Well that was because of large business orders. The small group of people pirating software was never going to effect that.

My main point was people need to stop labeling piracy as something that killed or helped killed SEGA.

>> No.2375583

>>2368108
>>2368650
tbf the competitors didn't have backwards compatibility either. Backwards compatibility is nice but I can't imagine it's the deciding factor in many people buying or not buying a console.

>> No.2375660
File: 58 KB, 640x480, knuckles-chaotix-03.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2375660

>>2369710
>Knuckles Chaotix
>A mediocre game

I think it's really charming. I really like the visual design, and the soundtrack is super comfy, too.

The level design is pretty ass, though.

>> No.2375663

>>2374208
AFAIK a full Megadrive CD32X was a clusterfuck of processors sharing buses and waiting for eachother to do the most basic stuff. No blame on the hardware as just making it work looks like a miracle, but it looks like an end of the road thing.
I won't deny that with proper support it could have worked for some years, and maybe they could have released a later Saturn with stronger video hardware or even an early Dreamcast. But you know what SEGA did, release the 32X along with the Saturn and totally neglect it. And as far as support goes, the Saturn had three big books of technical pages for an already quite complex hardware while Sony focused on ease of development with the way simpler PSX.

>> No.2375871

>>2373187
You know what? You're right.
Sure, the 32X hurt Sega. Mostly how they handled it, really -- it actually did have somewhat high demand at the start. But it wasn't as bad or in the way people thought, since the Saturn did more to kill Sega than anything else they had done, before or after.
Using the same CPU that was in the Saturn was bad logistically because it meant Sega encountered shortages in obtaining it, since the Saturn was releasing at the same time. Developers went to Saturn instead of 32X because the Saturn was more powerful, leaving a system that people wanted without games.

What hurt Sega the most was 1: early Saturn launch left Sega with no games on the Saturn. Developers moved to the PS1. 2: early launch pissed off some retailers who were getting ready for the Saturn release, and now they didn't have any Saturns while those that were in on the program did. 3: remember that CPU issue I talked about earlier? Sega couldn't make enough Saturns or 32Xs to satisfy demand. Even if you were in on the early launch, you barely had any Saturns to sell.

oh, and 4: Sony's $299 announcement, by the time Sega did get its shit together with production, no one was interested in it, people were buying PlayStations -- they were cheaper, there were more games coming, and Sony handled their launch very, very well.

the Saturn's legacy on developers and retailers lasted well into the DC era (which still managed to do fantastically at launch), and ultimately lead to them dropping out of the console market

The Sega CD had almost no effect on Sega, much of its derision came after its day.

>> No.2375889

>>2374208
That demo was made by former Amiga demosceners. Optimized to the hilt and using all kinds of tricks that most other types of developers wouldn't know to consider. Likely all written in straight assembly, because you'd need it to get that kind of performance. And still, there's no game logic or game objects yet in the demo, which would slow things down a fair bit. Just static geometry.
in contrast, there are a few first generation PS1 and Saturn games that make this look bad, and they weren't made by a top-tier development team like Zyrinx

neat things: the tech and area shown at 4:17 was reused in AMOK for the Saturn, and it probably was going to be a 32X game before they moved it to the Saturn

>> No.2375913

>>2375889
Almost definitely written that way because of
>>2369674
This. The 32x is literally just a bunch of powerful processors. It has NO hardware support for anything.

It is a real 32bit system, but cannot compete with the Saturn or Playstation. This isn't necessarily a knock against the 32x. It is an addon for the Genesis, not a standalone system. But it is a knock against it when it was released so soon to the Saturn.

The SCD, by contrast was released around the same time as the SNES. It didn't really catch on, but it is much more impressive for its time.

>> No.2375948

>>2375889
>neat things: the tech and area shown at 4:17 was reused in AMOK for the Saturn, and it probably was going to be a 32X game before they moved it to the Saturn

And the demo with the corridors was a 32x X-Men game that got canned.

Also, if you check the gouraud shading demo, you can see shadows moving on the ground, implying that the demo tracked cloud movement in some way.

>> No.2375968

>>2375871
The 32x hurt SEGA the most out of all it's mistake. You don't release garbage hardware and expect fans/customers to remain loyal.

>> No.2375980

>>2369765
I don't know terribly much about the Sega CD, but the 32X is very easy to explain.

You have the SH2 CPUs (one master CPU, one slave CPU), framebuffer, and additional audio hardware inside of the 32X. It plugged into the Genesis, and ran at the same time.
The 32X had 512kB of RAM in it. Two 128kB framebuffer screens and 256kB of general memory. This was important, because the 32X couldn't access Genesis memory or registers directly. The Genesis is able to access the 32X framebuffer and a couple of other things about the 32X.

There's an extremely tiny communications area that all three CPUs can access -- the master, the slave, and the 68k. To do anything on the Genesis (eg, use Genesis sprites, scrolling, etc), you run a program on the 68k CPU in it that takes commands+data from the 32X's communication area. Generally, things like background position/status and sound driver state would go through here.

When you look at it all, expansions for the Genesis were a bit of a terrible idea because Sega never designed the system for it -- the Sega CD is bottlenecked in performance by the Genesis and is similarly complicated to work with, even though the Sega CD has a fair bit more hardware acceleration than the 32X
the 32X gets around some of these issues by the Genesis video being plugged into it instead of right to the TV, so the 32X tends to just use the Genesis video hardware for background display and Genesis sound hardware for music+sfx

>tl;dr:
The 32X is mostly divorced from the Genesis itself so for the most part. The Genesis is used for most sound and backgrounds.
You should probably read this as well: http://devster.monkeeh.com/sega/32xguide1.txt
but it's very technical

and here's Sega's official docs:
http://www.valpocl.com/SuperVDP/32x_hardware_manual.pdf
but that's also very technical and a bit engrishy (like pretty much every piece of documentation from that era)

>> No.2376350

>>2375980
Much appreciated