The Sega CD is an okay console with a few great games and it has the ability to play your music CD collection, yet it still had several bad games and was marketed for FMV games, and to use it you had to own the Sega Genesis. Where do you stand?
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The Sega CD is an okay console with a few great games and it has the ability to play your music CD collection, yet it still had several bad games and was marketed for FMV games, and to use it you had to own the Sega Genesis. Where do you stand?
Honestly I've gotten more playtime with the Sega CD then the Genesis. I love the Sega CD. There are plenty of quality titles, you just have to dig through all the crappy ones.
Now the 32x on the other hand I wish didn't exist. If they didn't make that they could've supported the Sega CD and Sega Saturn better.
Having just picked up Heart of the Alien and Brutal: Paws of Fury for the first time this week, I can say without a doubt yes. The early 90s without a Sega CD would have seen me trying to mow enough lawns to get a NEO GEO, and that would have been an impossibly huge task.
The CD could have been managed better in both the US and Japan (lack of scaling arcade games or sequels/derivatives, competition to SNES SFX and Mode 7 games, general lack of low-cost and/or enhanced versions of most common/popular MD/Genesis games, and in the west it wasn't marketed as broadly as it could -too much emphasis on multimedia/FMV and not enough on the broad advantages of the CD).
It could have been a lot worse in any case... though it seems to have done pretty badly in Europe. (Japanese success accounts vary a lot: from low sales figures to high ones to other info pointing to the dominance of CD games over MD cart ones -one major point could have been a substantial userbase of Wondermega and possibly Multimega users, but there isn't much info on that specifically other than the implied popularity by the low MCD sales at ~500k and high percentage of CD game sales -so if Pettus's 2-3 million figure includes Wonder/Multimega units plus the 500+k MCD units, that would imply much higher than 3.5 million MDs sold with the duo systems included -ie 5.5-6.5 million, then again the PCE's sales figures are missing duo sales too)
We've already discussed hypotheticals on this here at length: http://sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13697
It could have had better hardware choices IMO and better marketing or management (with some risks in reduced MD support), but as it was, yes it should have been released and if it weren't for the following 32x/Saturn mess the CD probably would be seen in a far more positive light today. (most TG-16/PCE fans or general retro fans aren't nearly as critical of that and often site its quite positive impact while the Sega CD, Jaguar CD, and 32x get listed under "what were they thinking?" by many critics) And I don't think anyone with even a casual amount of knowledge on the topic would claim the PCE/Turbo CD shouldn't have been released. (the SGX OTOH... well that didn't really do harm either so it wasn't so much an issue, but some could twist that just like they did with the 32x and say it ruined NEC's chance in the 5th gen on top of the PCFX's problems -or not as the SGX was released 5 years earlier and well before the PCE/CD peaked)
Lots of variables like hypotetical lower-end/earlier CD units (more like NEC's) to get into the market earlier and be cheaper later as well as making additional add-ons (32x or earlier/comparable) seem more reasonable, etc, etc.
So you actually like Paws of Fury?Quote:
Originally Posted by sheath
I can't comment, but almost everyone seems to hate it.
Absolutely, I can't live without some of those Sega CD games. They are irreplaceable!
A big YES! Even though some games where just a straight port of Genesis titles, they featured Redbook Audio! Sometimes for me the music can make or break a game. Not to mention the Sega CD had some kick ass 90s tunes on their games.
Aside from the music we also got a slew of different types of games because of the CD format. Some good some bad. I love my Sega CD. :cool:
I spent the greater portion of 7th grade playing Eternal Champions CD (staying up all night most every weekend after that Christmas - learning it inside and out) along with copious playings of Lunar, Vay, Final Fight, Silpheed and Android Assault among various other titles in my superb childhood collection. I'd say the Sega CD was one of the finest purchases I ever made. In fact, it was the first console I bought with my own money. I've not a single regret. Not even the first five months after its purchase when Sewer Shark was the only game spinning in its belly (aside from the occasional rental). :p
I too vote for YES. The Sega CD is just too good of a console. It has lots of great games. Some of the best RPGs of the time, a great tech demo of a shooter (Silpheed), the best early 90s home port of Final Fight, a highly praised Sonic game... The list never ends. It is in my honest opinion that no serious Genesis enthusiast should be without a Sega CD.
If the Sega CD had an upgraded color palette at least as good as the SNES's, I bet FMV would've caught on more. Let's just say photos/videos look much more realistic if you can get at least 256 colors on-screen; 64 just doesn't do the job well at all.
That comment makes me grateful the Mega CD didn't have an upgraded colour palette.Quote:
Originally Posted by Estil
Yes, definately! The Mega CD was and is a necessary addon and is well worth existing. Unlike with the 32X there is no question about the MCD, it can only be yes.
I wish they had used the extra hardware for games more often or at least fully ONCE and put the focus more on that and not on FMV all the time. The MCD is sometimes referred as SNES upgrade (just like the 32X) but it was made to compete with the PC Enigne's CD addon.
IF they had put more focus on the MCD and made MUCH more if not all games for this addon (wich would reqiure a combined unit right away) and made the games use the powerful hardware properly the MCD actually could be considered as an SNES upgrade, since it surpasses it in every way except for the colors. Coming back to making the MCD a combined unit right away, they could've enhanced the color palette aswell.
Well, all that is just way to much of track again... let's just say yes to the MCD like it was and is!
Yes! Not only did it have some of the greatest games of the 16bit era, (IMHO of course) but it also showed the industry that disc media was the future.
It also taught them not to make crappy FMV games...that is a positive BTW!
Yes. Perhaps if it had been released some time inbetween the SCD and 32X release, at a lower launch price, it might have been more successful.
Kool Kitty,
I do like Paws of Fury, for similar reasons to why I enjoy Eternal Champions and WeaponLord actually. All of these games emphasize the basics of one on one combat, rather than the "special super moves" and artificial combos that the popular stuff focuses too much on. Also, the graphics, sound and overall presentation in Paws of Fury are probably the most optimized for Sega CD that I have ever seen.
Hell Yes!
To this day, there are still sega cd games that are considered the best in their genre. Take Sonic CD, it is, for the most part, considered one of the finest Sonic games. And out of all the Silpheed games, the one for the Sega cd is still the most well known. and then there's Lunar, FREAKING LUNAR! So yeah, I think the Sega cd was well worth being built.
Some people think the Sega CD failed, but I can't really say I agree with that. I mean, everyone was experimenting with CD-ROM at the time. It was the next generation, the new frontier. Commodore had the CD32, Phillips had the CD-I, 3DO had the, well, 3DO, NEC had Their TG16 CD add-on, Etc. None of Them "made it", but look where current technology is at, everything uses optical media. We even have portable systems, like the Sony PSP, that use optical discs. Sega, with Their sega-cd add-on and all the other hardware companies basically laid the foundation for all the next-gen systems to come in on, and that's pretty cool in My book. :)
Very well said!!!! :ok:Quote:
Originally Posted by fatboy
Definitely!
The Mega CD was a great experiment of the CD media that also opens up a new videogame library to the existing Mega Drive library. Very good for collectors today. While it had massive potential, I also feel it was poorly executed with the cheesily poor grainy FMV titles that was never going to stick around forever anyway, the numerous meaningless Mega CD ports of existing Mega Drive games with just enhanced music and the general lack of NEW titles that really takes advantage of the addon's extra hardware it contained. Sure you had some here and there, but it wasn't enough. Knowing Sega packing extra muscle in the addon, you'd think they would really push devs to develop games that really takes advantage of the extra hardware inside.
It's all wasted potential shamefully. Barring the FMV games on the Mega CD, theres many exclusive titles on it that were better off released on the Mega Drive itself.
Absolutely yes. The Sega CD is without a doubt a fascinating and excellent system. It's the best console I ever got for free, that's for sure. I just would have liked Sega to handle it better than they did.
You know, if you go purely by game library, there's a big argument for the 32x being a definite yes too. :mrgreen: But "good" is a total matter of opinion, and 2D fans would obviously tend more to the CD. (for those that argue the 32x games should have been on Saturn instead... you COULD make the very same argument of the CD: ie Sega come out with a whole new system -pre Saturn- by '93 or perhaps '92; that would not be unimaginable given their past trends, actually far more reasonable than the very slim gaps from the Mk.1 to Mk.III and Mk.III to MD -2 and 3 years vs 1993 when the MD was 4 years old in Japan while '92 would make it the same as with the Mk.III)Quote:
Originally Posted by Guntz
OK, I can see that (I actually like the art style of ET, though the dithering is pretty ugly at times when not blurred out), and I'm not a big fighting game fan, so as long as it's not crushingly difficult and is reasonably fun to play, I'm pretty happy (ET seems pretty tough though, albeit I don't know the "cheap" characters -ie Chun Li in SFII, etc).Quote:
Originally Posted by sheath
Any thoughts on Shaq Fu? I got to play it for the first time on real hardware a couple weeks ago and found it pretty fun, good art style, and very well animated (decent sound design too), but again I'm not a big fighting game fan and Apollo Boy commented on the controls being a bit stiff.
If Sega of America would have focused on games that would truly benefit from the Sega CD like RPGs, Scaling Arcade Games, etc. instead of FMV games the Sega CD would have probably done a lot better and be seen in a better light today.
It's a shame Konami didn't come up with it's rhythm games a few years earlier. The Sega CD would have been a perfect platform for them.
That was up to SoJ though... as it was there WERE some good Japanese games (albeit a hand ful) that fit the bill and Sega of Japan was supportive of those efforts too (very close relationship with Game Arts in Particular -Lunar, Wing Commander, Silpheed, Pugsy, etc), but SoA were the ones to push Clockwork to develop some of the most advanced games on the system (at least in terms of graphical effects -Batman Returns, Batman and Robin, Joe Montana NFL) and then of course you had Core Design really pushing the system too (and they had a good relationship with SoJ too, I think more direct than just delegating through SoE/SoA even given direct commissions from JVC for the Wondermega pack-in and SoJ publishing several of Core's titles in japan as well as prominently advertising them)Quote:
Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118
Several genres were lacking too, including key killer apps like Street Fighter II (even if Capcom wasn't pushing the CD, Sega could have taken the initiative like they did with Final Fight -an excellent port done by Sega- and given the prominence of the game it made sense).
It really shouldn't have been either or: they should have pushed multimedia but also all the rest the system could do. Dropping multimedia would have been stupid even in hindsight. (compromising it to a small extent to facilitate pushing the broad library would be good though) And of course, the primitive and often cheesy examples of multimedia in the early 90s evolved into the massively hyped examples in the 5th generation. (a major part of Sony's market -and multimedia capabilities of the PSX was the primary reason for them getting Square onboard)
But the lack of any Phantasy Star games on the CD was odd, or a lack of more enhanced Genesis games in general, or at least simple ports offered at lower price (cheaper media) to give incentive to buy the system. (ie the ability to buy CD versions of cart games and effectively have the system pay for itself -if that really hit big, they might have been able to shift primarily to CD as NEC did -and some figures point to that being the case for the MCD in Japan in terms of software sales)
Right, I'd say that sales made all the difference for what Sega did and did not make themselves for the Sega CD. At the time, making a simple cartridge upgrade to the Sega CD was nearly universally panned. The commonality of statements like "the same as the Genesis game with CD Audio" should not be ignored.
There might have been some incentive for Sega to give their second parties a chance to succeed with such heavily optimized efforts as well. Letting Telenet, Bignet, Gamearts and Core create the best 2D efforts makes some sense. Nintendo had their core developers take the brunt of software development for two systems in a row. There are also significant comments from developers that the average Sega CD game took over a year to develop versus a six to ten month Genesis game development time.
For the time, I'm not sure. But if you compare it to other add-ons such as The Famicom Disk System, 64DD, 32X etc. the Sega CD was a big success. Possibly the most successful and best add-on ever made together with the PC-Engine CD. Today, there are some good and exclusive games that are worth a look even if it has many bad FMV-games.
Except that's up to marketing... the POINT of CD games was THE same content on carts but with greater flexibility. Multimedia was never the intention, just more 2D game content, more animation, better sound, etc... or in the Sega CD's case specifically you also had coprocessors for enhanced graphics. (but the PCE did not)Quote:
Originally Posted by sheath
And how often did such games really get panned? I'm talking about the ones with at least good conversions at the very least like Puggsy, Earthworm Jim the Ecco games, etc. (where no features were missing from the cart versions or other issues)
One of the biggest pluses for CD at the time was the music and that's one thing I've heard most from fans of the PCE CD, but there's also the issue of addressing crappy sound samples on the Genesis (both in terms of the common poor programming of PCM and also the low quality samples and general lack of compression to address that).
So it would have been up to Sega to point all that out: pushing paralell CD and cart releases with moderate to significant added content (from better sound to added levels to cutscenes, much more animation, etc) AND signficantly lower price point. But that's not how it was marketed, at least in the west in the long-run even though some hardcore fans got the impression of that being where CD gaming was moving. (especially if they'd kept up with news on the PCE CD, let alone if they were an active importer and/or one of the new TG-16 CD users)
In that sense though they REALLY could have played off that if the Sega CD was earlier and more in line with the PCE CD/Super CD as in the alternate realities thread. (ie an MCD without the 68k or blitter and maybe a simpler PCM chip, but keeping the CD-ROM cache, at least some form of PCM/ADPCM support, and 256-512 kB depending on the release date -256k if pushed for '1989 for sure)
And in the same sense they could have put the sort of other enhancements from the Sega CD and put them into a separate slightly later cart based add-on instead (ie RAM+ASIC+68k+PCM chip or something similar) and perhaps even add a proepr VDC with a bitmap display depending on general timing. (if they really pushed it early then they'd probably still leave that out -especially if the power consumption could be kept low enough to use the genesis power supply alone, so you'd have cart and CD games taking advantage of that hardware well before the 32x and with both units earlier and cheaper/generally more practical to own both, especially as time went on and with the addition of duo and/or trio systems) Talk about incremental upgrades. ;)
Some of those weren't really 2nd parties, but just close 3rd parties (like Capcom or Konami with Nintendo), but I see your point. And not just the best 2D efforts, but a significant push for 3D/pseudo 3D. (Clockwork used a significant amount of polygon rendering in their CD games)Quote:
There might have been some incentive for Sega to give their second parties a chance to succeed with such heavily optimized efforts as well. Letting Telenet, Bignet, Gamearts and Core create the best 2D efforts makes some sense. Nintendo had their core developers take the brunt of software development for two systems in a row. There are also significant comments from developers that the average Sega CD game took over a year to develop versus a six to ten month Genesis game development time.
I had a lovely hair-brained idea for marketing the Sega CD in another thread, thanks to something Kool Kitty came up with:
Thinking about it more, this could have REALLY ramped up the desirability factor of the Sega CD. It's not JUST the fact that they have instantaneous free upgrades to some of their games as soon as they buy the add-on. They'd also be able to, for example, listen to the game's audio on a CD player, which could really solidify someone's interest in the system. It'd also turn Sega CD owners into popular kids, what with their Genesis-owning friends always wanting to bring their games over to try out the added content on the CD.Quote:
Originally Posted by roundwarsThat's a great idea. You could even just bundle the CD version of the game with the cartridge version, thereby avoiding any development complications that might arise from designing a cartridge game that can optionally use a CD as a resource. Of course, then you have the problem that you're essentially giving them two copies of the game with their purchase. In that case, you just need to require the cartridge to be inserted for the CD game to play (to prevent them from giving the CD version to a SegaCD-owning friend or something). Obviously if you bought a plain CD version of the game it would play as normal.Quote:
Originally Posted by kool kitty89
The plain CD version would have to be priced lower than the cartridge version (say $10-$15 less or something) to justify the fact that you get less with the package. Even then, some CD owners would go for the higher-priced bundle because it can be worthwhile to own both versions of the game (there are usually at least one or two in-game tunes that sound better in the cartridge version, for example, or sometimes some of the added features in the CD version are annoying and detract from the game). The bundles should be priced exactly the same as a normal Genesis game; customers shouldn't feel like they're paying a premium to get a disc that they can't do anything with until they buy another piece of hardware.
Granted, this would have been much more effective if the Sega CD had been in a more reasonable price range, but you can't win them all.
Yeah, but one problem mentioned by the programmers on the board are the complications involved with trying to make a cart game work with the CD as well. Pier Solar had some delays due to that iirc, but it is possible. (the simplest upgrade would obviously be a simple CD soundtrack and going from there)Quote:
Originally Posted by roundwars
The issue of making cart+CD work efficiently would be a trade-off with making a version specifically for the CD as well. (a full CD port has to fully optimize the game to fit into 512 kB load segments at the simplest level, and then there's more as you add more content too)
Plus, there's the potential for games specifically using carts to go beyond the limits imposed by RAM in the MCD like the couple cart games on the Saturn, though it would have been preferable to make those games work without the CD as well. There's SF II SCE in particular which had a total emphasis on packing in as much animation as possible at the expensive of audio quality (not drum samples at all and even lower quality sound/voice than the MD), so in that case a companion CD would have aimed purely at providing good sound with CD-DA on top of high-quality sfx/voice samples (including using CD-ROM program RAM space to hold additional samples that could be loaded into PCM wave RAM on the fly -as there's only 64k of wave RAM but 512 kB of general program RAM, or maybe even storing the samples compressed in program RAM and using the CD's CPU to decompress them on the fly).
I think Tomaitheous mentioned that while SFII SCE probably could have been carried over to the CD pretty well within the 512k per load limit, SSFII wouldn't make it without being cut-down. (and you'd lose audio quality there too, though perhaps loading all graphics and sound compressed into program RAM and using CPU resource to decompress on the fly would have solved that)
If they really wanted to aim it at the CD, they could strip out sound samples entirely from the cart game and manage bare bones FM/PSG sound without the CD used, namely if that allowed it to be cut to just 4 MB -perhaps scrimping on the intro animation as well and putting that on the CD. (or simply make it a CD exclusive game with companion cartridge and have the more expensive cart only version sold separately)
Right, but what I'm saying is you don't HAVE to make the cart and CD work together. I'm sure there could have been some interesting technical achievements made that way, but it's not necessary for this to work as a marketing strategy. All you have to do is bundle the CD version with the cartridge game. I guess technically you wouldn't want the CD version to be playable without the cartridge version plugged in, since otherwise you'd have just sold them two copies of the game for the price of one, but that certainly isn't a technical challenge of the same level as what you describe.Quote:
Originally Posted by kool kitty89
This would have been most effective if Sega had focused more on upgraded versions of cartridge games as a major segment of the SCD's library, but even if you have them doing no more of that than they already did, you still have a good number of games that this could work with.
I am a late adopter of SCD, not having it during its short lifespan. I vote, yes, specifically because the long acrylic jewel cases look nice on my game shelves.
That's a major point, and that's not especially easy either: in fact, I think just getting around the issue of having the cartridge boot at all and using the CD is the main issue to get past, at least that's the impression I got on the issue.Quote:
Originally Posted by roundwars
So unless I'm mistaken, doing something like adding a CD soundtrack would barely be more than that. (using the PCM chip would be a bit more though, and doing graphical stuff on both sides together would probably on the high-end of optimized games -doing some added sections for the CD alone, like cutscenes or such might be more practical depending on the case)
At least that would make the most sense for a game that wasn't going to get a standalone CD only version as well.
OTOH, if a game WAS fine on the CD alone (both in terms of limitations and development resources allotted), then putting optimized development into that and a plain cart version might be preferable, and then have the combo version made using the cart purely for authentication.
Oh, I didn't realize. I guess that kind of takes the air out of this idea somewhat. :(Quote:
Originally Posted by kool kitty89
Nice post , In a feature some of the SOA staff said they were offered a game very similuar to what Guitar Hero would offer but it was turned down. I 'm not sure it would have helped it was too early, I remember Virtual Guitar for the PC back in 1993 (I think it was) and that was just too far ahead of its time.Quote:
Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118
Yes the Mega CD should have been made, its just a shame SEGA Japan/America didn't port OutRun, Space Harrier, Power Drift, AB II, Hang-on, Super Hang On to the system, using the Scaling Chip (they really could have made a huge impact) Also I really would have liked SEGA Japan to do what it did to Final Fight, to Strider and Ghost and Ghouls for the Mega CD.
Strider Mega CD with a new CD fully Orchestral Soundtrack, all the speech and Cut scenes from the Arcade, and improved Animation, would have been really special back then
Moonwalker would've been a perfect game for the SCD. I also wonder why SoJ didn't try and get and Square and Enix on board with the MCD. Hell even Konami with the Dracula X game. The SCD could've been so much better as a system. THat PSIV would've been dope.
It has always been the assumption that Square was only going to be forsale to the highest bidder. When you had the devs that made Sega's RPGs, that wouldn't be necessary. In fact, it wasn't until the current generation that Square went multi-platform in the first place.
Capcom and Sega always had a good relationship, but Sega *still* had to make most of Capcom's games themselves. Konami was probably the last major Nintendo 3rd party (I'd call them practically a second party) to become a Sega licensee too. Their version of Sunset Riders on the Genesis is atrocious compared to any other version or what it should have been.
I'm not positive, but that's the impression I got. Fonzie would be the best to know about that. (being the Sega CD expert involved with Pier Solar iirc)Quote:
Originally Posted by roundwars
Moonwalker might have been off the table due to MJ's scandals (supposedly the same reason he's not credited in Sonic 3).Quote:
Originally Posted by Da_Shocker
Dracula X had licensing issues I believe as it wasn't a Konami development alone. (that might have had something to do with some of the changes made to the SNES port too)
No way in hell would they have gotten Square... otherwise Square would have already had games on the PCE CD. Square only jumped away from Nintendo because of the N64's lack of multimedia capabilities they wanted and Sony's general appeal (money, image, and hardware) pushed that over the Saturn as well.
An upgraded PSII would even have been nice on the CD, or hell a full remake of I as well would have been great, let alone III (I know that's not one of the best), but especially IV.
And 3rd party support was not very forthcoming in some cases: Sega handled Popful Mail and Final Fight themselves. (too bad they didn't push Street Fighter II as well)
But the lack of Sega scaler arcade ports along with 1st party games pushing the graphics side of the hardware is a bit odd, especially given what SoJ did right away with the 32x.
Even most popular System 16 and 18 (maybe really cut-down 32) ports in general could have included the scaling effects there too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Team Andromeda
And don't forget Galaxy Force (II) and Thunder Blade in those scaling games. (probably better than the FM Towns ports in terms of scaling, but less color obviously)
And obviously all with sound upgrades.
I also remember you did post some interesting thoughts on how SoA managed the CD in the west:
So you think SoA/SoE marketed the CD well in spite of the heavy emphasis on multimedia?Quote:
Originally Posted by Team Andromeda
I personally don't fault them for pushing multimedia (probably the best way to break into the mass market at the time with such a console), but I do think (from all the ads I've seen at least, and the pack-in choice) that they did over do it a bit to the detriment of promoting the varied library, though they at least promoted the scaling games a fair bit and the print adds are a fair bit more even than the few TV ads I've seen. (Christuserloeser maintains that SoA ruined the CD with terrible marketing and FMV garbage)
And even SoJ, while missing a lot of opportunities, did support Game Arts who produced some of the best games on the system.
You also mentioned before that Sega was very supportive of Working Designs, so where did you find that out? (magazine articles and interviews?) Was that a direct SoJ relationship or all delegated through SoA? (or the same for Core for that matter -obviously they had a lot of ties in Japan with Sega publishing several of their games as well as the ones commissioned by JVC)
It's also interesting how many niche and quirky Japanese games ended up in the west. (including Keio Flying Squadron and Switch/Panic)
And even when Capcom wasn't developing for Sega, they seemed pretty willing to license games. Actually I wonder if Sega might have managed the ports of SFII better in some respects (especially the PCM playback quality)... do you know if the original (canceled) SFII Turbo port was being developed by Sega or Capcom? (the sample quality isn't hugely better, but noticeably -albeit using only 1 channel- and it's using SMPS which makes me think it may have been a Sega development)Quote:
Originally Posted by sheath
If there had been less FMV games and more sequels to Genesis games the Sega CD would have done a million times better.
Why wasn't there a Streets of Rage CD that was 30 levels long with save spots after every boss. There could be a gazillion enemies on screen and a Road Rage style motorcycle sequence with the CD's extra processing power.
The Sega Arcade Classics could have been all of the early Genesis scaling games with real scaling and longer gameplay. Who wouldn't be happy with Super Thunder Blade or Space Harrier II with super smooth scaling.
There could have been Fantasy Zone on steroids, Zillion 3, an awesome sword slashing Golden Axe, or ToeJam & Earl.
Yes because SOA made the Mega CD into the success it was (they had a great lauch and brought in some much needed decent software) .Quote:
So you think SoA/SoE marketed the CD well in spite of the heavy emphasis on multimedia?
The Mega CD sold pretty good, and it was SOA that made sure some pretty good software was coming and the 1st to really use the scaling chip and show what the Mega CD could really do.
SOA didn't go down the FMV route straight away , but I guess all the hype and sales with Night Trap made them think FMV was the way forward. In terms of Software and some good 3rd party games, the Mega CD inthe USA got the best deal.
The Mega CD in Japan was a poor seller in comparison.
I think you need to remember, just how dire most of the Software coming from Japan was, before the launch of the Mega CD in the USA. If you were importing (like some of us were) The only decent games were really Cobra and Road Adv which just happened to be FMV games.
SOJ hardly ever really used the system, hardly ever pushed the Mega CD at all. That the biggest disappointment with the Mega CD, and that's how little SOJ really used and pushed the system. They made some good games, but it should have been SOJ showing off the ASIC chip with ports of OutRun ECT, and I'm gutted that PS IV was dropped for the Mega CD and brought to the MD. Even the Mega CD In-House RPG's used little of the system in terms of animation, Audio chip, much less the scaling Chip.Quote:
And even SoJ, while missing a lot of opportunities, did support Game Arts who produced some of the best games on the system
When you launch your own system I think its almost your duty to make sure you have a couple of In-House games that make some use of the system , some use of the hardware to say This is what I can do. SOJ didn't even do that, and it was left to Wolf Team with games that a standard Mega Drive could do
GameArts like CORE were brilliant onthe Mega CD. GameArts in the 16 and 32bit days were a Class act.
Interviews and Features with SEGA Staff. Where one Learns that SEGA paid for Working Designs E3 Space, but Bernie thought otherwise (TWAT!)Quote:
You also mentioned before that Sega was very supportive of Working Designs, so where did you find that out
Given that all In-House Mega Drive games suffered the same issues even ones made by SOJ I say no.Quote:
Actually I wonder if Sega might have managed the ports of SFII better in some respects (especially the PCM playback quality)
Why would Square leave, when the SNES was the super seller it was in Japan, that and the fact that NCL had a 12% stake in Square, helped matters I would have thoughtQuote:
Square only jumped away from Nintendo because of the N64's lack of multimedia capabilities they wanted and Sony's general appeal (money, image, and hardware) pushed that over the Saturn as well.
It came up over at spritesmind. It has been a while since I've read the topic. I think the samples are the same between the two games, but "Turbo" handles the timing better and has less simultaneously.Quote:
Originally Posted by kool kitty89
yes because of Silpheed, Android Assault, Sonic CD, Snatcher & all of the Working Design games.
^ Jesse's logic is flawless, as usual. Of course, I would expect no less from one who wields a Bundy avatar.
Then what about Enix? I always figured that Nintendo and Square was in the bed together but Enix were they too in the bed with Nintendo at one point at least?