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12-26-2012, 01:28 AM
Chilly Willy

Quote:

Originally Posted by gamevet

The 32X did not sell 500K in a month. Sega had trouble getting units to retail, with the first shipment only being 200k. It sold 500k by December and the final 100k (Sega had planned to ship 600K by the end of the year) wasn't shipped until January of the following year.

Uhhhhhhh - the 32X shipped the last week of November, so if Sega sold 500k by December, they sold 500k in one month. :lol:

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The system launched with 4 games. Doom was rushed and had missing levels and weapons. Cosmic Carnage was garbage. Star Wars Arcade was pretty close to the arcade game, but the sound was pretty bad. Knuckles Chaotix used the Genesis hardware, with the characters being drawn by the 32X. Most of the games that arrived later, really didn't look like they were miles better than Genesis titles. NBA Jam TE, Golf Magazine Presents 36 Great Holes, Pitfall: The Mayan Adventures, Mortal Kombat II, NFL Quarterback Club, WWF Raw, Brutal Unleashed, RBI Baseball 95, Toughman Contest and Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Starship Bridge Simulator, looked pretty much like your basic Genesis games.

Yes, clearly most of the early games were rushed, but that's common for EVERY console ever released, especially ones released in the xmas season.

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The early arrival of the Saturn in North America had very little to do with 3rd party support moving away from the 32X. The Saturn was launched in Japan on November of 1994. The Playstation was also launched in Japan in 1994. The 3rd party publishers were already gearing up for those consoles in 1994 and they offered less risk since they were CD based.

I never said the early arrival of the Saturn was to blame for 3rd parties dropping the 32X... SOJ was to blame. Devs made that abundantly clear when they announced their dropping of projects mid-way through '95. 3rd parties had no qualms about supporting both the 32X and Saturn if left to their own devices, just as they had no problems supporting the Saturn and the PSX (and eventually the N64). Many 3rd parties still supported the 3DO and other niche platforms. It was well known in the industry that SOJ was pushing devs to transfer all 32X teams to the Saturn to speed development of Saturn games.

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The 32X is a cool item for collectors, but it wasn't something that I had bought, until it was in the bargain bin. There was already too much hype building up for the Playstation and Saturn when the 32X arrived.

I do agree, looking back on it from now, that the 32X didn't have a chance... Sega shouldn't have gone ahead on it given everything else. A better route would have been the Jupiter route: release a cart based Saturn for the low end, and the CD based Saturn for the high end. You can see they considered it... there's a cart port on the Saturn that can be booted from.
12-26-2012, 02:18 AM
gamevet

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chilly Willy

Uhhhhhhh - the 32X shipped the last week of November, so if Sega sold 500k by December, they sold 500k in one month. :lol:

The 32X shipped on November 14, 1994 in Europe and November 22nd in North America. That's 5 to 6 weeks by the end of December.:D

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Yes, clearly most of the early games were rushed, but that's common for EVERY console ever released, especially ones released in the xmas season.

The Dreamcast had a very nice launch lineup. The only title that had issues was Ready to Rumble, with its jacked up discs.

Quote:

I never said the early arrival of the Saturn was to blame for 3rd parties dropping the 32X... SOJ was to blame.

You did say "Released the Saturn when they said they would"

What did you mean with that comment?

Quote:

Devs made that abundantly clear when they announced their dropping of projects mid-way through '95. 3rd parties had no qualms about supporting both the 32X and Saturn if left to their own devices, just as they had no problems supporting the Saturn and the PSX (and eventually the N64). Many 3rd parties still supported the 3DO and other niche platforms. It was well known in the industry that SOJ was pushing devs to transfer all 32X teams to the Saturn to speed development of Saturn games.

The 3DO had a userbase of 5 million; it made sense to continue publishing games ($3 licensing fee) for that system. The Jag didn't really get a lot of love from 3rd party publishers, with the console only having 67 games published. The 32X only had 8 or 9 third party publishers, so it wasn't exactly a mass exodus.

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I do agree, looking back on it from now, that the 32X didn't have a chance... Sega shouldn't have gone ahead on it given everything else. A better route would have been the Jupiter route: release a cart based Saturn for the low end, and the CD based Saturn for the high end. You can see they considered it... there's a cart port on the Saturn that can be booted from.

So, why do think it would have been a wise decision to continue support for a device that wasn't going anywhere?
12-26-2012, 03:21 AM
evilevoix

Quote:

Originally Posted by kokujin

When SNK decided to make NEOGEO, it was designed as an arcade machine, and it will always be that, regardless of the housing.

Also designed for hotels and rentals in the beginning which was 1990 and was available as a rental. According to Wiki.

Quote:

Initially, the (AES) home system was only available for rent to commercial establishments, such as hotel chains, bars and restaurants, and other venues. When customer response indicated that some gamers were willing to buy a $650 console, SNK expanded sales and marketing into the home console market. The Neo Geo console was officially launched on 31 January, 1990 in Osaka, Japan

The rental units looked identical and were identical to the home consoles. The Neo Geo came out in 1990 fully available for home use. SNK's only fault was not realizing it would be a large enough market for sale, which it was, and then sold the same item to keep vs rental. The Neo Geo was available in homes from day one, end of discussion it is a home console.

What defines a gaming console or a product for that matter is market demand. Look at the Atari Jaguar, home console, arcade hardware, then dental unit. See?
12-26-2012, 05:57 AM
Thenewguy

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamahl

The quality of the artwork gets progressively worse in apidya. The first stages look good, the sewer kinda crappy, and the last stage horrid. You're right that the stages with parallax look freaking amazing, and the game should be on the list for them.

I think level 3 (after the sewer) is probably the graphical high point, the sewer itself the low point, last level is bare but looks respectable and has (fairly) impressive big bosses in my opinion.

So i would say it starts off decent, gets a little worse, then makes a quick comeback.

Always like this effect, there's a Mega Drive game with a very similar thing (Gynoug IIRC)

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/7551/apidya.gif

Again this is lower frame rate than the real thing (and kinda' blurry)
12-26-2012, 07:13 AM
Kamahl

The "techno" stage is definitely the high point of the game. I wish the whole game was like that.
12-26-2012, 09:06 AM
sheath

Quote:

Originally Posted by gamevet

The 32X shipped on November 14, 1994 in Europe and November 22nd in North America. That's 5 to 6 weeks by the end of December.:D

The 32X launched in Europe first? That's different, I didn't know that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gamevet

The Dreamcast had a very nice launch lineup. The only title that had issues was Ready to Rumble, with its jacked up discs.

Sonic Adventure has framerate issues, SA2 is 60FPS. Trickstyle slows down a ton. Tokyo Xtreme Racer slows down and has draw in. Aerowings has massive pop up. Airforce Delta doesn't support VGA. Hydro Thunder slows down frequently. Among the Dreamcast launch games the only ones that appear polished to Dreamcast capabilities are TNN Hardcore Heat, Toy Commander, House of the Dead 2, Powerstone, Soul Calibur (pathetic AI though), King of Fighters '99, Marvel Vs Capcom and Sega Bass Fishing.

Anyway. I think supporting the 32X for at least two years, even if it was only with first party down ports from Saturn or Arcade games, would have been fine. It would have been MUCH better PR than canceling the thing before its first birthday. Sega shouldn't have canceled the 32X and Saturn the way they did, it tarnished their brand. There is no logical reason not to keep a product on the shelves even if it is the slowest selling item in that category. That is, unless they simply did not have enough money to keep manufacturing it and engineer the next product at the same time. I don't think that was the case though.
12-26-2012, 10:41 AM
Thenewguy

Retail decides a lot of this stuff, if a product is selling luke-warm then its shelf space is decreased, if its not selling that well its discounted and new stock isn't bought in regardless of whether its still being produced.

Even if a product is still selling enough to make a profit, as soon as retail suddenly, heavily discounts it, and cuts shelf space the masses see the product as a "failure" and start getting worried about its future, sales drop even further, ending the systems lifespan (self-fulfilled prophecy).

Its different for systems like Neo Geo as they're seen as niche luxury consoles from the beginning, their sales are consistent, and people see the low numbers as being due to the expense of the system, not unpopularity.

I remember an old discussion with Kool Kitty where he talked about how the Dreamcast should've been kept at a certain price, and that it was discounted too far. In reality, from what I've seen the retailers actually discounted the system first, and then pressurised Sega into dropping the price to them, Sega didn't actually have a lot of choice in the matter in the end.
12-26-2012, 01:25 PM
gamevet

Yeah. I saw the 32X collecting dust on the shelves at Toys R' Us. They dropped the price to $99, then $30 and when I finally picked one up it was $19.99.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sheath

Sonic Adventure has framerate issues, SA2 is 60FPS. Trickstyle slows down a ton. Tokyo Xtreme Racer slows down and has draw in. Aerowings has massive pop up. Airforce Delta doesn't support VGA. Hydro Thunder slows down frequently. Among the Dreamcast launch games the only ones that appear polished to Dreamcast capabilities are TNN Hardcore Heat, Toy Commander, House of the Dead 2, Powerstone, Soul Calibur (pathetic AI though), King of Fighters '99, Marvel Vs Capcom and Sega Bass Fishing

You left out Powerstone (highly praised), Ready to Rumble Boxing (it was a hit at the demo kiosk), NFL2K (pretty polished game), Expendable, Mortal Kombat Gold, Monaco Grand Prix, Blue Stinger and Flag to Flag racing.

Even if Airforce Delta doesn't support VGA, the game looks and plays very well. I love the game! Hydro Thunder on the DC was the closest port of the game available, until Midway Arcade Treasures 3 came out.
12-26-2012, 01:50 PM
sheath

Quote:

Originally Posted by gamevet

Yeah. I saw the 32X collecting dust on the shelves at Toys R' Us. They dropped the price to $99 by mid 1995, then $30 by 1996 and when I finally picked one up it was $19.99.

I think it has been established that the Saturn killed the 32X's momentum and public mind share. That I would say is mostly a marketing problem, and cannot be separated from the fact that SoJ started rumbling about canceling the 32X by mid 1995 and the press caught a wiff.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gamevet

You left out Powerstone (highly praised), Ready to Rumble Boxing (it was a hit at the demo kiosk), NFL2K (pretty polished game), Expendable, Mortal Kombat Gold, Monaco Grand Prix, Blue Stinger and Flag to Flag racing.

Even if Airforce Delta doesn't support VGA, the game looks and plays very well. I love the game! Hydro Thunder on the DC was the closest port of the game available, until Midway Arcade Treasure 3 came out.

I love Airforce Delta, way more than the entire Ace Combat series actually. I'm just pointing out that it shows signs of being unfinished. It has issues with textures not lining up too. I didn't realize I left out Powerstone, I think it is the perfect Dreamcast launch game actually. The rest had issues that indicate they were rushed as well, except maybe the mediocre Flag to Flag.
12-26-2012, 02:02 PM
gamevet

Quote:

Originally Posted by sheath

I think it has been established that the Saturn killed the 32X's momentum and public mind share. That I would say is mostly a marketing problem, and cannot be separated from the fact that SoJ started rumbling about canceling the 32X by mid 1995 and the press caught a wiff.

It sold 500K within 6 weeks and only managed to sell an additional 150k from then on. It was pretty much a no-brainer that the system wasn't worth spending $150, when people were saving up for Playstation, Saturn and N64. The same thing happened with the Dreamcast, once Sony started making noise about the PS2.

Quote:

I love Airforce Delta, way more than the entire Ace Combat series actually. I'm just pointing out that it shows signs of being unfinished. It has issues with textures not lining up too. I didn't realize I left out Powerstone, I think it is the perfect Dreamcast launch game actually. The rest had issues that indicate they were rushed as well, except maybe the mediocre Flag to Flag.

Ready to Rumble is a pretty cool game. There were very few instances where the game looked rushed.The only one I can think of is when Butcher Brown is standing by the ropes and the camera pans in for a close-up.
12-26-2012, 02:02 PM
StarMist

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thenewguy

Always like this effect, there's a Mega Drive game with a very similar thing (Gynoug IIRC)

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/7551/apidya.gif

Again this is lower frame rate than the real thing (and kinda' blurry)

Gynoug's right; stage 5 in that game.
Would've loved to see Hydrocity Zone do that too.

What would be the term for this effect? Is it screen warping, or parallax warping?
12-26-2012, 02:53 PM
Chilly Willy

Quote:

Originally Posted by gamevet

The 32X shipped on November 14, 1994 in Europe and November 22nd in North America. That's 5 to 6 weeks by the end of December.:D

That's still just one month. Ever heard of "rounding"? :lol:

Quote:

You did say "Released the Saturn when they said they would"

What did you mean with that comment?

So, why do think it would have been a wise decision to continue support for a device that wasn't going anywhere?

Both of those questions have the same answer - once SEGA did release the 32X, they were obligated to support it properly. By releasing the Saturn months ahead of schedule and pushing devs to drop the 32X, SEGA gave the appearance of running scared, and that's all the press and competition needed to drive Sega from the top of the market into near bankrupcy. SEGA has yet to recover from the stumble they did in the summer of '95. SEGA alienated developers, customers, and dealers, all at the same time at a time when there were plenty of other options for all three to move to, and many of us did move to them to show SEGA our displeasure.
12-26-2012, 04:06 PM
gamevet

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chilly Willy

That's still just one month. Ever heard of "rounding"? :lol:

Theres a difference of selling 125k a week, to 83k a week if you include the additional 2 weeks. It didn't sell 500k in one month.

The first month's sales aren't a solid indicator of how a product is going to perform. The 3DS sold over a million units within the first month, then sales stagnated until Nintendo dropped the prices.

Quote:

Both of those questions have the same answer - once SEGA did release the 32X, they were obligated to support it properly. By releasing the Saturn months ahead of schedule and pushing devs to drop the 32X, SEGA gave the appearance of running scared, and that's all the press and competition needed to drive Sega from the top of the market into near bankrupcy. SEGA has yet to recover from the stumble they did in the summer of '95. SEGA alienated developers, customers, and dealers, all at the same time at a time when there were plenty of other options for all three to move to, and many of us did move to them to show SEGA our displeasure.

The only region where the Saturn was released months ahead of schedule was North America.

I don't even know why Sega bothered shipping the 32X in Japan, being that it came out after the Saturn and the Mega Drive had such a small userbase there. Sega was already in financial trouble with the wasted resources behind launching a 32X, its software and developing the Saturn. They were spreading their resources too thin. The 32X was destined to fail opon release and like I'd said, it was doomed from the beginning.

The demise of Sega didn't start with the Saturn. They were already wasting cash with the Sega CD and 32X. The SCD did okay, but Sega invested $10 million of an FMV production studio, instead of making great games for the add-on. I'm amazed that Sega actually published as many titles as they did with the 32X, considering how small the returns, if any, were for their efforts.
12-26-2012, 09:08 PM
Chilly Willy

Quote:

Originally Posted by gamevet

Theres a difference of selling 125k a week, to 83k a week if you include the additional 2 weeks. It didn't sell 500k in one month.

The first month's sales aren't a solid indicator of how a product is going to perform. The 3DS sold over a million units within the first month, then sales stagnated until Nintendo dropped the prices.

It's important if that month is December! ;) There's ALWAYS a drop-off after xmas. People point to sluggish sales of the 32X in the first few months of '95 as if those months are relevant to ANY console. NOBODY sells in the winter and spring. That was well understood long before the 32X came out... it's why they rushed the first wave of games - you want to sell at xmas or you're stuck until summer.

Quote:

The only region where the Saturn was released months ahead of schedule was North America.

And North American was the ONLY place that mattered at the time. There was no presence in Japan, which is why they probably felt okay with releasing it in Dec 94 in Japan. It was kind of a test market to see what kind of response it would get before hitting the REAL market.
12-26-2012, 10:10 PM
gamevet

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chilly Willy

It's important if that month is December! ;) There's ALWAYS a drop-off after xmas. People point to sluggish sales of the 32X in the first few months of '95 as if those months are relevant to ANY console. NOBODY sells in the winter and spring. That was well understood long before the 32X came out... it's why they rushed the first wave of games - you want to sell at xmas or you're stuck until summer.

The PS2 sold @ 500K in North America during its first holiday season and was in demand well into March of the following year. I actually had a guy pay me $20 to act like I was buying a PS2, because Toys R' Us would only sell 1 PS2 per customer. They were selling as fast as they hit shelves.

Quote:

And North American was the ONLY place that mattered at the time. There was no presence in Japan, which is why they probably felt okay with releasing it in Dec 94 in Japan. It was kind of a test market to see what kind of response it would get before hitting the REAL market.

I'm pretty sure that the people that were thinking about buying a 32X, were the same people that bought a Saturn instead. I didn't buy a 32X, because I was going to buy either a Saturn or Playstation. The 32X didn't look like a good investment at the time, even if I had to wait until September for the next gen consoles.

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