What are 10 Things You Would Like to Change about the Genesis?

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Originally Posted by mick_aka

The MegaDrive II/Genesis 2 should have been a complete backward compatible redesign with perhaps a 68020, faster z80, 4096 colour palette...

Some of the late MD/Genny releases could have looked astounding with those few hardware updates included in the II revision.

But that's just my little dream ;)

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Then that would be a massive kick in the teeth for all the early Model 1 adopters. Would you yourself want to fork out another £199 odd for a new standalone Mega Drive revision just for the enhanced games in a period that is forshadowing the 32bit era? Not a very good way of handling your console through it's lifespan. Unless offcourse, you made an addon unit...

Did i just mention the 32x?...

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And what does "AS" mean?

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Oh nevermind. I meant I love the Mega Drive AS IS, for example: The more limited colour palette and the FM sound that made the console produce a more 'gritty' result in comparision to the 'happy' theme of the SNES. Know what i mean? ;)

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Originally Posted by Jasper061992

Then that would be a massive kick in the teeth for all the early Model 1 adopters. Would you yourself want to fork out another £199 odd for a new standalone Mega Drive revision just for the enhanced games in a period that is forshadowing the 32bit era? Not a very good way of handling your console through it's lifespan. Unless offcourse, you made an addon unit...

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Yeah, pushing the release date back is one thing, but alienating consumers... (just wait for the real successor, Sega really screwed themselves with all the hardware, confusing to customers, and costly to support -stretching Sega thin) With a few modifications to the genesis the CD's added hardware could have been so much more useful.

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Oh nevermind. I meant I love the Mega Drive AS IS, for example: The more limited colour palette and the FM sound that made the console produce a more 'gritty' result in comparision to the 'happy' theme of the SNES. Know what i mean? ;)

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Oh, I thought "MegaDrive AS" might mean something, the phrase was a little confusingly worded. ;)

I don't see FM as gritty per se, it definitely has its charm though, I didn't grow up with the Genesis, but I did grow up with PC games using sounndblaster. :D SNES actually uses sampled FM instruments pretty often too, I wouldn't necessarily call the SNES "happy" either (well both the mario and sonic tunes often have a "happy" sound to them in general), orchestral stuff was used a lot, but in terms of sound "happy" doesn't strike me. (I grew up with Nintendo stuff -albeit I think we got our SNES in christmass of 1996 -after N64 was out and After we had X-Wing on PC)

There's a lot of rather generic sounding music on both those, the average person would probably lean toward the SNES in prefrence though. (and then there's the Sega CD's added 8 channel PCM chip which pushes it over the edge in combination with MD sound hardware -like in Silpheed -no streaming audio except in cutscenes)

How would I change my favorite console..?

1. Blue led panel instead of a single angry red light
2. S-Video standard
3. Crystal clear audio from the start

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Nothing else, if we're talking dollars from back then. That would be it.

Curb feelers definitely.

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Originally Posted by nathanallan

How would I change my favorite console..?

1. Blue led panel instead of a single angry red light

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Am I the only one who likes red LEDs (and neon tubes on some old electronic equipment)?
I don't care for the blue LEDs persinally, or white ones even -though better than blue (or the blacklight/UV ones). An off orange closer to an actual neon tube would be interesting though, green might be as well, or a nice amber/yellow.

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3. Crystal clear audio from the start

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But didn't they?
I mean, compared to a CCAMed model2/VA7 M1 the only difference is the higher quantization noise of the TM2612 (can change that) and filtering. (which gives the model 1s the characteristic strong bass -save the VA7 of course)

Unless you mean a better mixing circuit on the VA7 and all model 2s/ (VA3/4 is OK though)

Stereo on the AV jack would be nice as well. Using a new A/V port would facilitate that and S-video; ditching the EXT port could probably mitigate some of the cost there, and not much issue in the long run as the main advantage with the original A/V port was using SMS parts stock and A/V cable inventory. The added advantage of the new AV port would be no change in that port on the model 2, plus it could be future proof, either a DE-15 (ie VGA) or DIN-13 (used on the Atari ST's monitor port) could have been continually used with provisions for new standards, especially the DE-15. (probably fine through dreamcast even, supporting every analog video standard -possibly use one pin to set a VGA mode for RGB)

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Nothing else, if we're talking dollars from back then. That would be it.

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Yeah, that's what chilly willy and I were going back and forth about, there sould have been improvements possible which shouldn't have siginificanty impacted the price (moved it up to 200 instead of 190 USD if anything), switching to DRAM for one should have saved a lot, even doubleing or quadrupling the quantity, upgrading the 68k would certainly add cost, but a 12 MHz one still might be doable (maybe 10 MHz otherwise).
Then there's the Z80 alterations (a lot of which is connectivity -int pin, bank selection mechanism, etc; the currently one should support 6 Mhz as well -8 MHz being a replacement and adding to cost).

Then there's the VDP, upgrading that wa probably a time constraint if nothing else (8 instead of 4 palettes, and a 12-bit master palette), prhaps the significantly increased number of transistors would be another problem. (for added CRAM, but both the PCE and SNES had at least 512 bytes of CRAM) Not allowing for 2x 32 kB bank VRAM mode was probably all time related. (using 2x 64 kB banks would obviously increase cost, VRAM being rather expensive )

Finally, there's the expansion interface, the CD would have really benefitted from added connectivity. If necessary, you could drop the expansion port entirely and put a bit more on the cartridge slot (like the unused VDP color bus -obvuously retaining it on the later VDP asics rather than removing it as they did historically).
Then the CD could have used a top sitting flip-top form factor, probably cheaper to manufacture too. (more like the Jaguar CD, or a bit like the PBC or Super Magic drive -obviously a bit larger)

Personally I'd prefer the added connectivity on cart regardless as it could facilitate on-cart enhancement as well. (though with the lager palette, double the subpalettes, increaded RAM, and faster CPU -and especially if the 1/2 res 256 color mode was added, the existing cart slot would be fine -with a beter expansion slot of course; w/out the expansion port, definitely add to the cart connector)

A lot of those changes could probably have been made with a bit of delay to the release, and IMO that would be well worth it, for the western markets at least. (some changes being fairly obvious from a technical standpoint -without hindsight)

Option for a deluxe model with more robust casing, in brushed aluminium style, that screams 'i am a classy b*tch' (lots of VCRs were like that in the 80s)
Some kind of ZIF, or eject cartridge slot (i dont like the Megadrives mechanism, it invites forceful insertion and destruction of carts)
Inbuilt snail game

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Originally Posted by zilog

Option for a deluxe model with more robust casing, in brushed aluminium style, that screams 'i am a classy b*tch' (lots of VCRs were like that in the 80s)
Some kind of ZIF, or eject cartridge slot (i dont like the Megadrives mechanism, it invites forceful insertion and destruction of carts)
Inbuilt snail game

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I don't think someone has ever destroyed a
cartridge just by inserting it into the Mega Drive.
I guess that the lack of an eject button can be
considered a small engineering flaw, but I was
never really having problems with the way things
work there. I had a console with such an eject
button and mostly pulled the cart out through force.

The brushed aluminium thing is more like it, make
it black, brushed, thick aluminium. This would be
tripple awesome : D

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Originally Posted by zilog

Option for a deluxe model with more robust casing, in brushed aluminium style, that screams 'i am a classy b*tch' (lots of VCRs were like that in the 80s)
Some kind of ZIF, or eject cartridge slot (i dont like the Megadrives mechanism, it invites forceful insertion and destruction of carts)
Inbuilt snail game

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If you take the SNES for example, the ejection mechanism is by force, the only advantage is label wear (which would depend on how you grip the cartridge anyway).

And taking another example from nintendo, the NES's ZIF(ish) connector provided nothing but hedaches in terms of reliability. (in combination with the finicky lock-out chip)

Persoanlly I really like the tight grip the Genesis had compared to other consoles, makes games less likely to freeze if bumped. (N64 is quite good though given it's very easy to insert/remove slot, while still providing relatively good shock stability -SNES being more suceptable)

If I were to change something, it would be to not let Sega whore my beloved console out and create their own demise.....Part of the reason the Saturn failed was because of the sega cd and 32x debacle....The dreamcast failed because of the sega cd, 32x, and saturn failures....

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Originally Posted by runback22

If I were to change something, it would be to not let Sega whore my beloved console out and create their own demise.....Part of the reason the Saturn failed was because of the sega cd and 32x debacle....The dreamcast failed because of the sega cd, 32x, and saturn failures....

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Psst! Don't forget the PS2 with it's almighty DVD player, something the Dreamcast wished it had...

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Originally Posted by playgen

I don't know what sega were thinking, this is much better!

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/paul.ja...megadrive7.png

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I gotta quote this just to bump it up the thread... it's fookin' jawsum!!

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Originally Posted by Jasper061992

Psst! Don't forget the PS2 with it's almighty DVD player, something the Dreamcast wished it had...

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how many times do I have to go through this?

The DC failed because people learned how to make bootleg copies that didn't even need a system modification to run. Right after, all 3rd party companies jumped ship. DC was well liked and sold great up until that discovery in late 2000/early 2001.

Like music market crashed with the introduction of radio.

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Originally Posted by crazyteknohed

I gotta quote this just to bump it up the thread... it's fookin' jawsum!!

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Eh. I dunno, it looks retardedly messy.

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Originally Posted by Christuserloeser

Like music market crashed with the introduction of radio.

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Not really, but it kind of did with the introduction of
downloadable mp3s and fast enough internet. At least
the music market isn't doing as good any more.