Virtua Fighter 2 should have been a 32X game and not a Genesis game

[Team Andromeda]

The weak Japanese launch lineup wasn't that big of a surprise (I'm sure Chilly WIlly understands the nature of JP launches... especially with that example since he had a Japanese PSX prior to the US launch that his boss had brought back from a business trip to Japan

Really ?

THe REAL surprise was the poor/weak US launch lineup and the rushed mess the Saturn was in the US with the idiotic decision to launch it so early

Yes thanks to the 32X , were like I said split SEGA development and PR support . And rushing the Saturn out was not any more madness than going toe to toe with SONY in September really. After the 32X Cock Up SEGA had to act.

If the Saturn had Launched with VF, VR Delux, Star Wars Arcade, Doom, Panzer Dragoon ECT, it would have been in a much stronger position no...? that's overlooking how poor the Cube, PS2 and even PS and Wii western launches were in terms of decent software worth buying or a strong line up of games ...

we need proper historical doccumentation that cuts through false memories and gets to the truth.

No we just need a Interview with the man in charge of all SEGA R&D & Console development.

That's bad business though... they most definitely should not have put Japan over US or EU

It happens and all the Major corps do it. And Microsoft is losing massive sales to SONY in Japan and parts of Europe, yet its still more focused on the USA. Not that great if MS are really serious about turning the X-Box Project from a loss into a Profit.

Saturn sold even worse. (albeit we don't have any proper breakdowns to really compare the 2)

What the 32X sold ever more than 2 Million units ?. Aren't you the one that said Saturn and PS sales were pretty close for a while; and SEGA should have supported the Saturn for longer ???

I tell you this much.... for a while SEGA Rally was the best selling 32 bit game in the UK charts and broke records , something which no 32X game, could ever boast

you're still not even reading what I summarized or what Kalinske claimed.

TOM is speaking total and utter bullshit. If SONY went to SEGA with it plans on what the Japanese R&D team could offer them, then SEGA would have known what to do to beat those spec's if it refused the hardware .

It is plain common sense .

Nope

So let me get this straight .160 to you in cash, is somehow different to me having 160 in cash (if one doesn't include the Exchange rate)

PS2 wasn't really that expensive, it was significantly cheaper than the PSX had launched at

PS2 and and PS3 were way more expensive than their rivals. And I though the PS2 was the launched at much the same price as the PS

it probably would have been far more competitive.

What just some 4 million behind, despite shipping a year latter ?. Not bad if you ask me. Even with the High price its still sold millions

or rather an independent small company -former Sinclair engineers from the Loki project- had the design and got contracted by Konix before splitting up and doing contracting which led to 2 of the 3 teaming back up at Atari to design the Jaguar

Some teams slit didn't the Amiga Team slit from Atari to go Commodore . Didn't ArtX split from SGI and go for the Cube tech with ATI

Never claimed otherwise, I only claimed that SoA and SoJ may not have understood eachothers plans as such

You have, and I've got a bit bored of need to scans to show SEGA America knew full of the Saturn and how it was due to ship at the end of 1994.

So like I've always said, and will say for the last time. It was very clear, very early in the Saturn was coming and was due to launch in 1994 . And if showing the Saturn off in January 1994, the full official unveil of the Saturn to the Press and Public in April 1994, were not enough, then the June 1994 Toyko game show should have been the nail in the coffin of the 32X project.

And SEGA with just one machine to back; develop for and to Market would have been a far better SEGA to take the fight to SONY and NCL imo

[kool kitty89]

Really ?

Yep:

I had my Model2+SCD2+32X, a Japanese PSX (my boss got a couple over in Japan in early 95) and, a little later, the US PSX. I wired a toggle switch in place of the lid switch on the Japanese PSX so I could do the swap trick to play US games, but later got a US PSX when all the 32X games got canceled. I tried holding off, but when Rayman came out on the PSX and was canceled on the 32X, that was pretty much it.

But as far as launch games (and near-after launch -ie games in the first few weeks after), strength of the lineup is relative... if you took all the games released in Japan for the PSX through the end of 1994 and the contemporaries on the Saturn, you very well might have a lineup that would have fared much better for Sony in the US than Sega (not sure about Europe), though marketing also plays a role of course.

Hell, the US/JP N64 launch had a tiny amount of games, but it had the one killer app they needed and not just a flash in the pan hit, but one that endured the entire generation and beyond. Hell, the SNES had a weak US lineup too (in sheer number), but the games included in it were killer for the market and miles better in that sense than the much larger array of games on the Genesis in '89.
Of course, more is better and more higher-quality games is also better as you've got a greater chance of hitting that killer app category, Sega had that with Sonic by the time the SNES launched in the west as well as a reasonable established following in general. (important since they had no real name on the market to build on and thus couldn't afford to push later as may have been smart otherwise -ie if the SMS was a smash hit the MD would have been rather premature in '88/89, especially with the design trade-offs made to facilitate that date -important for Japan given the weak SMS market, but a bad move for the western counterparts -even if they continued SMS support very well, the less polished hardware would have been more of a detriment in the long run)

Yes thanks to the 32X , were like I said split SEGA development and PR support . And rushing the Saturn out was not any more madness than going toe to toe with SONY in September really. After the 32X Cock Up SEGA had to act.

Not really, rushing out the Saturn was a very bad move. They went toe to toe with Sony anyway, and Sony probably could have rushed the PSX out to meed them much sooner as it was but chose to build up hype and a strong launch library instead.

Granted, Sony's $300 announcement caught them off guard, but there's a ton of other areas where it was plain bad business from distributors to marketing to developers, made all the worse from being a surprise launch and conflicting even worse with the 32x.


In the US, they wouldn't have even NEEDED to go toe to toe with Sony on the mass market until mid 1996, the Saturn prior to that should have been relegated to high-end niche alongside the PSX (more so if they hadn't undercut the price so dramatically).

Sega seemed to loose the big picture for both short and long term: they absolutely needed to remain competitive with the Genesis against the SNES (albeit the way the 32x was handled didn't help that) while carefully managing the next generation to meet Sony as well as Nintendo and not compromising their established market position.
The 32x was supposed to help do that, but ended up being a terrible route to take against Nintendo's push for software alone (and a handful of cases using expensive enhancement chips -many others using them only to reduce cost and/or for added lockout -some 3rd parties did the same, including Capcom).
The 32x fell more into the category of a low cost nextgen system than a simple extension of the MD, and something simpler not only might have helped a lot more against Nintendo, but also would have conflicted far less with the Saturn.

If the Saturn had Launched with VF, VR Delux, Star Wars Arcade, Doom, Panzer Dragoon ECT, it would have been in a much stronger position no...? that's overlooking how poor the Cube, PS2 and even PS and Wii western launches were in terms of decent software worth buying or a strong line up of games ...

Yep, and the 32x's existence would hardly have been mutually exclusive with that... they could have delayed it for the Japanese market, but given the general lack of any of those games on the Saturn, let alone quickly converted in early/mid 1995, that shows some other issues. (32x hardware may not have been super ideal to port to and from the Saturn for a high degree of common hardware utilization, but moderately enhanced ports most definitely should have been possible, much more so if they delayed it until early September or maybe a more sane early launch of August like the Genesis -and keep all major developers and retailers in the loop)

I have no idea why the 32x library (let alone canceled games late in the 32x's life) weren't moved to Saturn, but that was among the bad moves Sega made.

Hell, it could have been smart to push upgraded parallel developed versions of late gen MD/CD games for the Saturn as well. (as I've said before, SoulStar on the Jag CD looks pretty damn awesome, and they were developing a cut-down 32x version of that remake, so why not a version matching the Jag for the Saturn rather than cutting it down? -let aloen the clockwork stuff or other Scavenger projects which seemed to be greatly delayed or more often canceled along with 32x)

Hell, once SoA DID realize what was going on with the Saturn (fully, not partially as seems to have been the case), they (and SoJ) should have been proactive in developing tools specific to facilitating transition from MD/CD/32x to Saturn development in general both in-house and for 3rd parties. (granted, some of the more skilled development houses only really needed better low-level documentation, a shame even that was lacking on the Saturn -not sure if that was more an issue with SoJ supplying the necessary documents or SoA translating/compiling them in a timely manner)

No we just need a Interview with the man in charge of all SEGA R&D & Console development.

Hardly, that would only show one small facet of the story, only the side of actual hardware developments (a good chunk but hardly all of it).
That would NOT reasonably cover various political/management decisions and a myriad of other things that are important for the topic, let alone things that might have eventually been hardware related but never got to the level of actual engineering/development other than rough proposals and compiled specifications.

An interview with Nakayma and other management along with Sato and SoJ management and software/engineering staff would be very helpful.
That and actual documentations aside from interviews, as memories can be skewed, but unadulterated official documentation won't be. (that's exactly how much of the Atari myths have been debunked -along with interviews from individuals previously left out, like Ted Dabney, and those who were interviewed before, but not in a comprehensive manner with the specific goal of cross-checking and backing up other sources -or contradicting them and then following on until the truth can be established)

It happens and all the Major corps do it. And Microsoft is losing massive sales to SONY in Japan and parts of Europe, yet its still more focused on the USA. Not that great if MS are really serious about turning the X-Box Project from a loss into a Profit.

Not a bad idea to focus on the most profitable market, but MS has never really focused on making the Xbox profitable so much as they have used it for prestige. If they were interested in profits, they'd have kept the original Xbox going MUCH longer, specifically designed the 360 to mesh better (including compatibility -the main trade-off being increased piracy/emulation threat, but that's always there regardless), and actually focused on making decent hardware that was both cost-effective and reliable with proper quality control (their engineering teams either had totally crap quality control, or the bureaucratic structure made such a mess of it that all warnings from engineers got ignored -probably the latter case).

Hell, there's a number of areas the 360 could have been cost reduced and still been more powerful (like using DDR2, but closer to a GB and still being cheaper), but the big issues were simply poor configuration of the design, shoddy power supplies, bad drive placement, DVD drives not working properly when horizontal, horrible cooling system, and bad compromises made complicating all that with changes to cheaper/bulkier DVD drive (forcing a tiny heat sink on the GPU) and lead-free solder as well as poorly placed brackets on the board that would warp it under excessive heat and tend to pry the GPU loose. Many of those last-minute compromises could have still allowed high reliability if they'd been willing to compromise external aesthetics (namely make the case bulkier).


But that's all tangent to focusing on regional marketing/sales. Again, with the Xbox it makes sense to keep the strong market strong and not compromise that for potential expansion of other markets (if expansion is possible without significant compromise, then go for it).
Atari Corp had to choose to favor Europe at times, and it really paid off with the ST (they often suffered shortages in the US to make sure Europe had sufficient stock, at least until production got to high enough volumes). That's something they probably should have done with the Jaguar too, but it was the opposite. (Europe had considerable shortages while the US had nominally sufficient stock but lower demand) The only reason Atari needed to push in the US was for investor support, which is why the EU test markets were canceled, but after that they really should have shifted to Europe.

Likewise, Sega should have focused on doing whatever possible to maintain the US and EU markets and make sure any efforts to expand in Japan didn't significantly compromise that. (had the Saturn sold more like the MD in Japan as well as close to what the MD did in the west, then it most definitely would have been a very smart move on their part, had the Saturn sold like the Dreamcast in all respective markets it also would have been far better off -though given Sega's better management in Europe at the time, it probably would have done better there too rather than like the DC in Europe)

What the 32X sold ever more than 2 Million units ?. Aren't you the one that said Saturn and PS sales were pretty close for a while; and SEGA should have supported the Saturn for longer ???

Only talking about 1995, even by mid/late 1995 the 32x had been compromised by Sega's decisions with the Saturn, so sales by that point are moot by comparison.

We'll never know how 32x/Mars could have sold on the market with a much more delayed Saturn, or even a more moderately delayed one with tactful management to facilitate both platforms. (again, not that I think either should have been released as they were -and if I had to pick one with no other changes at all, it would certainly be the Saturn, the lesser of 2 evils so to speak )

TOM is speaking total and utter bullshit. If SONY went to SEGA with it plans on what the Japanese R&D team could offer them, then SEGA would have known what to do to beat those spec's if it refused the hardware .

You're still not reading what I've been saying.

I didn't say anything about Sony going to Sega with R&D. It was a collaborative STI+Imagesoft proposition totally independent of the Japanese parents. It was a proposal to set up specifications for a potential new design based on the US SOFTWARE development houses experience with early multimedia as well as new trends on the market, among those houes were some hardware engineers and programmers who did the primary contributions to the specifications which were then "translated" into something that could be reasonably understood by upper management (along with the "techese" stuff). Those specs in combination with a rough proposal for a contract between the 2 companies was then to be brought to the Japanese parents as the next step.
Again, Sony of Japan supposedly agreed to enter negotiations while Nakayma turned it down flat.
Formal R&D never got a chance to get started, let alone actual prototyping with the Japanese hardware teams.

So let me get this straight .160 to you in cash, is somehow different to me having 160 in cash (if one doesn't include the Exchange rate)

I meant nope to 160 being chump change, the rest elaborated on the issue in general...

PS2 and and PS3 were way more expensive than their rivals. And I though the PS2 was the launched at much the same price as the PS

PS2 had enough to make up for it in other ways and it wasn't THAT much more expensive... not only that but it wasn't unacceptably expensive in general. (regardless of undercutting competition, there's still a limit to practical pricing to make a product attractive or unattractive) The PS2 had drawbacks, but from the average consumer's perspective there was a lot to support it from the hype to the compatibility to the DVD support (and the fact it was cheaper than most DVD players -while the same may have been true for the PS3 at $500/600 but BD wasn't nearly as strong a selling point as DVD or as big of a leap for many compared to VHS to DVD).
The market this generation has been rather different in general compared to the last 2 though.

The PS2 only had the DC as competition for the first year of its release, and Sega had already pulled the plug on that well before that year was up. The GC was cheaper but lacked the hype and market recognition or perceived value from the masses and the Xbox was as expensive or more expensive and also was shaky on the market due to MS being a newcomer and lacking much of the 3rd party support or marketing prowess of Sony. (as the generation wore on, that changed for a fair degree, and Halo was a pretty major killer app to begin with -Halo 2 still much bigger- among others, and personally I liked the box and the cube much more than the PS2 for that entire generation -along with PC games- though I couldn't deny that there were a lot of compelling PS2 exclusives too -the major turnoffs on a logical level were the controllers and much more limited 3/4 player support that made the GC and Xbox much more fun as party consoles, that and many of the good games eventually came out for the competition anyway -or PCs even cheaper and often better- and I was almost never interested in picking up things new, especially near launch when there were tons of older games to go through, especially at used prices -as I've said before, for my family it was usually late-gen/budget market and PC games -often still budget stuff including some compilation packs or just older releases at reduced price)

What just some 4 million behind, despite shipping a year latter ?. Not bad if you ask me. Even with the High price its still sold millions

Much more behind the Wii though. (as odd as it sounds, the price point of the Wii is still often a major selling point for the average user and many don't seem to realize that it's more or less last gen in graphics quality -they see the difference from the current gen stuff, but not so much that it looks like the GC/Xbox, that and Nintendo's marketing of it, not just in a niche ignored by the competition but in general beyond "casual" gamers or kiddie stuff)

Anyway, it's more of a "how the mighty have fallen" case in terms of the PSX and PS2 sales down to the PS3.
MS made so many mistakes with the 360 that it's surprising that it did as well as it had (and even without that, it was often only moderately cheaper than the PS3 -if at all- once you added in all the features needed to match the PS3's pack-in wifi, HDD, and rechargeable wireless controllers, online subscriptions, etc), then again most consumers (especially in the US mass market) are highly driven by marketing, hype, and price point (especially if the marketing ties into that), so the flaws were often overlooked and the reliability is joked about but they buy it anyway.

Hell, a huge percentage (albeit not 360 level) of NES users had problems within the first 2 or 3 years due to the connector, PSX had significant issues, PS2 probably more so, yet all of those sold extremely well in the US. (albeit in all cases it was a time released problem, so not something that would have stopped initial popularity to build to critical levels -aside from a few extreme cases resulting in recalls, or even more extreme with the near immediate failures of launch Famicom consoles in '83 -that didn't help the SG-1000 establish dominance though)

Some teams slit didn't the Amiga Team slit from Atari to go Commodore . Didn't ArtX split from SGI and go for the Cube tech with ATI

Most research teams do, but that wasn't my point, I was addressing the complexity of the issue in general. (especially small think tanks and start-ups -GCC who developed Ms. Pac Man and several other hacks as well as the 7800 ended up splitting up ~1985, MOS Technology got infused with some Mortorola engineers leading to the 6502, MOS later got bought by Commodore, etc)

And no the Amiga team didn't split like that: it was composed of SOME Atari Inc personnel (including Jay Miner -who was heavily involved in designing the VCS chipset and partially involved in the conceptional design of the A8) as well as others not from Atari.
Amiga was a standalone start-up company developing a new computer chipset and got investment (and often licensed the chipset) from several 3rd parties (including Atari Inc who was planning on using it in a game console for late 1984 before Amiga cheated them out of it). In mid '84 Amiga Inc entered talks with a possible merger with Commodore (I'm sketchy on the details, but that was a fairly dramatic shift from earlier plans) and ended up selling the company as a whole to CBM. (and a lot of nitty gritty over broken/conflicted contracts from various investors who'd licensed the chipset prior to that including Atari)

After the CBM merger, several of the Amiga engineers ended up leaving, some ended up with Epyx and designed what would become the Lynx chipset later sold to Atari Corp.

Then there's the whole thing about understanding what Atari Corp was in general:
Trammel Technologies Ltd (TTL) was formed by Jack Tramiel after his departure from CBM (due to conflicts over the company's future with the board of directors iirc), several CBM engineers left with him and began work on the RBP computer (rock bottom price -later the ST) to fill a hole on the Market that Tramiel saw (in large part to also keep the Japanese out of the US computer market) while Tramiel himself looked around for several potential companies to buy/merge with to aid in his plans including Amiga Inc at one point as well as negotiations with Atari Inc. Atari Inc negotiations fell through when Tramiel wouldn't agree to Warner's terms, but Warner later jumped back in and shifted terms to be more favorable (apparently after exhausting alternative buyers) and rather than selling the company as had been earlier considered, Warner Liquidated Atari Inc and split it into the arcade division (folded into the new Atari Games) with the consumer division and corresponding assets sold to TTL which then took on the name Atari Corp. (Atari Inc died, or rather became a corporate shell for legal purposes for a couple more years)

And thus TTL with its team of CBM engineers and ongoing project (finally solidified on paper in mid '84 with actual prototyping and physical construction/testing of custom logic circuits and beginning) became merged with Atari Inc former consumer division assets and distribution network as well as some former Atari Inc staff that TTL chose to hire (most of the computer related programmers and engineers), and also took on the majority of Atari Inc's debt. (a lot more to the story, but this is getting way off topic )

You have, and I've got a bit bored of need to scans to show SEGA America knew full of the Saturn and how it was due to ship at the end of 1994.

No, I never claimed that SoJ didn't know of the Saturn's existence or the possibility of a 1994 release.
What I have claimed is that there is a general lack of information on exactly how detailed their knowledge was regarding SoJ's plans (some things point to a strong impression of the Saturn possibly missing the 1994 launch, let alone the US release being managed differently).
Beyond that we also don't know what sort of interpretation errors were going on, not just with the Saturn, but also Mars. (ie what SoJ intended Mars to be in 1994 vs what SoA interpreted it as -it seems that SoJ may have wanted it to only be a stop gap for a few months in the US, but SoA turned it into something they felt was actually viable in the role SoJ suggested -or again, errors in perception -and too little information on the subject in general)

So like I've always said, and will say for the last time. It was very clear, very early in the Saturn was coming and was due to launch in 1994 . And if showing the Saturn off in January 1994, the full official unveil of the Saturn to the Press and Public in April 1994, were not enough, then the June 1994 Toyko game show should have been the nail in the coffin of the 32X project.

No, not really, especially if SoA knew all about the Saturn's existence from the start, as such things wouldn't have changed at all from when SoJ requested they push the Mars project (or rather SoA compromised on SoJ's request), but it seems more likely it was more complex than that.
Hmm, actually, assuming the claim is correct that SoJ came wot SoA with Sato's "Super MD" design for Mars and SoA turned it down in favor of an add-on form factor to better cater to existing users, maybe they did miss one thing: while we don't know specifics of the SMD it seems to at least have been intended to be cheap enough to totally displace the MD for new console sales (something that Neptune could not do), so SoA may have screwed up in understanding that facet: the idea to make it into an add-on and cut overhead from new buyers made sense, but they also made it more expensive (possibly) whereas a more minimalistic design could both have allowed a far cheaper add-on (perhaps in the area of $50 and maybe not even requiring an added PSU/mixing cable) but also cheap enough to integrate into all new MDs as well.

Also remember that 32x was NOT just supposed to be a next gen system, it was supposed to combat the slump on the US market starting in 1993, the same thing Nintendo countered with a big push for software alone (something market analysts criticized, but was obviously a very smart and more foolproof move, if not obvious given past observations -some have argued that a Hardware solution may have made more sense to Sega given their stronger hardware emphasis and arcade relations -plus the fact that they never put the same sort of emphasis on stability and profitability as Nintendo). On top of that it apparently was spurred by the Jaguar and 3DO hype, something Nintendo apparently remained level headed about. (albeit you could certainly argue Nintendo didn't react strongly enough to market changes given what they did with the N64, albeit they at least pulled that off exceptionally well in the US market in spite of the mistakes)

And SEGA with just one machine to back; develop for and to Market would have been a far better SEGA to take the fight to SONY and NCL imo

Also far more risky, having a lot of successful machines in different market segments is very important, the problem comes with overlapping/conflicting products which is exactly where the 32x vs Saturn issue falls.

It would have been very smart to keep the MD and GG going strong, perhaps MCD depending on what they did and how the market responded in 1994 (let alone potential earlier changes), Saturn could have been pressed into the high-end market only until fall of 1996 (in the US at least, as late '96 and more so 1997 was when the 5th gen hit mass market) and manage things as best as possible to make up for the inherent flaws and disadvantages of the Saturn (from marketing to extensive low and high level dev tool sets and workarounds). The Genesis had a LOT of life left in it going forward from 1994, just like the NES did from 1989 on, and it would have entered the late gen transition into the budget market where volumes go down but profit margin increases substantially.
Again, the 32x was a bad idea from that standpoint too... though ideally the Saturn would have been heavily modified as well. If they were adamant about the 1994/1995 release (JP/US), but if they recognized some of the major errors (especially in cost effectiveness) by late 1993, they could have launched a final redesign stage focusing on making it more cost effective as such. (RAM in particular could have been pushed out in leu of planned expansion later on -especially with 32-bit CPU bus expansion; if they could get total RAM down to ~2.5 MB that would have been awesome, but the most obvious issue that would have been clearly visible back then too would be the CD-ROM interface. It really is odd that they didn't just opt for a direct derivative of the MCD CD-ROM drive and interface using the 68k manager that was also capable of general purpose coprocessing -in the case of the Saturn it would have made tons of sense to use the 68k dual duty for CD-ROM and audio management with a 2x speed CD-ROM chipset -maybe boost the 16k cache to 32k like the 3DO and PSX -the 2nd SH2 also should have been pretty obvious as a cost eating addition, especially if they had boosted dev tools for the SCU DSP instead, the overbuilt sound system would have been less obvious as most companies continued to make that mistake though it obviously could have been cost cut considerably -leaving only the 32 DMA sound channels would have been best though it probably would have been smarter if they hadn't gone custom at all but used an off the shelf design like Yamaha's OPL4)

However, if they weren't willing to cut back the baseline Saturn in general, the Jupiter would still have been a very good idea if they wanted any chance of getting into the US mass market before 1996/97 (ie accelerating the transition) or undercutting Sony in general. (a Jupiter-cut system with a low cost CD interface and 32-bit SDRAM/cart expansion support would have been better than that or the Saturn though)

Hell, they might have even been able to effectively split things for Saturn in Japan and Jupiter in the US more effectively. (that would partially assume SoJ and SoA got their act together in communication and collaborative management though)
From a rushed hack sort of perspective in 1994, the best "Jupiter" probably would have been cutting it back to 2.5-3 MB main RAM (either 512 or 1024kB of SDRAM for SH2 memory), extending the cart slot to support up to 32-bit data, and probably dropping to 1 SH2 while providing better hardware documentation across the board (especially for using the SCU DSP for a variety of tasks). If they really though it out, probably cut the DSP out of the SCSP (the FM synth functionality was pretty much never used either, so that should probably have been cut too). And of course adding an expansion port to Saturn spec (or using the cart slot alone to piggy back a Saturn CD add-on).

Actually, what might have been interesting is, instead of Mars, SoJ charged SoA with configuring/modifying Jupiter based on the Saturn hardware in January of '94 and joint collaboration to maintain forwards compatibility with the Japanese Saturn.
But better still may have been allowing SoJ to directly influence the final design of the Saturn starting in mid/late 1993. (thus allowing a single console that was better compromised to both regions -or potentially at least)


At least a forwards compatible Jupiter would have reasonably allowed joint advertising and promotion with Saturn that meshed well. (on top of a marketable product earlier on if they were forced to transition too early as seemed to be the case in '95/96)

[gamegenie]

conclusion, had SEGA given the 32X a more solid foundation (than a stop gap) like also make it an additional feature of the Saturn (in addition to being available as add-on $149 accessory to the Genesis), 'the Saturn cartridge slot also accepts 32X carts.

There would have been a great chance that SEGA AM2 would have worked on a Virtua Fighter 32X sequel and not worried their time on a 16-bit Genesis animation version.

There could have been two versions of Virtua Fighter 2 for Saturn, the Saturn version on disc, or the cartridge version for 32X (also playable on Saturn).

SEGA would have never gained the reputation as a company that lack product commitment as it did when it canned 32X, then Saturn, and then Dreamcast before their time to the public.


and I rest my case with this thread.

[Team Andromeda]

They went toe to toe with Sony anyway

Only In Japan

Yep:

So we're all in agreement , That Japanese hardware launches nearly always have a small number of games , or launch games that are much good .

Great my point for years

In the US, they wouldn't have even NEEDED to go toe to toe with Sony on the mass market until mid 1996

What just lose more and more ground to SONY ? and also lose development support and for the Saturn not to be the lead development platform for Multi Platform games , That for sure would have worked

they could have delayed it for the Japanese market

What the Saturn?. That makes no sense what so ever , sorry.

Hell, once SoA DID realize what was going on with the Saturn

They should have dropped the 32X and moved all production to Saturn ?

only the side of actual hardware developments

Yes and then we would learn if the Super Mega Drive was real.

but MS has never really focused on making the Xbox profitable so much as they have used it for prestige

Really ? That's why they've closed most of Their In-House teams and out source most of your game development, For ages tried to no admit to the TROD problem, increasing the Live Sub, charging ridiculous prices for 360 add-ons - All in a effort to make the X-Box program profitable No ?

Only talking about 1995,

In 1995 it was clear to almost everyone (even the most Bias SEGA fan) the 32X had no future.

It was a collaborative STI+Imagesoft proposition totally independent of the Japanese parents

And you're not listing to what I'm saying . The Japanese paymasters would have never allowed that, more so when they were developing their own chipset.

And just to believe Tom Bullshit for a minute....What makes you think SONY America hardware would have been any better than the PS, never mind how SONY would have been in the ridiculous position of having the America side backing SEGA and the Japanese side backing its own PS. Never mind if SONY America would have been able to deliver the Tech on time and to Budget

I meant nope to 160 being chump change

160 dollars is 'small beer' ? . Maybe in the USA, but to most its a lot of money.

PS2 had enough to make up for it in other ways and it wasn't THAT much more expensive

It was £100 more expensive, but it didn't matter . People wanted it and that was the difference.

Much more behind the Wii though

Give me strength ....

Most research teams do, but that wasn't my point, I was addressing the complexity of the issue in genera

And that's your trouble, you over complicate things . In a nut shell the Amiga Tech went from Atari hands to Commodore in a nutshell

Anyway, it's more of a "how the mighty have fallen" case in terms of the PSX and PS2 sales down to the PS3

Yes launching latter and letting your rival become the established next gen development machine of choice is a bitch. Moves which cost MS with the X-Box and SONY with the PS3, and imo SEGA with a delayed Saturn or DC.

No, I never claimed that SoJ didn't know of the Saturn's existence or the possibility of a 1994 release

Oh Come on ...

some things point to a strong impression of the Saturn possibly missing the 1994 launch, let alone the US release being managed differently).

They is always a chance a console will miss its ship date. Why do you always bring that up with SEGA, did the PS3 not miss its ship date, the N64 not miss its ship date (was planned for 1995) wasn't they plenty of talk that the 360 would miss ists ship date.

It happens to all the corps, so get over it with regards to the Saturn.

No, not really, especially if SoA knew all about the Saturn's existence from the start,

Please there is no IF about it

Also remember that 32x was NOT just supposed to be a next gen system

Tell that to SEGA American; Who said it would give Genesis users Next Gen/32 bit visuals at mass Market price and praised it next gen visuals

It would have been very smart to keep the MD and GG going strong,

Which SEGA did, they didn't pull Mega Drive hardware manufacture and still made some top games for the Mega Drive even with the 32 and Saturn.

the Jupiter would still have been a very good idea if they wanted any chance of getting into the US mass market before 1996/97

The Jupiter was the Saturn (well minus the CD-Rom) and so would have suffered from all the Saturn issues like poor tools, development kits, hard to program for ECT, ECT . Yes it would have been cheaper (but that was only a short term issue for the Saturn) , but games would have been more expensive

[kool kitty89]

conclusion, had SEGA given the 32X a more solid foundation (than a stop gap) like also make it an additional feature of the Saturn (in addition to being available as add-on $149 accessory to the Genesis), 'the Saturn cartridge slot also accepts 32X carts.

Why do you keep going on about the 32x like it was Sega's missed path to success? You are talking about the historical 32x, right, and not somethign totally different. (like the near-Jupiter type design you ended up implying before)

Both the Saturn and 32x were heavily flawed, and not just relatively straightforward omissions like the N64's use of carts over low-cost mass storage, but a much more complex situation from hardware design to software development to management to marketing, etc.

If you want to go for an ideal design for Sega in pure hindsight, I think we've already established a lot of possibilities (ie a more cost effective short-term design compromised to cater strongly to Japan but at least mesh reasonably well with the world market, Sega looking to cater to their international strengths and scrapping the existing Saturn in favor of something a year or so later with much greater efficiency and tuned much better for the mass market trends that were becomign obvious even by 1993)... However, there's some even stranger hardware decisions made (let alone software or management wise) that seem to make little sense even from the perspective of the time. (ie 1993/94)

There would have been a great chance that SEGA AM2 would have worked on a Virtua Fighter 32X sequel and not worried their time on a 16-bit Genesis animation version.

The 2 have nothing to do with eachother though, and catering to the MD made a hell of a lot more sense than the 32x... Sega should have catered more to the MD than they did at the time (albeit more towards re-releases to reap late gen profits). They probably would have had the Genesis game regardless to cache in on the late gen market. (not a bad idea really, so long as they got decent sales relative to production costs -ie managed profits)

They'd moved on to Saturn by that time so the 32x was moot and was a bad idea in related to the Saturn. The way the 2 machines were designed and released made them mutually exclusive.

There could have been two versions of Virtua Fighter 2 for Saturn, the Saturn version on disc, or the cartridge version for 32X (also playable on Saturn).

Jupiter perhaps, but not 32x.

SEGA would have never gained the reputation as a company that lack product commitment as it did when it canned 32X, then Saturn, and then Dreamcast before their time to the public.

The commitment issue hut PR some, but that was a lesser problem compared to the rest of the mess due to overlapping products, conflicts of interest, sloppy management, hardware problems from cost to capability, software problems, etc, etc.

[kool kitty89]

Only In Japan

No, I mean went toe to toe as in a face off, which was rather poorly handled due to Sega's lack of focus.

They lost sight of the big picture: profits, something Nintendo always kept sight of.
The MD/Genesis WAS the main product until late 1996 (at least in their biggest market -North America again accounted for some 60% of the MD's market). The 32x definitely hurt that compared to what they could have done matching Nintendo's push for more software (especially "safe" bets in established franchises as well as games catering to the mass market appeal).

They should have had the Genesis as the mainstay system phasing into the highly profitable (but lower profile) late-gen budget market in mid/late '96 with the Saturn transitioning to their mainstream console at the same time.
Having the Saturn out in summer/fall of '95 wouldn't have been a bad idea given the overall timing (and lack of better options), but as such it should have been carefully managed and positioned for the nextgen high-end market and done so in a prudent manner as well. (maybe push harder in Europe sooner since the 4th gen seemed to die down more quickly, but in the US it was a different situation and Sega definitely needed a controlled and gradual build-up from 1995 to mid/late 1996 where they really needed to step it up to full throttle and lay on everything they had, it was critical that they not burn out too soon, and also critical that they keep the Genesis in a prime market position given the Saturn -and 5th gen market as a whole- was goign to take over a year to pick up fully, in part due to the rather heavy slump the entire NA market entered in 1993 and didn't recover from until late 1996)

Burning themselves out too early seems to have been exactly what happened, Sega had to pull back their plans for a massive Summer/Fall marketing campaign in 1996, the most critical and defining sales season on the North American market, the one that fully solidified Sony's position, brought out the N64 with roaring success (in spite of a tiny launch lineup), and Saw Sega inch along only modestly increasing sales by comparison. (and thus drastically losing market share)

They jumped the gun, one of the main mistakes that killed Sega's 5th gen market. (the 32x was part of that too, a complex mound layered with mistakes and unfortunate events)

And to be clear, I don't mean they should have shifted all their marketing budget from the Saturn+32x over to the MD. What I mean is keep the MD/Genesis supported and reasonably well promoted (not saturated, but enough to keep the masses reasonably well informed of the new hot games, changes in price point, special offers, etc) and push the Saturn a bit stronger than the MD in that respect, enough to create good awareness and interest in general.
However, temper that by not overdoing it too early, focus on building up a reasonable reserve and holding back until the time is ripe to strike. (have a pretty strong push reight before the Summer launch and into Christmas and pull back until late the next Summer with an even biger push promoting the new killer apps available and coming for the holiday season)

The 32x was neither the gateway to the next generation nor the way to clinch the 16-bit market, it failed on both accounts and, honestly, I don't see how it would have made sense for the time either, at least if all the variables (within Sega) were known. (external influences would have been less reasonable to be fully aware of in some cases -ie exactly what Sony's plans were and just how hard they were willing to push -indeed Sony's actions were unprecedented in many cases, though more predictable in others)

So we're all in agreement , That Japanese hardware launches nearly always have a small number of games , or launch games that are much good .

Usually small, whether they're good is less consistent. (the biggest exception to that is the N64 and SNES off the top of my head, both with killer apps, and both also with almost the same lineup in the US -actually fewer for the N64- but in both cases with killer, console defining pack-in titles -the Saturn had a flash in the pan killer app, but only for Japan, VF was weak in the US and didn't do much for the Saturn, especially the very buggy game they brought out)

Even with a weaker quality title than SM64, a killer franchise (ie any half decent Sonic game) as well as a strong Sega Sports lineup would have had a massive impact on the Saturn, though a bunch of decent to good filler titles (and the occasional outstanding game like Panzer Dragoon) certainly would have helped as well. (like Sony had for the PSX's rollout ) Of course, a Summer launch would still have been far better overall.

What just lose more and more ground to SONY ? and also lose development support and for the Saturn not to be the lead development platform for Multi Platform games , That for sure would have worked

No, loose less ground to Nintendo (who was pushing ahead in strides on the mass market at the time). 5th gen was little fish at the time, the future yes, but they weren't living enough in the present in some respects.

And yes, they needed to manage things carefully to build up a strong position with the Saturn while balancing there critical position on the 16-bit market. (the 32x again didn't help do either, though the Saturn made it even worse after the fact)
See above about my comments ont he balance and careful compromise needed.
Dumping the Game Gear was also pretty dumb, they seemed to thing that putting all their eggs in one basket was a good idea; it ended up contributing heavily to their ruin. (screwing the market with overlapping products was bad too, again a consolidated mess compounded from various sources)

What the Saturn?. That makes no sense what so ever , sorry.

No, I didn't just mean delaying the Saturn as it was and releasing it later, but going back further, say late 1993 (if not earlier) and establishing that the Saturn's design is unacceptable and thus scrapping it in favor of a follow-on design building on some of the Saturn's hardware (to save R&D costs) while making more radical changes to other areas for a more comprehensive final redesign addressing many of its flaws (from difficulty of development to cost efficency to pure 3D capabilities, etc) and I've already given some general possibilities that that might have entailed (interesting that one major thing that would address most issues is caching/buffering and consolidation as that both greatly increases cost effectiveness -allows a single unified bus and less board space- as well as being far more high-level friendly).
I think I detailed that even in this thread a few posts back (around the spot Gamegenie mentioned Sonic 64 iirc).

Now, that certainly would have cost Sega their short-term lead over Sony with the Saturn's temporary early success, but it also would have given them a machine that literally could best Sony and Nintendo (technically at least) on every front while giving Sega key advantages if they played their cards right. (hardware with potential somewhat closer to the Dreamcast in terms of development tools and high-level performance as well as PC ports while still retaining great 2D capabilities and catering to Sega arcade ports.
Something that could have been released still close to a year ahead of the N64 in Japan (if rushed at least), and probably closer to the N64's launch date in the US.

Hell, if they really wanted to hold Japan in the interim, that's where they should have had the stop-gap system, not the US. (could have slapped together something somewhat like the 32x, perhaps more like the Jupiter in some respects -probably with forwards compatibility for the New Saturn- but fully standalone and fairly inexpensive, offering enough power to manage reasonable quality -audio and video wise- ports of hot arcade games that were driving Sega's Japanese market at the time) They could have afforded to not rush the New Saturn in that case too, push more for a fall 1995 release rather than early (giving close to a full year longer for Saturn development)

They should have dropped the 32X and moved all production to Saturn ?

Hell no, they should have shifted some to Saturn, but made damn sure the Genesis got what it needed to maintain a strong position on the dominant 16-bit market, especially in the critical period up to the end of 1996 where the 16-bit market towered over the 32-bit one (and afterwords in the critical role on the budget market).
If the Sega CD was still selling at at least a slightly profitable level, that should have been kept too (same with the SMS, though I doubt it was selling at a significant level in Europe by the end of '95 -even the NES got pulled that year in the US).

As I said above, the 5th gen was important to establish a position in, but absolutely needed to be tempered by the continuing 4th gen market. (not until '99 could they reasonably turn their back on the 16-bit market completely -ie start phasing out the genesis from the budget market- though by '97 it would have shifted totally to the budget market sector and the 5th gen had finally taken over -sort of like the Genesis/SNES in 1992 in the US)

Yes and then we would learn if the Super Mega Drive was real.

Yep, though I wouldn't call it that, and it would also be good to know if that was the Mars project Nakayma presented or if that was something different.
Joe Miller would certainly be easier to contact on the subject, but I'm not sure he's willing to discuss it (he definitely said he didn't want to rehash the 32x anymore, but maybe he'd givn an exception for a related topic as such).

He'd also be the one to confirm or deny the quoted statement from him claiming that he specifically argued against Sato's Mars design to Nakayma in favor of an add-on form factor.
Hell, maybe Sam Pettus has the source interview for that quote he could supply. (he unfortunately poorly cited his article -a compiled list without internal citation, but AFIK noone had actually contacted him directly on that subject, or at least noone at Sega-16 -which of course hosts several of his articles)

Really ? That's why they've closed most of Their In-House teams and out source most of your game development, For ages tried to no admit to the TROD problem, increasing the Live Sub, charging ridiculous prices for 360 add-ons - All in a effort to make the X-Box program profitable No ?

In an extremely confused and fairly typical bureaucratic, yes.

In 1995 it was clear to almost everyone (even the most Bias SEGA fan) the 32X had no future.

Only because Sega chose to push it that way... in hindsight it's pretty clear the Saturn also had no future because of the situation amassing. And even if it DID have a future, that future would be a good 15+ months away if it hit the market strong (which it didn't).

Sega made a bad move worse by not handling the 32x with more tact after the fact. Yes, it would have been better unreleased, but they way they canceled it and the way they brought out the Saturn just hurt them more.
They should have continued promoting the 32x alongside the Genesis and CD at a fairly tempered level (relatively low-key) and carefully transitioned into hyping the Saturn from spring of '95 building up through summer for the September (perhaps August would have been prudent) launch and promoting through the holiday season while taking a "wait and see" approach on the 32x (and probably canceling the Neptune since it really couldn't replace the Genesis in the role of budget console -too expensive, had the 32x been a 1/3 of the price and even less to integrate it would have been a different story, but it didn't work out that way). If the 32x showed continued sales on a profitable level, they could have continued support (and perhaps pushed out dev tools to facilitate cross 32x-Saturn development -something they should have pushed back in early '95 to beef up the Saturn's library and promote cross-platform development all around).

It's highly unlikely if 32x sales would have gotten strong enough to compete with the MD, but if they did, that's the exact circumstances that would favor the release of the Neptune.
Again, that probably wasn't the case, and the 32x probably wasn't going to push through the dominant 16-bit market... and Neither was the Saturn or PSX until late 1996. (not at all for the Saturn -I think even under Majesco the Genesis continued selling more than the Saturn ever did)

And you're not listing to what I'm saying . The Japanese paymasters would have never allowed that, more so when they were developing their own chipset.

And that's exactly what happened, with Sega at least, Nakayma resoundingly declined the proposal by Kalnske's account.

However, I don't see why the initial collaboration couldn't have taken place given they were software houses with common interests and had already worked on several combined efforts on the Sega CD (the main reason behind initiating the hardware design proposal).
It would be easy enough to confirm with interviews with Olaf Olerfsson or Joe Miller. (yet another thing Miller could account for )

And just to believe Tom Bullshit for a minute....What makes you think SONY America hardware would have been any better than the PS, never mind how SONY would have been in the ridiculous position of having the America side backing SEGA and the Japanese side backing its own PS. Never mind if SONY America would have been able to deliver the Tech on time and to Budget

I never claimed any of that. I never claimed Sony of America had any hardware either. It was both STI and Imagesoft who set up the project and didn't actually get to any hardware development.
I was never arguing for it as necessarily a good overall idea (especially since Nintendo almost got screwed by Sony before that), but simply that the claim made reasonable sense.

However, I do think that it was an excellent idea to probe the US software development scene to glean ideas for the next generation hardware and that's something SoJ really could have benefited from with the Saturn design. (both in terms of hardware design and software tools, regardless of whether Sony actually did any studies as such, the PSX definitely represents an almost perfect combination of features for the world market at the time, both in sheer hardware design and software support to match -buying Psygnosis and having them build the western SDKs was an amazing strategy to build onto their already very programmer friendly hardware -not just at the high level, but in terms of general programmability; raw power vs cost vs programmability vs development time are all common engineering trade-offs and they need to be weighed largely by the product's intended market position and intended use, in the past a powerful/tight design could have been favorable especially if that made it more cost effective -not the case with the Saturn at all- but bu the mid 90s things had changed dramatically and Sega seemed to fail recognizing that --oddly, in spite of the excellent design of the PSX, Sony f*cked up big time with the PS2 in that respect, but they managed to overcome that with other advantages though the games usually suffered heavily -ironically the Dreamcast was much more of a spiritual Successor to the PSX and if Sony had designed the PS2 more like that along with meshing with backwards compatibility they could have had a cheaper system with better looking games -especially multiplatform- and far fewer development delays, it's a bit hard to imagine the PS2 hittign even bigger than it did, but it probably would have under those conditions)

160 dollars is 'small beer' ? . Maybe in the USA, but to most its a lot of money.

You misread what I said again:
I said: "nope to 160 being chump change" as in $160 is NOT chump change, and I agreed on that point, but then I elaborated on the general context of things.
The 32x and Saturn were both wrong. Saturn was too expensive and flawed (some inherent to hardware others tied to management/software related stuff), 32x was both too cheap/rushed/weak and too expensive/substantial: too expensive to be a good complement to the Genesis and Saturn, too substiantial/powerful to not overlap with the Saturn in a harmful manner, and too cheap/weak/rushed to actually be a viable long-term platform in the lack of Saturn. (a more well thought out system at similar cost could have been a very different story)

It was £100 more expensive, but it didn't matter . People wanted it and that was the difference.

Yes, but the point was that they could MADE to want it. There's a limit to it though. No matter what Sony did, $400 in 1995 would have been too much for the PSX, and they'd have been a lot weaker (and Sega much better off) if they'd pushed for $300 in 1996.
The PS2 was more expensive than some of the competition (especially the shaky Sega and weakening Nintendo competition, both with far more fickle market perception and tarnished brand names from their heights several years earlier). They were at the same price as MS, a newcomer without the marketing prowess or recognition (especially in foreign markets) and without out of the box DVD.

Sony smartly managed the price point (they probably could have afforded to dump it more, but why do that when you don't need to?), they had enough selling points and hype to push forward and the price was right. The competition would have needed a lot more than just a cheaper product to win, and even with Sega's huge push with marketing the DC, it still didn't compete with Sony's PR machine and related hype, let alone Sega's own heavily tarnished brand name and Sony's shining market position all around.

However, Sony still could have screwed that up... they already did make some big mistakes (like the hardware design and a lack of even optional tools to push weaker games with high-level tools -the hardware would never perform well as such, but many 3rd parties did build their own APIs and tools to ease simpler/lower quality ports and faster development).
On the price issue alone, $300 was fair for the market, but like the PS3 (which was also up against stronger competition and a shift in the nature of the market in general), pushing that to $400-500 would have been another story entirely. (actually, $400 in 2000 would have been relatively less than the $500 20 GB PS3 model, so really more like $440-525 in 2000)
Had Sony done that then yes, Sega probably would have had a much better chance with the Dreamcast. (Nintendo and MS too)

And that's your trouble, you over complicate things . In a nut shell the Amiga Tech went from Atari hands to Commodore in a nutshell

And you oversimplify things. Doing that makes history no fun and also often gets it very wrong.
if you don't want to discuss the complex nuances of the topic, then don't bring it up, or at least don't bring it up with me or anyone else who seriously cares about the historical perspective. (ie Atari Historians among others )

Yes launching latter and letting your rival become the established next gen development machine of choice is a bitch. Moves which cost MS with the X-Box and SONY with the PS3, and imo SEGA with a delayed Saturn or DC.

Nope, it's one factor, and sometimes critical but often not. It's a multitude of factors and both the PS3 and Saturn have that in common, the PS3 could have easily kept its launch data and the Saturn pushed to a year later if they'd managed to solve the multitude of other errors: ie if Sega had a machine that could kick Sony's ass or at least meet them reasonably with some advantages that mattered on the mass market (ie 3D capability, cost effectiveness, ease of development, critical killer exclusives, etc).
In the PS3's cases had they undercut MS's price and had an even better development environment with easier to use hardware (even nominally inferior hardware -like Dreamcast vs PS2), as well as full PS2 backwards compatibility out of the box, the 2006 PS3 could have been a winner right off the bat.
Then again, had they released the very same machine (or almost the same) a year earlier with an even higher price tag and reliability problems rivaling MS's, they'd almost certainly have done significantly worse.

You seem to put way too much stock in release dates, sometimes it matters, sometimes it doesn't. (like the MD, it easily could have launched a year later and might have been better off for it -especially with the implied hardware improvements of such, all that mattered on top of that was that Sega get good marketing/management in the US -ie strengthened SoA and Katz/Kalinske leadership with at least a notable presence in 1990 and early '91 as well as critical killer apps appearing by '91 -from Sega Sports to Sonic) Hell, the SNES didn't so much screw up with a late release (a smart move given the NES's market -also very smart to keep the NES well supported in its very prominent early 90s years -much longer in Japan), but it was more an issue that the SNES was a bit weak for being 3 full years newer than the PCE and at least 2 years newer than the MD tech. (ie it was relatively weak and disappointing as such, if some of that had been at the expense of backwards compatibility it would have been more acceptable, but that was not the case whatsoever)

Oh Come on ...

Sorry, type, I meant SoA.

They is always a chance a console will miss its ship date. Why do you always bring that up with SEGA, did the PS3 not miss its ship date, the N64 not miss its ship date (was planned for 1995) wasn't they plenty of talk that the 360 would miss ists ship date.

It happens to all the corps, so get over it with regards to the Saturn.

Yes, but the point is, at least by the accounts mentioned specifically for SoA in that context, that they may have had the decisive impression that it was highly likely that the Saturn was NOT going to make the 1994 release at all and that that was a big part of the Mars project's Japanese support. (not sure if that was true, or if it is when SoA found out otherwise, but back in the retroinspective article discussion I definitely got the impression that SoA staff working on the 32x were taken aback by the public announcement of the Saturn's launch)

Please there is no IF about it

Hardly, there's far more that needs to be researched and cross checked on the subject.
Even if SoA knew SoJ's full timeline for the Japanese release of the Saturn, that hardly means both were on the same page for what that meant for the 32x (ie SoJ may have thought Mars was still a good idea to have for one holiday season when that made absolutely no sense for the western market, or a multitude of other possibilities for conflicting assumptions on SoJ and SoA's parts).
That's exactly the sort of thing I want to find out more details on!

Tell that to SEGA American; Who said it would give Genesis users Next Gen/32 bit visuals at mass Market price and praised it next gen visuals

Yes, I didn't deny that, and my quoted post clearly implies that the 32x WAS supposed to be a next-gen system. Hence the "not just" as in "it wasn't only supposed to be a next gen system, but also address a number of other issues" if you actually read the comment. (namely that it was for the same reason Nintendo boosted software R&D in late '93/early 1994, a shame Sega didn't stick more with the MD alone like Nintendo did with the SNES)

Which SEGA did, they didn't pull Mega Drive hardware manufacture and still made some top games for the Mega Drive even with the 32 and Saturn.

Really, so Sega kept pushing the GG hard on the market in '96, '97, '98, how about '99? How many new games got released in '96?
Where were the new GG models?

If Sega was pushing the GG they sure were doing a shit job of it... by 1995 (let alone '96) they should have had a model that could finally compete with the GB on its terms (ie double digit battery life) while also being more compact and less expensive, in part due to sheer consolidation of the electronics but also one other major change... that's right a reflective (non backlit) LCD screen, something they probably could have pushed earlier, but would have had to compromise for pretty poor color ratios (ie effectively less than 6-bit RGB color -ie the master system palette-). By the mid 90s, mass market color LCD screens had gotten to the point of having acceptable contrast levels for reflective backed screens, thus removing the bane of the GG (and Lynx had it stuck around), unacceptably short battery life.
Of course, they could have kept deluxe models with backlights, but I'm sure the mass market would have strongly favored the far more useful unlit models in spite of the less attractive screen. (just as Nintendo dominated the market with no lighting for more than 1/2 of another decade, and a full decade before introducing backlighting -they not only waited for white LED lighting to become viable, but they waited for transflective screens to become cost effective before going with a true backlight in 2005)

The Jupiter was the Saturn (well minus the CD-Rom) and so would have suffered from all the Saturn issues like poor tools, development kits, hard to program for ECT, ECT . Yes it would have been cheaper (but that was only a short term issue for the Saturn) , but games would have been more expensive

Yes, it would have been cheaper, the critical problem with the Saturn... and if SoJ/SoA really felt a new console was needed by late 1994 (or even early 1995) it would have been FAR, FAR better.
Not only that, but having such a system would have promoted better development practices on the Saturn, maybe even pushed Sega to get better documentation (let alone tools) out for the system, but short of that it would at least have meant more developers attracted to the system and a much larger userbase.
Hell, maybe even enough to actually change the US market and accelerate the transition away from 4th gen stuff as well as emerging from the market-wide slump.

At very least it would have meant complementing the Saturn extremely well. (overlapping, but being directly compatible)

And cost was an issue for the Saturn;s entire life due to what Sony did, they continually pushed their prices too low for Sega to afford with their inefficient and expensive hardware... the option was take a big loss at retail or have a more expensive (and "inferior") system on the market compared to both Sony and (later on) Nintendo.
If it hadn't been for Sony, Sega probably would have kept the Saturn at $300 through almost all of 1996 (maybe dropped to $250 to match Nintendo by the holiday season) and probably would have still been $200 through 1997 (vs $150 -again, dependent on Nintendo to some extent), and depending on what Nintendo did, they may not have dropped to $100 until 1999.

At those same prices Sony was also selling at a significantly loss (at least up to '97), and they not only had cheaper hardware, but also deflated that further with extensive vertical integration (not only manufacturing almost every component in-house, but already owning the license for the CPU prior to the PSX as well as holding patents for CD technology and already being a major manufacturer of CD-ROM drives -which were relatively inexpensive to produce -compared to floppy disk drives for example- but were expensive on the mass market due to the premium most 3rd parties charged due to licensing/patent royalties, something only Sony could cancel out as such -Phillips to some extent too, but they were in a rather different position and never tried to push an advanced highly cost optimized mass-market consumer game machine as such -let alone selling it at a loss, not even remotely close to the model used for the CD-i ).

[gamegenie]

Why do you keep going on about the 32x like it was Sega's missed path to success? You are talking about the historical 32x, right, and not somethign totally different. (like the near-Jupiter type design you ended up implying before)

yeah ultimately it was the beginning of the end for them.

Both the Saturn and 32x were heavily flawed

yes yes they were, which I did state from previous postings ITT from 32X plan/marketing to Saturn's hardware design and support.


I still conclude with my previous post. TY

[Team Andromeda]

which was rather poorly handled due to Sega's lack of focus.

Now you're talking. Lack of focus was the key.

Should have just backed the Saturn for a mid 1995 launch and moved all Production to the Saturn, even games like Vectorman II, Comix Zone to the Saturn, and just support the Mega Drive with great Bundles and price cuts and leave 3rd parities do the rest (kind of what SONY did with the PS2 after the PS3)

(the biggest exception to that is the N64 and SNES off the top of my head, both with killer apps, and both also with almost the same lineup in the US -actually fewer for the N64- but in both cases with killer, console defining pack-in titles -the Saturn had a flash in the pan killer app, but only for Japan, VF was weak in the US and didn't do much for the Saturn, especially the very buggy game they brought out

Now're you changing it; Killer App is a different to having a number of titles at launch. And don't be so silly about VF is was hardly a flash in the pain, but a Arcade and console sensation for SEGA; What next SF II a flash in the pan ?

like Sony had for the PSX's rollout

Right if I was to play your game of clever dick , I should point out that the PSX only ever came out in the Japan and is a PS2 (with extra media functions) , But to go back to the PS; It had Ridge racers or Toshinden; the PS launch was equally poor in Japan.

And with out the 32X, SEGA would have had a NFL Game, Golf game, even Fifa on the Saturn, and have VR Deluxe, Doom, Star Wars, VF, Panzer, Day ECT. More than decent launch line up imo.

No, loose less ground to Nintendo

And let SONY to have become even more dominate?, and then try and face NCL with all the 3rd parties in the Sony or NCL camp . Great plan that

5th gen was little fish at the time, the future yes

It was Big at the time and important to SEGA not to lose consumers to the SONY brand.

Now, that certainly would have cost Sega their short-term lead over Sony with the Saturn's temporary early success, but it also would have given them a machine that literally could best Sony and Nintendo (technically at least) on every front while giving Sega key advantages if they played their cards right. (hardware with potential somewhat closer to the Dreamcast in terms of development tools and high-level performance as well as PC ports while still retaining great 2D capabilities and catering to Sega arcade ports.

Totally redesign a console is not going to be cheap, and the Saturn was the best SEGA could produce at the time, and it's naive to think the Saturn lost out to technical reasons; Why did the X-Box lose out the PS2 ?

It done everything you said SEGA should have done with the Saturn/DC. It launched latter (2 years just like the N64 over Saturn), had a killer app, great number of Launch software, Built In Ethernet port, and completely and utterly wipe the floor with the PS2 Tech Spec's

And what happened? , it could completely killed in sales and was even out sold by the Cube in the end

but made damn sure the Genesis got what it needed to maintain a strong position on the dominant 16-bit market

I would have left that to 3rd parties and made the Sonic Team make a Sonic game for the Saturn, rather than push ahead with Sonic & Knuckles, Ristar for the MD myself

In an extremely confused and fairly typical bureaucratic, yes.

So its not Pride, it really comes down to Profits doesn't it ?

And that's exactly what happened, with Sega at least, Nakayma resoundingly declined the proposal by Kalnske's account

Bullshit

Only because Sega chose to push it that way

Try the consumer and 3rd Parties .

I never claimed Sony of America had any hardware either.

So why bring up SONY then ?

You misread what I said again

I didn't misread anything . 160 to you is 160 to me , It really is that simple

Yes, but the point was that they could MADE to want it.

Thank you, Price alone is not the only thing, you got to make people want your system and SEGA America didn't do that with the Saturn

And you oversimplify things

Good comeback

the PS3 could have easily kept its launch data

if SONY didn't have issues with Production I guess so

so Sega kept pushing the GG hard on the market in '96, '97, '98, how about '99? How many new games got released in '96

So we're moving on to the GG now ?. How many games have NCL made for the GBA these last few years , or since the DS came out ? How many games do you think SONY will make for the PSP, when the PSP 2 comes out?, How many SNES games got released in 96, 97 , 98, how many N64 games got released in 2001, 2002, 2003, how about 2004?

the critical problem with the Saturn

Price, did that hold back the PS2 ?

SoA knew SoJ's full timeline for the Japanese release of the Saturn

Well you could say SOJ and SOA didn't talk directly , but SOA couldn't read ? The General Press all knew SOJ were hell bent on a late 1994 Saturn ship date, I knew it, so did Importers

And cost was an issue for the Saturn;s entire life due to what Sony did, they continually pushed their prices too low for Sega to afford with their inefficient and expensive hardware

I say again, SOJ were able to cut the price and take the lead with the Saturn in japan and with the White Saturn able to cut the PS price. So the expensive hardware issue was a short term issue.

not only manufacturing almost every component in-house

Its a little known fact, but Toshiba did most of the Manufacturer for the PS, Yes really

Both the Saturn and 32x were heavily flawed

What like the PS2 ?. Complete mess inside, complicated motherboard, no clean design, hard to program, difficulty CPU expensive development set up for ECT, ECT. My My, that never held back the PS2 , and my how the developers loved the need to program to the metal

[kgenthe]

Now you're talking. Lack of focus was the key.

This is what has been said numerous times, specifically in the "Should the 32x have been released?" thread. The 32x didn't kill the Saturn and Sega. Sega's lack of focus, and hardware-first mentality is what killed Sega. The 32x was a symptom of that.

While it's easy to point the blame at the 32x for the demise of Sega, it's hardly fair. A smarter company can bounce back from a failure like that. The Virtual Boy was just a bump in the road for Nintendo, it didn't ruin them. Sony bounced back from a sluggish/poor launch of the PlayStation 3.

Sega thought the 32x and Saturn were competing in different markets, but they were obviously very wrong. The Pico and the Genesis competed in 2 different markets, and thus no one accusing the Pico of slowing Genesis sales down.

I do believe Tom K honestly though the Sega 32x would be a success, and I doubt he saw having to 32-bit systems on the market at the same time would be a problem. Perhaps with more focused advertising, the 32x could have worked. $160 system for people who can't afford a $400 system does make some sense. But this was obviously not even close to executed correctly.

By the time Sega realized that they couldn't support all of their hardware, they killed off everything but the Saturn, which was obviously a terrible idea as well. Again, another sign of Sega's incompetent leadership. As we can see now, the correct plan is to keep your core system on the market for the budget audience (Genesis), keep your handheld around for easy profit (Game Gear), and focus on your next gen hardware (Saturn).

Sega though the 32x wouldn't compete with the Saturn, but in reality it was the Genesis that would not aliente the Saturn audience.

I still love the 32x, it's a terrific piece of hardware, considering it went from nothing to retail product in less than a year. On top of that, there is some great software to be found. Should it have been released? Obviously not, but would that have saved the Saturn? Not with the leadership at that time. They would have found some other way to ruin everything. And we would be blaming that on Sega's demise.

[gamegenie]

LMAO SEGA pulled a two-ffer

Virtua Fighter 2 - iphone review
http://wireless.ign.com/articles/114/1145386p1.html



SEGA

[Chilly Willy]

This is what has been said numerous times, specifically in the "Should the 32x have been released?" thread. The 32x didn't kill the Saturn and Sega. Sega's lack of focus, and hardware-first mentality is what killed Sega. The 32x was a symptom of that.

While it's easy to point the blame at the 32x for the demise of Sega, it's hardly fair. A smarter company can bounce back from a failure like that. The Virtual Boy was just a bump in the road for Nintendo, it didn't ruin them. Sony bounced back from a sluggish/poor launch of the PlayStation 3.

Sega thought the 32x and Saturn were competing in different markets, but they were obviously very wrong. The Pico and the Genesis competed in 2 different markets, and thus no one accusing the Pico of slowing Genesis sales down.

I do believe Tom K honestly though the Sega 32x would be a success, and I doubt he saw having to 32-bit systems on the market at the same time would be a problem. Perhaps with more focused advertising, the 32x could have worked. $160 system for people who can't afford a $400 system does make some sense. But this was obviously not even close to executed correctly.

By the time Sega realized that they couldn't support all of their hardware, they killed off everything but the Saturn, which was obviously a terrible idea as well. Again, another sign of Sega's incompetent leadership. As we can see now, the correct plan is to keep your core system on the market for the budget audience (Genesis), keep your handheld around for easy profit (Game Gear), and focus on your next gen hardware (Saturn).

Sega though the 32x wouldn't compete with the Saturn, but in reality it was the Genesis that would not aliente the Saturn audience.

I still love the 32x, it's a terrific piece of hardware, considering it went from nothing to retail product in less than a year. On top of that, there is some great software to be found. Should it have been released? Obviously not, but would that have saved the Saturn? Not with the leadership at that time. They would have found some other way to ruin everything. And we would be blaming that on Sega's demise.

QFT... and rep!

[kool kitty89]

QFT... and rep!

Ditto (including rep), he said it a lot more concisely than I would have... (I've said things to very similar effect before, but usually buried in a bigger post and possibly more cluttered even in the segment pertaining to the issue)

This is what has been said numerous times, specifically in the "Should the 32x have been released?" thread. The 32x didn't kill the Saturn and Sega. Sega's lack of focus, and hardware-first mentality is what killed Sega. The 32x was a symptom of that.

While it's easy to point the blame at the 32x for the demise of Sega, it's hardly fair. A smarter company can bounce back from a failure like that. The Virtual Boy was just a bump in the road for Nintendo, it didn't ruin them. Sony bounced back from a sluggish/poor launch of the PlayStation 3.

Yep, as I've said, it's a scapegoat (as is the Saturn -both problems in themselves but also created as integral symptoms of a bigger problem), same for blaming ET, Pac Man on the VCS, or the 5200 for Atari Inc's downfall or the 1983 crash. (the real culprit was much bigger overall management issues inside Atari and related issues with the market -like a poorly managed distribution network breeding inflated market demand figures and leading to the so-called glut among many other problems -and some tied to dual management of Warner and Atari Inc... not totally unlike the segmented regional management conflicts of Sega)

Sega thought the 32x and Saturn were competing in different markets, but they were obviously very wrong. The Pico and the Genesis competed in 2 different markets, and thus no one accusing the Pico of slowing Genesis sales down.

Yes, though I do wonder if SoJ and SoA's actual perceptions of said markets differed as well. (tying into the whole dual management issue, and miscommunication)

A big tie-in to that was the thought that not only would the 32x make a place as the low-end nextgen system, but also that it would fit directly into the 16-bit market and boost competition. (and that certainly wasn't the case, in large part due to the cost being too high to allow that -and too high to allow the Neptune to totally replace the Genesis under such conditions- and not to mention the pre-existence of the already substantial Sega CD coupled with the Genesis -and that wouldn't have been a bad idea to keep pushing in terms of conflicting market with the Saturn but would depend on whether marketing/software push in 1994 could have boosted it to viable long-term mass market levels -they'd made mistakes earlier that hurt that potential including software support issues, some unbalanced marketing and no low-cost duo system which could have been there in '93 alongside the introduction of the model 2)
Again, I think and SVP add-on might just have squeezed by OK due to the low cost and the fact it was weak enough to still leave a major gap for the Saturn. (so not a huge investment for existing users, potential to embed it on later model MDs standard, lots of flexibility/capability added to the system by it -also useful with the MCD- but cheap and weak enough to not hurt the Saturn -or the little it did detract would be more than made up with profits in its own market)

I do believe Tom K honestly though the Sega 32x would be a success, and I doubt he saw having to 32-bit systems on the market at the same time would be a problem. Perhaps with more focused advertising, the 32x could have worked. $160 system for people who can't afford a $400 system does make some sense. But this was obviously not even close to executed correctly.

Yes, though there's still unanswered questions about the actual original plans for Saturn in the US and how those changed (and who dictated the changes -and why).
Regardless of the 32x's existence, the Saturn's launch was a mess that made rather little sense. (they might not have predicted Sony's price cut, but that was just oen more thing on top of other definite/obvious problems from the tiny launch lineup to shortage of hardware and software supplies to leaving out key retailers and many/most 3rd party software houses, etc)

It's hard to tell how much he's embellishing, but in Kalinske's Sega-16 interview, he clearly claims that he thought the Saturn was being rushed out too soon: "we didn't have the software right, and we didn't have the price right" and also that he definitively believed at the time that the 16-bit market was going to be dominant well into 1996 (which it was, in the US at least), though I assume that the 32x was supposed to be an instrumental component of Sega's late 4th gen market position... and while that might have worked OK alongside the CD and plain Genesis for '95 onward, it still (almost certainly) never would have displaced the Genesis as the standard as such and quite possibly detract more than help (detract from the Genesis, CD, and Saturn), though I'll again argue that it might not have been the same case for a really simple low-cost add-on ($50-75 at lanuch perhaps $100 with a pack-in game with no external hook-ups required, pure plug&play) especially if they'd managed to push it out earlier (given the January initiation of Mars, perhaps by Spring of '94 -could have been really smart to halt Virtua Racing and hack it into a plain ROM cart and SVP module -even better if they added a little more to the module like a larger DRAM -still of the cheap/slow variety like the 512k chip in the MCD- and/or added DMA audio -simple like 32x/GBA PWM or Atari STe)

Yeah, I know, I'm rambling on with the hypothetical tech stuff again, but even trying to put yourself in Sega's shoes in early 1994, the SVP made a good amount of sense orther than not increasing color over the inherent MD capabilities. (though technically it could facilitate broader use of some tricks like hilight and shadow due to decompression capabilities and RAM to load/buffer into -only useful for cases where memory is the primary constraint for HL/Shadow rather than sprite/tile limits- and such a device would have nominal advantages over the SNES's Super FX -the SNES's VDP is actually more flawed for 3D rendering than the Genesis in several areas from DMA bandwidth to the planar graphics to the 32 kB VRAM bank size limit, and Silpheed shows what stylized Model 1/System 21/PC like flat shaded 3D could look -heavily texture mapped stuff could also be carefully pushed color wise, but I won't go into the details of realtime dithering possibilities or potential for dual layer rendering with shadow or HL+shadow)

They might have managed pretty competitive (trade-offs, better in some areas, weaker in others) Super FX level rendering on the Sega CD alone, but there's even more potential for CD+SVP with the ASIC drawing 3D based on SVP calculations (and SVP/68k doing any drawing the ASIC can't in hardware)... a smaller userbase for that but a hell of a lot larger than CD32x likely ever would have been.

By the time Sega realized that they couldn't support all of their hardware, they killed off everything but the Saturn, which was obviously a terrible idea as well. Again, another sign of Sega's incompetent leadership. As we can see now, the correct plan is to keep your core system on the market for the budget audience (Genesis), keep your handheld around for easy profit (Game Gear), and focus on your next gen hardware (Saturn).

Yes, they should have cut the conflicting/overlapping products (at least once it became pretty obvious that it wouldn't be profitable/favorable to support them), but even for the 32x they could/should have phased it out more carefully while bringing in the Saturn to the forefront to minimize negative PR and maintain customer loyalty. (maybe even offer a rebate for Saturn with proof of purchase of 32x -something like that they could still afford early on, before they started bleeding too much)
The CD should have been dropped by that point too, it might have been another story without the 32x (let alone if they'd done some other things better), but as it was it probably was best to let it die as quietly as possible in '96. Quite is key, phase out without major backlash or hurt consumers, and after the fact of the 32x's release that would have meant compromising over other market priorities to make sure they didn't unduly damage their core userbase (which would have additional repercussions for mass media -and given Sony fuel too), and that could have included taking actions that promoted 1st/2nd/3rd party projects to be completed (but no new projects started) with minimal cancellation and simultaneously pushing hard for better Saturn dev tools also including features to facilitate cross platform genesis/cd/32x development. (further easing the detriment on Saturn development support) Lots of other things they could have done better before hand, but there seem to have been plenty of chances to make the best of things after the fact that got squandered. (as it was they didn't even bother to push over the better 32x games to boost the Saturn's early lineup -and even building on the fully software+genesis rendered engines there were some immediate performance boosts from conversion to Saturn from the RAM bandwdith and capacity to the bumped CPU speed to the dedicated audio hardware -and CD- to much more powerful 2D hardware and then potential beyond that to tweak the software rendered segments of some engines to Saturn hardware acceleration where applicable -for triangle renderers they could haev used the VDP1 for shading and texture mapping but kept the software triangle rasterizer and not used VDP1's quads)

Technically the Genesis and GG were still officially supported and distributed (at least in the US) before being spun off to Majesco in '97 (who stepped in after Sega had halted manufacturing but prior to completely running out of stock -I think there may have been a short period where Sega was totally out of stock and Majesco hadn't yet started distribution -and assuming it's true that Sega did halt manufacturing in '96, they must have started up again due to Majesco as all the Majesco units had Sega hardware inside -and new revisions too)
Of course, even while still officially supporting them, they did heavily drop support on the software and marketing end (more than was prudent for a successful late market shift to budget) and likewise they didn't push for a strong re-release of old hit games.
The GG's drop in software support was a much more obvious issue and it declined in '96 and totally halted in '97 (not even any 3rd party releases in the US). And of course, no new/competitive redesign for '95/96 that finally got close to the GB in terms of battery life and compact size (obviously the pocket set a new standard but that had much weaker battery life too )... they wouldn't have needed a true successor for several more years (the stock GG was still better graphics wise than the GBC in many visible areas -sound was just as weak compared to GG vs GB) and a fully backwards compatible successor could have been fairly straightforward. (doubled VDP sort of like the System E, added FM -YM2612 embedded in the VDP would make sense, DMA sound, a faster Z80/derivative, maybe full 256x192 native resolution) Sort of ironic that Sega missed out on the GG on the hardware side while they overinvested in hardware elsewhere. (or if they waited long enough to be nearing the GBA -or Nintendo pushed out competition sooner in response- maybe they should have gone a step beyond the above with an added DSP and added logic to allow the SMS layers to be combined for a 256 color mode and packed bitmap to planar tile conversion for ease of rendering with the DSP -or go further and add blitter logic for texture rendering/scaling/rotation like the GBA and Sega CD -in that case the packed to planar tile conversion logic would probably be part of the blitter -or they could use the DSP for all that blitter like stuff but dedicated logic would be more cost effective and allow a much cheaper/simpler DSP to just help out with 3D math and such that the Z80 would be poor at)

...Sorry, really off topic with that one...

Sega though the 32x wouldn't compete with the Saturn, but in reality it was the Genesis that would not aliente the Saturn audience.

I don't think the 32x was strong enough/on the market long enough to actual compete with the Saturn (or PSX for that matter), but it left a mess along with the mismanaged Saturn alongside nevertheless. (it overlapped with Saturn, Genesis, and Sega CD markets to some extent)

If they'd kept pushing the 32x AND the Saturn in full parallel through the '95 holiday season and through '96, that would have been another story... though they also couldn't sustain such parallel/overlapping marketing as such.
Again, something like the Jupiter (not as cheap as 32x, but still closer to 1/2 the price of the Saturn, so mass market much earlier) would not overlap much with the Genesis at all (big price and performance gap) and while overlapping with the Saturn it would be fully forwards compatible with the Saturn for both software (and development tools/experience) and hardware (with a Saturn CD/RAM add-on).
Of course, Sega favoring that would mean still wanting a low-end entry into the nextgen but recognizing the folly of trying to merge that with a hardware product to extent the 16-bit market as well. (that's also assuming they couldn't push for a Saturn stripped down to much lower cost but retaining reasonably competitive capabilities -and expansion support, especially RAM- cutting out RAM and the odd/wasteful design features of the Saturn would have streamlined it very well -still tougher to develop for and better high and low level tools was another thing they needed to invest in but as it was they still managed to pull off very competitive 3rd party support in the first couple years against the PSX -but 1st/2nd party stuff, while innovative, had some major holes, especially for the US market)
And of course, the SVP lock-on would be the converse of that, also recognizing that it was impractical to push both a 16-bit enhancement that doubled as a low-end 5th gen competitor, but rather than pushing for the low-end nextgen size alone (and meshing better with the Saturn), they'd stick to the extending the 16-bit market with enhanced features (pushing closer to 5th gen in some areas, but closer to early 90s arcade/PC level stuff plus enhancements for pure 2D stuff) and meshing better with the Genesis market position and Sega CD. (and cheap enough to potentially do as SoJ supposedly pushed for with Mars originally and replace MD production with the upgraded system -adding the SVP ASIC and RAM to the motherboard of mid/late 1994 MDs should have been very cost effective -whether or not they opted for 512k over 128k would be a trade-off vs cost -for Sega or passed on to retail/consumer- and general utility for future games and ease of ports -especially PC ports that had to otherwise be totally remade from the ground up) And they could have pushed out a CD+genesis+SVP trio unit for ~$250 (maybe less) for fall of '94 in addition to the upgraded MD and SVP add-on for existing users.

Or instead of SVP at all (the existence with Virtua Racing makes it automatically attractive though) they could have realized that the stock Sega CD had potential to push more into the 3D side of things on top of the other merits (and ever more feasible price -cheaper than 32x in fall of '94), and in spite of the less than stellar 1st and 3rd party software push and some other earlier mistakes they could have pushed ahead fresh in 1994 and critically could have pushed a low-cost duo system (ie $200 fall of '94) based on the CD-X motherboard (to save R&D time/cost) but with a minimalistic form factor optimized for cost savings rather than the deluxe nature of the CD-X. (I personally like the potential of SVP+CD, but the potential for market saturation is better with focus on fewer products and the CD was already there so it was either it or both... both could have worked but would have been trickier -or also more fool proof in the case of the CD not gainign any more momentum but SVP add-on uptake and development support got very popular)

I still love the 32x, it's a terrific piece of hardware, considering it went from nothing to retail product in less than a year. On top of that, there is some great software to be found. Should it have been released? Obviously not, but would that have saved the Saturn? Not with the leadership at that time. They would have found some other way to ruin everything. And we would be blaming that on Sega's demise.

Yes, given it went from nothing and was built from the ground up in about 6 months (or slightly more to final production revisions), it's certainly impressive, but also crippled by the simplicity of such compared to the potential with much more dedicated logic and more comprehensive hardware design with more time but similar cost/price point.
But the problem is, it wasn't just time constraints either since Sega had tons of existing hardware to potentially infuse into the design... but that would have meant getting full silicon level schematics for such Japanese hardware and some related tech support to smooth things. (you had the Sega CD hardware -namely the ASIC and sound chip, Saturn hardware, and SVP to work with, and given the fully asynchronous interface of the CD embedded in the ASIC and designed for the MD specifically, that could have been a good starting point even with only some 6 months to hack it up: they could have taken that configuration and hacked it to work on the cartridge address range and go from there -they could have left the RAM/ASIC otherwise identical and just added the SVP for 3D but that would leave color out, so for the next step beyond that would have been embedding a no-frills 256 color VDC managing framebuffers like the 32x and then tweaking the ASIC to work on 8-bit pixels for 256 colors -maybe cut out the logic to format as Genesis VDP tiles/sprites unless that was felt to be critically useful as well- ... they also could have dropped the added 68k and SVP for an SH2, but the 68k+SVP configuration would probably have been far more cost effective and the 50 MHz clock of the Sega CD interface also caters perfectly to the 25 MHz rating of the SSP-1601 of the SVP plus if cost was really tight you could drop the added 68k entirely and use the MD CPU only -might also have been cheaper/more practical to use cheap/simple DMA sound inside the ASIC in place of the ricoh chip -or modify the interface to allow the ricoh chip to work in shared DRAM and ROM rather than dedicated PSRAM and thus remove the cost/space eaten by the PSRAM and make the ricoh chip much more flexible -loading samples straight from main RAM/ROM rather than having samples loaded by the CPU into a 64k buffer)

And in case you don't know the full implications of such a configuration: the ASIC manipulating the 256 color framebuffer rather than SH2(s) via software would be considerable: the ASIC embedded blitter logic well suited to (relatively) fast 2D rendering including affine texture rendering for scaling and rotation effects: that affine rendering could also be used on a line by line basis to fill objects/planes warped to 3D perspective (as you see with mode 7 like stuff and a few games using texture mapped polygons on the CD) so hardware texture mapping (albeit only line by line) in addition to a pretty. The SVP would provide the added performance needed for fast 3D math and could also help calculations for rasterization (setting the end points of horizontal lines to fill for texture/flat shading polygons), plus it should have been possible for use the SVP for some other things like ray-casting and accelerate column rendering for ray-casting games like Doom. (the ASIC only helps with line based rasterization, Doom and others -wolf 3D, Duke 3D, "voxel" engines, etc- use vertical columns rather than horizontal lines, something almost no 3D acceleration/blitter hardware supports -hence why the PSX version of Doom was redesigned to use polygons -some DSPs and most CPUs are flexible enough to work well for column renderers though CPUs especially are relatively inefficient for given cost...)



The historical 32x was sort of like a VGA PC with a fairly fast (say mid range 486DX) CPU but with the vastly more limited RAM capacity (and use of ROM), but similar in lack of emphasis on hardware design specific to rendering/graphics (or anything for that matter, just bitmap graphics and CPU grunt... plus the genesis hardware to back things up a bit, but VGA also has hardware scrolling which the 32x Super VDP lacks unfortunately -one of many possible simple additions -much simpler than a full blitter- that could have made a major difference on the 32x)





But with all that said, turning away from the historical/technical perspective, the 32x is certainly a neat system with a surprising number of cool games given the short life and some rather interesting homebrew potential.

[Chilly Willy]

The historical 32x was sort of like a VGA PC with a fairly fast (say mid range 486DX) CPU but with the vastly more limited RAM capacity (and use of ROM), but similar in lack of emphasis on hardware design specific to rendering/graphics (or anything for that matter, just bitmap graphics and CPU grunt... plus the genesis hardware to back things up a bit, but VGA also has hardware scrolling which the 32x Super VDP lacks unfortunately -one of many possible simple additions -much simpler than a full blitter- that could have made a major difference on the 32x)

Very concise summary. The lack of ram was especially bad for CD32X games, which is why existing CD32X games just use the 32X for better graphics on the standard CD game.

However, the 32X does support hardware scrolling... it's per line horizontally, and per screen vertically. The line table allows you to fully scroll the display both ways; an extra register allows you to scroll one pixel horizontally as the line table has a two pixel resolution in 256 color mode. You have enough frame buffer space to scroll two screens (in 256 color mode) without updating by the CPU. Since bitmapped graphics take longer to update than cell-based graphics, scrolling games on the 32X generally run the 32X layer at 30 FPS instead of 60 FPS like the MD graphics.

You can also do scrolling in direct color mode, but you don't have the frame buffer space to scroll much without updating by the CPU more often. You are also drawing twice as much data. The savings grace is that since you are scrolling, you only update the portion of the screen that is just being shown on one (or two) edge(s). So a slow scrolling shooter doesn't have much to update due to the scroll - most of the updates are changes to sprites.

[Team Andromeda]

While it's easy to point the blame at the 32x for the demise of Sega, it's hardly fair. A smarter company can bounce back from a failure like that. The Virtual Boy was just a bump in the road for Nintendo, it didn't ruin them. Sony bounced back from a sluggish/poor launch of the PlayStation 3.

The difference with VB, was that it wasn't a direct follow up to the GB and the HH market is very different. SEGA to many screwed up with the Nomad, the Game Gear the Mega CD. It didn't matter that much as SEGA was a major player in the Console Market, never mind the costs with 32 bit systems for Hardware and games development being all the greater

The Pico and the Genesis competed in 2 different markets, and thus no one accusing the Pico of slowing Genesis sales down

That is really complete different, for a number of reasons. Pico wasn't a add to the Master System to offer Mega Drive like graphics or sound,didn't have the same Mega Drive teams making games for the system, was never sold as cheaper way of getting a taste of the 16 bit Market at least than Mega Drive prices

[Da_Shocker]

While it's easy to point the blame at the 32x for the demise of Sega, it's hardly fair. A smarter company can bounce back from a failure like that. The Virtual Boy was just a bump in the road for Nintendo, it didn't ruin them. Sony bounced back from a sluggish/poor launch of the PlayStation 3.

I don't agree with that at all. The NES was huge worldwide and so was the SNES. Nintendo could take a bump in road. The SMS didn't fare well in the US and Japan. The Genesis sold liek shit in Japan. Sega had just had the SCD which didn't do to bad but it's not like it was shining beacon of great gaming. Nintendo had just sold over 60 million NES and what 40 million+ SNES. Then you look at Sony moving over 200 million PSX and and PS2. They can afford a slip up. Sega had mulitple fuck ups within a 3 year span.