Did 32X release too late?

[Barone]

I really don't know that. I have never seen NEO GEO sales figures or full production figures. I can admit that I don't consider the NEO GEO a consumer grade console, but that may not stop me from one day including it in the console histories. Currently it is a footnote for its humorous and incorrect spec based advertising in 1990-91. The only historical evidence I have observed about the NEO GEO is the ROM size, Cartridge pricing, "Console" pricing, and the fact that it was supported by SNK far longer than any other Arcade hardware or game console that I know of.

There are several NPD sales numbers from '90s showing that Neo Geo AES never break the 1,000 units sold mark within a single month; actually, some of them show stuff like 500 or 50 or, yeah, 5.
I would classify the Neo Geo AES as a high-end console, simple as that.
I know that a lot of people like to make some claims (also about the Neo Geo CD), stupid ones IMO, to say it is not a console due to its hardware being practically just a Neo Geo arcade board. I really find such "view" quite awful 'cause then one could say the Nomad wasn't a handheld and probably the original XBox was just a PC and so on... So, for the sake of the minded people, I think you should include it in your console history section, yes.

I brought the NEO GEO in because of a lapse in judgement. I thought everybody in the discussion would realize that there was nothing even remotely as capable as the 32X is in 1990-91, and used the only historical hardware available that could even do Arcade style scaling and rotation instead.

The X68000 would be a better example IMO, given its later life polygonal games.
But, as you, I also expected that people could easily understand that machines as powerful as the 32X would never be low-end or even mid-end consoles in 1989, 1990 or 1991.

I brought up the cost reduction equation to make a point, we don't know how much cost reduces because it has to be a case by case basis. Some hardware stays the same cost for its entire production run, some takes costly redevelopment to cost reduce, some naturally gets cheaper over time provided the manufacturers, all of them, keep making the same parts. It is a quagmire, not a simple easily understood formula that can allow us to dismiss some hardware and include others. I might be wrong for not including the NEO GEO with all of the other 16-bit consoles already, but the price of the carts gives me a practical historical excuse not to.

Neo Geo AES has several of its game cartridges relying on expensive and not-so-common components; so, it's really not a good comparison for the 32X as the Jaguar was.

Also, about your denial to consider manufacturing capacity when talking about 3DO retail price (or consoles in general):
3DO TO CUT PRICE OF INTERACTIVE GAME SYSTEMS
by CBR Staff Writer| 16 February 1994

3DO Co chief operating officer Hugh Martin says the company plans to cut prices of its Interactive Multiplayer video game system significantly this year as it increases manufacturing capacity.
I think that is a "primary source" as you say, so I hope you'll consider it from now on and include it whenever you compare the 3DO price to the 32X in your historical perspective.

And, as I've mentioned earlier, the 3DO's business model also affected the 3DO Multiplayer retail price and to ignore that is also bad from a historical perspective. See:
Mr. Nakayama said Sega had an early chance to be 3DO's manufacturer but declined because hardware does not make money. Sega, because it makes its profits on software, will be able to sell its 32-bit machine for less than Matsushita, which will depend on hardware for its profits.

3DO was extremely different than the 32X, and in the same market by the time, in the US especially, 3D really exploded. I cannot separate the 3DO, Jaguar and 32X in any discussion, they are part of the same scheme and hope for edging into a new trend. More below.

You don't need to exclude or separate them, but you might be fair in your arguments if you want to sound any serious about using a historical perspective. You can't just dismiss the huge gap in terms of production run 'cause you "never saw" sales figures or articles of the time showing that off; as well as you shouldn't ignore the dramatic differences in 3DO's and Sega's business models for the console hardware market.

Very useful info here. 2000 stores times 3 consoles is 6000, times ten is 20,000. So we know that the initial shipment was between 6000 to ~15,000 units realistically. That is a very low production run not at all on par with a mainstream game console launch. That number could be totally wrong though, since there is apparently no data on what all retail stores received much less sold. Similarly, in 1993 and early 1994 I only saw 3DOs at specialty electronics shops such as Bjorns.

That's still better than blind-shot statements.

You did imply the Jaguar design as an add-on by putting it in a thread about the 32X being released earlier.

No, I didn't imply anything; again, the point was about the graphics the Jaguar could deliver being released in 1993 for $250 compared to the ones that the 32X + Genesis setup could deliver being the 32X released in late 1994.

As for my defense of the 32X, I admit I have been a lot heavy handed recently. Mostly because 1995 is where my interest in the game industry as a whole dies off. If the 3DO or Jaguar had a consistent hate group around here (less than 50% of the group at last count loves to hate the 32X) I would defend them as well. The 3DO and Jaguar threads I was posting in stayed dead though. If you use your super ninja search skills you will find that I never defend the 32X as "THE ONLY OPTION FOR SEGA" or as a "Best of" product for Sega, merely that it actually functioned as it was intended by all historical accounts. It countered the Jaguar and boosted Sega's revenue over Nintendo's for 1994. This is not exactly what I would call a glowing review from me, I'm not sure why you are trying to paint it as such.

I'm not trying to paint you this or that way, I'm just pointing some flaws in your positive narrative about the 32X. I'd do the same for any console or add-on if I find you or anybody else making half-true or half-sourced statements.

The OP maybe should have asked if non-textured lit 3D of up to 25k polys per second was outdated by 1994.

Yes, I agree.
About your question, I think it was outdated by late 1994 standards, yes. By late 1993, I would say "no!!!".

The Sega CD is part of the discussion as well. Your not including it does not matter.

That's your opinion and nothing more. As I see it, outside the always-present-permanent-sega-16-topic "Alternate Reality", the Sega CD should stay out of this discussion since its library is pretty much a no-go in terms of polygonal games, be it textured or not AND it was far from having a competitive launch price, be it in Japan, US or Europe.

Your hang up seems to be on accepting the real facts as they can be presented from a US perspective.

I have no problem with that once, during a debate like this, you don't automatically reject other real facts which happened around the same time outside US and which may affect or contribute to the understanding of the US perspective.
The US perspective is and will always be valid, but it's not the only perspective which counts in the big picture IMO, especially when we are talking about worldwide-influential companies.

Again, the above is not a glowing promotion for the 32X as a device or as a linch pin for Sega's plans in 1994. It is just what happened. That is the difference between your reading of the facts and mine. I have said repeatedly that if Sega wasn't going to support the 32X for at least two years they should never have spent a dime developing it. With the Neptune and two years of game releases from Sega and even a handful of third parties this entire equation would be different. That has been my only point this entire time.

OK, I agree.

As for the 32X's software clearly showing its inferiority, maybe I should put the burdon of proof on you?

Well, if you don't mind to point where I claimed it, no problem.

For cartridge games, the 32X library shows handily that it was able to go toe to toe with the Jaguar especially in non-textured 3D. For 2D people around here love to dismiss the 32X because it relies heavily on the very capable Genesis VDP and some developers did not use both to their fullest potential (The 32X is the GENESIS 32X after all). I see that as a run on to the absurd, a circular argument, and nothing more. The 32X sucks because it uses the Genesis in a lot of games.

That's not absurd at all if you decide to include in your historical perspective the advertising campaign which Sega themselves used to sell the 32X: "40 times faster than 16-bit machines", "32,000 colors & realistic 3-D graphics" and "Full library of new 32-bit games"
You really can't blame people for dismissing the 32X when it, most of the time, clearly failed to deliver what Sega promised.

Right, again, if you want to be responsible for accurately presenting the real world historical impressions of consumers and gamers and industry types in ALL REGIONS, I salute you.

I don't pretend to do such an effort, really. I salute you and your good writing, which we know a lot of people appreciate; while I expect that you understand that I'm criticizing your narrative in order to improve it and not to destroy you or dismiss your efforts.

For these neogaf charts, though I can't find any references to where these numbers came from.

It's from NPD AFAIK.

Thank you for the non-thumbnail pie chart pic though. I knew it was out there but could_not find it for the life of me.

I had trouble with it some time ago, so that's why I knew where to find the good version.

There *is* a flaw in any human design, everything is suspect in that regard. I am not attempting to cover those flaws up, I am attempting to uncover them. Rest assured, if an interview comes out tomorrow where somebody at Sega knew they were going to cancel the 32X in less than a year and went along anyway, I will write pages upon pages about how the 32X was Sega's worst mistake ever. Right now I think *canceling* the Sega CD, then the 32X, then the Saturn, and then the Dreamcast were Sega's worst mistakes.

aahahah, OK.

Sorry, but this is simply incorrect. No historian claims to know everything globally about any given topic. That is impossible and anybody claiming to do so would be laughed out of the academy. It is not possible to simply or exhaustively write about any topic from a global perspective without over simplifying or introducing pure error. Some may try in this information age to write for a global audience, and they will fail to recognize all of their audience. It is just that simple. If I continue to write about video game history, I will focus on the US and use other regions as context as I find solid facts to include them. That is the only responsible thing to do.

Well, I think I have addressed this point, at least partially, above.
About focusing on the your best know region/country and using the other regions as context, it's pretty much all that I'd ask you or anybody else trying to cover that part of game industry history in a minded way.

[spiffyone]

It's also what made them as great as they were.

Nah. Maybe in the arcade market, to a point, but what made Sega great, particularly during the Genesis/MD era, was the strength of their software dev teams, their publishing efforts, their game software (developed and/or published), and the marketing in the Western markets.

Anyway, what I meant was that my hypotheticals tend to cener around practical/sensible alternatives that still follow the general mindset/perspective/goals of what Sega (Japan/America/Europe) was doing at the time

Well, yes, I understand that. It's just that the mindset/perspective/goals of Sega, particularly SoJ, were wrong for any market aside for, perhaps, Japan. And it's telling that Japan was where Sega was least successful.

In essence, your hypotheticals, while likely correctly following SoJ's train of thought, are, in the end, doomed to the same or at least similar sort of failure.

Additionally, I try to look at things not just from Sega's perspective, but the general market perspective of the time, including realistic expectations for market analysis, experience (making informed decisiosn based on current and past trends), and reasonable foreshight into market demands. (along with some common sense given experience and technical constraints of the time)

With that being the case, then, you'd have to agree that SCD, and 32X in particular, were both never to be more than niche products sold to a portion of the existing Genesis userbase at best, and that money spent on those two products (R&D, software development, manufacturing, distribution, marketing, among others) were better spent on the existing products which still had potential for actual growth with lower investment costs (particularly, IMO, Game Gear).

The proof of this is in the pudding, so to speak: Nintendo survived as a home console and portable game system hardware company, whereas Sega did not. And we can track back the root of that, for Sega, to, at the very least, the turning point that was '95 (if not a bit earlier). They simply lost sight of the ball, got lost in the pretty lights overhead.

Besides that, there's not a strong/definitive argument for "Sega just should have done less" in terms of actually cutting way back on what they did, like not releasing the Mega CD at all. That creates a ton more variables to consider, and while you can reasonably argue that they could have done better in several areas (and overall) by focusing on the MD more exclusively, there's plenty of other pitfalls that could have detracted from that anyway, and further arguments that investing DIFFERENTLY in CD-ROM could have still been the better option overall.

The arguments for investing differently in CD-ROM, at the time, still slam headfirst into the wall that is cost considerations for consumers. Again, in the West, the perception of value for game systems, and add-ons, seems to be lower than in Japan (and, of course, lower still for the portable market than home console market).

PC Engine's CD-ROM add-on was less complex than Sega's. Yet, upon release in the West, the price point was such that NEC felt the need (rightly so) to pack in the add-on with a ton of games. Why? To potentially increase the value perception of the product. It didn't really work in their case. Why? Well, in addition to TG16 being "niche" in the West, the CD add-on was way overpriced for "something on which to play video games".

Similar deal with Sega CD as it was (more complex than Turbo CD). Now, they released later than NEC, so were able to come in at a lower price point iirc, but, still, the price point was well over the perception of value. And they were also most likely selling the add-on via the "razor blade" strategy, too.

Now, what makes more sense, fiscally?

Spending that time, effort, and therefore money on a product that, at best, will have potential for "lateral growth", or doing so for products that will have greater potential for actual growth, at lower costs at that?

Could Sega have redesigned Sega CD to be lower cost? Sure. But I think that introduces far more variables than you seem to think just sticking with Genesis and Game Gear would've.

The biggest failure of the Sega CD was how it failed to really expand or solidify Sega's market position in Japan, and a big part of that seems to be SoJ's oddly lacking support for the system (not sure about marketing, but software was definitely lacking). Had the Sega CD been a massive success in Japan (at least on the level of the PCE/CD), the story would be quite different.

But it's likely Sega CD wouldn't have been a massive success either way.

Reason?

Lack of strong 3rd party support in Japan, and Gen/MD itself not exactly setting the sales charts on fire over there. Remember that Sega was running way behind NEC's platform that gen, and PCE had damned strong 3rd party support in Japan, particularly from devs and publishers who focused on the strongest selling genres for the console game market in that region: visual novels, dating sims, and, most importantly (particularly at the time) console-style RPGs (so-called "JRPGs").

Sega CD's best shot over there was early on with the release of Lunar, but it simply didn't capture much of the imagination of the JP game consuming public who was, at that time, looking squarely at Nintendo's platform (awaiting the releases of the next Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games), and playing PCE RPGs like Far East of Eden (a series which is still highly regarded in Japan).

Sega simply didn't have the 3rd party support in Japan to keep that add-on some real strength, and didn't themselves have the ability to juggle so many platforms (as we already know).

That also brings up a key difference between their JP and Western positions: Genesis/MD, in large part, succeeded in the West because the library of titles from Sega Japan were accentuated by the strong support from Western studios, not only their own but more importantly from 3rd parties.

Why is that important? Well, if you look at the Sega CD library, there's not much support overall, but Western devs are more conspicuously absent. And the releases from those Western parties that are there are mere "up-ports" of existing Gen/MD software.

I mean, hell, look at how there's only one single EA football game on there, and it's not even Madden!

Getting back to the hardware itself:

Yeah, going lower cost with Sega CD would've been a sounder investment and a sounder product than what was actually released, but, IMO, it still would've been the wrong product to push, to invest in, whether so heavily...or, IMO, at all. It simply would've been too high priced regardless, and so would've gone through a similar "vicious cycle" of not enough consumer growth to drive 3rd party support, which would lead to not enough consumer growth...and so on and so forth, etc., etc.

You do bring up a great point about Sega going overboard on hardware, though, but it's directed, IMO, on the wrong product. The product we really should be discussing, in regards to a more cost reduced design being a better strategy, is Game Gear, not Sega CD, and most certainly not 32X. That was a product with actual growth potential aside from existing Sega home platform owners. It was priced too high not because the sort of product it was (as was the case with any CD unit at the time), but because Sega went a bit overboard here and there (most notably that backlit screen).

They had a much better shot with Game Gear than they did Sega CD or 32X, IMO.

[spiffyone]

BTW, I think there's a stronger argument for Saturn releasing too early than 32X releasing too late.

[Black_Tiger]

PC Engine's CD-ROM add-on was less complex than Sega's. Yet, upon release in the West, the price point was such that NEC felt the need (rightly so) to pack in the add-on with a ton of games. Why? To potentially increase the value perception of the product. It didn't really work in their case. Why? Well, in addition to TG16 being "niche" in the West, the CD add-on was way overpriced for "something on which to play video games".

The Turbo-CD was launched with zero pack-in games and none were ever added later on. It only ever came with the CD+G sampler.

The CD add-on still played music CDs and the discman sized CD player was extremely handy, even if it required an ac adaptor. It allowed you to easily bring CD music to a friend's house or on trips. CD players were still very expensive. Even by the time I bought a CDX at launch, it still wasn't that much more than a Discman.

BTW, I think there's a stronger argument for Saturn releasing too early than 32X releasing too late.

How so? The Saturn was comparable to competing consoles and the 32X was far behind.

[MtothaJ]

is Game Gear, not Sega CD, and most certainly not 32X. That was a product with actual growth potential aside from existing Sega home platform owners. It was priced too high not because the sort of product it was (as was the case with any CD unit at the time), but because Sega went a bit overboard here and there (most notably that backlit screen).

Bar the Gameboy, all the portables systems of that time had a backlit screen (Lynx, PC Engine Express). Looking at it from whatever perspective its most certainly not a gimmick or a luxury but a necessity... as any first edition GBA owner will attest to. From what I recall at least in the UK pricing at the time of release was like 70 GBP for the Gameboy and 100 GBP for the Gamegear – a fair and substantiated difference IMO given the value added by the latter. The real problem IMO was lack of proper third party support in terms of the games.

[kool kitty89]

Bar the Gameboy, all the portables systems of that time had a backlit screen (Lynx, PC Engine Express). Looking at it from whatever perspective its most certainly not a gimmick or a luxury but a necessity... as any first edition GBA owner will attest to. From what I recall at least in the UK pricing at the time of release was like 70 GBP for the Gameboy and 100 GBP for the Gamegear – a fair and substantiated difference IMO given the value added by the latter. The real problem IMO was lack of proper third party support in terms of the games.

Edit:
Moved here:
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...718#post614718