Do you think Sega-CD achieved its primary purpose?

[RvR]

Being better than the PC Engine CD that is.

[cowboyscowboys]

Being better than the PC Engine CD that is.

No. I might slightly prefer the Sega CD's best games but that's because they were more aimied towards the American market. The Sega CD never got the 3rd party support or top end first party support and always played 2nd fiddle to the Genesis in terms of game development.

[gamevet]

The Sega CD should have been more like the PC-Engine CD, with better support for arcade games and RPGs that took advantage of the added storage space.

[Leynos]

Not even remotely. PCE-CD had a much better library as a whole. Tho I am biased because of Ys and the best version of Ys 1 ever.

[Team Andromeda]

Being better than the PC Engine CD that is.

Yes, but both systems had merits . Though Mega CD did have better hardware and while not many games used the hardware, it was noticeable.

The Lunars and Batman's Returns were simply incredible. It's just a shame SEGA couldn't handle supporting both the MD and Mega CD. But that was a prelude of things to come

[McValdemar]

That was achieved from HW point of view. From software point of view absolutely not in terms of number of games (PC Engine CD library is more tha 3 times Sega CD one) but, like it or not, FMV games, Myst-like stuff was a core part of CD revolution and these were present mostly on Sega CD due to the approach of Sega of America.

In terms of timeline of course not, SegaCD arrived few days after CD-I and both arrived almost three years later after NEC's CD-Rom2.

In terms of market penetration probably yes. NEC didn't succeed much outisde Japan and is Spring '91, few months before Mega-CD was released, it had only 500K add ons sold worldwide. CD-I died with LTD sales of barely 1 million.
SegaCD ended his four years of life witha total that is estimated around 2.5 millions ww.

So it was probably the most successful of all the three and deserves a highly regarded place in history.
Pity wasn't pushed enough internally by SEGA but, the overall impact, was absolutely solid for what in the end was an addon and that lasted 4 years with over 200 games. Some of them super solid even today like the two Lunars, Snatcher, Popful Mail, and allowed us to experiment the first usage of multimedia like Sewer Shark, Night Trap, etc... (ridiculus today but seminary back then), we had the chance to play Wing Commander (in the best version after PC), have titles like that masterpiece of Monkey Island, experiment with an adventure like House of Hidden Souls that allowed us to taste a gameplay that was usually provided only by the first CD Rom games on PC that were costing a fortune.

Sega-CD to me was a fantastic add-on, ruined by the rush of SEGA to jump on Saturn and all the wrong decisions of that fucking 1994 (32x, rushed Saturn, anticipated death of the Genesis/SegaCD).

If half of the unreleased titles for SEGA CD would have been released like Ultima underworld, Myst, Return to Zork, Power Drift, Chakan CD, Battletech, Darkseed, Ys IV, Phantasy Star IV CD, etc... the system would have been legendary.

[bpguimaraes23]

The strategy of the PC Engine CD was to eventually replace the carts with CDs as the primary format. I think they did a very good job with that. I wish Sega did the same thing. With that said, I think the Sega CD had more games that benefited from the format. Say what you want about FMV, but games like Night Trap gave you something that you couldn't have with carts.

[Gryson]

The greatest achievement of the Sega CD was boosting Sega's image (and in turn boosting Genesis sales).

From Wired, 1993:

Sega seized the initiative and brought its player to market in early 1992. Although the player has sold a modest 250,000 units, slow sales have been more than offset by the cachet the unit has brought to Sega's image.

"We looked at Sega's CD product and we said 'this is not very good,'" said George Harrison, director of marketing and corporate communications for Nintendo. "But when we talked to kids - who didn't know anything about it - they thought it was the world's greatest thing. It gave Sega a real halo."

In 1992, the concept of the Sega CD was awesome to consumers, even if the reality didn't quite meet expectations.

[Black_Tiger]

The problem with the Sega-CD is that competing with the PC Engine wasn't its primary purpose. If it was on par with the PC Engine CD-ROM and only added an extra sound channel with compression it could have sold for less and better yet, had a single large or expandable unit of memory to run content from.

The extra hardware was a knee jerk reaction to the Super Famicom and did nothing to make the Sega/Mega-CD more appealing to the average consumer.

If it was cheaper, easy to develop for and had even just 8 megs of unified ram to run games from, a CD version of Street Fighter II could have been made with no noticeable cuts and some very noticeable additions.

Mortal Kombat games and Neo Geo fighters would only he held back by color restrictions, as far as the end user could tell.

The Mega-CD could have also launched much sooner if it was a bare bones CD-ROM. This would have got software out early enough for it to catch on before Sega started talking about 32-bit offerings.

[McValdemar]

It makes definitely sense.

But I like to laugh at their "this is not very good" comment because, looking at the specs of the SNES Playstation, at least from the only prototype existing, it was pure shit in terms of addon comparison. Really just an added "CDRom" not even with a clear offload of the main processor to drive it.

[Team Andromeda]

The problem with the Sega-CD is that competing with the PC Engine wasn't its primary purpose. If it was on par with the PC Engine CD-ROM and only added an extra sound channel with compression it could have sold for less and better yet, had a single large or expandable unit of memory to run content from.

The extra hardware was a knee jerk reaction to the Super Famicom and did nothing to make the Sega/Mega-CD more appealing to the average consumer.

If it was cheaper, easy to develop for and had even just 8 megs of unified ram to run games from, a CD version of Street Fighter II could have been made with no noticeable cuts and some very noticeable additions.

Mortal Kombat games and Neo Geo fighters would only he held back by color restrictions, as far as the end user could tell.

The Mega-CD could have also launched much sooner if it was a bare bones CD-ROM. This would have got software out early enough for it to catch on before Sega started talking about 32-bit offerings.

It wasn't like the CD Rom2 or the PC Duo was that much cheaper than the Mega CD or the Mega Drive 2 and Mega CD 2 combination

I think the big issues was all the hype was of Super Famicom scailing and rotation style effects along with Super Famicom style sound . Trouble was so many games never used either and unlike NEC/Hudson SEGA Japan did little to support the format or actually make games that used the extra Hardware inside the system.

All that said , I loved the system and it played host to some of the best games I player in that era . I just wished the Arcade side of SEGA Japan actually used the system and brought their Sprite scalers and more games like Monkey Island came to the system , like what was planned.

[Gryson]

If it was cheaper, easy to develop for and had even just 8 megs of unified ram to run games from, a CD version of Street Fighter II could have been made with no noticeable cuts and some very noticeable additions.

It was originally worse. From Yoichi Miyaji of Game Arts in Mega Drive Taizen:

At first, the Mega CD only had 2 megs of RAM. I went to Hideki Sato and asked him to increase the amount. It seemed like we were talking every day, and the Sega engineers supported me. Then, they increased it to a whole 6 megs. Sato said that it caused the price to go up by 10,000 yen.

The final price went up to about 50,000 yen, and no third parties would make games for it. I took responsibility and said "We'll make everything for it."

[Mega Drive Bowlsey]

I have no idea if the Mega CD was supposed to compete with the PC Engine or not, but to me it was, and still is, a wonderful compliment to the Mega Drive, has a fantastically diverse library of games and was instrumental in making me fall in love with Sega as a boy. As a kid I remember being just blown away playing the likes of Lethal Enforcers and Tomcat Alley at my friend's house.

[Team Andromeda]

In terms of timeline of course not, SegaCD arrived few days after CD-I and both arrived almost three years later after NEC's CD-Rom2..

I have no idea in the USA or other parts of Europe. But in the UK the 1st CD system I ever saw was the CDTV and that cost a fortune and was little more than an Amiga with a CD drive and fancy wireless remote as standard (a true 1st)

Sega-CD to me was a fantastic add-on, ruined by the rush of SEGA to jump on Saturn and all the wrong decisions of that fucking 1994

That wasn't quite the case. The system came out in 1991 and even then SEGA Japan couldn't be bothered to make a launch game for the system and put most of its efforts into developing Mega Drive software. No SEGA coin up ports, no Mega CD versions of Streets of Rage II, III and dropping PS IV infavor of the Mega Drive It was clear where SEGA's Japan focus was and they were the powerhouse of SEGA's development.

If half of the unreleased titles for SEGA CD would have been released like Ultima underworld, Myst, Return to Zork, Power Drift, Chakan CD, Battletech, Darkseed, Ys IV, Phantasy Star IV CD,

I never Chakan, but was so gutted to see Fate Of Atlantis, Flying Nightmares, PS IV, Desert Strike collection, World Rally, Kings Quest V, Power Drift and tons more. It had so much more potential, but SEGA Japan need to take the blame for most of it.
Super Hang-On, OutRun, AB II, GF II, Space Harrier, Line of Fire, AP Cop are should have been on the system and using the Hardware.

All that said I loved it and its the 2nd best system I've owned.

[SegaDreamcast]

From a brand prestige standpoint, I agree it definitely raised Sega's profile as a pioneer in the industry who's on the forefront of new technology. It was one of the hardware items many like to look at while store browsing and dream of owning, like the high end TV section at Best Buy. Back then addons and the like were not purchased on a whim the way limited editions/collector's editions are purchased for 200-300 dollars today.