Do you think Sega-CD achieved its primary purpose?

[McValdemar]

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)



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.



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.

But then why keep it so much secret and then release with 2 crappy ports followed just by Horror Funky Band.
Why put so much guts in the machine and then forget about them.
I don't understand these choices.
Aspects that lead to think that was important to them and then, as you correctly say, on other aspects they almost didn't care.

[Team Andromeda]

But then why keep it so much secret and then release with 2 crappy ports followed just by Horror Funky Band.

It was hardly a secret to GameArts, WolfTeam and parts of SEGA Japan even before launch. The worst part was after the system shipped in Japan, SEGA Japan still hardly did anything on it of note and didn't look to actually make many games that showed off the extra hadrware and didn't look to bring any of its scailer coin-ups to the system using the ASIC chip. Money wise it no doubt made sense to support the Mega Drive more, but you weren't going to drive sales of the Mega CD thinking like that.

SEGA Japan was pretty pathetic on the Mega-CD, thank GOD for Games Arts, SEGA America and Core Design

[Ecco]

But then why keep it so much secret and then release with 2 crappy ports followed just by Horror Funky Band.
Why put so much guts in the machine and then forget about them.
I don't understand these choices.
Aspects that lead to think that was important to them and then, as you correctly say, on other aspects they almost didn't care.

Well one thing is that AFAIK every feature of the Sega CD was actually used by at least some games, like its hardware scaling was certainly used in a few, plus its polygon / 3D mapping or whatever it's properly called. etc.

So maybe at some point, SEGA might have considered the Sega CD to have been maxed out, when all its features had seen at least a handful of titles.

Also maybe they were waiting to see how other companies sales were, before they invested in more games. And it wasn't long before the Genesis and add-ons was soon killed altogether, in favor of the Saturn. The SCD had a relatively short lifespan of what, 2 years, I think?

IDK, there are a lot of potential reasons out there, lol.

[profholt82]

As has been stated, I don't think Sega created the SCD for the sole purpose of competing with the PCE-CD. That was a byproduct in the Japanese market, sure, but at that time Sega was all about pushing the envelope and trying to crush Nintendo in the Western market which was much larger. I think it's more likely that the SCD was created to make a schiitload of money and make Nintendo look like dinosaurs. And while it didn't sell a ton of consoles, it did sell a couple million.

From what I understand, SoA had little to no input in the console design, but according to Kalinske, they budgeted 1/3 of their r&d and advertising budgets to the machine, and this is likely a key reason why there were so many more games released in NA than other parts of the world. And if you were around in the early 90s, you'll recall the deluge of SCD tv commercials and magazine ads. Regardless if you bought one or not, the SCD was considered cool. I can recall being in the 5th/6th grade, and at that time, Sega was considered a hip company with games for teenagers while Nintendo was considered the company with games for little kids. Now obviously the actual reality wasn't that simple, but largely due to the marketing campaign and existence of the SCD, that was the case. In 93-94, throughout that campaign, the Genesis was enjoying massive console sales. And I'd think that the existence of the SCD at least played a role in that. Whether you had one or not, there was the idea that by owning a Genesis, you could possibly get an SCD for it at some point.

So, based on all of that, I think the SCD served its purpose, at least in North America, and that's regardless of whether that was the primary purpose of the creation of the machine in the first place.

[Team Andromeda]

Also maybe they were waiting to see how other companies sales were, before they invested in more games. And it wasn't long before the Genesis and add-ons was soon killed altogether, in favor of the Saturn. The SCD had a relatively short lifespan of what, 2 years, I think?

IDK, there are a lot of potential reasons out there, lol.

The Mega-CD came out in 1991, it was hardly killed off early and Add-On's were hardly killed off soon for the Saturn, that was part of the trouble, even in 94 and 95 we had SEGA pushing for multiple systems. SEGA tried to keep pushing the 32X in 96 when we all knew it was dead and even in 1995 SEGA was still trying to push that FMV fad on us with, Wirehead, Fahrenheit and the like. Still we did get the english Lunar II in 95, so it wasn't all bad

Well one thing is that AFAIK every feature of the Sega CD was actually used by at least some games,

That's the trouble it was only some games and so little from SEGA Japan theirself's. In 1992 and 93 the Mega CD should have been playing host to ports of OutRun, Space Harrier, GF II,Super Hang-On all from SEGA Japan. Instead, all we got was a terrible port of AB III outsourced to CRI to screw up.

[Team Andromeda]

Also to those who say the PC Eng CD Rom was better, I say differently like the PC Eng could handle these

[turboxray]

Also to those who say the PC Eng CD Rom was better, I say differently like the PC Eng could handle these

Wait.. you honestly believe the PCECD can't handle those last two??? If anything, the PCE CD would handle the last two with more color.

[Black_Tiger]

Also to those who say the PC Eng CD Rom was better, I say differently like the PC Eng could handle these

Even if you're unfamiliar with the capabilities as well as the existing library of the PC Engine, I'm still curious about what you think is special about Rise of the Dragon and Eternal Blue?

Those are two games that the PC Engine already has outperformed with similar games and they're both games that could gain a massive improvement in graphic quality, as they have poor color useage by Mega Drive standards.

It's also silly to ignore the quality of a library a try to dick measure by asking 'couldit handle this', when you don't even need to get into the whole number of subpalettes thing. The Mega Drive doesn't even have balanced 9-bit color and literally can't reproduce the visuals of any PC Engine game.

I don't think that means it "wins", it just demonstrates how silly it is to cherry pick technicalities like that.

Scaling/Rotation hardware is particularly a bad example for a thread like this as it reminds us how butchered those games are from being bottlenecked by the CD format. If the Sega-CD hardware had shipped without a disc drive and software came on carts, you would have seen what it could really do. Which brings us back to how a CD-ROM with unified and increased memory would have been so much better than low framerate pixelization.

[Team Andromeda]

Wait.. you honestly believe the PCECD can't handle those last two??? If anything, the PCE CD would handle the last two with more color.

Too right. The other 2 games made full use of the memory and PCM of the Mega-CD. Unless one wants to bring in the Arcade card of course

[Team Andromeda]

I'm still curious about what you think is special about Rise of the Dragon and Eternal Blue?

Unlike so many PC Eng games who intros are poorly animated. Lunar II Stream FMV is so much better and Game Arts made full use of the Mega-CD memory and sound chip. I can't think of any PC Eng RPG that looks better than Lunar II on the 'standard' PC Eng2 Rom. Rise is so much better than Snacther too. Other than the Arcade card games, I really can't think of any PC Eng CD Rom game, that the Mega CD couldn't do and handle better (when used)

Colours was hardly a strong point of either the PC Eng or Mega Drive/CD, that was more for the Snes

[Black_Tiger]

Unlike so many PC Eng games who intros are poorly animated. Lunar II Stream FMV is so much better and Game Arts made full use of the Mega-CD memory and sound chip. I can't think of any PC Eng RPG that looks better than Lunar II on the 'standard' PC Eng2 Rom. Rise is so much better than Snacther too. Other than the Arcade card games, I really can't think of any PC Eng CD Rom game, that the Mega CD couldn't do and handle better (when used)

Colours was hardly a strong point of either the PC Eng or Mega Drive/CD, that was more for the Snes

If you really are familiar with the library, then why don't you actually name some of the comparable PC Engine games instead of name dropping "Snatcher" like you just read a generic top ten list?

Realtime Mega-CD cinematics are also "poorly animated".

Again, your color comment makes it sound like you haven't even watched videos of many PCE games. These two games you keep championing for specific things have those things done in PCE games which surpass 100 colors onscreen.

[Team Andromeda]

If you really are familiar with the library, then why don't you actually name some of the comparable PC Engine games instead of name dropping "Snatcher" like you .

I owned a PC Engine CD Rom2 back in the day, that I bought for Strider (yes I was late) . Most of the PC Eng Engine CD Rom2 games that I played all had that terrible intro's where the whole intro was loaded into Ram and the sound was played straight off CD (like Wolf Team Mega-CD games, launch games ) .Amazing at the time, but when you saw Lunar II, not quite

Colour was never a good point of either the Mega Drive or PCEng . The SNES was so much better in that regard

[McValdemar]

Also to those who say the PC Eng CD Rom was better, I say differently like the PC Eng could handle these

I think it is not a matter if it was capable or not (all the heavily scaling of course not, the 2D games definitely yes) but is simply the fact that, no matter the hundreds of titles, some STYLES never appeared over PCEngine.

Take the example of FMV games.

For NEC the CD was mostly just a different media for games + audio.

For SEGA, especially N/A, it was also bringing home the FMV/CD-rom unique experiences.

FMV games never been amazing and, today, are just ridicolous but back then were something people wanted and SegaCD was offering.

I think this is "natural" as the NEC was strong in Japan but not relevant outside and SegaCD catalogue has really different weights on the styles of games if you look at the regions.

All in all this is the reason why, to me as kid, when I was looking in a shop of imported consoles, was more attractive the SEGA CD then the PC Engine + CDRom.

[turboxray]

Unlike so many PC Eng games who intros are poorly animated. Lunar II Stream FMV is so much better and Game Arts made full use of the Mega-CD memory and sound chip. I can't think of any PC Eng RPG that looks better than Lunar II on the 'standard' PC Eng2 Rom. Rise is so much better than Snacther too. Other than the Arcade card games, I really can't think of any PC Eng CD Rom game, that the Mega CD couldn't do and handle better (when used)

Colours was hardly a strong point of either the PC Eng or Mega Drive/CD, that was more for the Snes

It's one thing to say that it doesn't have that level of quality, but it's quite another to say that it can't have that level of quality.. and beyond.

Your color comment:

Megadrive has 4 subpalettes: What does the mean? a subpalette has 15 colors. A sprite or tile can choose one of those four to draw colors from.
Megadrive effectively has 61 colors on screen as standard capability.

PCE has 32 subpalettes. 16 are for tiles, and the other 16 are for sprites. 32.
PCE effectively has 481 colors on screen as standard capability.

Saying it's not a strength, is pretty much bullshit.

Second: The cinemas in Lunar 2 are not FMV. Sorry. But the PCE can do FMV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl36gtB57Os . Before you say that's an arcade card game.. it's not. It's a SuperCD game that can take advantage if the ACD is detected, but that has nothing to do with the quality of the FMV. A lot of those frames have over 100 colors in them. Lunar is doing streaming animation, which the PCE can do as well (and with more colors). Lunar has a lot of parts in the cinema where they're using 4 colors and 8 colors - the pce can compress that as planes without a performance loss.

I could code that intro on the PCE SuperCD as is, without the arcade card. It does have other methods besides FMV to stream animation. Just because game devs didn't fully utilize the system, doesn't mean it can't. I mean worse case you can just pull graphic data in from the audio's subchannel data to constantly stream new graphic data. But there are more advance methods the PCE can do.

Colors aren't its strength? Here's a old WIP of LunarSS background that I did with Arm.



It's at 72 colors and 10 subpalettes. That leaves 6 free for the BG (90 more unique possible colors, though realistically another 20+).. and still leaves 16 free subpalettes just for sprites. Just because some PCE games don't flex their muscle, doesn't mean the system can't. Educate yourself haha.

EDIT: Here's the rom to the title screen along with some realtime scaling (nothing impressive mind you): http://turboxray.com/pics/main.pce

[gamevet]