SegaCD = Greatest CD add on?

[Drakon]

Greatest cd addon? Out of what....2 cd addons ever made?

[Guntz]

Too bad floppy disk add-ons aren't included, then we could toss the FDS and 64DD on here as well.

e-Reader is probably the only card-based add-on I've ever heard of though.

[sheath]

I vote Turbo CD. While I realize that the Sega CD has better special effect capabilities I do believe that the Turbo CD had a better selection of good games for it. Especially since you could use Japanese CD's on the console without modding. I love the Sega CD too of course.

I think in a "best" selection the Turbo/PCE CD would have to win because of its library in an overall sense. There are genre considerations and localizations to consider though. I currently own three times the Sega CD games I own for the PCE/TG16 CD. If the TG16 CD games would come down in price somewhat that might change. But for my genre preferences, mainly Action, the Sega CD will probably always be at the top.

[Chilly Willy]

Greatest cd addon? Out of what....2 cd addons ever made?

Didn't you look at the poll? It's THREE add-ons!

[bultje112]

What nintendo really should have done, was make N64 CD based from the get go.

obviously. but not when you're nintendo and you want to grab every single dollar you can from developpers and consumers. again a testimony of how pathetic nintendo was and it bit them in the ass because starting with n64 nintendo was pretty much done for with consoles (not counting the wii)

[RampagingRex]

I've never played the Turbografx-16 CD but I do know that there's a great number of games that were released for it, most notably Castlevania Dracula X. Still, though, the Sega CD had its fair share of great games as well; all you have to do is dig through the piles of FMV crap to find the good games. Heck, even some of the FMV games are playable! And as for the Jaguar CD, I always thought it was a last-ditch effort by Atari to keep the Jaguar alive in the marketplace. I've never heard of one memorable game on the Jaguar CD!

[xelement5x]

Sega CD has some great games, but the PCE hardware had amazing support for a very long time in Japan, leading to some titles near the end of life that just make my jaw drop.

In the end I voted Sega CD because I love it, and the poll wording makes me only think about the US side of it, but it's a hard line.

[kool kitty89]

What nintendo really should have done, was make N64 CD based from the get go.

Probably not possible. Nintendo probably couldn't license the compact disc even if they wanted to, not after dropping their contracts with both Sony and Phillips (big names in the CD).

There's no need for a license of any sort. They'd just buy a generic 3rd party CD drive mechanism and an off the shelf (or custom) implementation of a CD-ROM interface, like with like all non Sony/Phillips platforms. (or actual IDE CD-ROM drives, but that's more costly)
Hell, they could have tried negotiating with Phillips for a favorable license on one of their CD chipsets rather than breaking tied entirely after the SNES CD finally died out. (Atari licensed the CD controller in the Jaguar CD from Phillips . . . in hindsight they probably should have bought off the shelf rather than investing in a license given the pitiful number they manufactured)

In any case, the real reasons were nothing to do with licenses or such, and everything to do with control over publishing/distributing. Nintendo wanted to retain a proprietary format that they could regulate in a similar manner to the SNES (and what they still do today, at least for the DS). The impact on console pricing probably was a concern too, but IMO that probably wasn't a deciding factor. (Nintendo must have realized the massive profit margin gains on using CDs over carts, not to mention the data capacity -and multimedia- advantages) The originally planned 1995 release date might have skewed the pricing issue a little more though.

From that perspective, the obvious choice would be to go the route of a proprietary optical disc format using a custom data storage/encryption format rather than standard CD-ROM, making it very difficult to pirate or produce unlicensed media (especially if patented). Thus, a standard mass-market CD drive mechanism could be used, but a custom decoder chipset/format would replace a standard CD-ROM data decoder.
Nintendo eventually did this (to some extent) with the Game Cube (albeit with the odd decision to use a mini-DVD form factor), and Sega did this as well with CD to GD-ROM. (and increased the capacity at that -while still using an inexpensive CD drive mechanism)

If Nintendo changed their mind later in the game, like maybe during delays in 1995, they still might not have been able to get a semi-custom drive design out by launch, so at that point they could have targeted an add-on, but much earlier (and cheaper) than the N64 DD. Skepticism over what Nindendo had done with the SNES CD might have been a problem, but they could have mitigated this to some extent. (perhaps most important would have been convincing 3rd party developers they were serious -maybe even keeping Square from partnering with Sony, at least exclusively- and maybe sending out alpha dev kits to facilitate CD-ROM style mass-storage development could have facilitated that) -And I say cheaper, since optical drives are inherently simple and cheap, the only thing that made them expensive was the high royalties they saw until the mid 90s (floppy disk drives -especially high density LS/ZIP style ones- were much more manufacturing intensive, same for the media).

Having a drive unit out by 1997 (with all in one counterpart to match) could have been huge, 1998 might have been OK too, but probably not later than that to really have an impact. (standardizing 8 MB of RAM on the all-in-one unit could have helped push support for the expansion pak format -maybe packing it in standard with the CD add-on too)

[Drakon]

Too bad floppy disk add-ons aren't included, then we could toss the FDS and 64DD on here as well.

e-Reader is probably the only card-based add-on I've ever heard of though.

Between the fds 64dd pc engine cd and sega cd....I vote pc engine cd!

Didn't you look at the poll? It's THREE add-ons!

oh...hmm...wait isn't the 32x an addon too?!

[kool kitty89]

oh...hmm...wait isn't the 32x an addon too?!

It's not CD though.

Albeit, you could technically separate the PCE CD-ROM^2, Super CD (and Duo), and Arcade CD as separate platforms . . . more so for CD-ROM^2 vs Super CD/Duo since both of those had separate add-ons launched (Super CD unit as well as the Duo itself), whereas the Arcade card was only ever as a card upgrade for an existing CD system.

[evilevoix]

A couple positive notes on the Jaguar CD though: it may not have added to the hardware (though it was already powerful) and the Jag had it's own problems, but the Jaguar CD probably looked the sleakest set up (compact and clean, rather like ataching a Master System PBC) and didn't require a seperate power cable. (IIRC)

The Jag CD does indeed need it's own power supply. However that thing had the VLM, the guy who wrote the code for that also did the VLM on the XBOX 360, small world.

[kool kitty89]

The Jag CD does indeed need it's own power supply. However that thing had the VLM, the guy who wrote the code for that also did the VLM on the XBOX 360, small world.

Jeff Minter has done plenty of stuff on a lot of different platforms. He's best known for his 80s/90s home computer games, prior to the Jaguar . . . after the Jaguar, kind of random stuff here and there. (he did most of the games on the Nuon too)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Minter

[Team Andromeda]

A couple positive notes on the Jaguar CD though: it may not have added to the hardware (though it was already powerful) and the Jag had it's own problems, but the Jaguar CD probably looked the sleakest set up (compact and clean, rather like ataching a Master System PBC) and didn't require a seperate power cable.

I take it we've never owned the CD drive ? Yes it did need its own PSU and the unit looked like a toilet set . Compare the Mega CD and the class looking CD Brief case system it looked rubbish (much like the Jag its self. Speaking of which wasn't that the nickname for the Jag CD unit - the craper. It did have some nice FMV to be fair

[kool kitty89]

I take it we've never owned the CD drive ? Yes it did need its own PSU and the unit looked like a toilet set . Compare the Mega CD and the class looking CD Brief case system it looked rubbish (much like the Jag its self. Speaking of which wasn't that the nickname for the Jag CD unit - the craper. It did have some nice FMV to be fair

TA, please look at when I originally made that post.

And TBH, I still think the Jag CD looks nice . . . as long as there's no cart plugged into it.
The jag styling itself looks cool though . . . the mock-up Jag Duo looks weird IMO: http://www4.pcmag.com/media/images/2...r-duo-1995.jpg
But this thing looks neat: http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic...bo-discovered/ (really cool mod there)

[evilevoix]

Based on the fact that the sega cd actually upped the power the console it sat on, is refills available to this day, and has a bunch if games in it makes it the best addon by far. You could argue neo Geo cd as it was originally designed as an addon but it sucked.