SegaCD = Greatest CD add on?

[kool kitty89]

Due to the high cost and limited consumer market for Laser Disc player, I doubt releasing one to the 7800 would have been a good idea. I more sensible add-on for it would have been a floppy drive.
These have issues too, mainly copy protection, but made a lot more sense than a LD player, of course Nintendo had the FDS, but thad didn't really add much due to the pitiful 128 kB disks used, there were plans -and protos- for disk drives on the Master System and Mega Drive as well (both attaching to the expansion port, the SMS's below much like the FDC, and the MD's to the side much like the model 2 CD), of course these were unreleased.

But weren't there only 10 million PCE's sold world wide? How could PCE CD possibly done better than Sega CD. Add-ons usually make up 1/5 of the number units sold. Sega CD sold 6 million units world wide, to the Genesis 30 million units. Are you saying PCE CD sold more than 6 million?

Maybe not the best world wide, but certainly in Japan, I don't know the actual figures, so I'm not entirely sure, but the PCE sold best in Japan, and was a good deal ahead of MD sales there. (with the SNES on top)
http://www.sega-16.com/feature_page....e%20too%20Soon
According to this the US sold 2.5 Million Sega CD's, with between 2-3 million in japan, with UK/Europe selling under 1 million. (with only ~4% of EU MD owners buying one, which was arround 9 million iirc, meaning <400,000 CD units)

This is a bit odd considering that Erope was the only major region in which the MD outsold the SNES (9 mil vs 8 iirc), while in Japan where it was least popular it sold very well proportionally to JP MD sales.


I don't know about the PCE's distribution, or the CD sales. (though I immagine TG-16 CD unit sales were very low)

[Psy]

It was pretty unique at that time. Sewer Shark was added to the Sega CD I purchased. It was my first experience with FMV based games (next to Dragon's Lair Arcade of course.)

Yet Sega could have simply ported their laser disc arcade games from the 1980's onto the SegaCD and they would have been better as Sewer Shark's game play is lacking do the paths and having to conserve shots. Sega could have even commissioned one of their arcade divisions to make a SegaCD arcade game with a movie background, for example taking the idea of Sega's laser disc game GP World and going further to create an FMV outrun with sprite cars running on a FMV background. This would have been easier if the SegaCD had its own VDP so the Genesis could do foreground and pipe it into the SegaCD so the video could be merged it with background done by the SegaCD.

[gamegenie]

I think what holds the Sega CD back from delivering a true arcade laser disc experience is the slow 1X CD read speed it has. A game I own that comes to mind is Who Shot Johnny Rock, it's port from the American Laser Games laserdisc games, and the slow loading speed is quite noticeable when you're shooting.

[tomaitheous]

But weren't there only 10 million PCE's sold world wide? How could PCE CD possibly done better than Sega CD. Add-ons usually make up 1/5 of the number units sold. Sega CD sold 6 million units world wide, to the Genesis 30 million units. Are you saying PCE CD sold more than 6 million?

Umm, CD soft were just as or more popular than cards for system in 1990. And since the Duo's release of 1991 to 1997, the CD system was the main system and main focus, not an addon. I'd say a hell of a lot more than 1/5 the sales were for CD

[Black_Tiger]

Umm, CD soft were just as or more popular than cards for system in 1990. And since the Duo's release of 1991 to 1997, the CD system was the main system and main focus, not an addon. I'd say a hell of a lot more than 1/5 the sales were for CD

Although I'm sure that the average PCE CD game player bought a ton more CD games on average than Sega/Mega-CD players(probably at least 10 to 1), The number of PCE CD-ROMs or Duos sold in ratio to single PCE/Coregrafx/SGX/GT/LT's is probably no less than 65%, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was much more.

But weren't there only 10 million PCE's sold world wide? How could PCE CD possibly done better than Sega CD. Add-ons usually make up 1/5 of the number units sold. Sega CD sold 6 million units world wide, to the Genesis 30 million units. Are you saying PCE CD sold more than 6 million?

Separate from the fact that PCE CD-ROMs definitely sold much higher in proportion to base hardware than the Sega-CD, hardware sales aren't the single indicator of success. What good is a 100 million consoles sold at a loss if you only sell 100 pieces of software total?

All you have to do is look at the number of CD games released for the PCE and how long (1988 - 1995) they published steadily for to understand how popular they were.

Also, there's no consistency in major "add-on" sales. There's no way 1/5 of Jaguar owners also bought a Jag-CD.

[gamegenie]

Separate from the fact that PCE CD-ROMs definitely sold much higher in proportion to base hardware than the Sega-CD,

In Japan it did.

hardware sales aren't the single indicator of success. What good is a 100 million consoles sold at a loss if you only sell 100 pieces of software total?

what that means to me is that a system's games were so great that 100 million people picked up the hardware to play it.

All you have to do is look at the number of CD games released for the PCE and how long (1988 - 1995) they published steadily for to understand how popular they were.

All that tells is that TurboGrafX CD had a 4 year head start.

Also, there's no consistency in major "add-on" sales. There's no way 1/5 of Jaguar owners also bought a Jag-CD.

It was more like 2/25th, there was only 250,000 Jaguars sold, and Atari only produced about 20k Jaguar CDs.

[tomaitheous]

According to this the US sold 2.5 Million Sega CD's, with between 2-3 million in japan, with UK/Europe selling under 1 million. (with only ~4% of EU MD owners buying one, which was arround 9 million iirc, meaning <400,000 CD units)

That Japanese number definitely doesn't look right. Did you think you might have accidentally switched the numbers for the Japanese and EU markets because they share the name, i.e. Mega CD? Selling more CD units addons than console units sounds a bit odd to me

Less than 100,000 Mega CDs sold during its first full year on the market

Sounds more in line with the Japanese number selling under 1 million (which is supposedly the number for the Megadrive itself).

what that means to me is that a system's games were so great that 100 million people picked up the hardware to play it.

So if more than 75% of those people dumped the system after the first year, you'd still rate it as a success? The Megadrive itself sold poorly in Japan, but they obviously had some success in software sales regardless.

Are you saying PCE CD sold more than 6 million?

Between the two CD addons (original brief case, Super CDROM^2 behind mount model with build in upgrade card) and the 2 Duo systems - yes. 1988 to 1997, with greater than 95% sales going to CD from 1991-1997.

[kool kitty89]

I didn't quote the article wrong, but the article may be in error:

So Why Bother?
From 1991 to 1995, approximately 27 million Genesis consoles were sold around the world. In comparison, only around 6 million Sega CD units total were sold during its entire lifetime in the same markets, which happens to fall around the same time frame. That is approximately 2 to 3 million Japanese Mega CDs, 2.5 million U.S. Sega CDs, and 1 million English and European Mega CDs.

Overall though, and with the significant exception of the British Isles, Mega CD did not receive the same kind of warm reception that it did in Japan and the United States. Emotions were mixed, and Euro industry watchers were critical of both the media and the hardware. They pretty much voiced the same concerns as their Stateside counterparts about lack of quality software and the slowness of the system's CD-ROM drive, only louder and more strident. The lukewarm response that Europe as a whole game Mega CD in large part accounts for the fact that only about 400,000 units sold throughout the European Common Market during the system's Euro market cycle (1993-1996), and no than 1 million for all of England and Europe overall. In fact only 4% of Euro MegaDrive owners ever bothered to buy either version of Mega CD for their systems.

[j_factor]

I wouldn't doubt that the Mega CD only sold 1 million in Europe. Many of its best-received games weren't released there, even some that were made by European developers.

I also am not surprised that the Mega CD had its highest adoption rate in Japan.

[crazyteknohed]

I also am not surprised that the Mega CD had its highest adoption rate in Japan.

I am a little surprised, though RPG titles for the machine were rife and we all know how much the Japanese like their RPGs.

[gamegenie]

Between the two CD addons (original brief case, Super CDROM^2 behind mount model with build in upgrade card) and the 2 Duo systems - yes. 1988 to 1997, with greater than 95% sales going to CD from 1991-1997.

Well if that's true, then why are you guys trying to say Turbo CD is better than Sega CD when they both sold about the same world wide.

[Black_Tiger]

In Japan it did.

Exactly.

what that means to me is that a system's games were so great that 100 million people picked up the hardware to play it.

Let me put it even more straight forward so that you get what I mean. If 100 million people buy a console but no one buys any games, is that a success?

All that tells is that TurboGrafX CD had a 4 year head start.

It continued for so long because there was a market for it.

Well if that's true, then why are you guys trying to say Turbo CD is better than Sega CD when they both sold about the same world wide.

It depends on what you mean by "better". The Turbo/PCE-CD games sold much better than Sega/Mega-CD games.

[j_factor]

I am a little surprised, though RPG titles for the machine were rife and we all know how much the Japanese like their RPGs.

The PC Engine CD was very popular in Japan, and the Mega CD seemed to have quite a few Japan-exclusive titles, as well as generally having a decent selection of RPGs. I want to say that the price difference between cartridges and CDs was greater in Japan, but don't quote me on that.

[Zebbe]

Let me put it even more straight forward so that you get what I mean. If 100 million people buy a console but no one buys any games, is that a success?

Yep. Just look at the PlayStation 2 DVD player or the Nintendo We.

[gamegenie]

It depends on what you mean by "better". The Turbo/PCE-CD games sold much better than Sega/Mega-CD games.

of course it did to the Japan market. Sega CD games sold much better than Turbo CD in the Western World.