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[cireza]

Its the same problem the Jaguar had: cartridges cant be bigger than 32 mbit/4 MB

They can be much bigger, they weren't because of the cost of ROM back then.

 

[Team Andromeda]

The idea behind the 32x wasn't bad, I just think they went too far with it. The idea of moving the enhancement chips from the cartridges to a middleman cartridge seems reasonable enough. If it had been a $50 or $60 addon that contained the SVP people might have picked it up and you might have seen more devs take a crack at making games using the SVP. They could have even launched it bundled with the first game for not much more than what Virtua Racer cost anyway.

Nintendo had quite a few games that used the enhanced chips, it's surprising that they never launched a reusable cartridge. But, I guess there was a lot of different variations on those.

The idea of trying to have a speced-up Mega Drive to counter the Jaguar and 3DO made some sense. What made no sense was SEGA America thinking it could be the best selling next-gen system and take on the Saturn, N64 and PS
The moment SEGA Japan showed off a near finished Saturn and announced the winter 1994 date, was the moment the 32X project should have been canned


So many people were bored of the 16-bit generation and wanted to move on and have a complete break.

 

[Team Andromeda]

Oh ho ho ho... look into Sega's history and it becomes very clear very quickly why they dropped out of the console race. They had very good games, but very bad business sense.


Kind of missing the point here aren't we? Of course it doesn't run the best, especially since it hasn't been optimized for the system yet with an entire CPU going unused by the code. The point was to show that things like this were possible with the hardware provided. It's still honestly impressive for what it is.

Tom made the call to push on with the 32X, Tom who still believed in the 16-bit market even when it was clear even in 1994 that the market was in decline and oversaturated with software and sales in decline

I somewhat get tired of people not wanting the Mega Drive to die, every system has unused potential. Listen to fans the Amiga can run Doom (and it can) or how the Atari Falcon can run not only Quake, but Half-Life 2. Some people can get Doom or TR running on a calculator or a LED screen on a Cannon printer


I much rather go but what was available to programmers back in the day and what the systems did back then. The truth of the matter was Saturn already had a better version in 1996 of TR and the 32X was such a flop that CORE Design had to drop 4 32X games despite nearly all of them being finished
If you looked CORE work on the 32X, BC racer was behind that of the Mega CD version and many Sega Saturn games only used one SH-2 because back them some developers didn't have the time or the skill set you use the slave SH-2 or how terrible some complies were

The worst part in it all was how SEGA could have been a real strong number 2 if not for the 32X and really taken the battle to N64.

 

[Ozzie666]

These threads always turn into retro arguements and differing of opinions and I'm all here for it. A bitter battle of Sega vs Nintendo, with Sega wiping the floor with Nintendo up until 1994 in the USA. As much as I love the Genesis, Sega won some small battles but lost the war in a large way. Damaged thesmelves out of the business. The Megadrive didn't even outsell the Pc Engine in Japen either. The fact that Sega still feared ATARI in 1993/1994, they obviously didn't have good corporate ninjas and their short success was all smoke and mirrors, pure luck.

I'm just glad my little 32X friend is showing what it could do if given the chance. Christmas 1994 was amazing, Star Wars was all I really needed and whatever else 16 bit consoles were offering. Virtua racing was okay too. By the end, great home ports of MK2, WWF, NBA Jam and Primal Rage. Dam you Capcom and Konami for pulling your games.

 

[Team Andromeda]

These threads always turn into retro arguements and differing of opinions and I'm all here for it. A bitter battle of Sega vs Nintendo, with Sega wiping the floor with Nintendo up until 1994 in the USA. As much as I love the Genesis, Sega won some small battles but lost the war in a large way. Damaged thesmelves out of the business. The Megadrive didn't even outsell the Pc Engine in Japen either. The fact that Sega still feared ATARI in 1993/1994, they obviously didn't have good corporate ninjas and their short success was all smoke and mirrors, pure luck.

I'm just glad my little 32X friend is showing what it could do if given the chance. Christmas 1994 was amazing, Star Wars was all I really needed and whatever else 16 bit consoles were offering. Virtua racing was okay too. By the end, great home ports of MK2, WWF, NBA Jam and Primal Rage. Dam you Capcom and Konami for pulling your games.

But SEGA didn't wipe the floor with Nintendo in America, it just took a lot of market share off Nintendo. It was in Europe when SEGA truly wiped the floor with Nintendo for both the NES and SuperNintendo and btw The Saturn was able to beat the N64 in Japan and smash PC FX

I was very happy with a proper 32-bit system in 1994 and moving on from the 16-bit systems and by the end of 95 was playing near Arcade perfect port of Capcom's X-Men: COTA

 

[Operations66]

Except that it wasn't. Both had strengths and weaknesses. It is not that one-way result you would like us to believe, and honestly, I thought that 30 years later, people would be a little bit more informed and stop throwing around these ridiculous statements as if they were some kind of absolute, factual truth. You don't have to convince anyone anymore.

Yep, the Genesis’ “blast processing” (faster processor) gave Genesis much better versions of EA sports games and shoot-em-ups, which were some of my favorite games. On SNES they were unplayable due to slowdown.

 

[SmokedMeat]

The lines were blurrier on generations back then and I think Sega was thinking just because the Genesis was old didn't mean it had to be abandoned entirely and could still be a viable platform as a sort of "tiered" system like what Microsoft is doing with the Series S and Series X.

I assume the 32X was cheaper than a Saturn? So for people that wanted an upgrade but didn't want to shell out for a full priced all new console and do away with the old one they already had.

I think 32X was intended to be a low cost entry to 32-bit gaming, which was increasingly getting more buzz.

I remember getting my Sega Visions magazine in the mail, and the front cover was 32-bit gaming for $150, via the 32X. So yeah, much cheaper than Saturn which would later cost $399.

I worked in an Electronics department for a retailer back then, and we didn’t sell a single 32X. There just weren’t any big games to drive hardware sales, and none of the games convincingly looked a generation beyond the Genesis.

This felt like a time where Sega just kept throwing things at the wall to see what stuck. In hindsight they never should’ve made a 32X.

But it’s fascinating to see what people are doing with it.

 

[RetroAV]

But SEGA didn't wipe the floor with Nintendo in America, it just took a lot of market share off Nintendo. It was in Europe when SEGA truly wiped the floor with Nintendo for both the NES and SuperNintendo and btw The Saturn was able to beat the N64 in Japan and smash PC FX

I was very happy with a proper 32-bit system in 1994 and moving on from the 16-bit systems and by the end of 95 was playing near Arcade perfect port of Capcom's X-Men: COTA

Yeah, it's easy to "wipe the floor" in Europe when Nintendo isn't even trying in that region and instead has all its resources focused on the biggest market where it has lost to Tom and Sega of America.

But anyway, I've said it before and I'll say it again, the 32X could have worked out, but it just didn't have the software support. Kalinske was worried about the Saturn not selling because of its price and he was right! At $399, it was too expensive! And here we have the 32X capable of running one of the Saturn's most impressive 3D games for what was less than half the price! The 32X didn't suck, the support for it did.

 

[Team Andromeda]

Yeah, it's easy to "wipe the floor" in Europe when Nintendo isn't even trying in that region and instead has all its resources focused on the biggest market where it has lost to Tom and Sega of America.

But anyway, I've said it before and I'll say it again, the 32X could have worked out, but it just didn't have the software support. Kalinske was worried about the Saturn not selling because of its price and he was right! At $399, it was too expensive! And here we have the 32X capable of running one of the Saturn's most impressive 3D games for what was less than half the price! The 32X didn't suck, the support for it did.

Yeah, Nintendo didn't try to sell the NES or Super Nintendo in Europe, my mistake and no cocky comeback that it was the likes of Bandai who sold the systems in Europe

And you look over how much 32X software cost Vs Saturn software £10 to £20 more. So my the time you bought a handful of Saturn games you saved more money than buying software for the 32X.
£399 wasn't that experience and launch its always the die-hards who buy consoles, while the casuals wait for the Price cuts

 

[Tazzu]

Knowing your type I'm probably wasting my time by trying to schooling you but hopefully other people seeking actual knowledge about this subject will read this post in the future:

SNES had more colors but that was it. Some will say to this day that SNES could use 256 simultaneous colors but in reality barely any game used more than 90~100 colors at the same time. Other uncultured fanboys will claim that SNES games could run at 512x448 resolution but in reality that resolution was used only on some "press start" screens, some menus and only ONE shitty game that actually used it in game (RPM Racing) but at the cost of sacrificing the number of simultaneous colors and having almost nothing on screen besides the background and the cars.

Meanwhile, Mega Drive could actually run games at a higher resolution than the SNES (320x240 vs SNES' 256x240). Some games like Sonic 2 could even run at 320x480. It also had a more powerful processor that could display more sprites on screen, the games had less slowdown (some SNES games even had Loading like Mikey Mania) and the background could work with more parallax effects. You can compare the numbers here: https://segaretro.org/Sega_Mega_Drive/Hardware_comparison

But don't take my opinion as the absolute truth, let's hear the actual professionals, shall we?

An interview with Masato Maegawa, Japanese programmer, video game developer, and founder of Treasure:

About SNES having better music, well, of course in the end of the day it all depend on personal tastes but again, let's hear the opinion of someone who actually worked with it. In this podcast, between 37:11 ~ 38:45 and 40:28 ~ 42:00 you can hear Matt Furniss, a video game musician explaining why the YM2612 (the Mega Drive sound chip) was better than the SNES.

I think Goati (a cool guy who stream a lot of retro games) made a good, comprehensive comparison between SNES and Mega Drive sound chips that you can watch on these 5 short clips from his stream:







And finally, about the sales number. As you can see here the SNES only outsold the Mega Drive after 1995, when the 16 bit era already ended and SEGA was focusing on the 32 bit era. Granted, The SNES did came two years after the Mega Drive but it also lasted longer.

But guys, SMB3 is the greatest game ever made!

 

[Futaleufu]

They can be much bigger, they weren't because of the cost of ROM back then.

Exactly, make them bigger and soon they'll cost almost as much as a Neo Geo game.

 

[RAIDEN1]

The thing is, this game couldn't it have been built as a 32x CD game? instead of just looking it as if the game would have been purely on a cartridge which would never have happened anyway.....even if the 32x sold numbers close to the Sega CD did..

 

[Red Crayon Aristocrat]

Disagreed. The Genesis was especially long in the tooth. And Sega CD didn't exactly take the world by storm. And to make it worse you'd have games that required both Sega CD and 32x? *barf*. I remember it being a pretty clear picture at the time painted by the EGMs and GamePros of the world. At least for my age group of like 13-14 as the next gen hype was brewing.

SNES was better than Genesis. Genesis was for some reason better for sports games and had some cool stuff too. But it was no SNES. SMS was completely forgotten by that point. If you played games on NES you'd probably get bullied for being poor.

32x release followed by a Pearl Harbor style release of Saturn completely outside of the holiday season was insanity. And some of the stuff on 32x was like wtf. After Burner and Space Harrier? Nowadays I can appreciate those ports... but back then none of us were remotely excited for ancient arcade ports that were already on Genesis and Master System.

Plus how you gonna convince your parents to buy a new Sega Saturn a few months after getting you a Sega 32x for Christmas (if you were so unfortunate)?

I guess with stuff coming out a year earlier in Japan by the time stuff showed up in the US you kinda already knew which was the wind was blowing. Which is a little strange since it seemed like Saturn did pretty okay in Japan.

I was a bit of a contrarian and tried to fight the console war on their behalf in the school lunchroom but... alas I felt well... this level of despair:

Okay, sorry for the derail. The tech demo itself is pretty cool.

I didn't say the 32X was necessarily good, though it was more a matter of poor support, but just that I can see what Sega was thinking at the time.

The smartest thing to have done was to just skip all that and even the Saturn (I know it has it's very strong following but I personally don't get it) and continue to support the Genesis head on till at least 1997 with a proper Sonic 4 and things, then you make the jump to 3D with the Dreamcast, if that had been the case it's possible Sega would still be in the console business to this day or at least lasted longer.

As for Genesis vs SNES, I'm a hardcore SNES fan, but I feel Genesis and SNES were pretty evenly matched, they both did different things in interestingly different ways, it's not all about the nitty gritty but also the general vibe, Genesis had a great vibe, a very worthy competitor to the SNES.

 

[Pegasus Actual]

I didn't say the 32X was necessarily good, though it was more a matter of poor support, but just that I can see what Sega was thinking at the time.

I'll just reiterate that the add-on model had already failed with Sega CD. Maybe if they held off on Sega CD and put it out with 32x tech a couple of years later it could have been interesting. But with benefit of hindsight, the add-on game ain't it. Better Saturn design. Better (and non-stealth $400) launch. And a little more forward thinking game design. Virtua Fighter pack-in ain't it.

The smartest thing to have done was to just skip all that and even the Saturn (I know it has it's very strong following but I personally don't get it) and continue to support the Genesis head on till at least 1997 with a proper Sonic 4 and things, then you make the jump to 3D with the Dreamcast, if that had been the case it's possible Sega would still be in the console business to this day or at least lasted longer.

2D games were starting to feel really irrelevant with the 32-bit era approaching. Maybe the finances would have panned out a little better but I think it would be more of a case of Sega fading away with less of a fight. Like yeah Dreamcast was a nice step up from PSX but PS2 would still have come along to murder it, along with the ridiculous media hype train (we have to prevent Saddam from acquiring PS2s, lmao)

As for Genesis vs SNES, I'm a hardcore SNES fan, but I feel Genesis and SNES were pretty evenly matched, they both did different things in interestingly different ways, it's not all about the nitty gritty but also the general vibe, Genesis had a great vibe, a very worthy competitor to the SNES.

Genesis was real swell. SNES still takes the win, walls of text from Sega avatars aren't gonna relitigate facts that were settled 30 years ago in school lunchrooms.

 

[mansoor1980]

speaking of sega genesis , yuzo koshiro and his team "ancient" have been working on this project , no release date yet

 

[cireza]

The thing is, this game couldn't it have been built as a 32x CD game?

I doubt it, as I explained previously in the thread.

 

[Allandor]

I would think if this was 28 years go, the cartridge limitations (48mb) would have killed anything like this for a full game? I wonder if it would have worked as a CD game? or am I totally wrong here.
32x had more under the hood than we ever got to see.

Well, of I remember correctly, the game itself wasn't that big. The cutscenes were big, and there were audio tracks on the disc (if I remember it correctly).
So getting this die to that size wouldn't be impossible.

 

[cireza]

I'll just reiterate that the add-on model had already failed with Sega CD.

If anything the Sega CD was actually a decent success. Spreading more bullshit based on your ignorance isn't going to change things you know. This add-on introduced CD gaming for a lot of people in the West, it was supported with games releases for 6 years and even had a revision. Where are the signs of a failure exactly ?

An argument for the SNES having failed could also be made. I mean why not ? After all Nintendo lost half of its market share to a brand new competitor.

Genesis was real swell. SNES still takes the win, walls of text from Sega avatars aren't gonna relitigate facts that were settled 30 years ago in school lunchrooms.

Regurgitating arguments from Nintendo fanboys has never achieved anything, you should know it 30 years later. Spreading them during your lunch breaks must have been of utmost importance for you, and you certainly had a nice echo chamber with your other Nintendo friends. I had several occasions to meet Nintendo fans spreading this kind of shit, and every single time the conclusion was the same : they were totally ignorant of anything SEGA. Simply repeating stuff like parrots. I could hardly believe it. Even more funny is that I had actually more knowledge about the SNES that even them had.

 

[Pegasus Actual]

If anything the Sega CD was actually a decent success. Spreading more bullshit based on your ignorance isn't going to change things you know. This add-on introduced CD gaming for a lot of people in the West, it was supported with games releases for 6 years and even had a revision. Where are the signs of a failure exactly ?

FMV turd games. Nobody liked it. At least the TurboGrafx-CD had dignity. Best thing I can say about it is that the music CD they threw in there along with the trash pack-ins had a couple of fun songs.

An argument for the SNES having failed could also be made. I mean why not ? After all Nintendo lost half of its market share to a brand new competitor.

Well color me convinced!

Regurgitating arguments from Nintendo fanboys has never achieved anything, you should know it 30 years later. Spreading them during your lunch breaks must have been of utmost importance for you, and you certainly had a nice echo chamber with your other Nintendo friends. I had several occasions to meet Nintendo fans spreading this kind of shit, and every single time the conclusion was the same : they were totally ignorant of anything SEGA. Simply repeating stuff like parrots. I could hardly believe it. Even more funny is that I had actually more knowledge about the SNES that even them had.

Ahh yes, the Sega kid who didn't have Super Nintendo but is such an expert on everything.

Spoiler: more facts

NES > SMS
SNES > Genesis > Turbo Grafx 16
PS1 > N64 > Sega Saturn
PS2 > Xbox > GameCube
Xbox 360 > PS3
PS4 > Xbox One

^in case you wanted to find something else to be angry about.

If these were my personal opinions some stuff would get juggled around.

 

[DaGwaphics]

A good old 16bit console war showdown. Haven't seen one of these in a while. Genesis does what Nintenon't, Blast processing!

 

[cireza]

Well color me convinced!

Not that it was difficult. After all you have been regurgitating the same rubbish thousands have before you without having a clue about what they were talking about to begin with. Of course I was going to convince you in a couple sentences.

NES > SMS
SNES > Genesis > Turbo Grafx 16
PS1 > N64 > Sega Saturn
PS2 > Xbox > GameCube
Xbox 360 > PS3
PS4 > Xbox One

You can write organized lists ? That's incredible.

 

[Pegasus Actual]

^This dude a) doesn't wear pants, and b) chokes himself with a SCART cable while playing Altered Beast. I would wager up to 2250 kronor on this.

 

[diffusionx]

FMV turd games. Nobody liked it. At least the TurboGrafx-CD had dignity. Best thing I can say about it is that the music CD they threw in there along with the trash pack-ins had a couple of fun songs.

That's not true. There's a reason so many of them were made and it's because a lot of people were really impressed by them. They were of a time and place and you can't judge the 1993 game industry by 2023 standards.

 

[Pegasus Actual]

That's not true. There's a reason so many of them were made and it's because a lot of people were really impressed by them. They were of a time and place and you can't judge the 1993 game industry by 2023 standards.

I had a Sega CD in 1993 (Christmas '92). I actually played quite a bit of Sewer Shark... but the novelty wore off pretty quickly and you were just left with poor gameplay. Also packed in was a dreadful Sherlock Holmes game... and Sol Feace? (which was a stale side scrolling space shooter that wasn't as good as say a Thunder Force cartridge game)... and I think there was another disc with like Golden Axe and like Streets of Rage... which were just cartridge games, some of which I already had played. And the aforementioned music CD. Nobody I knew even mentioned Sega CD beyond then. It was SNES/Genesis cart games and then the 32-bit hype era.

CD-ROM add-ons for PC fared much better with the 'multimedia' buzzword games.

 

[nkarafo]

That's not true. There's a reason so many of them were made and it's because a lot of people were really impressed by them. They were of a time and place and you can't judge the 1993 game industry by 2023 standards.

They did?

I never liked them even back then. I was initially impressed when i saw Road Avenger in a shop being demonstrated, but i didn't understand how the game works/plays at the time. When i figured out it was just video clips i felt like i was scammed, lol.

Magazine reviews were also mixed with most FMV games. The only ones i remember getting good reviews were stuff like The 7th Guest on PC, the only FMV game that became a classic AFAIK (other than Dragon's Lair on the arcades) and Rebel Strike. On the Sega CD i only remember Mystery Mansion/Mansion of Hidden Souls being any good (FMV sequences aren't that bad with Point & Click adventures since those were always static images before anyway).

The fad didn't last long. It died even before the Sega CD did.

I had a Sega CD in 1993 (Christmas '92). I actually played quite a bit of Sewer Shark... but the novelty wore off pretty quickly and you were just left with poor gameplay. Also packed in was a dreadful Sherlock Holmes game... and Sol Feace? (which was a stale side scrolling space shooter that wasn't as good as say a Thunder Force cartridge game)... and I think there was another disc with like Golden Axe and like Streets of Rage... which were just cartridge games, some of which I already had played. And the aforementioned music CD. Nobody I knew even mentioned Sega CD beyond then. It was SNES/Genesis cart games and then the 32-bit hype era.

CD-ROM add-ons for PC fared much better with the 'multimedia' buzzword games.

There aren't many non-FMV games on the Sega CD that make use of the hardware and are good games at the same time. The Final Fight port is probably the best game in the library but this game would probably be possible on the standard Genesis/Mega Drive. A couple of Batman driving games and a Starfox like game have some nice scaling effects. Snatcher is another good one and Mystery Mansion/Mansion of Hidden Souls was my personal favorite game on the system. That's it. Everything else was either bad or could be easily done on the standard Genesis. Sonic CD was meh, Sonic 2/3/Knuckles were far superior games that didn't need an expensive addon.

For me the system was a big fat failure, in the same rank as stuff like the 32X, Amiga CD32 and Jaguar.

 

[Pegasus Actual]

There aren't many non-FMV games on the Sega CD that make use of the hardware and are good games at the same time. The Final Fight port is probably the best game in the library but this game would probably be possible on the standard Genesis/Mega Drive. A couple of Batman driving games and a Starfox like game have some nice scaling effects. Snatcher is another good one and Mystery Mansion/Mansion of Hidden Souls was my personal favorite game on the system. That's it. Everything else was either bad or could be easily done on the standard Genesis. Sonic CD was meh, Sonic 2/3/Knuckles were far superior games that didn't need an expensive addon.

Regretted never getting Snatcher. By the time I had any interest, it was long gone from stores.

Final Fight had a pretty solid SNES release that I got around launch so zero incentive to give that a try on Sega CD.

I did have the Batman game that alternated between bog standard side scroller and pretty-cool scaler Batmobile combat. It wasn't a particularly good game but the driving parts were impressive.

Sonic CD is like some kind of weird hipster meme "Ya gotta play Sonic CD, but ya gotta get the Japanese version for the soundtrack"

The only Sega CD game I really look back on with any fondness is Silpheed. Nice little shooter, the low poly prerendered stuff was a much better use of the technology than the live-action garbage FMV.

 

[nkarafo]

The only Sega CD game I really look back on with any fondness is Silpheed. Nice little shooter, the low poly prerendered stuff was a much better use of the technology than the live-action garbage FMV.

Yeah that was cool but the pre-rendered backdrop was moving at 20fps while the in-game objects were 60 so that always looked off to me.

Final Fight CD is definitely a better port than what the SNES got. Wasn't the SNES port the one without a 2 player mode? I can't remember.

There's another Batman game that's only about driving (Adventures of Batman and Robin) and it looks even better than the driving sections of Batman returns IMO. I think it's the best scaling the system has done so far.

I'm aware the Sega CD has some nice RPGs and many fans like the console for that, i suppose the FMV cutscenes, voice acting and orchestral music is an important factor for these games so even though the in-game graphics of all these games could be done on the Genesis, i can't deny the experience is very different on a CD system. So i guess the system would fare much better if you were an RPG fan.

 

[cireza]

That's it.

That's it yeah. Games like Lunar, Dune or Soulstar don't exist !

Everything else was either bad or could be easily done on the standard Genesis.

If you cut down on content to fit in 4 MB which were the bigger games back then (and still more expensive to manufacture as discs), remove all kinds of FMVs/videos, remove all kids of ASIC chip effects and also remove Redbook audio / audio that makes use of the additional hardware, then yes without a doubt, every SEGA-CD game can be easily done on Genesis.

But the same can be said about the Genesis honestly. If you cut down on parallaxes, drop down the resolution a bit, reduce the number of colors and change entirely the audio, you can easily convert any Genesis game to the Master System.

 

[Pegasus Actual]

Yeah that was cool but the pre-rendered backdrop was moving at 20fps while the in-game objects were 60 so that always looked off to me.

True, and it's quickly clear that it's just a movie playing (much like the Road Avenger example you had). But it had a functional (and smooth) game on top of it, and I think you even had to dodge some of the pre-rendered asteroids and stuff. I don't know. I kind of liked it more than Star Fox just because of how choppy that game was... but right around the same time is when I got a 486 PC and X-Wing at which point I had zero interest in revisiting either one.

Final Fight CD is definitely a better port than what the SNES got. Wasn't the SNES port the one without a 2 player mode? I can't remember.

Yeah, single player, no Guy, some other stuff cut as well. But just like with Final Fight Guy, with limited allowance money coming in for gaming, the last thing I'm going to do is shell out for a better version of Final Fight.

There's another Batman game that's only about driving (Adventures of Batman and Robin) and it looks even better than the driving sections of Batman returns IMO. I think it's the best scaling the system has done so far.

I'm aware the Sega CD has some nice RPGs and many fans like the console for that, i suppose the FMV cutscenes, voice acting and orchestral music is an important factor for these games so even though the in-game graphics of all these games could be done on the Genesis, i can't deny the experience is very different on a CD system. So i guess the system would fare much better if you were an RPG fan.

I tried to play Lunar at some point but I just couldn't get into it amidst SquareSoft's SNES run. One frustrating hole in the Sega CD lineup is a Phantasy Star game. Seems like they could have done so much with that.

 

[nkarafo]

cireza Yeah, i addressed all that on my last post. I was a bit harsher than i should. Oh and i already mentioned Soulstar (my "Starfox like" example, i didn't remember the name).

You mentioned a handful of games, just like i did. Overall it's not much though you got to admit. You get, what, about 10 noteworthy games if you really stretch it? That's not much different than any other failed console, except extreme cases like the Virtual Boy or the Game.com.

 

[cireza]

You get, what, about 10 noteworthy games if you really stretch it?

I have at least 30 games at home that I all find worthwhile. Because a game simply has a fantastic new audio on top of the standard Genesis game, you seem to invalidate it. But that's not my case at all, and so was the case for a lot people.

Terminator is an entirely different game (could be done on MD for sure) and the soundtrack is a masterpiece. Both Ecco games as well, the new soundtracks are excellent. Pitfall was developed in lead on the SEGA-CD. And many games are improved, for example Mickey Mania and Earthworm Jim. You can be satisfied with the Genesis versions of course, but you are still getting more things thanks to the CD format. Why would they not count ? Why would you play Mickey Mania on Genesis if you can play on SEGA-CD ? Same for every game like this.

Many games have more content as well, that just wouldn't fit on cartridge unless using mappers and a prohibitive price. Including more animations than MegaDrive games.

These are the games that are the smaller upgrades, but then you get games that use a lot more the SEGA-CD. Let's pick an example : Eye of the Beholder. Have you played this game ? It is absolutely fantastic. First of all, there is a lot of visual content and I would be curious to see if it would fit in 4 MB. You can clearly see that they were not compromised in any way. You have lengthy animation that introduces the game and sets the mood, large high res visuals throughout the game.

Then you get the sound design, with a redbook soundtrack from Yuzo Koshiro and on top of that the get excellent sound effects for enemies that are properly oriented (left/right) and adjusted in volume depending on their location/distance. The overall experience is excellent, and there is a version on SNES, but I would never trade the SEGA-CD version for a compromised cartridge version. You simply lose everything that creates the atmosphere in the process. And this is a sentiment seen with the vast majority of my SEGA-CD games.

Dune is another example exactly like this, the whole package is much more than the sum of its parts.

You even have excellent shooters. Who would play Lords of Thunder without the redbook soundtrack ? Robo Aleste has also a superb atmosphere thanks to the soundtrack.

We also got ports for Fatal Fury and Samurai Shodown that retain the full size of the sprites. And Eternal Champions is loaded with content. No way that would fit on MegaDrive.

I am not going to list all games, but only 10 worthwhile ? Yeah no.

than any other failed console

Certainly the SEGA-CD was not failure, not with how much units it moved and the support it got for 6 years. People really need to stop thinking that if something doesn't sell 50 millions then it is a failure.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

That's great and all but it was a small market which is why I'm not on an Amiga laptop right now talking about Sega Uranus 3 and poor Sonic the Hedgehog has been relegated to some weird fetish for furries.

That's a little beside the point, I think Genesis outsold SNES in the US as well. Heck, I had a Power Converter, and I had a good time with some Master System games that way. But aside from painting Nintendo as being for little kids, and stuff like buying Mortal Kombat on Genesis so you'd get red blood and gore, everybody knew SNES was better (more colors, mode 7 effects, music). 32x felt like a scam and poor Saturn was pushed out to die. I mean I really don't think they did themselves any favors with the video game press unable to hype up the launch.

Fourth generation of video games

The fourth-generation (1987–1997) of video games includes the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16, and others. See also: List of best-selling game consoles The cumulative (including annual) sales of fourth-generation consoles in Japan: In other...

vgsales.fandom.com

 

[Team Andromeda]

I have at least 30 games at home that I all find worthwhile. Because a game simply has a fantastic new audio on top of the standard Genesis game, you seem to invalidate it. But that's not my case at all, and so was the case for a lot people.

Terminator is an entirely different game (could be done on MD for sure) and the soundtrack is a masterpiece. Both Ecco games as well, the new soundtracks are excellent. Pitfall was developed in lead on the SEGA-CD. And many games are improved, for example Mickey Mania and Earthworm Jim. You can be satisfied with the Genesis versions of course, but you are still getting more things thanks to the CD format. Why would they not count ? Why would you play Mickey Mania on Genesis if you can play on SEGA-CD ? Same for every game like this.

Many games have more content as well, that just wouldn't fit on cartridge unless using mappers and a prohibitive price. Including more animations than MegaDrive games.

These are the games that are the smaller upgrades, but then you get games that use a lot more the SEGA-CD. Let's pick an example : Eye of the Beholder. Have you played this game ? It is absolutely fantastic. First of all, there is a lot of visual content and I would be curious to see if it would fit in 4 MB. You can clearly see that they were not compromised in any way. You have lengthy animation that introduces the game and sets the mood, large high res visuals throughout the game.

Then you get the sound design, with a redbook soundtrack from Yuzo Koshiro and on top of that the get excellent sound effects for enemies that are properly oriented (left/right) and adjusted in volume depending on their location/distance. The overall experience is excellent, and there is a version on SNES, but I would never trade the SEGA-CD version for a compromised cartridge version. You simply lose everything that creates the atmosphere in the process. And this is a sentiment seen with the vast majority of my SEGA-CD games.

Dune is another example exactly like this, the whole package is much more than the sum of its parts.

You even have excellent shooters. Who would play Lords of Thunder without the redbook soundtrack ? Robo Aleste has also a superb atmosphere thanks to the soundtrack.

We also got ports for Fatal Fury and Samurai Shodown that retain the full size of the sprites. And Eternal Champions is loaded with content. No way that would fit on MegaDrive.

I am not going to list all games, but only 10 worthwhile ? Yeah no.


Certainly the SEGA-CD was not failure, not with how much units it moved and the support it got for 6 years. People really need to stop thinking that if something doesn't sell 50 millions then it is a failure.

I don't know why you waste your time with nkarafo. Just clearly trying to gauge you and wind you up and not at all interested in a serious debate over the Mega-CD and the good games it had

 

[nkarafo]

Maybe if it was a standalone console and didn't need the Mega Drive.... How many non-Mega Drive users bought the combo just to have access to the library? Did it worth the cost of two consoles?

As a Mega Drive owner i had already a lot of these games in cart format. Mickey Mania, EWJ, Flink... Was it worth it for me to buy the addon itself and double dip just for the extra content (which could be something minimal for all we knew) and the improved soundtrack or the extra FMVs?

As a retro console nowadays? Sure, it's interesting checking the ports and seeing the differences/being able to have the best versions of some Genesis games. But back then? It was a hard sell.

And speaking of soundtracks... Ecco: Tides of Time soundtrack was superior on the base Mega Drive. Not the sound quality ofc but the compositions. Mega Drive version is one of my favorite OSTs, matter of taste, i know.

Certainly the SEGA-CD was not failure, not with how much units it moved and the support it got for 6 years.

It didn't move much though. According to wiki it sold less than the Sega Pico, Wonderswan and the N-Gage. I wasn't aware it was that bad, unless Wikipedia is terribly wrong or something.

I don't know why you waste your time with nkarafo. Just clearly trying to gauge you and wind you up and not at all interested in a serious debate over the Mega-CD and the good games it had

 

[cireza]

Ecco: Tides of Time soundtrack was superior on the base Mega Drive.

Ecco games have great soundtracks on cartridge, especially the second game. But it is still a matter of preferences indeed. I like both, but the production value on SEGA-CD was insane for the time and a lot of people who enjoy great quality music will prefer the SEGA-CD version for sure.

It didn't move much though. According to wiki it sold less than the Sega Pico, Wonderswan and the N-Gage and these weren't exactly success stories. I wasn't aware it was that bad, unless Wikipedia is terribly wrong or something.

I think that sales numbers are very vague and inaccurate. As far as I am concerned, I gave up looking at sales numbers and think it is a bit dumb. What makes it a success ? If sales are above whatever arbitrary limit people decided ?

Looking back at history and how things went, I think that a console was a success for the company that produced it if it was released worldwide and actively supported for many years. And you can share all the unverifiable sales numbers you want, they simply don't mean anything compared to what the companies actually did back then. Acts are proof enough of if a console was successful or not. The Mega-CD was released in 91 in Japan with Lunar, and we got it in the West, we got a great revision with the Mega-CD 2 and games up to 95.

 

[nkarafo]

the production value on SEGA-CD was insane for the time

That's true. And it applies to other early CD consoles like the PC-Engine CD. The sound quality is very clean and crisp. Spider-man, EWJ, Final Fight, etc all have a very distinct high-quality sound. Same goes for Castlevania on the Engine. Later Castlevania games on more modern consoles may have amazing compositions but the production/sound quality was nowhere near close.

I think it has to do with the fact that on early CD consoles, CD quality music was seen as a "premium" feature. It was a selling point. Later on when optical discs were the standard nobody gave a damn anymore.

 

[SkylineRKR]

I didn't have a Sega CD but there is absolutely some top tier stuff for it. The Lunar games alone would've made it worthwhile. Shining Force CD, Sonic CD, Final Fight CD were pretty great. I would've absolutely went for the CD version of MK if I had it back then. You got the arcade intro and voice overs etc.

Remember it was a different era. I bought a Saturn 4MB cart just for some improved animations in games. Sega CD would deliver the same kind of upgrade, along with redbook audio. Those upgrades were seen as huge.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

I would think if this was 28 years go, the cartridge limitations (48mb) would have killed anything like this for a full game? I wonder if it would have worked as a CD game? or am I totally wrong here.
32x had more under the hood than we ever got to see.

They mentioned in the video all the textures are in their raw PC resolution and there is a lot of improvement possible for the framerate, so I would say that number could go down a lot.

 

[cireza]

I think it has to do with the fact that on early CD consoles, CD quality music was seen as a "premium" feature. It was a selling point. Later on when optical discs were the standard nobody gave a damn anymore.

This is a tendency that went to define 8/16 bits CD consoles/add-ons. Because the size of the games was still rather small on the disc, it was realistic to put Redbook Audio next to the game code/assets. It could fit. There was a lot of space available to make good things in the audio department.

32 bits is when games started getting bigger and bigger, and Redbook simply wouldn't work anymore. We still got Redbook in a good number of games on Saturn for example, but it slowly disappeared for other kinds of compressed formats. The Saturn had a very capable FM chip, but it was not used that much sadly.

 

[pepodmc_]

48ΜΒ? I don't think there's any official 32X game larger than 4MB.

Otherwise 48MB is plenty of space for most games back then. See how something like Ocarina of Time on the N64 is only 32MB. Most of the data in CD games at the time was uncompressed/redbook audio and FMVs. 32X version would also have lower-res textures so more space would be saved from that as well. Add modern compression and optimization techniques that didn't exist in 1996 and you are set.

Having said that, i don't think the game would be able to fit on an actual 32X cart, which would probably have to be much less than 48MB.

There are six sega cd+32x games, this one could have been one of them

 

[Team Andromeda]

. The Mega-CD was released in 91 in Japan with Lunar, and we got it in the West, we got a great revision with the Mega-CD 2 and games up to 95.

That wasn't quite the case mate. I was one of those fools who imported a Japanese Mega CD at great cost and needed Saturday work

The only games it did have at launch was Sol Feace and Heavy Nova, the worst launch line up I can remember that said the PC Engine launch software in Japan wasn't much better and the PC Engine CD Rom cost more than the Mega CD on launch and you have to buy an additional memory cart to play the CD Rom2 games.

People look over and forget how much CD drives and more importantly RAM cost back then. People also forget that the Mega CD was just a CD Drive add-on to the system, just like the PC Engine and even the PC-CD Rom drive and speaking of which the CD-Rom drive for the PC Dos had if anything far more FMV games for it than the Mega CD and that's to overlook not all FMV games were bad and a lot just used FMV to drive a story. Why some expected the Mega CD to be any different to a CD-Rom drive Add-on I really don't know

My biggest issue with the Mega CD is like I had with PSVR2. All the big AAA In-House games are coming out for the base system and there is not enough support or top quality games coming out on a regular basis
More than that for me, was so not enough Mega CD games from SEGA made full use of the ASIC chip and used the extra hardware. I still to this day can't believe why SEGA Japan never had the Mega CD host of ports of their scaling coin-ups like OutRun, ABII, Super Hang-On, OutRun and Space Harrier.

The amazing scaling engine by John O'Brien used in Batman Returns and Cliffhanger showed the system could have ports of SEGA's coin-ups way better than the base Mega Drive.
That will always be my issue with SEGA Japan and the Mega CD. It's almost like SOJ didn't care and couldn't be bothered with the unit and left it to GameArts

 

[tkscz]

How the hell did this thread become SNES vs Genesis?

Knowing your type I'm probably wasting my time by trying to schooling you but hopefully other people seeking actual knowledge about this subject will read this post in the future:

SNES had more colors but that was it. Some will say to this day that SNES could use 256 simultaneous colors but in reality barely any game used more than 90~100 colors at the same time. Other uncultured fanboys will claim that SNES games could run at 512x448 resolution but in reality that resolution was used only on some "press start" screens, some menus and only ONE shitty game that actually used it in game (RPM Racing) but at the cost of sacrificing the number of simultaneous colors and having almost nothing on screen besides the background and the cars.

Meanwhile, Mega Drive could actually run games at a higher resolution than the SNES (320x240 vs SNES' 256x240). Some games like Sonic 2 could even run at 320x480. It also had a more powerful processor that could display more sprites on screen, the games had less slowdown (some SNES games even had Loading like Mikey Mania) and the background could work with more parallax effects. You can compare the numbers here: https://segaretro.org/Sega_Mega_Drive/Hardware_comparison

But don't take my opinion as the absolute truth, let's hear the actual professionals, shall we?

An interview with Masato Maegawa, Japanese programmer, video game developer, and founder of Treasure:

About SNES having better music, well, of course in the end of the day it all depend on personal tastes but again, let's hear the opinion of someone who actually worked with it. In this podcast, between 37:11 ~ 38:45 and 40:28 ~ 42:00 you can hear Matt Furniss, a video game musician explaining why the YM2612 (the Mega Drive sound chip) was better than the SNES.

I think Goati (a cool guy who stream a lot of retro games) made a good, comprehensive comparison between SNES and Mega Drive sound chips that you can watch on these 5 short clips from his stream:







And finally, about the sales number. As you can see here the SNES only outsold the Mega Drive after 1995, when the 16 bit era already ended and SEGA was focusing on the 32 bit era. Granted, The SNES did came two years after the Mega Drive but it also lasted longer.

Oh cut that out. Yes, Genesis definitely had a better and faster CPU than the SNES but saying the SNES only had better color than the Genesis is an extreme understatement. Yes, bringing up Mode 7 is basic but it was still impressive tech that allowed SNES games to pull off very amazing things, including a form of rotation and scaling. The SNES could also do transparency without the use of dithering. I'm not here to say one was distinctly better than the other, but you need to calm the Sega fanboying down. While I'll give it to you for finding a developer who worked on both and chose the Genesis over the SNES, ONE programmer isn't exactly the most convencing. I'm sure some devs and programmers felt the opposite way back then.

 

[nkarafo]

Why some expected the Mega CD to be any different to a CD-Rom drive Add-on I really don't know

Because it wasn't just a CD ROM addon, like CD Roms for PCs were. it had an additional 68000 CPU that was even faster than the main Genesis CPU and extra silicon for graphics processing like scaling. Very few games made good use of any of that.

 

[cireza]

That wasn't quite the case mate. I was one of those fools who imported a Japanese Mega CD at great cost and needed Saturday work

The only games it did have at launch was Sol Feace and Heavy Nova, the worst launch line up I can remember that said the PC Engine launch software in Japan wasn't much better and the PC Engine CD Rom cost more than the Mega CD on launch and you have to buy an additional memory cart to play the CD Rom2 games.

People look over and forget how much CD drives and more importantly RAM cost back then. People also forget that the Mega CD was just a CD Drive add-on to the system, just like the PC Engine and even the PC-CD Rom drive and speaking of which the CD-Rom drive for the PC Dos had if anything far more FMV games for it than the Mega CD and that's to overlook not all FMV games were bad and a lot just used FMV to drive a story. Why some expected the Mega CD to be any different to a CD-Rom drive Add-on I really don't know

My biggest issue with the Mega CD is like I had with PSVR2. All the big AAA In-House games are coming out for the base system and there is not enough support or top quality games coming out on a regular basis
More than that for me, was so not enough Mega CD games from SEGA made full use of the ASIC chip and used the extra hardware. I still to this day can't believe why SEGA Japan never had the Mega CD host of ports of their scaling coin-ups like OutRun, ABII, Super Hang-On, OutRun and Space Harrier.

The amazing scaling engine by John O'Brien used in Batman Returns and Cliffhanger showed the system could have ports of SEGA's coin-ups way better than the base Mega Drive.
That will always be my issue with SEGA Japan and the Mega CD. It's almost like SOJ didn't care and couldn't be bothered with the unit and left it to GameArts

Fact is the Mega-CD is limited in what it can push to the MegaDrive because of the bandwidth. Don't even think about pushing 60fps in 320x224 like this, the speed is way too slow. This is why Adv of Batman & Robin is probably the best example of the limitations. It pushes very hard and is good testimony of the most we can obtain.

It uses low resolution 256x224, with bars added top and down to reduce even more. And you get 15 to 20 fps. Still looks damn good on CRT, but you could have never run a game like Space Harrier on the 32X at the same framerate through the SEGA-CD, obviously. This is the one bottleneck that really prevented the ASIC to shine.

Because it wasn't just a CD ROM addon, like CD Roms for PCs were. it had an additional 68000 CPU that was even faster than the main Genesis CPU and extra silicon for graphics processing like scaling. Very few games made good use of any of that.

So if not all games use the Dualsense, then the overall PS5 games library and even the console itself suck ? These are capabilities. They are there if developers want to use them, but you don't have to cram all the technical capabilities of your console in every single game.

 

[nkarafo]

So if not all games use the Dualsense, then the overall PS5 games library and even the console itself suck ? These are capabilities. They are there if developers want to use them, but you don't have to cram all the technical capabilities of your console in every single game.

A gimmicky controller feature isn't of the same importance as the hardware features of a brand new console upgrade. Neither does it impact the overall price of the console as much.

It's not like the Sega CD was as cheap as a plain PC CD-ROM. You did pay a hefty price for those extra chips. It was a proper, new console. And i wouldn't mind all the straight Genesis to CD ports, or even all the FMV games since that was the trend at the time, if there were as many games that made good use of that extra, expensive hardware. Which wasn't the case. I did mind how so few games used the extra hardware for more impressive real time graphics. That's the main reason why this console left me with a bad taste.

 

[Team Andromeda]

Fact is the Mega-CD is limited in what it can push to the MegaDrive because of the bandwidth. Don't even think about pushing 60fps in 320x224 like this, the speed is way too slow. This is why Adv of Batman & Robin is probably the best example of the limitations. It pushes very hard and is good testimony of the most we can obtain.

It uses low resolution 256x224, with bars added top and down to reduce even more. And you get 15 to 20 fps. Still looks damn good on CRT, but you could have never run a game like Space Harrier on the 32X at the same framerate through the SEGA-CD, obviously. This is the one bottleneck that really prevented the ASIC to shine.


So if not all games use the Dualsense, then the overall PS5 games library and even the console itself suck ? These are capabilities. They are there if developers want to use them, but you don't have to cram all the technical capabilities of your console in every single game.

Yeah, it was an add-on and also like all CD 1 speed CD-ROM drive at that time very limited also in data transfer I still say Lunar 2, Batman Returns, Cliffhanger and SoulStar are the best examples of the system being pushed to the max.

Also, people can use sales how they want and to suit their argument. Kinect is the best selling Add-On of all time, It is still utter sh8t mind

 

[Team Andromeda]

Because it wasn't just a CD ROM addon, like CD Roms for PCs were. it had an additional 68000 CPU that was even faster than the main Genesis CPU and extra silicon for graphics processing like scaling. Very few games made good use of any of that.

I'm not even bothering to try and debate with you on anything Mega CD.
So please don't bother

 

[MonkeyClaw36]

I mean, it probably had something to do with people being poorer at the time, the US dollar being at its strongest, and Sega's consoles and carts being significantly cheaper than Nintendo's. Also Nintendo's distribution deals in Europe were a mess. Italy got the SNES at least a full year later than the rest of the continent, maybe more (late 1992). Not to shit on Sega, but they landed first and cost less for people who were interested in consoles. The rest were still enjoying their Amigas.

No, no, no. Dont try to blame external factors for Sega's dominance back in the day. It's straight up bullshit and you know it.

1. Licensing. Sega had more licensed games then Nintendo could dream of. Sports games lifted sales BIGTIME for Sega. Not the economy. Which still makes me chuckle.
2. Mortal Kombat. They outsold Nintendo 5:1 when the first MK came out and console sales SOARED for Sega. Both Megadrive and Master System

It was only when the full potential of the SNES could be utilized and Nintendo folded and allowed gore on their systems, that they were coming back and them some.

It was all corporate decisions. NOTHING to do with people being poor, man what a steaming pile of bullshit. Nice try though, nice try!

 

[Team Andromeda]

So if not all games use the Dualsense, then the overall PS5 games library and even the console itself suck ? These are capabilities. They are there if developers want to use them, but you don't have to cram all the technical capabilities of your console in every single game.

Dual sense isn't an add-on mind.

A far better comparison is SONY VR2. It's highly expensive, it lacks the total In-House support from the big AAA In-House studios, the game line is lacking and it's left to 3rd parties to push the system.
Like the Mega CD mind, when both are used they give the user an experience the base system can't match.

RE 8 is awesome in VR and Batman Returns offered scaling way above what the base Mega Drive could do even the Neo Geo couldn't have handled the rotation effects seen at a hardware level.
I love Rise of the Dragon at is way above what was possible on a base Mega Drive due to storage and full use of the Mega CD audio chip, which helped to put you into the Blade Runner world.

It's easy to look over and forget just how much great audio and speech could add to the game back then.

 

[Team Andromeda]

No, no, no. Dont try to blame external factors for Sega's dominance back in the day. It's straight up bullshit and you know it.

1. Licensing. Sega had more licensed games then Nintendo could dream of. Sports games lifted sales BIGTIME for Sega. Not the economy. Which still makes me chuckle.
2. Mortal Kombat. They outsold Nintendo 5:1 when the first MK came out and console sales SOARED for Sega. Both Megadrive and Master System

It was only when the full potential of the SNES could be utilized and Nintendo folded and allowed gore on their systems, that they were coming back and them some.

It was all corporate decisions. NOTHING to do with people being poor, man what a steaming pile of bullshit. Nice try though, nice try!

Yep and let's not forget what Sonic did for MD sales along with SEGAs then top class and slick advertising which looked to push the system to older gamers and not just kids like Nintendo and you're right to say Sports was a big part of that drive.
And let's also remember the Snes/Super Famicom came 2 years later in almost all the main territories even in Japan, The Mega Drive come out in 1988 after all

Its pointles having a debate with Nkarafo on this matter, he's clearly trolling

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