Do you think the 32x would have lasted longer if...

[Jasper061992]

Would the 32x have lasted longer and had more games to boot had the Saturn was launched in September of 95 as originally planned?

[Baloo]

The 32x would've lasted longer if it had a game or two that was REALLY good and Sega of Japan supported it longer.

[mrbigreddog]

The 32x would of definitely lasted longer had I personally not sold it to get a PC... It's all my fault.... :( Sorry World! I turned my back on Sega... I didn't mean to!!

[Robivy64]

You have to consider where the market went not long after the 32X was introduced. Even with a large selection of quality games, the data storage (ROMs) would have put a quick end to it's momentum. CD-ROMs were the new craze a year or two later, and with it's enormous (at the time) storage space and cheap cost, it would have been a no-brainer for Sega to discontinue 32X support.

Sure, there was the N64, but the only reason the N64 was somewhat successful is because of the name, and the quality of some of it's first-party titles. Many developers moved to the Playstation because of Nintendo's choice of expensive ROM storage.

[Iron Lizard]

It needed more games that looked decent to justify its existence. Even had Virtua Fighter came out with it at launch I think that would have helped. The Saturn not being released would have helped though I would rather see it the other way round.

[kool kitty89]

It needed more games that looked decent to justify its existence. Even had Virtua Fighter came out with it at launch I think that would have helped. The Saturn not being released would have helped though I would rather see it the other way round.

That's what these discussions always come down to, yeah the 32x would have been better with more focus towards it for sure, but conversly the Saturn probably would have been handeled better in this time had the 32x not been released at all, and have its games go towards the Saturn's lineup instead... (along with getting developers better associated with the hardware and such, preferably getting better dev tools out in a timely fassion) That and putting more effort into Saturn ads and hype instead of 32x, etc.

Still there's other issues like the fumbled early realease, who knows if the lack of the 32x distracting things would have helped there... (probably more titles ready for release, but the same problems arrise with Sony's price undercutting, and pissing off retailers and developers left out of the loop)

And the Saturn is still a flawed peice of hardware in general, complex, somewhat rushed (some bugs), and expensive to pruduce. (and Sega already couldn't compete with Sony's price cutting/cost eating ability)

[kgenthe]

The 32x may have had some additional legs if the Saturn was delayed until September. That would have been more people buying the 32x during the summer months, thus more games, larger install base, etc etc.

The 32x was the just launched at the wrong time with the wrong hardware. By the time the 32x was released, the Saturn and PSX were already released in Japan, and both are clearly better hardware. The US mags focused their attention on those systems rather than the 32x (and the Jag and 3DO). The fact that it released on dated cartridges didn't help either.

As much as I love the 32x, and it's games, the system probably shouldn't have been developed. But to answer the OP's question, delaying the Saturn would have helped the 32x. Certainly wouldn't have prevented it's quick demise, but perhaps we would have seen a few more games that really pushed the hardware (US release of Darxide, the X-Men game) and gamers wouldn't look back at the 32x with such dismay.

So many what-ifs when you talk about Sega's past.

[tomaitheous]

Don't forget, just because the two 32x processors are kinda crippled - doesn't mean they couldn't have started adding additional chips to the 32x carts. Bringing the games closer to what the PS 3D was doing or such. Then delaying the saturn until the near n64 launch time. Sega would have needed to definitely come out with the Neptune by then and at a super competitive cost to PS. And making very thin profit on carts (sega, not devs) to compete with PS CD gaming prices.

It still wouldn't be the smash success, but it would have been alive for a few more years. But I really based that on 32x charts have some additional processor/dsp/whatever. By itself, it's really not competitive 3D wise in my opinion. Not with the every increase rise of PC popularity and 3D games and the already powerful at the time playstation.

[zetastrike]

It would have been nice if it lasted longer and got more 3rd party support. It was supposed to get a port of Darkstalkers, wasn't it? That would have been cool.

[Da_Shocker]

VF should've been an early for the 32X not crap such as Cosmic Carnage. Sega released a few games that didn't benefit the 32X at at all. (After Burner Complete and Space Harrier.) Then they allowed third party to release tons of shovelware Genesis ports with mild color upgrades. By the time we were getting the good games it was to little to late and the thing got canned. DarXide looked great and so did X-Men no way you could make those games on the SNES.

[mick_aka]

The 32X's entire market turned out to be dim fanboys like myself who were too inpatient to wait for the Saturn launch, and people who brought them when EB and Tandy were selling them off for £19.99.

At the time I was also 100% certain in my own mind that the cart slot I had seen in early images of the Saturn was for 32X games so at least my games investment was sound.

<<< Idiot.

Let's imagine the Saturn got a delayed Xmas '95 release and the 32X had almost a year on the market, I honestly think the majority of the general gaming public would have still saved their cash for a next gen console.

Throwing major development budgets at 32X titles would have made little economic sense for any developers, as I think a great many of them looked at the 32X and saw, quite rightly, a gimmick with little to no market life that they did not want to sink money into.

My opinions...

With a year on the market with almost no competition would the 32X have sold more units? Yes, of course.

Would more companies have jumped onto the 32X development bandwagon? Doubtful.

Would the 32X have been a 'success' for Sega?
Financially NO WAY.

However, the outward appearance that Sega had given the 32X a fair run as it's main contemporary 'system' may have gone a long way with their fanbase...

Incidentally, I still LOVE my 32X.

[Iron Lizard]

That's what these discussions always come down to, yeah the 32x would have been better with more focus towards it for sure, but conversly the Saturn probably would have been handeled better in this time had the 32x not been released at all, and have its games go towards the Saturn's lineup instead... (along with getting developers better associated with the hardware and such, preferably getting better dev tools out in a timely fassion) That and putting more effort into Saturn ads and hype instead of 32x, etc.

Still there's other issues like the fumbled early realease, who knows if the lack of the 32x distracting things would have helped there... (probably more titles ready for release, but the same problems arrise with Sony's price undercutting, and pissing off retailers and developers left out of the loop)

And the Saturn is still a flawed peice of hardware in general, complex, somewhat rushed (some bugs), and expensive to pruduce. (and Sega already couldn't compete with Sony's price cutting/cost eating ability)

I know, I was there and I remember well. There were no games for the 32x and then the Saturn came out early. I remember walking in to Software Etc and saying "How the hell did they get a Saturn?"

[j_factor]

The 32x may have had some additional legs if the Saturn was delayed until September.

That wouldn't have been a delay, that would've been releasing the system on target. Semantics aside, I don't think it would've helped the 32x in the least bit. Saturn's "official launch" was still in September; before then, few bought one, it was scarcely available, and there were very few games. The Saturn's early release harmed no system other than itself.

[kool kitty89]

Don't forget, just because the two 32x processors are kinda crippled - doesn't mean they couldn't have started adding additional chips to the 32x carts. Bringing the games closer to what the PS 3D was doing or such. Then delaying the saturn until the near n64 launch time. Sega would have needed to definitely come out with the Neptune by then and at a super competitive cost to PS. And making very thin profit on carts (sega, not devs) to compete with PS CD gaming prices.

It still wouldn't be the smash success, but it would have been alive for a few more years. But I really based that on 32x charts have some additional processor/dsp/whatever. By itself, it's really not competitive 3D wise in my opinion. Not with the every increase rise of PC popularity and 3D games and the already powerful at the time playstation.

Not only the lack of 3D (ie VDP) capabilities though (limited 2D as well of course), but the limited system RAM. The framebuffer size was OK, it did limit 15-bit color mode to 204 lines (unless maybe the display was clipped horizontally), with 256 color mode being full-screen.
But really, that 256 kB of main was really limiting, preventing a great number of cross-platform games. (and putting RAM on cart would be both expensive and still restricted by the cartidge bus bandwidth -also a problem with using ROM)
So a huge problem for non-32x specific games, any ports would need to be cut down considerably, rewritten entirely, or alltogether impossible.
I know, I was there and I remember well. There were no games for the 32x and then the Saturn came out early. I remember walking in to Software Etc and saying "How the hell did they get a Saturn?"

If 32x had "no games" then Saturn must have had less than none at it's early release. ;)

That's certainly one thing that could have helped withouth 32x, I already said such, but having the 32x titles on Saturn instead (and likely with improvements, CD audio if nothing else) would have helped with the Launch lineup a good deal. (combined with launching at the planned date would have helped a ton)

That wouldn't have been a delay, that would've been releasing the system on target. Semantics aside, I don't think it would've helped the 32x in the least bit. Saturn's "official launch" was still in September; before then, few bought one, it was scarcely available, and there were very few games. The Saturn's early release harmed no system other than itself.

I don't know, it may have contributed to the cancellation of some 32x games. (in combination with the cancellation with the Neptune) That may not have been a bad thing for saturn though except that many of those titles were cancelled outright and not moved onto Saturn.

[Chilly Willy]

That wouldn't have been a delay, that would've been releasing the system on target. Semantics aside, I don't think it would've helped the 32x in the least bit. Saturn's "official launch" was still in September; before then, few bought one, it was scarcely available, and there were very few games. The Saturn's early release harmed no system other than itself.

Releasing the Saturn early caused the infamous Osborne Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect). As to the harm, just ask CBM about it. ;)

Personally, I think SEGA should have held the Saturn off until summer '96, releasing it just before the N64. Trying to beat Sony to the punch killed the Saturn dead. No matter that it's a decent system, what they did with it killed it right then and there. By mid-96, there would have been a good lineup of A list titles, and the price would have been lower. In the meantime, the 32X would have had a much better library itself. It wouldn't have been a huge success, but neither would it have been a huge failure.

[kool kitty89]

It could have helped if Saturn and 32x had been designed in conjunction, with Saturn being a true followon to 32x, fully compatible and such, but that wasn't the nature of the designs. (and if they'd done that, the Saturn would need to be Sega CD compatible as well, still not out of the question hypothetically, and still could be designed fairly efficiently, but would be different from Chilly Willy's suggestion with duall Genesis VDPs, coupling an enhanced CD asic with 32x super VDP could have been useful though, in a direct set-up, not like with CD-32x games)

I'm not sure how that might have gone over in Japan though, maybe 32x Virtua Fighter would have had the same impact as with Saturn, but who knows? (maybe it would have helped having the eptune launched simulataeously in that market, given the more limited MegaDrive userbase)


Still it seems like Sega was stretching their resourses thin with all of that, so really it would probably have been best to focus solely on a single Genesis successor, whatever it may be, and have it available around the time the Saturn was, or slightly earlier, but at the same time not rushed like Saturn. If they'd gone for a simpler design in general, that could have gone a long way, or a design built off of the Genesis hardware (in which case, also facilitating backwards compatibility). If the former case, something between Saturn and 32x, and preferably oriented more towards the Saturn's 3D side. (fewer banks of RAM, single VDP preferably with triangle rendering, maybe even make due with a single speed CD drive to save on cost)

[kool kitty89]

Thinking about Nakayma's original suggestion for an updated Genesis rather than an add-on, maybe that could have worked (and obviously made sense for the Japanese market), it would have reduced the limitations imposed by an add-on upgrade for sure. Maybe they could have had this Genesis-Plus in development parallel with Saturn, with both intended to be compatible, but focusing on completing the Genesis-Plus hardware first, and following with the complete Saturn. Going with Chilly Willy's ideal, evolutionary Genesis+CD design: they could have gone with the doubled Genesis VDPs with dual 64 kB VRAM banks feeding into a RAMDAC with expanded palette and ability to combine the 4-bit pixels output from the VDPs into 8-bit pixels (so 256 color palettes rather than 16-color) plus increased clock speed (either an alternate clock to be 12.5 MHz like in the CD or maybe double it to 15.34 MHz and use a 16 MHz rated CPU) increase main RAM (supports up to 2 MB, 512 kB suggested as a practical amount in the other thread) and maybe add the SVP instead of SH2s, or maybe a single SH2. (either with its own bank of work RAM) Then there's the exiting Sega CD to couple with it, but I don't know if it would be able to work with the Genesis in an enhanced mode or not... maybe altering the Genesis CPU speed would ruin the interface, so just the other changes in that case.

Edit: plus maybe tweak the sound hardware a bit, maybe allow PSG channels to use stereo (hard painning), improve the bank selection mechanism for the Z80, and definitely allow for a higher clock speed on the Z80 (it's already rated for 6 MHz). Maybe even add a second YM2612 (onboard the VDP ASIC as well). -Incidentally, with the Ricoh sound chip in the Sega CD, the console would have almost the same sound hardware as the System 18 and System 32 arcade boards. (they used dual YM3438s -CMOS version of the 2612, different manufacturing process; plus the CD's Ricoh chip adds a 16-bit DAC for Red book CD audio, and the Genesis has the PSG chip which those arcade boards lack)

If they could do something like that and optimize it, keeping cost down, at least to the Neptune's price, particularly with a pack-in, I think that may have worked, and not squander development resourses as the "Saturn" would have been derived from the same hardware, just more built upon. (with enhanced CD ASIC integrated with genesis VDPs, dual SH2s for sure with more work RAM, and CD-ROM buffer bumped up along with the PCM chip's wave RAM)

[Iron Lizard]

If 32x had "no games" then Saturn must have had less than none at it's early release. ;)


It did have one game, Panzer Dragoon, which looked freaking amazing at the time. There was also Daytona ,which in hind site I now know is a crappy port, but at the time was a big deal. Virtua Fighter didn't look dated until Toshinden came out on Ps1 in September.

Really the Saturn's prob was the price, and no one ,even a hardcore Sega nerd like myself knew it was out, and the lack of games after its launch in the early months hurt.

Still aside from Virtua Racing the 32x launch titles were just as bad or in my humble opinion actually worse. Who the hadn't already played the crap out of Doom at the time? It was done. Star Wars was OK I suppose. After Burner was old news,Fahrenheit was fmw, and Super Motorcross wasn't that big of a deal.

[matteus]

The Saturn failed in the UK for 3 reasons:


High Price
It came bundled with a SCART cable only! RTF was still dominant in the UK at the time of the Saturn’s release, you had to pay 20 quid plus for an RTF cable!
The Saturn was sold without games! You had to buy these seperately on top of the 200 quid you just splashed out on the console itself!


Everything added to the cost, I was put off and upgraded my PC instead which had much more power than a Saturn!

[kgenthe]

Perhaps Sega should have not released the Saturn in the states, and used the Sega CD/32x as a stop gap between Genesis and Dreamcast. This would have made the Nomad a more viable system (replacing the aging Game Gear) and kept the Genesis alive, which is where the money was at that time. Finally, they could have released the Dreamcast in 1998 in the US.

Without the failed Saturn, things like gamer and retail confidence would not have been an issue. And releasing the Dreamcast a year early would have avoided some of it's shortfalls, like lack of DVD, which was inconceivable at that point in time.

[j_factor]

Releasing the Saturn early caused the infamous Osborne Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect). As to the harm, just ask CBM about it. ;)

Yes, I was trying to remember the name of that. Sega was very guilty of inflicting the Osborne effect on themselves.


Personally, I think SEGA should have held the Saturn off until summer '96, releasing it just before the N64. Trying to beat Sony to the punch killed the Saturn dead. No matter that it's a decent system, what they did with it killed it right then and there. By mid-96, there would have been a good lineup of A list titles, and the price would have been lower. In the meantime, the 32X would have had a much better library itself. It wouldn't have been a huge success, but neither would it have been a huge failure.

I think the Saturn was perfectly ready for a September '95 release. For the most part, they had the software by then. They did fumble with the Sega Sports lineup and the lack of Sonic, but neither of those things would have been fixed by mid-96. I think waiting until mid-96 would have been pointless. As for price, they lowered it to $299 by November, so they should've just launched at that price instead. They could've sold it with no pack-in game to slightly mitigate the increased loss.

The 32x should just have never been released IMO. It brings nothing to the table. The few decent 32x games could've been on Saturn instead. Knuckles Chaotix, while not a great game, would've served its purpose as a Saturn launch game, if they just punched up the graphics and sound a bit. And maybe some of those canceled 32x games would have seen the light of day if they'd been Saturn games from the get-go.

[Scooter]

The 32x should just have never been released IMO. It brings nothing to the table. The few decent 32x games could've been on Saturn instead. Knuckles Chaotix, while not a great game, would've served its purpose as a Saturn launch game, if they just punched up the graphics and sound a bit. And maybe some of those canceled 32x games would have seen the light of day if they'd been Saturn games from the get-go.

But why would you want to package a 2D game with your brand new "now in 3D!" system? It would have been totally contrary to their marketing the Saturn as bigger and better and 3D capable.

The Sega CD was a reasonable experiment into CD-based software but the Nomad, 32X and (stillborn) Neptune should have all been avoided to thus concentrate on the Saturn. The Game Gear should have been given an earlier death too. Saturn should also have continued to embrace 2D games as well as 3D games. How many great 2D games got canned becasue they wanted most everything on the Saturn to be 3D?

I too bought into the "stop gap" hype of the 32X, I paid $134 for my unit and had quite a few games in my collection back when the system was still on the shelves. I wasn't a 1st adoptor of the Saturn but I did buy one when it was clear that the Genesis/CD/32X was sinking pretty quick. It wasn't a year after my Saturn purchase that I also got a Playstation and never did buy the Dreamcast when it was new because I had lost faith in Sega by then.

I do now have a Dreamcast and really like it. I also have lots of fun with my Sega CD/32X combo.

The thing that baffles and angers me is how Nintendo has always been pretty good at supporting their older systems (well, back in the cart days at least) long after their new systems hit the market. The NES and SNES continued to garner strong sales long after their successors arrived on the scene. I just don't understand why Sega couldn't have kept the Genesis/MD going stronger longer than it did. It hung around a good long while under Majesco, but it was merely a "toy" for the kiddies by then, not a serious gaming machine as it had been.

[ThugsRook]

32x would have been something if it offered extra power for regular Genesis games. (less slow downs, less dropped sound effects and music)

[tomaitheous]

Kool Kitty89: Whoa.. whoa. That's kinda unrealistic and a mess. Just should have just keep it simple and clean. As it is, the 32x already complicates the design arch of the system. To be honest, I'd leave the CD attach out of line up. It wasn't like Sega was serious enough with it to begin with. To SOA, it was something of an oddity they were still tinkering with. It fell into there hands because the of SOJ attempted competition with NEC with the MegaCD.

The 32x already had what it needed for the most part. And being a cart system, it wasn't directly competitive with the Saturn. The 32x already had the bitmap display and thousands of colors mode features. Two really important things, if you're going to add any sort of support chip via cartridge, and you would need to - to keep up with any sort of budget market. They would definitely have to be able to release the Neptune at $100-$125 mark. And then, you still have the problem of getting devs over to the system. Carts in the $50-60 range, having addon chips, Sega making close to no money on licensing just to keep competitive, devs having to pay the cost of the rom and addon chip. All this, in comparison to the easy to develop, cheaper to develop, and much more powerful Playstation. It'd still be a long shot to keep the 32x alive.

ThugsRook: Nobody and there sister/brother/uncle/whatever cared about the Genesis in the age of the Playstation and Saturn arrived. Except for what, a few die-hard fans? Hell, I'm positive Saturn had little effect on that generation as the PS did.

[kool kitty89]

It did have one game, Panzer Dragoon, which looked freaking amazing at the time. There was also Daytona ,which in hind site I now know is a crappy port, but at the time was a big deal. Virtua Fighter didn't look dated until Toshinden came out on Ps1 in September.

Really the Saturn's prob was the price, and no one ,even a hardcore Sega nerd like myself knew it was out, and the lack of games after its launch in the early months hurt.

Still aside from Virtua Racing the 32x launch titles were just as bad or in my humble opinion actually worse. Who the hadn't already played the crap out of Doom at the time? It was done. Star Wars was OK I suppose. After Burner was old news,Fahrenheit was fmw, and Super Motorcross wasn't that big of a deal.


Not 32x launch titles, but i meant all 32x titles released by the time of the Saturn's early 1995 pre-release. (so the majority of the 32x library I think) A fair amout of good games, maybe none on par with Panzer Dragoon, or Daytona (oppinion), but there was Virtua Fighter, superior in some respects to Saturn version, Star Wars Arcade, Shadow Squadron, T-Mek, Chaotix, Metal Head, and a few others I cant think of atm. (all of which could have been at least moderately enhanced ont he Saturn)

As for doom, not everyone had a PC (or a gaming PC), and a decen Saturn Doom port could have been a good launch title. (Even with a more restricted level set like 3DO had; would have been cool to have the 3do music as well)


Kool Kitty89: Whoa.. whoa. That's kinda unrealistic and a mess. Just should have just keep it simple and clean. As it is, the 32x already complicates the design arch of the system. To be honest, I'd leave the CD attach out of line up. It wasn't like Sega was serious enough with it to begin with. To SOA, it was something of an oddity they were still tinkering with. It fell into there hands because the of SOJ attempted competition with NEC with the MegaCD.

OK ;) That kind of stemmed from Chilly Willy's suggestion in this discussion http://sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8497&page=3
Except that was with no 32x at all, with that system being hypothetically released instead of Saturn or 32x. (along a similar timeline as 32x)
The whole neptune thing came from Christuserloeser's comment in another thread, that Nakayam's suggestion of a standlone upgraded genesis (wich SOA morphed into an add-on) may have been better... Really though, either seems messy and adds another product for an already strained Sega to support.

Maybe they should have just made the Saturn simpler, maybe arrangeed more liek the Playstation, drop the 2nd VDP, cut down some of the RAM, have VDP-1 work on triangles and use standard affine mapping and include a "sprite" mode using rectangular textured tiles. (the PSX handled 2D pretty well a lot of the time, the more often sited difference usually being related to animation, related to RAM expansion on Saturn) Maybe go with a simpler sound set-up too.


I think the Saturn was perfectly ready for a September '95 release. For the most part, they had the software by then. They did fumble with the Sega Sports lineup and the lack of Sonic, but neither of those things would have been fixed by mid-96. I think waiting until mid-96 would have been pointless. As for price, they lowered it to $299 by November, so they should've just launched at that price instead. They could've sold it with no pack-in game to slightly mitigate the increased loss.

Having 32x releases developed for Saturn instead would have suplemented the launch lineup as well. (first pary games at least; 3rd party depending on how early they got the dev kits distributed)

[j_factor]

But why would you want to package a 2D game with your brand new "now in 3D!" system? It would have been totally contrary to their marketing the Saturn as bigger and better and 3D capable.

I'm not talking about a pack-in, just being part of the lineup. Sega saw fit to release Astal, Golden Axe: The Duel (ugh), and Mr. Bones, among other 2D games. Even Sony released 2D games. They weren't meant to cease existing.


The Sega CD was a reasonable experiment into CD-based software but the Nomad, 32X and (stillborn) Neptune should have all been avoided to thus concentrate on the Saturn. The Game Gear should have been given an earlier death too.

I don't think the Nomad did any harm, and I don't see why Game Gear should've died earlier. Otherwise I agree with your sentiment.


Saturn should also have continued to embrace 2D games as well as 3D games. How many great 2D games got canned becasue they wanted most everything on the Saturn to be 3D?

Not many? The only one I can think of is Eternal Champions: The Final Chapter. Except being 2D wasn't the real reason for its cancellation.


The thing that baffles and angers me is how Nintendo has always been pretty good at supporting their older systems (well, back in the cart days at least) long after their new systems hit the market. The NES and SNES continued to garner strong sales long after their successors arrived on the scene. I just don't understand why Sega couldn't have kept the Genesis/MD going stronger longer than it did. It hung around a good long while under Majesco, but it was merely a "toy" for the kiddies by then, not a serious gaming machine as it had been.

Eh, I don't really think that's the case. Nintendo did a good job of supporting the NES in its twilight, but that's about it. The SNES wasn't well supported after its successor came out, it just might seem that way because N64 came a year later than PSX/Saturn. How many SNES games were released in 1997? There was Kirby's Dreamland 3, Harvest Moon, Lost Vikings 2, Space Invaders, Arkanoid, and a few EA sports games. That's really it. A few more than Genesis, but it was hardly well-supported. The following year its sole release was Frogger, just like the Genesis, and it disappeared from store shelves after Christmas '98, just like the Genesis.

[Da_Shocker]

But why would you want to package a 2D game with your brand new "now in 3D!" system? It would have been totally contrary to their marketing the Saturn as bigger and better and 3D capable.

Do you not remember Sony buying the rights for 32-Bit version of MK3? Which was done by none other than Bernie Stolar. When the Saturn and PSx arrived 2D games were still being pushed pretty heavily. It wasn't until Sario 64 had come out that things started to change.

[tomaitheous]

Do you not remember Sony buying the rights for 32-Bit version of MK3? Which was done by none other than Bernie Stolar. When the Saturn and PSx arrived 2D games were still being pushed pretty heavily. It wasn't until Sario 64 had come out that things started to change.

Not even close. The push for 3D came before the US release of PS and Saturn. They were developed in response to this demand. Just because a few 2D fighter titles were still in demand at the time, in no way meant that 2D was still strong. The only thing N64 did, was get Nintendo only fans into the 3D gaming era properly. The rest of the gamers were already there. Silly SNES fanboys.

[philiptwood]

Would the 32x have lasted longer and had more games to boot had the Saturn was launched in September of 95 as originally planned?

It might have since the Geny was still getting new games for it at the time... Rather then to release it as a prequel to the Saturn, with good marketing, it could've been sold with a limited life span in the market, but at least it would've been after the Saturn release; it probably wouldn't have had the kind of affect it made on Sega.

[KnightWarrior]

They should of released the Saturn in 96 like Chilly said

To get more games for the Saturn & Keep the 32X & the Genesis going

[kool kitty89]

Not even close. The push for 3D came before the US release of PS and Saturn. They were developed in response to this demand. Just because a few 2D fighter titles were still in demand at the time, in no way meant that 2D was still strong. The only thing N64 did, was get Nintendo only fans into the 3D gaming era properly. The rest of the gamers were already there. Silly SNES fanboys.

Hey, what about the people who got into a generation late, buying mostly used stuff? We didn't get an SNES until christmass of 1995 or '96 (I'm not positive, I'd have to look at the old christmas videos to find out). So it wouldn't have mattered for us, and a few other people who got in at the end of a console's life. (had an NES since '89, got N64 in christmas '99, GC in christmas 2003) So even if we hadn't gone Nintendo (say gotten a Genesis instead), we would have been quite late in, we got our SNES with something like a dozen games from a neighbor selling his stuff, probably to get a new system. -honestly though, the SNES made the most sense with having the NES with Nintendo's kid freindly label and ~2 and ~6/7 year old boys. (my little brother and I)

Now in my family's case, we had PC gaming as well, so 3D was definitely there already (X-Wing is still awsome), that and FMV/multimedia games (Return to Zork, Myst, Nova Storm), etc. We ended up getting some games on PC instead of N64, before we had N64 as well. (like Rogue Squadron)

But I've mentioned most of this before and I'm just getting off topic now. ;)




Also, any comment on my response in post #25? I know that whole hypothetical Genesis-Plus was silly, but any comments on Chilly Willy's hypothetical "ideal" genesis compatible successor from this thread: http://sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8497&page=3
Having the Sega CD in there really does complicate a backwards compatible/evolutionary design though... (maybe why Sega stopped that pattern of compatible hardware there)

[tomaitheous]

Hey, what about the people who got into a generation late, buying mostly used stuff? We didn't get an SNES until christmass of 1995 or '96 (I'm not positive, I'd have to look at the old christmas videos to find out). So it wouldn't have mattered for us, and a few other people who got in at the end of a console's life.

But that's just it. You weren't part of the main stream marketing. The focus group that was making money for these companies. And you also bought used stuff, which means no money for developers or the licensing company (the console maker).

There was quite a bit of ugly 3D coming out at the time, on PS and Saturn. But people were eating it up like crazy. While I did buy a PS, I wasn't much of a fun of the 3D at the time. When the 3DFX card hard just come out, then I was in. It was incredible at the time. But of couse, I think that was in '97. It made looking at my PS games every harder to bare. But during the PS era, I was a 2D fan. I still am. But 2D gamers like me were a small niche market in the PSX era.

The Dreamcast was the first real console to get me excited about 3D. And it had such great expectations and attitude around it. But I digress...






Also, any comment on my response in post #25? I know that whole hypothetical Genesis-Plus was silly, but any comments on Chilly Willy's hypothetical "ideal" genesis compatible successor from this thread: http://sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8497&page=3
Having the Sega CD in there really does complicate a backwards compatible/evolutionary design though... (maybe why Sega stopped that pattern of compatible hardware there)

I did comment on the thread. Or you mean the tech side of it? The pairing of the VDP's is kinda funny. But that's what the PCFX did. It took the original PCE VDP's, gave then the full 128k of vram, routed them to much higher DAC palette entries (in YUV format this time). Also had a mode where you could combine the sprites of both VDPs into 256 color mode. Not sure if this extended to tiles. Wouldn't really need it since it has another chip for generating 5 other BG layers.

[kool kitty89]

But that's just it. You weren't part of the main stream marketing. The focus group that was making money for these companies. And you also bought used stuff, which means no money for developers or the licensing company (the console maker).

There was quite a bit of ugly 3D coming out at the time, on PS and Saturn. But people were eating it up like crazy. While I did buy a PS, I wasn't much of a fun of the 3D at the time. When the 3DFX card hard just come out, then I was in. It was incredible at the time. But of couse, I think that was in '97. It made looking at my PS games every harder to bare. But during the PS era, I was a 2D fan. I still am. But 2D gamers like me were a small niche market in the PSX era.

You're right, we weren't part of that market at the time, well except for renting the N64 a few times, plus visiting some freinds who already had N64s, and in one case a Saturn. (as far as consoles)
But there were PC games, albeit mostly demos/shareware, and it was mostly my Dad (I was 6/7 at the time) and don't think he really liked most of those mid 90s DOS/Win95 3D games, Doom, Quake, Tomb Raider, most 256 color software rendered flat textured, unfiltered stuff. (he didn't get into FPSs really until Quake II and Unreal) I think he was pretty dissapointed with Resident Evil too.

I remember X-Wing, Myst, and Return to Zork most clearly around that time.

Then a whole bunch of late 90s hardware accelerated games, quite a few being multiplatoform/console ports, like BUG! (which worked best with Glide, and also disliked multiple CD-ROM drives...), Croc, Rogue Squadron, battle For Naboo, Episode I Racer. (and PC games like Quake II, Heretic, Mech Warrior II)

[kgenthe]

I did not get a Genesis till 1996 (brand new) and I remember getting a few games brand new off the shelf, such as Jungle Book and Toy Story. Before that all I had was NES. Like kk89 said, there was still a big market as old systems usually get past down to younger siblings. The original PSX lasted a while, the current PS2 shows no sign of death (over 9 year old now).

I finally got a PSX Christmas 98. After that I was old enough to have a job and buy my own stuff (Dreamcast, Xbox, and Xbox 360 at launch). But the Genesis was still in it's prime in 1994, there was certainly no reason to abandon it so fast.

[kool kitty89]

Genesis support did end up continueing, but passed from Sega over to Majesco, hell the Genesis 3 was released in 1998, while Nentendo released their SNES 2/Jr. the year prior. (granted this was the 3rd Genesis case revision, while only the first for SNES -in its respective regions)
One side effect was removal of 32x and Sega CD compatibility from Majesco Model 2s and the Genesis 3, probably due to liability issues or providing tech support. (along with Power Base and Virtua Racing compatibility lacking -tied to 32x incompatibility)

Although, the actual number of budget buyers would be somewhat limited depending on how many opted for used instead. Still, given Majesco's success at profiting from hardware sales of both Genesis and Game Gear after Sega dropped them, a bad move on Sega's part for sure. (nothing to do with the 32x though) In particular, there have been some claims of Sega writting off losses of unsold 16-bit inventory, but I'm not sure about the extent of this (one thing I read seemed to suggest it more as a coverup/distraction to the losses incurred from Saturn), but if there's any truth to that, that makes it even worse that they discntinued it when they did.

[Jasper061992]

Genesis support did end up continueing, but passed from Sega over to Majesco, hell the Genesis 3 was released in 1998, while Nentendo released their SNES 2/Jr. the year prior. (granted this was the 3rd Genesis case revision, while only the first for SNES -in its respective regions)
One side effect was removal of 32x and Sega CD compatibility from Majesco Model 2s and the Genesis 3, probably due to liability issues or providing tech support. (along with Power Base and Virtua Racing compatibility lacking -tied to 32x incompatibility)

Although, the actual number of budget buyers would be somewhat limited depending on how many opted for used instead. Still, given Majesco's success at profiting from hardware sales of both Genesis and Game Gear after Sega dropped them, a bad move on Sega's part for sure. (nothing to do with the 32x though) In particular, there have been some claims of Sega writting off losses of unsold 16-bit inventory, but I'm not sure about the extent of this (one thing I read seemed to suggest it more as a coverup/distraction to the losses incurred from Saturn), but if there's any truth to that, that makes it even worse that they discntinued it when they did.


I think Megadrives were still officially selling here in europe till 1997, i remember a shopping catalogue called Argos still selling a Model 2 bundled with sonic and Knuckles around that time. I was about 5.

[mick_aka]

Mega Drive 2's were still in the Argos Catalogue in '99

[kool kitty89]

I wonder if those were Majesco manufactured Model 2s or left over Sega stock. (of course TecToy was manufacturing its own MegaDrives as well by that time, along with master systems and clones, including the Master System III and Mega Drive III, with TecToy still making clones of both in various forms to this day I believe)

[Christuserloeser]

(maybe why Sega stopped that pattern of compatible hardware there)

No, I think 32X was the reason for stopping the pattern of compatible hardware.



Also, any comment on my response in post #25? I know that whole hypothetical Genesis-Plus was silly, but any comments on Chilly Willy's hypothetical "ideal" genesis compatible successor from this thread: http://sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8497&page=3

Hm, let's see:

My idea for a Saturn built around the Genesis/CD/32X:

Genesis Portion
============
Use two Genesis VDPs with an external RAMDAC. This changes the video from multiple palettes of 16 colors to multiple palettes of 256 colors. Thousands of colors wasn't needed at this time, and by the time it would be needed, you'd be releasing the Dreamcast anyway. This is also the easiest way to maintain backwards compatibility.

Using two Genesis' VDPs was what Nakayama initially proposed instead of the 32X:


Virtua Racing shipped for like $70 originally, because it had all this sophisticated 3D hardware in the cart.

Someone at Sega said "Hey! Let's not sell carts with this hardware in it, let's sell the hardware and plug the carts in." So the 32X was born. Done maybe six months earlier, it might have had a chance, but the 16-bit market was ending, as Sony had [Playstation] that was ALL 3D and looked much better, and Sega was working on its new platform, Saturn.


Well, Joe Miller was really the father of the 32X, and a strong proponent of it. But I think it made a lot of sense, in theory. We couldn't get a 32-bit platform out quickly enough, so why not add that capability, to the degree that you can, to the 16-bit platform? That's what Joe came up with.

It really was designed to be an interim piece and to prolong the life of the 16-bit platform. I think, in hindsight to me, the great lesson is don't ever expect an add-on device to be as important as a true, new platform. And I think that's what we had in mind. We thought were going to sell millions of those, and that was unrealistic.


The system that would be known as Project Mars was given birth on 8 January 1994, the night before the opening of the 1994 Winter CES in Las Vegas, Nevada, in a hotel room during a conference among top-level Sega executives from both Japan and America.

Nakayama-san had directed the company to design and produce a cartridge-based 32-bit platform and bring it to market before the Christmas selling season of 1994.

As first presented by Hideki Sato and his team of engineers, the original concept for Mars was little more than a Genesis with an extra 32-bit processor [SVP? SH1?] and an expanded color palette (128 out of 512 possible colors on screen).

Joe Miller, who was in fact chief technical wizard at Sega of America, was appalled at the suggestion. "That is a horrible idea," he told them. "If all you're going to do is enhance the system, you should make an add-on. If it's a new system with legitimate software, great. But if the only thing it does is double the colors ...."

There was some grumbling about this, but in the end Sega of Japan conceded the point. They had several other hardware projects in the works, so this one was to be left up to the Americans. Mars was to be Sega of America's baby, although senior management staff from Sega of Japan would be present and oversee it through to production. By the time all was said and done that could be accomplished at that meeting, Nakayama was so excited at the prospect of Project Mars that he wanted its "core senior design team" to leave CES before it had even started and get started working on the new system right away.



... I want my Genesis with 128 colors :(

[MitsuruX]

I think the 32x just didn't have enough time to be a sucess... as it was released at the wrong time... way to late in generation to be the game changer (or stop Gate) Sega seemed to be looking for...

If the 32x was released at the same time or as part of a combo unit around the time of rthe Sega CD launch.. it would have had the time to gatehr momentum..

THEN Sega would see the value in the possibility of Saturn being backwards compatable with 32x, or SCD or Genesis...

one can dream..

[Jasper061992]

Mega Drive 2's were still in the Argos Catalogue in '99

Woah, thats incredibly late. Nakayama's official cancellation of the Megadrive/Genesis in late 95 didn't really "kill it off" lol. :D You could say both the SNES and Megadrives died at the same exact time.


No, I think 32X was the reason for stopping the pattern of compatible hardware.




Hm, let's see:


Using two Genesis' VDPs was what Nakayama initially proposed instead of the 32X:









... I want my Genesis with 128 colors :(

We have a Genesis with even more than 128 colours. It's the 32x itself. :p Don't know what game even used 32,768 colours on it anyway, or was it always set to 256 out of the 32,768 palettised colours?

[kool kitty89]

No, I think 32X was the reason for stopping the pattern of compatible hardware.




Hm, let's see:


Using two Genesis' VDPs was what Nakayama initially proposed instead of the 32X:


... I want my Genesis with 128 colors :(

I already addressed that and speculated that perhaps that Nakayma's concept for a megaDrive-Plus (lacking a better term) was somewhat like that. However, based on that 128/512 colors figure given by Pettus's article... that wouldn't be the case (at least not in the layout Chilly Willy was suggesting). That could have been nothing more than increasing CRAM entires to 8 16-color subpalettes (something I beleive tomaitheous mentioned the Genesis was alreday capable of, with the 4-palette limite possible to expidite development). And really, that 9-bit master palette is a major limiting factor as well, more subpalettes would be nice, but not a huge change (particularly just going to 8, SNES had more than that in several modes I think, and PC Engine has tons of subpalettes -128 for each sprites and BG)

The 16-color subpalette limit still means ugly, low-color 3D for another thing.

Really though, if that design had used a doubled VDP, it would have been pretty wasefull if it was only used to add more layers and subpalettes (one VDP overlaying onto the outher), there's so much more that can be done with paird VDPs as Chilly Willy suggested. (allowing a flexible arrangment, feeding into an external RAMDAC with expanded palette, allow layers to be combined for 256 color, kept separate for more layers, or combined for double horizontal resolution -interlacing already being possible) The other important addition would be twin VRAM banks for each VDP, something Pettus's article wouldn't be in conflict with necessarily though.

Of course, with anything tech related in Pettus's articles, you cant take that info at face value, his tech info tends to be a bit funky to say the least and should be taken with more than a grain of salt. (otherwise people would be thinking the SG-1000 Mk.II had double the CPU clock speed of the SG-1000, and the Mk.III/SMS was the first 8-bit home console to be released by Sega)


We have a Genesis with even more than 128 colours. It's the 32x itself. :p Don't know what game even used 32,768 colours on it anyway, or was it always set to 256 out of the 32,768 palettised colours?

I think most games with significantly clipped screens would indicate the thousands color mode, while others would be 256 paletized (except FMV stuff which I think is all 256 colors and clipped simply because of data transfer rate). Virtua Racing should be 15-bit color (full palette), I think Shadow Squadron may as well. (only has the usual clipped 224 lines display, but also has the edges clopped significantly; 292x224 would work) The limit is framebuffer size, only 128 kB, 256 color mode is 8-bits (1 byte) per pixel, so you can have 320x240 w/out filling the framebuffer entirely, but highcolor mode uses 16-bit (2 bytes) per pixel, so the desplay is limited by the framebuffer to 320x204. (or various other resolutions using no more than 65,536 pixels)

[Mordan]

for me the best lineup would have been

Genesis model I
32X Addon ASAP.
Neptune
Dreamcast

No Saturn No mega cd No genesis model II

[kool kitty89]

Missed this before:

No, I think 32X was the reason for stopping the pattern of compatible hardware.

But the saturn doesn't show signs that it had ever been planned to provide MD/MCD compatibility, perhaps that might have been part of the "Gigadrive" concept, but outside of Nakayama's proposal for the upgraded genesis (morphed into 32x), they seem to have abandoned plans for a compatible system. (what chilly willy proposed would certainly have been good in 2D as well)


for me the best lineup would have been

Genesis model I
32X Addon ASAP.
Neptune
Dreamcast

No Saturn No mega cd No genesis model II

I already addressed this in the other thread (people responsible for sega's mistakes), so no point in being redundant.

I will say they probably could have kept the model 1 form factor and continued cost reduction past VA7 (even smaller board, less RF sheilding, no RF modulator, etc), but you wouldn't be able to remove the headphone jack w/out compromising stereo (unless you were to replace the AV jack as well; or you could put a 1/8" phono jack next to the AV port instead, removing the volume slider and headphone amp) Then use external RF boxes like Japanese model units did instead.

Wouldn't have helped sound quality any though, but if they kept using the video encoders the VA7 did, at least that would be better. In that respect (maintaining quality audio and video outputs -other than RGB), keep the audio circuit layout and video encoder of the VA6, only cost reduce in other ways. (hell, if the VA6 audio circuitry still worked fine with the 2612 integrated onto the VDP ASIC, go for that instead) After that, go for the model 2 with VA3/4 quality audio, sans the Samsung encoder.

[Christuserloeser]

I already addressed that and speculated that perhaps that Nakayma's concept for a megaDrive-Plus (lacking a better term) was somewhat like that. However, based on that 128/512 colors figure given by Pettus's article... that wouldn't be the case (at least not in the layout Chilly Willy was suggesting).

I think it's absoluteloy possible that they had something similar in mind as Chilly Willy suggested.

It just seems like a clever and very logical thing to do.


The only real information we have from above part of Pettus' article in that regard seems to be the following:


Joe Miller was appalled at the suggestion. "That is a horrible idea," he told them. "If all you're going to do is enhance the system, you should make an add-on. If it's a new system with legitimate software, great. But if the only thing it does is double the colors ...."

From that number Pettus (and me) concluded that it must have been 128 colors, as the standard is usually quoted to be 64 colors.

But if going by Miller's "the only thing it does is double the colors", there's also the implication that they planned to keep the existing VDP.

With the MD's original VDP still in place, the 2x VDP concept that Chilly (and possibly Nakayama's team) came up with, would be entirely possible.


Miller probably identified the VDP as the Mega Drive / Genesis weakest spot (which it probably was, although to me it seems MUCH better than its reputation), and thus exaggerates the issue to get his point accross.


But maybe they simply just coupled two VDPs thus allowing 128 out of 1024 colors ?

Either way, working with the existing VDP is exactly what they did when going from SG-1000 to Mark III / Master System (16 colors to 32 colors), and again when going from Master System to Mega Drive / Genesis (32 colors to 64 colors).

[tomaitheous]

I originally speculated that they would use two VDPs instead of fab'ing another one, because they probably already had stock piles and fab setup for it. But now that I think about it, they already included the VDP into a single ASIC for the later models. So, this wasn't a scenario. Having two ASIC's seems a bit overkill and a priority chip before going to a new DAC, but that would also mean double the PSG and FM channels as well. You'd have to remap the address regs to a different area - like they did on the SGX. Without looking at the current setup, not sure about conflictions. If it doesn't fit cleanly, they'd need to do a bank switching mechanism, mean the processor accessing only 1 ASIC in a single instance. As far as the new DAC, 128 colors out of 32k wouldn't be unreasonable. Actually, if they tapped the serial output of the ASIC (assuming the later models still have that, that isn't a model 1 only thing) - they could detect and use additional subpalettes for sprites, thus 16 subpalettes totally for 256 colors (240 colors) out of 32k. Even add simple add/sub math transparency between VDPs output layers. Even down to assigning it specifically to tilemap layers or sprites, per VDP.

[kool kitty89]

I think it's absoluteloy possible that they had something similar in mind as Chilly Willy suggested.

It just seems like a clever and very logical thing to do.

From that number Pettus (and me) concluded that it must have been 128 colors, as the standard is usually quoted to be 64 colors.

It's not clear how Pettus interpreted that information, whether he saw those figures and repeated them exactly, or interpreted that "double the colors" meant 64x2=128. (while it could also mean -details pending- that the palettes were doubled from 4 to 8-bits each, meaning 256 colors, but that would require accumulation of the 4-bit pixels and a new color DAC to expand the master palette past the limited 512 color palette -3-bits per RGB)



But if going by Miller's "the only thing it does is double the colors", there's also the implication that they planned to keep the existing VDP.

With the MD's original VDP still in place, the 2x VDP concept that Chilly (and possibly Nakayama's team) came up with, would be entirely possible.


Miller probably identified the VDP as the Mega Drive / Genesis weakest spot (which it probably was, although to me it seems MUCH better than its reputation), and thus exaggerates the issue to get his point accross.

If that really is the case (pure speculation though), then Miller would be flat out wrong. The Genesis VDP is waekened by the way that it's implimented, no inherently, and certainly expandible. (one thing is the single VRAM bank, there's evidence that there was provisions for a second bank, which would have allowed the VDP to write durring active display, greatly reducing bandwith limitations)



But maybe they simply just coupled two VDPs thus allowing 128 out of 1024 colors ?

Either way, working with the existing VDP is exactly what they did when going from SG-1000 to Mark III / Master System (16 colors to 32 colors), and again when going from Master System to Mega Drive / Genesis (32 colors to 64 colors).

Umm, it wouldn't be 1024 colors... if they used dual MD VDPs straight out, with overlaying, nothing more (not pixel combining and new DAC), it would still be the same 512 colors, the limit of the onboard color DAC. You'd now have 8 subpalettes instead of 4, and double the sprite and BG layers, but some of the same bandwidth limitations if each VDP still only had a single VRAM bank.

Stronger evidence for the MD VDP being entended to be used in tandem and with dual VRAM banks is this: http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=704 arcade board using dual SMS VDPs, each with dual 16 kB VRAM banks, though it doesn't look like they combine the pixels or increase alter the master palette in that case. (going by those screenshots)

Chilly Willy's suggestion was to have the doubled VDPs, each with 2x 64 kB banks of VRAM, feed their pixel busses into a RAMDAC with expanded palette and ability to combine 4-bit pixels from both VDPs together into 8-bit pixels. (later he commented that having a flexible set-up, choosing to combine pixels on a plane by plane basis, allowing the programmer to choose if they're combines to 256 color planes or kept separate as 16-color planes, or interleave them to make 16-color planes and double horizontal resolution) Plus modify the Sega CD ASIC to work with the dual vdp layout. (and modify it more to make it more useful for texture mapping and 3D)

Of course, some of that is a bit different, as that's concernint the overall CDMD eveolutionary system from the other discussion (Saturn Alternative), not a possiblity for what Nakayam suggested. (which would be an enhanced cartridge based Mega Drive) http://sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8497&page=3



I originally speculated that they would use two VDPs instead of fab'ing another one, because they probably already had stock piles and fab setup for it. But now that I think about it, they already included the VDP into a single ASIC for the later models. So, this wasn't a scenario. Having two ASIC's seems a bit overkill and a priority chip before going to a new DAC, but that would also mean double the PSG and FM channels as well. You'd have to remap the address regs to a different area - like they did on the SGX. Without looking at the current setup, not sure about conflictions. If it doesn't fit cleanly, they'd need to do a bank switching mechanism, mean the processor accessing only 1 ASIC in a single instance. As far as the new DAC, 128 colors out of 32k wouldn't be unreasonable. Actually, if they tapped the serial output of the ASIC (assuming the later models still have that, that isn't a model 1 only thing) - they could detect and use additional subpalettes for sprites, thus 16 subpalettes totally for 256 colors (240 colors) out of 32k. Even add simple add/sub math transparency between VDPs output layers. Even down to assigning it specifically to tilemap layers or sprites, per VDP.


Part of what Chilly Willy mentioned was having both VDPs in a single, big ASIC, or possibly, one big ASIC including the enhanced CD graphics ASIC as well. (some of the flexibility suggested graphics modes depended on that iirc, not practical using separate chips)

The SuperGrafx used dual PC Engine VDPs, right, with a new DAC expanding the master palette? (but not combining pixels as chilly willy was suggesting)

[Chilly Willy]

If you simply overlaid the graphics from an extra VDP over top the existing VDP, you'd have 128 colors (well, technically you'd have 121... 2 * 60 + 1). The palette would still be 512 values - that wouldn't change. You have to combine the raw data from the pixel bus with a different RAMDAC to get 256 colors. By the time they got around to thinking of updating, they could have put two in an ASIC, but that would only help new consoles, not extending existing consoles like the 32X did.

Perhaps that's what they should have done instead of the 32X - introduce the Model 3 with two VDPs, and maybe the ability to overclock the 68000 and Z80 built in. Keep the form factor and expansion port the same so that it would work with the Model 2 CD. Increase the Work RAM from 64 KB to 256 KB or 512 KB.

[kool kitty89]

Perhaps that's what they should have done instead of the 32X - introduce the Model 3 with two VDPs, and maybe the ability to overclock the 68000 and Z80 built in. Keep the form factor and expansion port the same so that it would work with the Model 2 CD. Increase the Work RAM from 64 KB to 256 KB or 512 KB.

That's part of what chrituserloeser was referring to, Nakayma's originally proposed, standalone upgraded Mega Drive, except (assuming Pettus's article is accurate) it was supposedly planned to have "128 out of 512 colors" which would imply a different configuration. (like a simple overlay of the 2 VDP's outputs)
Again, Pettus's tech comments tend to be a bit off from what I've read, so that very well may be his interpretation rather than an actual specification.

I did propose almost what you suggest here in post #16/17 back on page 2, but that's what tomaitheous thought was crazy. ;) (then again, I described it with a lot of variables and in a more roundabout way, and mentioned adding wither SVP, and SH1, or SH2 as well, and having Saturn built on this architecture as a followon)
I do like the idea of having double the 2612s though (if not PSGs as well, maybe enable panning for PSG too, like Game Gear), having dual 2612s plus the Ricoh PCM chip in Sega CD would give it sound hardware equivelent to the System 18 and 32. (plus PSG)

Even if that was practical, it has the issue of being one more hardware product for Sega to support, it would probably have been best to just streamline things and stick with a single system. (compatible or not, but preferably not as convoluted as Saturn)

[tomaitheous]

Part of what Chilly Willy mentioned was having both VDPs in a single, big ASIC, or possibly, one big ASIC including the enhanced CD graphics ASIC as well. (some of the flexibility suggested graphics modes depended on that iirc, not practical using separate chips)

The SuperGrafx used dual PC Engine VDPs, right, with a new DAC expanding the master palette? (but not combining pixels as chilly willy was suggesting)

I was just mentioning two ASIC chips because they already had back stock of them. And that's what Hudson did for the SGX and the PCFX. So it's a realistic idea. Plus, I like the idea of doubling the number of sound channels. They could, of course latter on, combined those as well into another single ASIC. That'd be one help of a big chip. Maybe two big.

The SGX was reported as having a larger master palette, but of all the tests I've done - I've been unable to discover anything new from this new VCE (it is a revision update). And of the 5 games for the system, none given any indication of the "2048 color" master palette. PCE's VCE is actually a YUV based color system. The R/G/B values in palette ram are converted on the fly via an internal conversion table. I speculated that maybe they added some sort of alternate table conversion or intensity reg since it's YUV (not that you couldn't do similar to RGB). But never found anything. Anyway, the SGX doesn't have an option to combine the two layers of each VDC to create a 8bit color tile/sprite mode - even though it had everything it needed right there and is dead easy to do (well, if it does - none knows how to set the priority controller to do it. There are no public release dev docs for the SGX). But, Charles MacDonald manually altered his SGX to combine the output of the two VDC himself and wrote a demo to show 8bit color BG tiles instead of the normal 4bit color tiles. A nice 512x224 8bit color image demo.

Back to the Genesis VDP's, like I said previously - it's easy to detect if the VDP is sending a sprite pixel instead of a tile pixel on the digital pixel bus. And thus you can obtain another 4 subpalettes per VDP this was just for sprites. That gives you 16 subpalettes total. 8 for each VDP. Personally, I'd take that over 8bit color mode. 4bit color tile/sprites goes a long way if you have enough subpalettes and especially if you have a nice master palette. Funny thing is, if you took the VDP serial pixel data, sent it to a serial to parallel shifter, then sent that to the PCE's VCE - you'd get those 4 missing subpalettes out of the VDP. I've always wanted to do that. Normally the VCE builds the display timings for the frame and thus controls the VDC (VDP if it were Genesis), but I've heard Charles mention that the VCE has an unused pin that the patents talk about as "sync" mode. So it might be possible to have the VCE chip sync with the Genesis VDP, instead of it trying to drive the VDP timings. Some cool stuff you could do. But I'm getting way off topic now...

[kool kitty89]

The 8-bit palette mode is more important in the context of 3D/psudo games relying on a bitmapped display, particularly ported VGA games. (wolfenstein -though 16 colors would probably be OK, Doom -more important, plus Virtua Racing would look a lot better, maybe not quite like on 32x as that uses the 15-bit comor mode iirc)

It would really depend on the game as well, ones with digitized graphics (CGI or photographed like Mortal Kombat) would probably benefit more from the 8-bit palettes too. (a larger master palette and more numerous 4-bit subpalettes would help too of course, hence why such games look better on SNES -althouch I think some of those may use one of the 256 color modes as well, not sure though -and that would only apply to BG, not sprites)

Also, what about extending the individual VDPs to use 8 subpalettes? I remember it being mentioned that there was room for more entries in CRAM, but was possibly left at 4 due to time constraints. (though I suppose that also circumvents using the existing ASICs being produced)

I don't think using the standard ASICs would exclude the possibility of the 8-bit palette idea either, just limit the flexibility in general compared to a more unified modification. (it would require an external interface plus RAMDAC chip as well -well, for that portion, you coud have the interface and DAC circuitry integrated as a single chip)

Edit:
Plus, if we're talking 1994 here, then the VDP ASIC has the PSG and YM2612 added, but that's pretty much it (plus the ASIC from the VA-2 model 2 w/out YM2612 -unless they left it unconnected and added the descrete 2612), it hadn't yet reached the stage of the VA-4 model 2/Genesis 3 with the Z80+RAM+68000 in the ASIC as well.

However, TmEE did mention this:
Also, the ASIC in MD2 has that color bus removed, but one other mystery bus is still present......
Pertaining to the unused color/pixel bus on the VDP, but that doen't mean the circuitry isn't present, just that the packaging is missing the pins. (so they'd have to add those pins again for the color enhancement to work)

[Bablefish]

What killed the 32X is the same thing that killed the 7800...and that is the lack of really good games.

[Chilly Willy]

What killed the 32X is the same thing that killed the 7800...and that is the lack of really good games.

In other words, SOJ, because they ordered devs to quit working on the 32X games just as they were getting good.

[kool kitty89]

What killed the 32X is the same thing that killed the 7800...and that is the lack of really good games.

A note on this: I don't think the 7800 is a particularly valid comparison in general as it actually was fairly successful (sold several million units -Atari Corp records show well over 3 million sold between 1986 and 1990 in the US alone, not even all of North America), which is rather surprising given the circumstances.

You're right comparing the games though, except both did have good games come out, just very limited libraries in general. The 7800 was proped up by the vast 2600 library cheaply available, granted the 32x had the Genesis library as well, but the general circumstances are a bit different: Atari didn't have another major game console being released like the Saturn with Sega... (well, there's the XEGS, but that's really a weird one to compare given it's a fully functional Atari XE computer, though it did sort of compete in the same market, but the main reason was attempting to move more of the 8-bit computer hardware they had stockpiled)


In other words, SOJ, because they ordered devs to quit working on the 32X games just as they were getting good.

Yeah, but it still comes down to stretching resourses too thin, and I really think it would have been better to streamline things as much as possible. Having an intermediate console (be it 32x or a standalone upgraded genesis) prior to Saturn just gives them one more product to support, even if the Saturn (hypothetically) was to be compatible with the intermediate system as well.
I already did a simple summary on post #6:
see post

Really, I think it would have been best to focus on a single new system, backwards compatible or otherwise.
They already had the Sega CD to support in addition to Genesis, plus the Game gear (and I think maybe SMS in Europe, not sure), so continue limited support for the aging consoles (slowly phase them out after shifting them to the budget market).
Definitely don't drop the Game Gear, it may have been well behind GB in market share, but had a decent userbase (and the only other handheld really competing in the market).
A cost/size (and power consumption) reduced redesign would have been nice. (much better from a buisness standpoint than Nomad IMO) Then have a real handheld successor a couple years later. (either matching or beating the GBC to market)

[Chilly Willy]

If they had just kept working on SOME of the higher profile games (like Rayman 32X), I'd have been happy. To kill it completely was a big mistake. Slowing down game releases would make some people grumble, but canceling everything caused a big revolt which was the first step in killing themselves off.

Doing the same thing to the Saturn when the Dreamcast came out was the last straw for many SEGA fans.

[kool kitty89]

Bernie Stolar's unfortunate comment about the Saturn in 1997 came a good bit before the western discontinuation though (which I think more or less coinsided with the DC's release, or Japanese release at least). But that statement really didn't help things PR wise... ("Dreamcast is our future" should have been the stantement if anything, positive reenforcement... positive!!!)

I agree that supporting 32x longer would probably have been better overall once they were stuck with it. (not sure if they should have released neptune or not though) That, in combination with a timely Saturn release should have gone a long way. (IMO the debacle surrounding the Saturn's pre-release hut Sega more than 32x) Phase out the onlder hardware in the mean time and start slowing things down with 32x after the Saturn was released (later in 1995).
had they been really organized, there could have been developments optimized around being released for 32x (or CD 32x) and then ported to Saturn relatively easily. (including some rather promising 32x games that were cancelled outright, like Shadow of Atlantis)

Overall I still think going straight to Saturn (or better yet, something simpler and somewhat less expensive, but still reasonably competitive) would have been better overall. Maybe if the CD hadn't already been released it might have worked out better, or if the CD had been more like the 32x itsself, but the limits of the side expansion port on the Genesis are at least somewhat responsible for that. (the VDP color/pixel bus, YS, and more address space on that connector could have gone a long way; YS being the big one)
I suppose they could have designed the Sega CD to mount on the cart slot instead (like the Jaguar CD), still no color/pixel bus, but everything else is covered).


But as things were in 1993/1994, I think the best option would be to forego the 32x and go straight to Saturn. (perhaps stick with the original Gigadrive concept instead of Saturn and release it sooner, perhaps even derived from Genesis hardware like its predicessors- I have no idea if that was part of the "giga drive" concept though)