Review of Retro Gamer's 32X "Retroinspection"

[sheath]

LOL at emotional appeal ok so my bad for telling you to shutup but when has Trip Hawkins been relevant? After there hardware flopped they became a 3rd party and they went bankrupt in 2003. Now Trip has a mobile software company. How could anybody take a guy serious when his company is trying to sell 700 dollar consoles?

I honestly don't know, but everyone from Steven Kent to Sam Pettus to Vic Ireland to 1up, Gamespot and IGN use Hawkins' testimony as if it was actual game history every single freaking time. They do the same with Vic Ireland and (oddly enough) Bernie Stolar. I guess these people are so irrelevant to the game industry today that they are over eager to give interviews, but it is almost impossible to get away from their interpretation of what happened in any journalistic "history".

Furthermore, when Hawkins and Ireland shilled the PS2 ahead of the Dreamcast in 1999 and 2000 it was hugely damaging to Sega. Similarly, Hawkins was actively promoting the PS1's false spec of 360,000 texture mapped gouraud shaded polygons per second from 1994 onward. He was even doing this at E3 with developers. Hawkins has also repeatedly stated that he wanted a one console industry, when the 3DO obviously lost to the Playstation he simply moved that concept over to Sony. This has been influential among developers ever since.

Not its not, with out the 32X The Saturn would have been the only 32Bit system for the teams and SOA to work on . Given that to developer for the Saturn was no harder than to developer for the 32X in terms of using the twin's SH2 and given that the Saturn had the faster SH-2 and the better VDP and SCP the conversions should at least looked or sounded better too and who knows with out the need to compress them to carts have more extra's or detail too

That is all speculation. For example, Sega didn't even want to make Virtua Racing for the Saturn so they farmed it off. We both know that once texture mapping was popular untextured lit polygons looked "old". There is no factual reason to think that 32X games would have made it to the Saturn in any significant way. Just look at Stellar Assault and how quickly Virtua Fighter was "fixed" with VF Remix. I am almost certain that Doom and Mortal Kombat were timed PS1 exclusives thanks to Sony.

The 3DO was seen as threat, but the moment Atari showed off the Jaguar with that ridiclous pad and the likes of Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy evenone laughed and knew Atari had yet again messed up , not a single major 3rd party supported the system with software (that should tell you all you need to know) . So sure in 1992/3 I can see SOA and SOE getting a bit worried about CD32 the Jaguar and more so the 3DO (given EA involvement) but by early 1994it was clear they were no threat at all, not even to the Mega CD userbase. So that's when the Mars project should have died a death

I'm not sure where you are getting this from, perhaps you are over emphasizing what Edge did to the Jaguar. In the US the Jaguar was treated with respect at least through 1994.

You just not living in the real world, it was a stop gap and seen as one and the trouble was it's release time, if this had come out in 1993 it wouldn't have been seen as such. But it launched when the Saturn and PS were ready to roll in Japan and so the system was always going to be compared to those systems , like it or not

Gads I love it. You actually just told me that your perspective is the "real world" and mine isn't. Well, in my world facts overrule opinions and games are facts. Games validate all three of these platforms, the 3DO, Jaguar and 32X. Games made two of the three last for more than a couple of years and endear measurable repeatable gamers to the platforms. The 32X would have been the same if it had been supported with, you guessed it, games for more than six months.

Your and DA Shockers "World" where every game console that is ever released must ascend the greasy poll of public opinion and sales is just not in line with actual game history, or electronics in general.

He's your typical American sales person its what they do : Talk up your own Hardware and talk down others . Lets all remember the boats of 50 times more powerful than the MD/SNES

Okay, so that makes my point for me. Sega should have stuck with the original plan of selling the 32X to Genesis owners and late Genesis adopters as a way to keep revenue up while the Saturn got rolling. Hawkins called this a stop-gap and Sega failed to answer that assertion because they were in the process of SoJ and SoA having a massive communications fall out.

Corporate entities, like people, are much more nuanced than casual arm chair historians like to believe.

[TheSonicRetard]

He was the one selling the settle and standard tech and that tech was so expensive that it had be sold at that Price and yet Panasonic still never made a profit for the unit , nor did Sanyo or Goldstar who's units were equally overpriced . I do agree though at the time he was seen has an serious Heavyweight . Its shame what happend to 3DO it was a great system with some brilliant games (I still love mine) but it really was a case of a system before it time



It was meant to be the VHS of the console world , only it doesn't work like that. I like the fact that the system was all region though

I don't think the 3DO was overpriced, I think it was simply cutting edge technology. The reason it was so expensive and had such great tech for the time is that it was built with the future in mind - by the time it was supposed to be affordable, it was supposed to be able to still compete and be a high-end item. I agree with your assessment that it was supposed to be the VHS of the console world, shame the concept is apparently dead.

I think the concept is worth revisiting especially today - I look at the Xbox 360 and PS3, and, despite their radical design differences, their libraries are mostly identical. This is in sharp contrast to the SNES/Genesis days when the "same" game across two systems would wind up being completely different games. What's the point of such different systems today if their libraries don't reflect it? Imagine 1 console with all the exclusives of the 360 AND the PS3.

[sheath]

More relevant to this discussion, if developers naturally gravitate toward middleware to save money making cross platform releases. were the Sega CD and 32X really that hard to support? Was making the same game for the Sega CD and 32X as was available on the Genesis and other platforms a detriment to these formats or a boon?

[evilevoix]

Are there any 32X home brews that showcased the 32X's tallents?

[TheSonicRetard]

More relevant to this discussion, if developers naturally gravitate toward middleware to save money making cross platform releases. were the Sega CD and 32X really that hard to support? Was making the same game for the Sega CD and 32X as was available on the Genesis and other platforms a detriment to these formats or a boon?

I think, overall, a detriment. It created a cycle - developers would do cheap ports of games, which would cause customers to question the merit in purchasing said system, which caused the userbase to shrink, which caused developers to be weary of creating new, exclusive games, which forced them into creating more cheap ports, and so forth.

The only really successful add-on in gaming history was the PC Engine CD, and that's because there was essentially a hard-switch in format. The PC Engine CD became the defacto format for the console. Sega should have done that ultimately with the Sega CD, IMO. The PC Engine CD really was the perfect add-on - offer the existing consumer base a discounted means of entry into the new format (the add-on) while ultimately offering an all-in-one package for new customers (the Duo). Sega eventually followed this model with the wonder mega and CDX, but never as aggressively as NEC did.

[sheath]

Are there any 32X home brews that showcased the 32X's tallents?

Well, there is a forum member who has ported Wolf 3D, Spear 3D and Yeti 3D to the 32X. I can't remember his name at the moment...

[TheSonicRetard]

Are there any 32X home brews that showcased the 32X's tallents?

Not really, but there are tech demos which show off it's power:

[sheath]

I think, overall, a detriment. It created a cycle - developers would do cheap ports of games, which would cause customers to question the merit in purchasing said system, which caused the userbase to shrink, which caused developers to be weary of creating new, exclusive games, which forced them into creating more cheap ports, and so forth.

If that is the case, why is the PS3's userbase not shrinking? I can say for myself that if I own multiple platforms I want to get the version of the same game that I think is best, or that utilizes unique capabilities of my most recently purchased platform.

The only really successful add-on in gaming history was the PC Engine CD, and that's because there was essentially a hard-switch in format. The PC Engine CD became the defacto format for the console. Sega should have done that ultimately with the Sega CD, IMO. The PC Engine CD really was the perfect add-on - offer the existing consumer base a discounted means of entry into the new format (the add-on) while ultimately offering an all-in-one package for new customers (the Duo). Sega eventually followed this model with the wonder mega and CDX, but never as aggressively as NEC did.

And the moment Sega abandoned the Genesis in favor of the Sega CD Nintendo would have trumpeted that Sega abandons platforms and there would have been much rejoicing in Nintendo World.

[Cornholio857]

Just look at Stellar Assault and how quickly Virtua Fighter was "fixed" with VF Remix. I am almost certain that Doom and Mortal Kombat were timed PS1 exclusives thanks to Sony.

IIRC, MK3 on the PSX was a launch exclusive.

[TheSonicRetard]

If that is the case, why is the PS3's userbase not shrinking? I can say for myself that if I own multiple platforms I want to get the version of the same game that I think is best, or that utilizes unique capabilities of my most recently purchased platform.

Becuase A) You don't need to buy anything else to buy a PS3. The Sega CD wasn't a stand-alone console, at least not at first. And B) The PS3 has more exclusive games than it's competition.

EDIT: As for Nintendo trumpeting sega abandoning consoles... they didn't do that with the PC Engine.

[sheath]

Becuase A) You don't need to buy anything else to buy a PS3. The Sega CD wasn't a stand-alone console, at least not at first. And B) The PS3 has more exclusive games than it's competition.

That seems a bit strange to me, I could have sworn there were secondary costs to owning a PS3.

EDIT: As for Nintendo trumpeting sega abandoning consoles... they didn't do that with the PC Engine.

I can't read Japanese and I know nothing of Nintendo's monopolistic tactics in Japan (outside of their mafia like cartridge manufacturing empire). I would not be surprised though if Famitsu has some choice quotes to contradict this.

[sheath]

Not really, but there are tech demos which show off it's power:

If these ROMs have been destroyed somebody deserves a public beating and execution.

[TheSonicRetard]

That seems a bit strange to me, I could have sworn there were secondary costs to owning a PS3.



I can't read Japanese and I know nothing of Nintendo's monopolistic tactics in Japan (outside of their mafia like cartridge manufacturing empire). I would not be surprised though if Famitsu has some choice quotes to contradict this.

I can read japanese, and I've been a regular importer of Famitsu since the mid 90's. I have never seen such a quote.

And the Move is not required to play a playstation 3. If anything, the Move's under performance mirrors that of the Sega CD.

[sheath]

I can read japanese, and I've been a regular importer of Famitsu since the mid 90's. I have never seen such a quote.

And the Move is not required to play a playstation 3. If anything, the Move's under performance mirrors that of the Sega CD.

I agree, especially coupled with Sony's poor support of the add-on in comparison to Kinect. I suspect all of that has something to do with marketing projections though. The Kinect pretty well made Sony's effort look last gen.

[Cornholio857]

That seems a bit strange to me, I could have sworn there were secondary costs to owning a PS3.

Not to get too OT, but wasn't it Sony that poked fun of the Wii's motion controls and controller(sure I read that somewhere)? Then what does Sony do? Release their own motion control peripheral and a controller that looks like a deformed ice cream cone.