Review of Retro Gamer's 32X "Retroinspection"

[sheath]

Thanks a lot, sheath...
Great to see all those games from hardware and with different takes...
Zool 2 looks awesome in the Jaguar, what's your thoughts about it? Tempo also suprised me, what do you say about it?

The Pitfall really looks better and smoother on the Jaguar.
That industrial background looks awesome in the 32X's Spiderman.
Rayman is beautiful, but feels like the Jaguar does not have anything as colorful AND dynamic as Chaotix, right?

Eh, the video had some weird color distortions particularly in Chaotix and Rayman that makes me insane, and having to downsample the video made the quality of the gameplay segments blurry. Since it took 6 hours straight to render it in SD I won't be doing this exact type of video again. I'll see if I can't just snazz up SD videos instead. Somebody needs to give me a Mac with Final Cut Pro installed.

Tempo is a very good game, very difficult at times but a real showcase for the 32X. I have frequently compared its graphical quality to that of Worms Armageddon. Spiderman has some nice graphics but I couldn't stand its gameplay and sold it over a decade ago. Chaotix is technically using the Genesis for the backgrounds, it just "looks" colorful.

I am going to be out of pocket a bunch today, doing the new years eve thing with family.

[Chilly Willy]

TBrazil was and is totally different from Russia, as Russia is totally different from China. Try to be less "generic" in the next post, please.

TA is just a troll. You need to learn to just ignore his ignorant ranting. If he ever gets anything right, it's only by accident.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Yeah, TA is one of the most radical and ignorant Sega fanboys I've ever met. I pretty much stopped listening to anything he says when he said all the transparencies in Sonic R were dithered.

[Chilly Willy]

Well, I'm sorry for my own rant... I need to be a bit nicer sometimes. Sorry TA.

Now as a little evidence about my comment about SEGA not focusing on the other platforms the way they should have INCLUDING THE CD, consider this:

In the six years they supported the Genesis/MD, there were almost a thousand games released for it. In the three years the CD was supported, there were just over two hundred; of those, about one third were published by SEGA, and less than a dozen were DEVELOPED by SEGA. In the same time period, almost 400 GameGear titles were released. Does that seem like SEGA was "properly" focused on the CD to you? It certainly doesn't to me. And we all KNOW how SEGA's focus was on the 32X... virtually non-existent.

So we have seen that SEGA's focus on the CD/32X/SVP (in descending order of SEGA's focus) wasn't nearly good enough for the market available or the money spent. Why did SEGA dump all that money into those add-ons if they weren't going to support them the way they needed to?

[kool kitty89]

Well, I'm sorry for my own rant... I need to be a bit nicer sometimes. Sorry TA.

Now as a little evidence about my comment about SEGA not focusing on the other platforms the way they should have INCLUDING THE CD, consider this:

In the six years they supported the Genesis/MD, there were almost a thousand games released for it. In the three years the CD was supported, there were just over two hundred; of those, about one third were published by SEGA, and less than a dozen were DEVELOPED by SEGA. In the same time period, almost 400 GameGear titles were released. Does that seem like SEGA was "properly" focused on the CD to you? It certainly doesn't to me. And we all KNOW how SEGA's focus was on the 32X... virtually non-existent.

So we have seen that SEGA's focus on the CD/32X/SVP (in descending order of SEGA's focus) wasn't nearly good enough for the market available or the money spent. Why did SEGA dump all that money into those add-ons if they weren't going to support them the way they needed to?

On the other hand, there's the question of whether they they practically could have supported all of those systems properly (ie in a non-niche matter) . . . or if they should have for that matter. (from a business/profitability/stability perspective)

From that standpoint, there's a huge argument for them never releasing the CD at all, or the 32x, and certainly not releasing or supporting the Saturn the way they did (in terms of hardware design, software support/planning/direction -games and SDK, and release date and marketing -and overall management . . . and lack of coordination/cooperation from the distinct international branches -ie SoA and SoE should have had input on both the hardware design and market model/planning/release date/etc).

From a practical business perspective, add-ons are only practical in very specific circumstances, and (for whatever reason) those have rarely been met in real-world examples. (very often, they're too expensive, cater to the wrong feature set, put emphasis on the wrong types of software, come out at the wrong time, have the wrong type of marketing, etc) The issue of marketing is the reason on-cart hardware tends to be more foolproof: an add-on can be much more cost effective to the user and the manufacturer, but you need to convey that in an attractive manner to average-joe consumers, and not go overboard on complexity/cost. (ie something like a simple SVP lock-on cart may have been practical -or something in a similar price range a bit earlier)
It's especially good if the hardware is cheap and simple to integrate with the base system as standard (for all late-gen models) and thus increase the market saturation for add-on format support. (like if Nintendo had made all N64s have 8 MB out of the box shortly after the expansion Pak was released)

However, for the MCD, you could still argue that (with the right support/management) it could have had a major impact on the Japanese market if nothing else (given NEC's position/niche in that market). Though, in that case, you could also argue that a much simpler/cheaper (and preferably earlier) probably would have made much more sense overall. (cheaper, simpler, lower price point and/or higher margins, lower investment risk for manufacturing, limited new feature set for programmers to deal with -and less chance of those being wasted, etc -say something like the MCD with no graphics ASIC, no sub-CPU -maybe a cheap MCU, and only 256k added work/word RAM -plus PCM RAM- and you'd still have more RAM than the Super CD and a CD cache -better load times- better sound hardware, etc -more RAM due to 64k main RAM to the PCE's 8k)
Hell, a cheaper/simpler CD would have made it more feasible for Western markets as well. (and given the MCD already was on the verge of going mainstream in 1993/94, that lower cost and better software support -especially assuming JP software support was as strong as on the PCECD, may have been enough to actually push it into mainstream)


One of Sega's problems was not focusing enough on stability and profitability . . . there's sense in trying to remain competitive and innovative on the hardware end of things, but there's also such a thing as moderation and realistic planning. Prior to the MCD, Sega had already released 3 new consoles (plus some notable variations thereof) in the span of just 5 years, and (had it not been for the mediocre/poor market performance of both 8-bit systems -outside Europe) I'd argue releasing the MD so soon was folly. (indeed, had Sega had the management/marketing capabilities to propel the SMS to great success in the US, it would have been a massive mistake to shift priorities so soon and to rush out hardware early with related technical limitations -albeit, as it was, they did continue to provide significant European support for the SMS through the early 90s)

New hardware takes a lot of investment to get onto the market and even more to support . . . let alone drive to success, and the more frequently you release new systems, the harder it is to make profits. (the longer you milk any single platform and manage to keep it's software selling in substantial volumes, the greater profits you'll have) We're talking about a console here after all, not home computers, and certainly not CPUs or graphics hardware being sold directly for profit, but a very specific razor and blade business model relying on establishing an install base and profiting from software sales and royalties. (this would also be opposed to the arcade market which would be somewhat closer to pure hardware markets -where newer/bigger/better/more powerful systems are generally needed to remain competitive/profitable)

What they did from 1991-1994/95 with hardware was definitely a problem though, too much all around and much of it not fitting to the market properly (and management/marketing/software not helping that).
Had Sega not released any major hardware (aside from the GG) prior to the true successor to the MD, or if such add-ons had at least been more modest/saner, Sega almost certainly would have been far more stable and profitable overall, and also much more stable and competitive in the long-run. (they also could have invested more in software on those fewer platforms that were supported)
Hell, even if they ended up going 3rd party on the home software end of things (which has notable advantages from a business standpoint), a healthier Sega may have stayed in the handheld market and continued to offer the only real competition to Nintendo in that market (prior to the PSP).



There's something to be said about Nintendo's business model and their success in managing profitability . . . and if Sega had managed similar stability in that regard, but perhaps offered nominally better (or more cost effective) hardware, and (more likely and more significantly) a far more flexible and open 3rd party licensing/publishing model (as Sega did historically), it could have made them extremely competitive and made the overall market healthier. (especially in terms of 3rd parties having freedom -though, thankfully, Sony's 3rd party publishing policies were/are far more like Sega's than Nintendo's)
Not to mention, Sega had much larger in-house software resources (on top of many 2nd/3rd party associates) compared to Nintendo, and a wider array of software (as well as some genres/niches not supported well/at all by Nintendo) . . . and with less emphasis/waste on the hardware end, they could have invested even more into software too.




As fun as it is to talk about possibilities on many of these "lost" platforms, there's still the more realistic consideration of what was more practical/realistic on the whole, at least in hindsight. (though, even without hindsight, I don't think Sega's frequent -substantial- hardware releases made sense in any case, and again, the MD itself really wouldn't have made sense had the SMS been able to be properly supported and driven to success)

In that practical PoV, you could look at some other such "what if" topics too, like the Atari Jaguar . . . now, in that case, you could certainly argue Atari still could have had a valid long-term niche to fill in the budget-market sector (specifically, offering lower-cost options for new-generation platforms, something generally not provided by anyone else -limiting the budget options to old-gen systems). In fact, Atari Corp had already started to establish itself in that role with the 7800 (hardware and -especially- software being much cheaper than the NES or SMS), and with their much increased funding/resources by 1988, they had the potential to follow that up with a far more competitive/mainstream successor with similar cost advantages (but much better support/advertising/software) . . . but that didn't happen (and, from 1989 onward, Atari Corp's management -and just about everything else- entered a steep downward spiral and both their game/entertainment and computer markets declined substantially . . . and by the time the Jaguar was brought to market, they were in no shape to do much of anything -a shell of a company, understaffed, under-funded, desperate, mediocre management, bad PR -consumer, investor, retail, etc, etc -albeit PR was still somewhat decent in parts of Europe).

[Team Andromeda]

Master Sytem sold more here than in US, that maybe meant something to SoJ.

Lets get real here, the MS sold more in the UK than USA I'm pretty sure the X-Box sold more in New Zealand than Japan . If Brazil was seen as key and important market in those days . SEGA Nintendo SONY would be releasing their own products in Brazil at the same time and set up a Headquarters in there ECT. They didn't so long after one's console was sold , Coprs in other countries may pick up the rights to the console and sell them what was seen as lesser markets - Not meant as a dig at your country simple what happened.

Shall I use emotive language like dumped and ask how long after NCL dumped the N64 , was the iQue Player brought out in China ?

Ayrton Senna's Super Monaco GP II was TecToy's idea and they participate in the development process.

I think we're over playing that . AS SM II GP was just a sequel by the numbers hardly any different for the 1st game, just with some lovely pics of the main man in the game and some new tracks . SEGA always liked to have a Key Sportsman or women to endorse its games it would make sense to go after the best racer at the time to help premote your game. What next TecToy's idea to get Evander Holyfield Real Deal Boxing, David Robinson's Supreme Court on the MD :It was standard practice to get a Sport star to endorse your game and sometimes fair play to them , they would help develop your product , though what on earth happened to Pele Mega Drive game is anyone guess - Can we thank Tech Toy for that as well ?

[Team Andromeda]

TA is just a troll. You need to learn to just ignore his ignorant ranting. If he ever gets anything right, it's only by accident.

Not my fault mate you don't get your facts right and where you don't like to be questioned . I'm simple stating the facts of the matter

n the six years they supported the Genesis/MD, there were almost a thousand games released for it. In the three years the CD was supported, there were just over two hundred; of those, about one third were published by SEGA, and less than a dozen were DEVELOPED by SEGA. In the same time period, almost 400 GameGear titles were released. Does that seem like SEGA was "properly" focused on the CD to you? It certainly doesn't to me. And we all KNOW how SEGA's focus was on the 32X... virtually non-existent

Right if you want to play that game - How many Famicom Disc games were brought out compared to Famicom carts ? How many N64 DD game were brought out compared to N64 Carts ? . SEGA to its credit made more games for the 32X than NCL did for the N64 DD and supported it for longer and even released the system world wide . Oh and at least SEGA brought out its CD Add on, something which the NCL never did for the SNES. In each case SEGA supported its Add on better than NCL.
I think the simple reason why SEGA made more Mega Drive games was simply down the sales - Its hardware and software were selling in far greater numbers than the Mega CD hardware and software , simple has really


And if you want to get back the FX Vs SVP chip . Lets remember why the both chips came into being: The FX because the SNES was utterly rubbish at any polygon game and the other to port the most advanced coin up available at the time . In most cases the Mega Drive didn't need a Super FX type chip , it was able to handle polygons through the CPU and good programming, that wasn't the case with the Snes at all . SVP cost a bomb to produce in each cart and that was reflected inthe price and so that made it a bit of a non starter to be used in other games and the fact that it really was only meant to handle VR.



So by all means come back with your silly little insults and how SEGA never followed through unlike like NCL - I'll simple point out the facts and how NCL didn't always follow through...
Oh I do it all with out an insult or personal attack , but that us British for you ! Stiff upper Lip and manors make a man lol

[Barone]

Lets get real here, the MS sold more in the UK than USA I'm pretty sure the X-Box sold more in New Zealand than Japan . If Brazil was seen as key and important market in those days . SEGA Nintendo SONY would be releasing their own products in Brazil at the same time and set up a Headquarters in there ECT. They didn't so long after one's console was sold , Coprs in other countries may pick up the rights to the console and sell them what was seen as lesser markets - Not meant as a dig at your country simple what happened.

Shall I use emotive language like dumped and ask how long after NCL dumped the N64 , was the iQue Player brought out in China ?

Did I say "key and important market"? No.
You just talked like an arrogant idiot and I just corrected you.
Nintendo also released SNES here, by the way...

Actually, we have Sony (by themselves not another "Corp" like you said) manufacturing PS2 and PS3 here, a Brazilian PS Network... MS (by themselves not another "Corp" like you said) manufacturing XBox 360... Only Nintendo is out.
The games are also manufactured here and most of them have Brazilian Portuguese menus and subtitles.
It doesn't mean that Brazil is a key market, but it has some importance to them out of your ignorant beliefs.


About China: Thanks to arrogant mindless people like you, your country is now at its knees to them, financially speaking...

I think we're over playing that . AS SM II GP was just a sequel by the numbers hardly any different for the 1st game, just with some lovely pics of the main man in the game and some new tracks . SEGA always liked to have a Key Sportsman or women to endorse its games it would make sense to go after the best racer at the time to help premote promote your game. What next TecToy's idea to get Evander Holyfield Real Deal Boxing, David Robinson's Supreme Court on the MD :It was standard practice to get a Sport star to endorse your game and sometimes fair play to them , they would help develop your product ,

You really are a "limited" guy...

In terms of games, you're wrong.
Those sports titles you used as examples were developed in US, and were SoA's stuff. David Robinson's is a knock off and Real Deal Boxing don't have any content provided by Evander Holyfield aside from his own picture and name AFAIK.
Some others, like Tommy Lasorda Baseball and James 'Buster' Douglas Knockout Boxing (released after his defeat) were just slightly modified already existent Japanese games.
All those sports men represented almost zero in Japan. I really doubt that you can find any Japanese TV commercial of those games.


Ayrton Senna's Super Monaco GP II is different. It was a SoJ work to begin with.
By that time, Senna was like a popstar in Japan. They use to love F1 and loved him, he was in several major TV commercials there, mainly like a Honda whatever car seller, not only in Japan:


There were mangas with him and all that stuff:



He went to SoJ headquarters to test Mega Drive and Arcade versions of Super Monaco GP.


Source: Supergame - December 1991, Brazil.

There are some changes in the gameplay over the first game and they were all requests of himself.
The descriptions of each track were made by himself in a extent that he rejected to describe the new track for that year (I think it was Barcelona, IDK...) before racing it. He sent the tape with the description to SoJ just after the end of the race... The in-game voice is himself talking.

IMO the whole process was very different from any other "sports man" licensed games that Mega Drive received.

Finally, Ayrton Senna was much closer to Muhammad Ali in terms of relevance and activism than to Evander Holyfield or David Robinson.
You should read some UK auto-sports magazines to learn something about him.

As a side note, the "best first lap of all time" was done by him in Donnington Park in 1993 (against far superior William's cars) (there's a monument in Donnington Park due to it), a GP sponsored by Sega:




Sorry for the off-topic guys, but TA was so arrogant and stupid that I couldn't deny this post to Senna's memory.

though what on earth happened to Pele Mega Drive game is anyone guess - Can we thank Tech Toy for that as well ?

Surely, TecToy wasn't involved in those lame games.
They were made by your "great" Accolade company AFAIK.

[Da_Shocker]

Ok sheath that is all you had to say is that I had a shit load of cash to blow on any and every gaming upgrade or whatever. I wasn't able to go out and buy any and every upgrade at full retail price. As for how the 32X had unique titles uhm yeah I Chaotix was more unique than anythig out there but that doesn't mean it was a good game.

[sheath]

You really are just going to keep finding some way to read into what I said and run it to the absurd aren't you.

All of these purchases are spread out from 1988-2011. I probably could have done something more responsible with the money, but it hardly adds up to a lot of money for hardware alone. A far more expensive hobby is collecting the games themselves, which even though my average is below $15 per game adds up when there are hundreds of them on the shelf.

For me it is just gaining access to more games, no different whatsoever to owning a Genesis and a SNES, or an N64 and a PS1, or a Wii and an Xbox 360, or for that matter owning DVDs and HD-DVDs and Bluray when I have a streaming service. The only significant difference I see for add-ons is that I don't ever expect them to be the next mainstream media darling and mass-market format. I expect a steady stream of games with unique attributes, not an entirely new full blown system library.

[Da_Shocker]

And what only around 12 or 13 of the 32X games are exclusive to that system. I want a steady stream of good games not a stream of bad games with unique game attributes. So what is Cosmic Crapage has ZOMG scaling that the Genesis never had but Eternal Champions was still a helluva lot better than that turd of a game. Even the the unreleased games scream mediocrity. X-Men looks pretty good but it plays like shit, Virtua Hamster uhm yeah very unique plays like shit. Soul Star X looked like it could've turned out ok. And those numbers sound just like the 32x in which only a third of the software is even worthwhile. And NONE of the 32XCD games are worth anything.

[sheath]

And this folks is exactly why there is no such thing as a pure democracy. You see, if one person tries to explain things that are hard to understand, and the other just repeats his negative opinion over and over, not unlike the popular opinion that Da Shocker just can't help but repeat without answering question one, guess which way the majority will go?

Question, do people respond to facts with thoughtful consideration or contempt?

[sheath]

That was the real time demo for HALO II and no the E2003 In-game was cut back it was never running on a acutal production X-Box

This is the trailer I was thinking of, I couldn't find a high def version of it from an actual E3. It has been so long since I have played the game, but I remember specifically expecting that when I started the game and got better.

Lets get real the 32X could do Mario 64 , but it was be so cut back it wouldn't be worth the effort.

The 32X could do Mario 64 at about 15-20FPS with even more limited textures, without texture filtering or perspective correction, and it would probably have draw in in addition to SM64's sprite draw in. The 32X could handle Croc okay in similar specs, especially the much lower textured PS1 version. Then there is Total Eclipse, Solar Eclipse, Hardcore 4x4, the Saturn version of Starfighter, and other 1st gen Saturn or PS1 games like Robotica or whatever the same team did on the PS1.

Obviously 2D 3DO games like The Horde could be done on cartridge with concessions or nearly perfectly on the 32XCD. Gex would not have been a problem, and if optimized to use the Genesis for the far background probably would have run smoother, the same goes for Rayman.

Exactly and you can say that about any Hardware . If AM#2 and Treasure were to go back and make a tech demo on Saturn Hardware with todays know-how todays compression software ECT, I'm sure they could produce some utterly amazing results same goes for the Teams that did wonders on the PS. The 32X was a nice and powerful system that sadly came to late and wasn't needed at all (with the Saturn and PS shipped) and unlike what SOA/SOE thought millions were ready to leave thier Mega Drive and Snes and pay for the 32 Bit generation .

Btw don't want come across like I have a going at you I like reading your posts ECT. But lets not try and overplay the 32X or say stuff like the VF on the Saturn didn't run at 30 fps

An let's be clear, I am not supposing, at all, that games that didn't come out for 2-3x more powerful hardware two to three years later would ever have come out on the 32X. But this discussion has become so convoluted that technical capabilities came up, because somebody brought up the absurd statement that because multiplatform 32X games like MKII used the Genesis too much the 32X never would have done better.

[kool kitty89]

The 32X could do Mario 64 at about 15-20FPS with even more limited textures, without texture filtering or perspective correction, and it would probably have draw in in addition to SM64's sprite draw in. The 32X could handle Croc okay in similar specs, especially the much lower textured PS1 version. Then there is Total Eclipse, Solar Eclipse, Hardcore 4x4, the Saturn version of Starfighter, and other 1st gen Saturn or PS1 games like Robotica or whatever the same team did on the PS1.

Obviously 2D 3DO games like The Horde could be done on cartridge with concessions or nearly perfectly on the 32XCD. Gex would not have been a problem, and if optimized to use the Genesis for the far background probably would have run smoother, the same goes for Rayman.

What makes you confident of that sort of performance, and in what context? (ie without using fast ROMs or added RAM . . . and even with those advantages you'd still have significant issues to consider)

Also remember there's more than just graphics to consider, but the game logic/AI/etc beyond the demo-level rendering end of things. (even if you cut SM64 down to 1/2 the polygon count, few/no textures, and no gouraud-shading -and perhaps lower resolution- you'd still have those other issues to consider . . . same for croc)

Rayman and Gex probably would have worked fine though . . . perhaps with animation cuts and more slowdown (and/or lower peak framerate) than the other versions, but probably solid versions in any case.

Starfighter would also have probably worked well, especially if using similar model complexity as the 3DO version, but with some reasonable cuts to textures. (perhaps use of gouraud shading too -and tactful art design around that)

[Team Andromeda]

Actually, we have Sony (by themselves not another "Corp" like you said) manufacturing PS2 and PS3 here, a Brazilian PS Network... MS (by themselves not another "Corp" like you said) manufacturing XBox 360... Only Nintendo is out.
The games are also manufactured here and most of them have Brazilian Portuguese menus and subtitles.
It doesn't mean that Brazil is a key market, but it has some importance to them out of your ignorant beliefs.

I'm on about the early 1990's and no Brazil was not seen has key or important market - How anyone can try and make out that is being ignorant is quite beyond me when that happened to be the facts . Times change mate. Since you bring up SONY did SONY bring out the PS in Brazil in the 90's , remind me again when you got the PS2 2009 wasn't it ? Christ most of the world was getting bored with their 360 and PS3 by then ? Don't come it in the 1990's Brazil was not seen a kep market or an important player in the games industry at that time

There are some changes in the gameplay over the first game and they were all requests of himself.
The descriptions of each track were made by himself in a extent that he rejected to describe the new track for that year (I think it was Barcelona, IDK...) before racing it. He sent the tape with the description to SoJ just after the end of the race... The in-game voice is himself talking

Yeah and we listen to the PR Pele was involved with the development of the game all the way through. Its nice to see like some others Senna had a deeper involvement -It still played almost and handled almost exactly the same as what had gone previously in SM GP 1 .

Surely, TecToy wasn't involved in those lame games

Nice way to miss the point. The point is , famous people have been involved with games and some times that went deeper than just putting your name to the title has with I'm sure that was also the case with Michael Jackson Mega Drive game

All those sports men represented almost zero in Japan. I really doubt that you can find any Japanese TV commercial of those games.

F1 is massive in Japan , I don't think NBA is . Hence why would had the likes of Nakajima Satoru F1 games in Japan

He went to SoJ headquarters to test Mega Drive and Arcade versions of Super Monaco GP.

Yeah lots of famous people went to SOJ to play games and it was a great photo opportunity for SEGA and when you get a Big license like that, one would want to milk it . Just like SEGA did with Michael Jackson or the way EA PR used Madden to sell their later games I see to remember Evander holyfield at SEGA CES both . You get a big license and you'll milk it

You should read some UK auto-sports magazines to learn something about him

What the hell are you on about ? For starters I'm a massive F1 fan I actually love the sport and watched it since I was kid and know quite a bit about Senna and the sport . What that's got to with this debate I do not know .

About China: Thanks to arrogant mindless people like you, your country is now at its knees to them, financially speaking

The UK is not on its knee's to China we even still give aid to the China , I'm sure its the USA that really in debt to China given that China holds a massive stack of their bonds and debt . We're in debt up to our eyeballs too granted but hey we been there before inthe 70's and what goes around comes around