Review of Retro Gamer's 32X "Retroinspection"

[Team Andromeda]

Pouring money into Saturn was the wrong route too and what hurt them even more than the 32x in 1995/96

No it was the only way to go. You had to take the Fight to SONY and make sure consumers bought your console, and not a rivals.
You think MS would have done as well as it did with the 360, if it continued to back and support the X-Box, delay the 360 well into 2006?
In 1995 people were looking to move up and move on from the Mega Drive and Snes, and they choose SONY, and SEGA never got those gamers back. That what screwed up the Hardware dream for SEGA .

And then they jumped the gun in 1997 by pulling back Saturn support in favor of pushing DC development rather than following through with the Saturn as best they could from 1997 through 1999

??
SOJ were , Games like Shenmue and Sonic Adv were moved up to DC Production, so was VF 3 . The likes of AM#1 were heavily involved with DC and NA@MI tools and games, so the likes of HOTD ports were handed out to 3rd parties, Overworks were starting production of the Sakura games for the DC, as well as SEGA working on Code Veronica

SEGA was pretty much all for the DC by the begging of 1998 . A think Camelot (makers of Shining Force III) even complained that SOJ weren't offering enough support to them with SF III Ep 2& III, because SOJ were too focused on the DC .

Of course it was, but the question is why and who's fault it was for the context

SEGA's.

I think Sega would have been in big trouble regardless if they handled the Saturn similarly at the time along with everything else. (Genesis, CD, GG, SMS, etc)

The Saturn suffered inthe West, because SEGA West was so sure the 32X would win the 32Bit mass-market war . SEGA West was far more for the 32X and that killed the Saturn chances.

[kgenthe]

Yes it was, it thought it had won the 32Bit Mass Market before the battle was even began. It was sheer arrogance, and SEGA completely took its eye of the ball.

Woot, we found some common ground

[kool kitty89]

Virtua Fighter (I think)
Mortal Kombat II
NB Jame TE
Toughman Contest

I probably missed a few more.

OK, so none where it mattered.... Had doom been 4 MB (like the Jag) they probably could have included all the levels of the Jag version. (they'd just have to scrimp on textures as they already had, the level data itself is only a very small part of the game)
And of course, audio data took up at least 2x the space that it otherwise would have (assuming it was all 8-bit PCM/PWM and not higher res) if the lack of DMA wasn't eating up CPU resource for only a few channels. (standard ADPCM would be great, though more custom codecs could allow higher compression ratios -it would depend on what they invested in, but would be equally advantageous for the Saturn due to the lack of hardware audio decoding and moderate CPU resource relegated to that -something like 2-bit CVSD as Chilly Willy implemented would have been awesome for that -1-bit CVSD is the standard format though and sounds a lot worse though cuts the bitrate in 1/2 again and it would probably be OK if all samples were kept to 44.1 kHz -higher samples rates give better results)

More resource would also allow more decompression of graphics on the fly, so you could fit even more into ROM and also address the ROM bandwidth bottleneck to some degree. (streaming compressed data vs uncompressed data would make for a higher effective bandwidth)

SOJ will give the go-ahead to lots of things, even allow SOA to buy into 3DFX, that will not stop them dropping systems in favour of one that think will be the best, just like its DC and deal with Power VR.

So what happened? Why didn't SoA understand that and why wasn't it handled like the 3DFX project? (in any case, they might have chosen the 32FX machine if not for some legal/bureaucratic debacles)

After the 1994 Toyko game show, after the showing and HUGE unveiling of the Saturn on Nakayama birthday. No-one should have been any doubt the Saturn was coming and was going to be out on 1994.

I assume you don't mean the same Tokyo Game Show that was held for the first time in 1996... So in any case, for the convention you did mean, when was that? Was it before June of 1994 when SoA had a massive unveiling of the 32x at the Summer CES? That would have been pretty much the point of no returned with the hype that followed though if they were really careful they might have been able to.

From the quotes and interviews I've seen, there's no indication that Nakayma wanted to drop the 32x as such at all so it definitely seems quite unclear what the overall situation was.

It was on the Market for longer than a Year . Supported waved from the start, after a decent start. The machine was seen a joke by most, and who could blame them with utter dross like Cosmic Carnage Motocross Championship, and poor half baked 3rd party ports.

Cosmic Carnage was SoJ developed, was it not?

And you're speaking for the UK perspective: every time this comes up it seems that in Europe in general it never had the same sort of massive hype that it did in the US. (the fact that it was released a good deal closer to the Saturn and PSX obviously wouldn't have helped -and the price point seems to have been far higher too, even with the usual tax-induced inflation going on; in the US it was 1/4 the price of the bare bones Saturn when that launched in May)

There were companies who'd gotten onboard who were planning their first major releases in 1996, but it had been dumped by then.

Yes by that name, Scott even names it himself . You should read the Article (the full article btw)

You can't be sure unless he was explicitly asked if he knew it by that name in early 1994... Sega released it as such in the press later on, but as the story goes: that was due to them playing along with the mistaken media assumption about the "planet projects." (at least that was my impression)

No it showed SEGA was concerned by the 3DO, otherwise TOM wouldn't have felt the need to make such an untrue statement.

Of course, I wasn't arguing otherwise: the 3DO and Jaguar obviously made an upset in the industry, something Sheath also pointed out before. (more so in several previous discussions than here) THe Jag and 3DO might not have ended up long-term competition, but with the hype they got in 1993 it sure looked like they could be. (and the 3DO might have been if it hadn't been for Sony... hell even the Jaguar might have remained in a dedicated niche had it not been for Sony -though they really missed their one big chance with Europe)

You're having a laugh. You really think a Mega CD with its single speed drive, low RAM , would be able to take on the might of the PS, Saturn, N64 ?
32X Mega CD games were a complete joke, no better than 3DO FMV games, and far from the promised VHS quality.

It could have been OK for the time, and FMV easily as good as the Saturn or 3DO (especially as much held back to 1x speed to fit more on it), the 32x had about as much decoding power as the Saturn, so it was purely up to harnessing it. Early FMV on the 32x used really crappy and underpowered compression for sure, though it wasn't really worse than some 3DO and PC stuff. (Rebel Assault looked terrible on all formats, sub par video compression even for the cutscenes in most cases -and the 3DO version looked worse than the best FMV on the vanilla Sega CD)

So I think it would have been competitive, yes, but far from ideal: it would have been better to go with the Saturn alone, but also better to go with it alone than both the Saturn and 32x. (Jupiter is another matter as I've already addressed)

Well I'm sorry to kill the dream, there's more the world than just the USA. SEGA was being hit inthe West with most markets going into a recession, and its Arcade teams were finding it hard as well, with slow uptake of expressive boards like Model 1 and 2.

Yes, but my point is that the market analysis that Sheath was addressing applied to the market slump in North America, so that was the contention point (North America made up over 50% of Sega's overall market at the time).
The same slump that made Nintendo pour tons into developing more SNES software. (something they were criticized for "milking old hardware" too long, just as they'd been criticized of back in 1990 with the NES)

And why because all it could offer was Space Harrier or AB II ??. Those games didn't sell the Mega Drive, let alone a 32 Bit wonder machine . As soon as people saw them (the Price SEGA asked for them) people just laughed and knew the machine was finished.

Those weren't the games I was talking about: Shadow Squadron, Virtua Fighter, Knuckles Chaotix, Blackthorne, Tempo, Kolibri, etc. (and many games that were near release but got canceled... it could have handled a decent version of Amok -actually about as good as the Saturn game with some lower res textures as that was all software rendered- possible custom versions of Quake or Tomb Raider as well -custom to fit within reasonable ROM limits with minimized and careful use of textures in favor of more gouraud shading, etc)
Think of DOS games released up to 1996 and most of those types of games could have been done fairly well on the 32x, but different optimization would have been needed due to RAM limits. (again as soon as developers got the second wave of tools that would give a huge boost wile increasing audio quality substantially -had that been the case by late 1994, most or all of the 1995 games would have had considerably better sound and/or better general performance -Virtua Fighter could have sounded much closer to the Arcade with 2x or more the sample quality and 32 to 64 PWM channels -less if you shared more resource to speed up rendering, so you could have had considerably higher polygon counts too)

Yes but this was SEGA, it had been inthe Videogames for years, it knew the score, it did once know how take the fight to the likes of NCL and NEC

They tried to, but never ended up breaking through those until NEC colapsed and even the Saturn never broke ahead of Nintendo for long. (a brief period when the SFC had declined in 1997 up to the Saturn dropping below N64 by 1998 in terms of hardware market share -I need more comprehensive figures to really compare that though)
They probably couldn't have done much better in Japan given the circumstances, so I wouldn't fault them there. (Nintendo was goign to win easily with the support they had and the entrenched market, NEC got a strong head start that Sega couldn't ever shake -and they didn't push the CD hard enough to cut into that)

It was up to Katz and Kalinske to make North America successful as it was... though they never had to deal with anything remotely close to Sony before that. In all cases the competition had screwed up significantly in one way or another: NEC had terrible marketing (market model and general technique) so they became a non-issue, Nintendo's restricting licensing and arrogance opened it up for Sega to break in as well, especially with Nintendo not dominant nearly as long as they had in Japan (and Atari had been the original leader vs Nintendo pretty much starting the Japanese market), and of course the US market was a good bit more fickle in general and responded very strongly to advertising.
Sony made no mistakes in terms of arrogance or marketing: they pushed ahead with more money than anyone before that and with the unprecedented extension of traditional razor and blade marketing of not selling at cost (or slim profit) but at considerable loss! (actually more than they'd planned as it took a year longer than expected for RAM prices to drop -somethign they got away with due to massive funds)

SEGA screwed up. A SEGA all behind the Saturn would have been far better and able to take the fight to SONY and NCL. You think the Mega Drive sold as well if SEGA decided to make a Add On for the Master system, and offer its users 16 bit power at a Reduced cost ?.

It might have had a minor effect, but given the limited market share of the SMS it probably wouldn't have mattered much. (in the context of it only really coming into play from mid 1988 to late 1989 and then getting dropped) That's a totally different context really as the Genesis was very popular when the SMS was not at all. In Europe perhaps, but not in general.

OTOH it would have been very stupid of Sega to push the Genesis so hard so soon if the SMS had been neck and neck with the NES. It was a newer system and had a lot more milage left in it to compete, so it would indeed have made sense to hold off on the MD for a year or so. (especially if that meant development continued and further enhancement and optimization could have been made for a less expensive AND more powerful system)

Would the DC done as well and be such a fan Fav, if SOJ said well we worked hard with the Saturn, we'll make the add-on for the Saturn to offer Model 2/3 quality graphics (which I one stage was rumoured) , we'll not fully commit to the DC ?, it would have been madness imo

Again, regardless of an addon, the DC would have likely done better had Sega pushed the Saturn significantly longer.

Add-on or new system, same thing in terms of splintering the market: again look at how many new systems Sega came out with from 1983 to 1991 alone compared to anybody else.
THAT was a big problem once they got into the major mass market as they didn't NEED to continue doing that, but space things out more reasonably.

No if we really want to use the term Luxury hand Held PC-Eng , then that was the PC-Engine LT.
Both the Nomad and PG-GT were just hand-held versions of consoles. Far from Luxury items. Just in those days electronics didn't come cheap.

They were all luxury items... not things average Genesis users would have bought right away.
The 3DO was a luxury item in 1993 though 1995, the Saturn and PSX were both luxury items as such (in 1995), and in terms of mass market in general, the Sega CD was most definitely a luxury item in its class until 1994. (just as the Intellivision was in 1980 or the Astrocade before that, and to a lesser extent the 5200 and Colecovision in 1982)
The NES, SMS, 7800, and Genesis launched at low enough prices to be fairly close to the mass market from the get-go, as was the GC and Dreamcast (PS2 and Xbox to lesser extents), so it really depends on the generation. (PS3 was pushing Saturn territory in 2006, albeit not even close to Intellivision or 3DO)

Yes it was, it thought it had won the 32Bit Mass Market before the battle was even began. It was sheer arrogance, and SEGA completely took its eye of the ball.

Arrogance? No way, it was a symptom of Sega's internal communication problems and serious concerns of competition on the mass market.
They got too upset over 3DO and Atari and lost sight of continued competition with Nintendo (the big picture until late 1996 and significant after that just as the NES was still big after 1991).
Again, I think the 32x was a bad move in that respect, they should have focused on catering as much as possible to the Genesis followed by Sega CD (more or less depending on how they could manage continued interest) and possibly enhanced carts or a much more accessible add-on.

No it was the only way to go. You had to take the Fight to SONY and make sure consumers bought your console, and not a rivals.

They couldn't take the fight to a market that wasn't there... They lost sight of the big market for 1994-1996 (and even into 1997) with the very strong 16-bit market.

They should have shrugged off Atari and 3DO and kept a close eye on Sony while focusing on the 16-bit market and gradually building up with the Saturn with the first major push for marketing following the Summer CES and expanding thereafter with demo units by mid summer and the launch on September 2nd as planned originally. (again lack of 32x would certainly help that)

Pulling back on the 16-bit market lost them money that could have helped with the Saturn as much as it would maintaining their lead over Nintendo.

Maybe push sooner in Europe given the changeover seemed to be almost a year ahead of what the US and Japan managed. (the SNES was still dominant or close to dominant up through 1996 -in Japan it was still about 1/3 of the market at the time, but in Japan pushing the MD/CD longer wouldn't help against Nintendo as they were not even close vs the US where they were ahead by a good margin in 1994)
You think MS would have done as well as it did with the 360, if it continued to back and support the X-Box, delay the 360 well into 2006?
In 1995 people were looking to move up and move on from the Mega Drive and Snes, and they choose SONY, and SEGA never got those gamers back. That what screwed up the Hardware dream for SEGA .

SOJ were , Games like Shenmue and Sonic Adv were moved up to DC Production, so was VF 3 . The likes of AM#1 were heavily involved with DC and NA@MI tools and games, so the likes of HOTD ports were handed out to 3rd parties, Overworks were starting production of the Sakura games for the DC, as well as SEGA working on Code Veronica

Exactly, they pushed for the DC too soon... they should have kept a lot more in reserve to continue supporting the Saturn worldwide... though Stolar ruined any chance for that by what he did in 1997.

SEGA was pretty much all for the DC by the begging of 1998 . A think Camelot (makers of Shining Force III) even complained that SOJ weren't offering enough support to them with SF III Ep 2& III, because SOJ were too focused on the DC .

Again that was not a good thing, pulling the Saturn lost them a lot of ground in all markets and let Sony take hold of even their lingering dedicated fanbase.

SEGA's.

No, I mean what branch and/or who's management decisions in general, of if not a specific person, the general contest: was it an issue of miscommunication related to culture clash or generally not keeping SoA fully in-the-know on ongoign projects?

The Saturn suffered inthe West, because SEGA West was so sure the 32X would win the 32Bit mass-market war . SEGA West was far more for the 32X and that killed the Saturn chances.

The 32x didn't help, but there were many other problems internal and external (Sony) that caused Sega's position by 1998.
And burning people by dropping the 32x so soon didn't help at all. (just like burning Saturn owners by dropping the Saturn too soon, except the Saturn didn't have a replacement until 1999, so it was considerably worse)

[Team Andromeda]

I assume you don't mean the same Tokyo Game Show that was held for the first time in 1996.

No I'm on about the June 1994 Tokyo game show- Where SEGA showed off the Saturn , Complete with 30% complete Virtual Fighter, New footage of Panzer Dragoon. You the show where SEGA divided its stands into 4 zones to Push the Saturn -

Virtual World - Showing demo's of Virtual Fighter, Daytona USA ECT

Fantasy World - Showing demo's of Panzer Dragoon , Clockwork Knight

Dramatic World - Demo 's of Dream Mansion, (hidden souls) , Rampo

New Standard World - Demo's of Shinobi, Guile Racer, Sim City 2000

And I'm also on about the the official presentation of the Saturn in May 1994 (on Nakayama 61st Birthday ) To the Japanese gaming Press . SOA must have been complete morons not to think or know, the Saturn wasn't coming out in 1994.

They tried to, but never ended up breaking through those until NEC colapsed and even the Saturn never broke ahead of Nintendo for long

I'm speaking of the West, where SEGA crushed NEC, and took the 16 bit crown from NCL for a bit part of the battle.

They were all luxury items... not things average Genesis users would have bought right away

They were not High End Luxury items, they were just what decent speced Handheld costs at the end of the day.

Cosmic Carnage was SoJ developed, was it not?

And you're speaking for the UK perspective: every time this comes up it seems that in Europe in general it never had the same sort of massive hype that it did in the US

No it was not made In-House at SOJ. I'm looking at the 32X for a western prespetive and it was very clear, every early in. The machine was not going to be a great seller, and its software poor and lacking.

You can't be sure unless he was explicitly asked if he knew it by that name in early 199

Scott confirms it, in Name and the Time line. What more do you want ?

Again, regardless of an addon, the DC would have likely done better had Sega pushed the Saturn significantly longer

No SEGA would have just lost more and more consumers to the PS brand. You must me pretty mad to thing SEGA would have any chance if it launched the DC at the same time as the PS2. SEGA would have got killed even more .

It could have been OK for the time, and FMV easily as good as the Saturn or 3DO

FMV didn't sell the Mega CD. The Single speed drive, and the memory was crippling . It was early 1990 CD Tech, and that just wasn't good enough to go toe to toe with the 3DO, never mind the Saturn, PS.

North America made up over 50% of Sega's overall market at the time)

I don't agree with that figure. Europe was a massive Market for SEGA too.

Those weren't the games I was talking about

But there the next wave of games, at the end the day.

Arrogance? No way, it was a symptom of Sega's internal communication problems and serious concerns of competition on the mass market

No it was Arrogance too, and taking from granted 3rd Party support. SEGA pissed them off with its piss poor handling of the 32 bit battle and even in the Saturn cases, horrible and poor Launch Library and development tools.

They couldn't take the fight to a market that wasn't there.

Millions weren't buying the PS in 1995, 1996 I must have missed something there.

SEGA should have done what SONY did with the PS, and make stand alone successor.

Pulling back on the 16-bit market lost them money that could have helped with the Saturn as much as it would maintaining their lead over Nintendo

The 16 bit Market was dying . Sure SEGA could have still supported the Mega Drive with deals and PR, but all game development should have been focused only on the Saturn.

Exactly, they pushed for the DC too soon... they should have kept a lot more in reserve to continue supporting the Saturn worldwide.

Nobody was buying Saturn games, its was a complete flop inthe West, and even in Japan 1997 Software sales were poor and failing behind even the N64. SEGA were forced to act , due to poor Market share and Retail support

pulling the Saturn lost them a lot of ground in all markets and let Sony take hold of even their lingering dedicated fanbase

The Saturn was dead on its feet in the West at that time, and even in Japan Saturn software sales were drying up.

No, I mean what branch and/or who's management decisions in general

SEGA American for the 32X cock up


SEGA Japan for no Sonic at launch and not getting SquareSoft onthe Saturn (which would have killed the PS in Japan.

[kool kitty89]

No I'm on about the June 1994 Tokyo game show

OK, so a show of a different name not "The Tokyo Game Show" that officially started in 1996.

And I'm also on about the the official presentation of the Saturn in May 1994 (on Nakayama 61st Birthday ) To the Japanese gaming Press . SOA must have been complete morons not to think or know, the Saturn wasn't coming out in 1994.

OK, so after SoA had already started pushing the 32x and just before the official unveiling in June.

In any case, the general plans and intentions seemed to be poorly communicated in general: Kalinske never stated that (about confusion over the Japanese release), but some other SoA member seem to comment about that having a serious impact after they'd already put so much effort into the 32x. (not just Bayless either, but his commentary supports it)

I'm speaking of the West, where SEGA crushed NEC, and took the 16 bit crown from NCL for a bit part of the battle.

They won the war almost for sure (outsold Nintendo in the west, unit wise), though yes they did lose the battles late in the generation to use that analogy. (ie fell behind in market share compared to the SNES in '95/96) Unless you go by total market share/sales, in which case Sega was probably never winning at all. (NES sales adding to market share entirely, let alone including handhelds)

They were not High End Luxury items, they were just what decent speced Handheld costs at the end of the day.

They were very expensive in general... and the Turbo Express was definitely a high-end only machine with a cost well above the base unit. (had it been intended to be reasonably priced, they'd have used a common passive LCD screen -which the Nomad at least used) Plus the Nomad wasn't generally a handheld in the sense of a new system, but an accessory for hardcore genesis users with existing libraries. (and unlike the PCE, it had bulky carts to deal with)
Hell, the Turbo Express might have made a good competitor to the higher-end side of the mainstream console market (maybe even establish a stronger niche than they could in the console market) had it been aimed totally at optimized cost with the cheapest backlit screen acceptable. (unlit color screens wouldn't be acceptable until the mid/late 90s) That and it could have remained competitive into the GBA years hardware wise. (eventually releasing a lower-cost unlit version in the mid/late 90s, generally more consolidated and lower-power units, and later LED based side and backlighting)

For that matter, had they released a proper successor to the GG with cost/power optimized design and new, small carts, that too would have made a lot more sense than the niche market of the Nomad. (though really, the GG was fine as it was other than cost/size/power consumption reduction that could easily have come with later revisions -maybe a simple sound upgrade with fully forward/backwards compatible games like the SMS/Mk.III did, or just wait until a proper successor, possibly not directly related to the MD at all -maybe more like the System E arcade board)

No it was not made In-House at SOJ. I'm looking at the 32X for a western prespetive and it was very clear, every early in. The machine was not going to be a great seller, and its software poor and lacking.

So Cosmic Carnage was done at STI then? (it could have obviously still been handled by SoJ/former SoJ staff nonetheless, like Sonic 2 and 3 were... and the sound gives that away -but that could have been handled separately like with Sonic 3D Blast)

But what about Metal Head, Star Ward Arcade, Space Harrier, After Burner, Knuckles Chaotix, Virtua Fighter, etc? (Virtua Fighter was obviously done rather late as it wasn't released until after Remix on the Saturn)

The 32x was obviously going to have a larger market into mid 1996 at the very least due to the high-end niche of the other 5th gen consoles up to that point and it sold in under 6 months what the Saturn did in over a year on the market. (not until the first quarter of 1997 did it sell that much as quickly from what I've seen)
However, that's not saying much as the big market was dominated by the SNES and Genesis through that entire period, and that's my reason for thinking the 32x really shouldn't have been pushed: the Genesis should have continued to be pushed instead, like Nintendo did with the SNES (more or less), and probably the CD as well, if not something SVP related. (they definitely should have pushed the Saturn too, but not to the extent of compromising the 16-bit market into 1996 -push hard enough to have a good amount of hype for the September '95 release and slowly pull away from the Genesis in mainstream advertising and more into the pure budget market with few new releases and many re-releases and ever falling prices)

Scott confirms it, in Name and the Time line. What more do you want ?

He confirms that Kalinske and the whole of SoA staff designing and managing the 32x knew from the beginning or very early on (ie by March) that the Saturn was definitely going to be released in Japan that fall? (to me his statements imply otherwise, unless I'm missing something)

No SEGA would have just lost more and more consumers to the PS brand. You must me pretty mad to thing SEGA would have any chance if it launched the DC at the same time as the PS2. SEGA would have got killed even more .

No, no, I mean continue the Saturn longer in general, not touching the DC release date... in the US at least. Pulling back on the Saturn in early 1997 left a hole in the market and had even worse negativity to PR and customer loyalty than what canceling the 32x early had done.
They basically had no console on the market in the US from mid 1997 to late 1999 (they'd cancelled all their older stuff and handhelds -other than Majesco and TecToy distribution), and you yourself suggested that bleeding but a small portion of the funds going to DC could have allowed reasonable support for the Saturn. (if only for the hardcore/niche userbase) And in Japan they obviously should have kept pushing longer in general in full parallel to the DC if possible given the DC's crappy performance in Japan. (unless I'm mistaken and SoJ was still strongly supporting the Saturn in '98 and '99 in Japan)

FMV didn't sell the Mega CD. The Single speed drive, and the memory was crippling . It was early 1990 CD Tech, and that just wasn't good enough to go toe to toe with the 3DO, never mind the Saturn, PS.

FMV and multimedia was a massive selling point for the Sega CD in general as well as a significant push for PC gaming. It may not have lasted long in the pureest sense (ie evolved and became a big selling point on the PSX), but it was always a major selling point in the CD's main lifespan. And the video quality was still impressive for the time, though it varied a lot. (you had stuff as ugly as Rebel Assault to the uncompressed Night Trap and Sewer Shark or 16-color uncompressed Japanese animation up to stuff like Road Rash's intro, Wirehead, SoulStar, Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, Batman and Robin, etc)


Memory had absolutely no impact on FMV... or at least it had more than enough to handle it. The single speed drive was hardly the big issue either (VCDs and most streaming video content on PC, 3DO, PSX, and Saturn used 1x anyway), but the Genesis VDP's limitations (color, VRAM space, and DMA bandwidth) combined with limited CPU resource for decompression were the only factors. (and in most Japaese games and the first gen western FMV it was all uncompressed, limiting things further -hence the screen size and/or framerate)
With the 32x you could have FMV on par with most stuff on the Saturn and 3DO or PCs of the time. (you had some cases of higher bitrates used, but those were relatively uncommon -you either had very few/short cutscenes and much less CD-DA or used more discs) The only limiting factors for the 32x was having a customized codec that actually took advantage of the decoding power (cinepak didn't even come close to maxing out a single SH2, though MPEG1 would be pushing it, at least VCD level... maybe some other derivative of H.261 or MJPEG -I think the Saturn did use software MPEG-1 derived decoding for some later games), so it was only a matter of software plus the fact that the max resolution for the highcolor mode was 320x204 due to the framebuffer size. (but in any case, most FMV tended to cater to smaller screen sizes than that, especially clipped to more letter boxing -even for PSX games)


With the plain Sega CD even, with enough resource (ie a plain SH1 or SH2 on a cart, or SVP for some things -among others) you could do a good deal better than what's on the system: namely compression powerful enough so that the Genesis VDP is the only limitation you could have a custom format optimized to make full use of shadow (and possibly even highlight) to maximize on-screen color (31 colors per tile and 121 colors on-screen with shadow alone) along with optimized dithering techniques and tile by tile palette optimization (and of course, reloading the palette every frame), and then have some nice letterboxed widescreen footage with limited artifacts and no tearing, plus some good audio compression on top of that -albeit only decompressed to 32 kHz 8-bit max without added audio hardware. (and of course you'd be using mode 2 data at ~170 kB/s on top of all that -some Sega CD games used it, but many used mode 1 at 150 kB/s)
The VDP bandwidth is the primary factor and one thing that's much less limiting in PAL, but makes heavier letterboxing much more attractive in NTSC. (in either case you could have some fairly reasonably sized screens at 20/30 or 25 FPS)

That's the main factor that makes full use of shadow unattractive (it doubles the bandwidth required), but you could avoid that entirely and still have all/or nothing shadow on a tile by tile basis without any DMA penalty over 16-color tiles. (just use it all or nothing, either fully shadowed or all normal color, so only 15/16 colors per tile at a time, but double the overall colors available -effectively 8 subpalettes instead of 4) In that case, larger screens and high framerates would be much more reasonable.

I don't agree with that figure. Europe was a massive Market for SEGA too.

Sega's figures are indeed a bit vague, but in terms of the best console sales that have been able to be established so far, the US made up approximately 53% of 16-bit console sales (before including any Majesco or Tectoy figures, so up to 1997) and Europe was about 25%, Japan just under 10%, and the rest of the world approximately 11% in rough terms and some figures still missing, especially those after 1997 with the 3.5 million Japan, 19 million US -possibly all of NA- 9 million Europe and some segmented figures from other regions -none taking the X'Eye, CDX, or Nomad into account either, but the additional figures for other regions wouldn't boost Europe and would boost North America with the 2 million Genesis 3s sold and very roughly 1-2 million mix of X'Eye, CD-X, and Nomad)

North America has pretty much always been (and still is) the biggest mass market for electronic entertainment in general, I didn't even think that was in question. Nevertheless, Japan and Europe (and to a lesser extent other regions) would obviously be major considerations too, and combined they were certainly bigger than North America for the most part. (for Sega they weren't, but in general market size they were -ie including NEC, Nintendo, etc)

But there the next wave of games, at the end the day.

That's untrue, most of those were early (1994) released games with the exception of Afterburner. (Doom, Metal Head, Cosmic Carnage, Star Wars Arcade, Space Harrier, and Virtua Racing were all 1994 releases -and there were several FMV games there too)
The games I listed were all in the next wave of early to mid 1995, again: Shadow Squadron, Virtua Fighter, Knuckles Chaotix, Blackthorne, Tempo, Kolibri, etc.

No it was Arrogance too, and taking from granted 3rd Party support. SEGA pissed them off with its piss poor handling of the 32 bit battle and even in the Saturn cases, horrible and poor Launch Library and development tools.

Yes, and that was due to the early launch of the Saturn for the most part and some conflicts with SoJ... Without more detailed knowledge on the actual release timeline for the Japanese tech docs and translation by SoA, it's really unclear if SoA could have done any better. (they might have been rushing it out as fast as they could manage... and at best you'd have had bare bones low-level docs and compilers for CPU provided by Hitachi, a proper high-level interface took more time and resources, especially on a system poorly optimized for high-level performance -albeit nowhere near as bad as the PS2, more like the PS3 from what I understand)

So if it was Kalniske who directly ordered the Saturn's launch that May instead of holding off until September, yes he screwed it up, but if SoJ set a deadline to release it by Spring...

Millions weren't buying the PS in 1995, 1996 I must have missed something there.

SEGA should have done what SONY did with the PS, and make stand alone successor.

You mean the PS2... well Sega had better have done a hell of a lot better than the PS2 as that thing only survived due to the DVD gimmick, Sony's massive brand recognition, money, hype and to some extent the backwards compatibility. The Saturn was a hell of a lot better than the PS2 in that context, save for the lack of the compatibility standpoint (though they could very reasonably have designed a backwards compatible system with as much merit as the Saturn overall -without tacking it on, but that's been discussed enough).
The PS2 was handled much, much worse than the Saturn in terms of development environment: they had nothign but a limited set of low-level documentation at a time where more complex games made low-level work even less practical and it took time, but eventually developers had invested enough of their own money and resources into developing custom development environments and even then those were only useful for quicker lower-quality ports due to the poor high-level nature of the system. (the better games had to be painstakingly and laboriously coded at low level with by hand optimization)

The 16 bit Market was dying . Sure SEGA could have still supported the Mega Drive with deals and PR, but all game development should have been focused only on the Saturn.

It was past it's peak on the mass market, but it was still dominant by far into 1996 and still significant in general up to 1999 at least. (by then purely budget market with re-releases)

Nobody was buying Saturn games, its was a complete flop inthe West, and even in Japan 1997 Software sales were poor and failing behind even the N64. SEGA were forced to act , due to poor Market share and Retail support

I'm talking about the very start of 1997 (Sega's strongest selling point ever for the Saturn in the US, albeit increasingly further behind much faster growing competition).
And I'd gotten the impression that the Saturn was pulled back by 1998 even in Japan, so that wouldn't be representative either. The Dreamcast declined well behind Saturn though adn Sega lost more an dmore market share in Japan thereafter. (it seems like the Saturn was selling better in Europe than the N64 prior to getting pulled back in early '97)

The Saturn was dead on its feet in the West at that time, and even in Japan Saturn software sales were drying up.

I'm talking about what happened in early 1997...

SEGA American for the 32X cock up

Pfft, it's obviously far more than that as the 32x wasn't purely SoA's for sure. (youl countered with SoJ's common trend of having parallel designs, but that wouldn't explain keeping both... unless they gave the OK for both) But more particularly I'd like to know who's responsible for the May launch date of the Saturn.

SEGA Japan for no Sonic at launch and not getting SquareSoft onthe Saturn (which would have killed the PS in Japan.

Sonic game perhaps, bu no football games in 1995 at all was a big screw up on SoA's part (not just the Saturn, but Genesis, CD, or 32x in '95 at all), and as for Square, they didn't have a chance at getting exclusivity, but maybe they had a chance at convincing Square to go cross-platform. (the PSX's multimedia capabilities was an easy win on top of Sony's influence and money)

The lack of direct ports from the 32x didn't help either. (certainly would have bulked up the launch with some decent games, even with only minimal enhancement -some of which would be integral and automatic in the porting process to such a higher speed, higher-bandwidth system)

[sheath]

I am fairly certain that Bayless referred to SoA's hopefulness that the 32X would be the only thing in the market as an early assumption. His later statement that SoA was making Saturn games even while they had to ramp up for the 32X launch makes it clear that SoA learned about the Saturn's launch later that year. I thought we had already covered this.

[kool kitty89]

I am fairly certain that Bayless referred to SoA's hopefulness that the 32X would be the only thing in the market as an early assumption. His later statement that SoA was making Saturn games even while they had to ramp up for the 32X launch makes it clear that SoA learned about the Saturn's launch later that year. I thought we had already covered this.

Yes, but how late?

If it was by March as implied, that would have given a big opening to cancel the 32x outright or shift plans considerably. They hadn't unveiled it yet (not until the Summer CES in June) and hadn't started hyping it to any significant effect, but at very least they could have totally changed the marketing position to cater to the Saturn's presence.
Of course we don't know what the orders from Japan were either, but at that point I think the ball was still in Kaliske's court as to how things were run in the west. (the Saturn's May release is another story)

If they still had to release *something* perhaps they could cut down the 32x in general and push for an earlier release. (ie cut the VDP out entirely and just have the interface circuitry, PWM, 1 SH2, SDRAM, and 1 128k DRAM chip rather than 2 -unless the SDRAM allowed DMA for the 68k and VDP) Had they known all that back in January when they started, pushing for a Spring '94 release might have been a major target if they couldn't drop it altogether. (and might have gone with the cheaper option of the SVP and added PWM instead of the full SH2 setup)

[sheath]

From what I recall, it would probably be no earlier than mid 1994 that everybody knew of the Saturn's potential launch window. This coincides with Bayless chronological account, which is the same order my review follows.

Early on SoA did seem to have suspicions about when the Saturn would launch. We can generally gauge the timing based on how much work Bayless describes SoA and SoJ having put into the 32X's development by the time he addresses the Saturn's launch. We only hear about the SoA making Saturn games on page 47, where Bayless also mentions the 32X facing shortages because of the Saturn's drain on the SH-2 line. So, for sure, by the time the 32X was being manufactured the Saturn was also and SoA knew about it.

Still, I wouldn't be surprised if everybody knew about the Saturn's Japanese launch window (not the month yet) by early summer of '94, but SoA had to know by Spring. Earlier than that sounds too early to me. I will eventually chronologically break down all of the US magazines at the time just to make their facts more easily cited, but I'm still way back in 1992 in that process. There are so many subjective statements and innuendo even back then, it is time consuming trying not to breeze by anything.

The earliest post I could find about the Saturn on Rec.Games.Video.Sega was April 1994 with a user asking when the Saturn would launch in Japan. The answer on April 21st was "4th Qrt '94 ". Note, industry types frequented RGVS all the way through the Dreamcast's days. The fourth quarter could be Christmas season, or the end of Sega's fiscal year in the spring of 1995.

[kool kitty89]

From what I recall, it would probably be no earlier than mid 1994 that everybody knew of the Saturn's potential launch window. This coincides with Bayless chronological account, which is the same order my review follows.

So after the June CES then? (hyping it like they did with the June unveiling certainly could have looked a bit foolish in that context)
What Team Andromeda states implies that they should have had a good idea by March at least... unless they were out of touch with public announcements in Japan. (granted the BIG unveiling of the Saturn didn't come until June... which was too late)

Early on SoA did seem to have suspicions about when the Saturn would launch. We can generally gauge the timing based on how much work Bayless describes SoA and SoJ having put into the 32X's development by the time he addresses the Saturn's launch. We only hear about the SoA making Saturn games on page 47, where Bayless also mentions the 32X facing shortages because of the Saturn's drain on the SH-2 line. So, for sure, by the time the 32X was being manufactured the Saturn was also and SoA knew about it.

The 32x would have been a drain on Saturn production likewise, wouldn't it? (something that would make the SVP idea more attractive... or an add-on with 1 SH2 for that matter, or an SH1 -even in the context of the 32x, dropping one SH2 in favor of the SVP would have had major benefits, or an SH1+SVP might have been more powerful in some respects)

Still, I wouldn't be surprised if everybody knew about the Saturn's Japanese launch window (not the month yet) by early summer of '94, but SoA had to know by Spring. Earlier than that sounds too early to me. I will eventually chronologically break down all of the US magazines at the time just to make their facts more easily cited, but I'm still way back in 1992 in that process. There are so many subjective statements and innuendo even back then, it is time consuming trying not to breeze by anything.

Yes, by Spring, or best from the start in winter, thus allowing them to possibly mold the design concept differently from the start. (possibly simple/cheap enough to be out before the end of spring)

But it definitely seems it was clear in Japan, publicly, not just in terms of SoJ internally with the presentation in March and I believe some statements about a planned launch in September of '94. (granted, any stuff like that would filter down to western media very quickly)
it was still likley pre-production by that stage though, possibly still in the prototype stages in general (software development could have started before the design was totally completed and early pre-production dev units may have been released before the design was solidified for production -that certainly happened with the 32x).

The issue of who's authority it was to launch the Saturn in May of '95 in the US is another matter though.

The answer on April 21st was "4th Qrt '94 ". Note, industry types frequented RGVS all the way through the Dreamcast's days. The fourth quarter could be Christmas season, or the end of Sega's fiscal year in the spring of 1995.

Hmm, if that's in the context of the US fiscal calender, "4th quarter of '94" would refer to July through September of 1994. (if it's the Japanese calender, that's another story)

Hmm, that could also have put those revenue figures posted by Pimpuigi in a different light. (though they would definitely have to be including SMS sales if those were all by fiscal year as 1989 wouldn't be really high otherwise -with only part of August and September having Genesis sales)
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?p=199097
He still hasn't mentioned where he found those figures though...



I'm a bit curious now about what the 7800 and 5200 retroinspections say... if they follow many of the myths and false information that's been common "fact" up to a year or 2 ago, of if they specifically fact-checked stuff and consulted Curt Vendel and Marty Goldberg.

Edit: Looking on atariage shows that the 7800 and 5200 retroinspections seem to have actually been written by Marty Goldberg.

[Hans-CD]

Hmm, if that's in the context of the US fiscal calender, "4th quarter of '94" would refer to July through September of 1994. (if it's the Japanese calender, that's another story)

If that is q4 then what are October November December? I thought Summer was q3 ( July-Sept) and Oct-dec was q4.

[Team Andromeda]

OK, so a show of a different name not "The Tokyo Game Show" that officially started in 1996

The Game show started way before 1996. There was one in 1994 and that's when the general Public 1st got to see the The Saturn, with completed design, joypads and the 1st showing of playable games.

OK, so after SoA had already started pushing the 32x and just before the official unveiling in June

Most of the gaming world, importers, the Press knew the Saturn was coming in 1994 to Japan. SEGA American , must have been complete morons not to know any different. The 32X should have been canned the moment SOJ 1st showed off the Saturn in May.

Sega's figures are indeed a bit vague, but in terms of the best console sales that have been able to be established so far, the US made up approximately 53%

I'm talking SEGA complete Western Market share,and there is no way that SOA alone accounted for 53% of the complete western console Market share.

You mean the PS2... well Sega had better have done a hell of a lot better than the PS2 as that thing only survived due to the DVD gimmick

LOL. Maybe in Japan at launch, not for the rest of gaming world, it was the hype for the games like MGS2 that saw SONY sweep all before it. SONY would never have done as well is it made add on for the PS, as well as making a PS2.

It was past it's peak on the mass market, but it was still dominant by far into 1996 and still significant in general up to 1999 at least

Yep so you just continue to make the Hardware and leave it up to 3rd parties to support the system, kind of what SONY does with the PS2, while it sole focus is the PS3 (for home consoles).

The games I listed were all in the next wave of early to mid 1995, again: Shadow Squadron

Too late by then, and the next wave of games was the like of AB and Space Harrier.

Pfft, it's obviously far more than that as the 32x wasn't purely SoA's for sure

Of course it was SEGA American fault . They screwed up, so did SEGA Europe

I'm talking about what happened in early 1997

Even in early 1997 SOJ were having a hard time in the Japanese charts, which were dominated by PS games, and 1997 SEGA best ever selling period for the Saturn in America ??. The machine was dead on its feet in America by then.

Sonic game perhaps, bu no football games in 1995 at all was a big screw up on SoA's part

I don't think that was such a big deal, when SOA knew Madden was coming to the Saturn.

and as for Square, they didn't have a chance at getting exclusivity,

How they were a 3rd party, then could have gone for any console they liked, and expected to get the best sales from . SOJ didn't try hard enough

The lack of direct ports from the 32x didn't help either

Porting 32X games would hardly help the Saturn sell more The games should have never been made for the 32X inthe 1st place, but developed from the ground up for the Saturn and CD-Rom

What Team Andromeda states implies

Can we stop the implies rubbish. Its a matter of fact SOJ 1st showed off the Saturn to the Press in 1994 , and to the gaming consumers in June 1994.
Everyone knew the Saturn was coming to Japan in 1994

[sheath]

Team Andromeda, are you an authority unto yourself? Should I just start citing you rather than dredging through dozens of magazine and news articles for the facts?

[Da_Shocker]

Team Andromeda, are you an authority unto yourself? Should I just start citing you rather than dredging through dozens of magazine and news articles for the facts?

He can be a good guy at times then there are times when he swears up and down he knows more about Sega machines than some of our hardware programmers on here.

[sheath]

He can be a good guy at times then there are times when he swears up and down he knows more about Sega machines than some of our hardware programmers on here.

Right, and slamming on him as a person wasn't where I was going. I genuinely wonder when people express their opinion as fact like this if they even realize they're doing it (or that it's arrogant to do so).

[Team Andromeda]

Team Andromeda, are you an authority unto yourself? Should I just start citing you rather than dredging through dozens of magazine and news articles for the facts?

No I'm having a debate, but that seems to be the trouble here, You've got your lovely little closed little group, that doesn't take too well to 'outsiders' expressing a view, and GOD forbid should anyone find faults with the USA
Magazine reporting on shows are rather more factual than people just expressing opinion are they not ? The simple facts are, that SOJ did show of the Saturn in May (with its finalised console desgin and Joypad, just not the colour) and June, so everyone knew it was coming, even Importers, that's fact beyond any doubt

But has for an opinion , I don't know who else you can blame, other than SEGA them self's for their complete miss- management of the 32bit battle, very much NEC totally screwed up their 16 bit battle in the USA.
SEGA didn't have to do much to beat NEC in the West, and SONY must have been laughing at the screw ups SEGA were making in the 32Bit Battle .

Now you may very well like the machine, that fair enough. But the 32X completely lost the battle, most of its games were averaged at best (especially from 3rd parties) , it Hurt SEGA imagine, and lost it countless 3rd party support, and SONY showed gamers did want a 32Bit machine, and there was a Market for a next Gen machine, even in 1994/5.
Sadly for SEGA America they went with the PS, rather than the 32X, and who could blame them
SOA 32 bit dream;the machine that that in the words of Tom Kalinske ' Is the only 32 bit mass market machine' died there and then and all of SEGA 32bit battle plans left in a complete mess

Its a shame though, because SOA did so much right (even to the point of the right Jewel cases, and using the original Artwork for the game cove) with the Dreamcast and it was the turn of SEGA Europe to be completely mess up (again), and to a point SEGA of Japan