How much was Sega CD's success limited by the fact that it was a $300 add on?

[gamevet]

Not long after I imported, trying to find any CD single or album was next to impossible in my area and one had to travel to the Captial Cardiff and even in Cardiff, trying to find shops that stocked a lot of CD albums wasn't easy in 1992, it was all about tape's back then. I think people forget just how expensive CD and well quite a lot of AV stuff was in the early 90's where even a TV or VHS player was a big and serious investment. I more or less totally gave up my Mega CD after the crushing disappointment of AfterBurner 3.
It wasn't until the hype that started around the USA launch of the SEGA CD that I started to take notice again and that's all down to the hype SOA was able to build up. It was thanks to that hype and the promise of all these amazing games that I set my mind on getting the Pal unit when it launched, so I wouldn't have to put up with Japanese text and due to having a switched Pal Mega Drive knew I wouldn't need to buy the complete USA set up (given the Mega-CD incompatibility with different region MDs at that time)

You guys were waaaay behind in technology then. Like I said, my friends brother got a CD player in 1985, shortly after they were released.

I got my 1st CD player in 1990, which came with this $200 RCA 2.1 Surround boom box. Sony music had tons of CDs out by then and I had bought a lot of them, along with a Sony Discman a year or 2 later.

[Team Andromeda]

[QUOTE=gamevet;882567]You guys were waaaay behind in technology then. Like I said, my friends brother got a CD player in 1985, shortly after they were released.

200$ dollars was a serious investment , so don't come it onthat one .I can show pictures of my old CD systems too, they still cost a lot of money .

Whats waaaaey? And it's always about you, how many people really had a CD player in their home in 1991?

And if I must I can show one of my 1st CD players

[Black_Tiger]

My hometown was hardcore when it came to video gaming. We had lots of imports in the late 80's but very a few audio CDs were available until 1991, when there were still less than 100 different CD albums available across the city.

Something that was normal outside of major cities is that when a novelty item like a CD player is brought in to a store and doesn't sell for years, they don't drop the price.

The store that had an open box Turbo-CD still refused to sell it for less than $750 when I ordered one for $400 from Radio Shack.

When I bought a CDX at launch for $400, even in the big city Discman style players were still $400+.

[gamevet]

@ Black_Tiger I got a Sony Discman around 1990 for @$150 from Sound Warehouse. I threw it away last year, because the laser sled had a broken spring.

You guys were waaaay behind in technology then. Like I said, my friends brother got a CD player in 1985, shortly after they were released.

Whats waaaaey? And it's always about you, how many people really had a CD player in their home in 1991?

And if I must I can show one of my 1st CD players

Waaaaay is the elongated pronunciation of way.

They wouldn't make cars if nobody was selling gas. You were the one that made it about you, when you brought up that you never saw CDs around you. News Flash! Sony Music Entertainment was pretty big here and with it, we had no problems getting a steady supply of music on CDs in 1990, a good 5 years after the release of the CD player in the USA.


There's not one cassette in my collection past 1989, because I started buying CDs in 1990. Just like there's not one VHS movie in my collection past 1999, because I got a DVD player in 2000.

[Greg2600]

By the third year, the SEGA CD was discounted to $99 by 1995, along with the 32x. That's largely common with most hardware, maybe more than Sega would have liked but not usual. The issue was by then, they're selling the Saturn at well over $300 and support for the Genesis stuff was ending. So again, in a sense, the $300 for the CD system 3 years earlier was probably not as loony as we think. The early adopters will pay the premium, but you have to support it with software. Did Sega do that? Hard to say, but the reality as we know, Nintendo never bothered with CD's, kept making strong first party stuff for the SNES and did fine.

[Team Andromeda]

@ Black_Tiger I got a Sony Discman around 1990 for @$150 from Sound Warehouse. I threw it away last year, because the laser sled had a broken spring.




Waaaaay is the elongated pronunciation of way.

They wouldn't make cars if nobody was selling gas. You were the one that made it about you, when you brought up that you never saw CDs around you. News Flash! Sony Music Entertainment was pretty big here and with it, we had no problems getting a steady supply of music on CDs in 1990, a good 5 years after the release of the CD player in the USA.
]

What Sony Music Entertainment got to with? it's about major retail stocking products like HMV, Woolworth and the Virgin in the UK at that time
I would say to you that in 1991 and 1992 not that many people had a CD player and most listen to music on their cassette player very much more so for in their car, down to the cost of the item. In 1991 it was hard to find shops that stocked many CD singles or albums by 1992 mid 1992 it was much better and in 1993 not an issue even the local shops with uptake hits critical mass. I had a DVD player that I bought in Hong Kong in 1999, but it would be years before DVD became as widespread and popular as the VHS tape, just down the cost.

These days are so very different with throw away generation and AV equipment being so relatively cheap.

[zyrobs]

That $99 was the "we are writing off our old inventory" pricing.

[gamevet]

What Sony Music Entertainment got to with? it's about major retail stocking products like HMV, Woolworth and the Virgin in the UK at that time
I would say to you that in 1991 and 1992 not that many people had a CD player and most listen to music on their cassette player very much more so for in their car, down to the cost of the item. In 1991 it was hard to find shops that stocked many CD singles or albums by 1992 mid 1992 it was much better and in 1993 not an issue even the local shops with uptake hits critical mass. I had a DVD player that I bought in Hong Kong in 1999, but it would be years before DVD became as widespread and popular as the VHS tape, just down the cost.

These days are so very different with throw away generation and AV equipment being so relatively cheap.

You're dead wrong. I had (used CD) shops all around me by 1992, with tons of used CDs for purchase. Sony pushed CD tech big time in the United States and by 1992 they were trying to push the mini-disc player. Music CDs were already 8 years old by then. Like I said before, I put a CD player (Sony with a detachable face) in my truck @ 1992. DVD isn't even comparable, because in 1999 the consumers had just gotten a glimpse of the technology. My first DVD was the Matrix, which was one of the 1st titles available on the format in the US. The pickings were pretty slim that year, but by 2000, movies on DVD were everywhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDisc

[Centrale]

You're dead wrong. I had (used CD) shops all around me by 1992, with tons of used CDs for purchase. Sony pushed CD tech big time in the United States and by 1992 they were trying to push the mini-disc player. Music CDs were already 8 years old by then. Like I said before, I put a CD player (Sony with a detachable face) in my truck @ 1992.

Yeah, there may have been regional variations in availability but I can confirm in the US I started regularly getting music on CDs around 1989. This was the era when they were sold in "longboxes," which were tall cardboard boxes containing the jewel case that were intended to make them more difficult to shoplift. Music stores in the late 80s had all three major formats with roughly equal shelf space - vinyl, cassette, and CD.

The Minidisc was cool but I think its UI was too complex for most people to easily use.

[goldenband]

I think the first time I heard a CD in person was probably 1989. My best friend started buying CDs regularly in 1990, and I think I got a player for Christmas in 1991. I'd been a tape buyer from about 1987-1991, and I basically stopped buying cassettes from that point forward.

Over the course of a few years they went from being a rich-kid item in my mind -- I remember being annoyed that Pink Floyd's Delicate Sound of Thunder was being pushed hard on CD (extra tracks maybe?), a format I couldn't see my family affording -- to commonplace.

But of course this could vary wildly by geographic area or country.

[Team Andromeda]

Mr Vet, I'm not on about any sort of push, I was on about major retail stocking your product in big numbers. SONY pushed the Betamax, but retail went with VHS no matter how hard SONY pushed. I have no idea in the USA, but in the UK one went to HMV, Virgin or Woolworths for your music and UK charts needs. In 1991 it was hard to hard any sort of Music on CD at all, by 1992 it was much better and in 1993 it wasn't an issue, even in 1992, my local Woolworths started to stock CD singles in the charts and I still have them to this day.




CD players were still expensive and it took a while for people to a CD player not just in the main room, but the bedroom, Kitchen Ect. In cars, many people didn't bother with a CD player in their car and in the UK (again no idea in the USA) so many new cars were still being sold with a Tape dec and not a CD player included as standard well into the late 90's


I also still have my very 1st CD player from 1991, just before the Mega CD import





I completely agree with you on DVD. I was young free and single in the '90s and for the 1st part of the millennium, would go on multiple holidays, with the boys. After I was lucky enough to get my Panasonic DVD player in Hong Kong (and save a tax on tax) and also I went on Holidays to Flordia in 1999 too I was struck at the choice of DVD films on sale, which is why I've never gone along with the PS2 making DVD sales explode (different in Japan) But it took a bit of time for the rental market to really go to DVDs and so many people heled on to their VHS because it could tape TV and where like with CD's, people again didn't just have a DVD player in one room but in multiple rooms.

These days if you TV or Microwave Ect fails it is not so much an issue and you just get a new one, in the 80's it was a big deal and a big expense

[gamevet]

Like I said before, you were obviously way behind the times where you lived. Sony Music’s HQ was right here in LA California. Everything you’re saying didn’t exist here. It was readily available since 1985, in any decent sized city. The United States has always had cutting edge technology as soon as it was available and the distribution chain is the best in the world.

You have 2 posts above yours that agree with how available and affordable CDs were by 1990, yet you still continue to beat a dead horse, just to be right.

[Team Andromeda]

Mr Vet,

I think you're just being condescending. I would say in 1992 the cassette format was more dominant You keep on saying about affordable?. How much did the TurboGrafa CD and Sega CD cost on their USA launches?

[Centrale]

I would say in 1992 the cassette format was more dominant

Cassettes were still selling well in '92, but this RIAA data shows that CD sales overtook cassette sales in 1991. As mentioned before, it might have been different in your region, so it would be interesting to see what sourced data you can find.

https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/anima...-1973-to-2019/

[Greg2600]

Cassettes were the main format well beyond 1992. Most people drove used cars, they had cassette decks not CD. We used to time the pop countdowns to record our favorite new songs on tape. You had album listeners and you had single listeners. The album people moved from LP to CD for the most part, while the rest of us were fine with tapes. Not to mention as a teenager, if I went into Sam Goody in 1996, they had everything on both formats, and tapes were always like 40% cheaper and hey, $5 was a lot of money for us back then! CD's were things like I said, the album people had in their house. In the car, hanging with friends, whatever, we just used cheaper tapes and tape players.