Thread 11777935

So, how could the 32x have succeeded?

I always hear the question asked about Dreamcast and Saturn but never ol' Mushroomhead

I can't see a world where it would have succeeded. Not that the price was really a huge reason for its downfall, maybe it could have sold better if it was $50 instead of $160.

Oh God, I thought people stopped making these topics.

The thing had no chance to succeed, it was an expensive add-on that went back to carts just after they had people buy an expensive add-on that used CDs and the next console was on the way, it was a stupid idea to make it in the first place and in no timeline would it have been successful.

>>11777935 (OP)
>I always hear the question asked about Dreamcast and Saturn but never ol' Mushroomhead
Well the problem with that is that the 32X came out a few months before the Saturn did in North America and slightly after it in Japan. The reason why the 32X was such a fundamental mistake to the Saturn wasn't just the the costs of trying to manufacture 2 consoles or that it was competing against their own next gen console, it was the developer time spent on making games instead of the Saturn.
So realistically for the 32X to have a chance at succeeding you would need to kill the Saturn completely, not just on launch but in 93, no Saturn game development, no manufacturing, nothing. You'd have to delay Sega's next gen console to at least late 1996 to give the 32X a couple years of breathing room, that would put Sega's real next gen closer to the N64's release date. Without Sega pulling the rug so quickly it would not only get more 1st party games but 3rd party as well however, it would be up against Sony's PlayStation alone.
It would give Sega a chance to better develop a more affordable and 3D capable console as well as give developers time get a 3D Sonic title ready on more appropriate hardware. The downsides however is that it would also be ceding the next gen market to Sony for almost 2 years and losing out on a lot of 3rd party games to them. Sega's real next gen would also be launching alongside the N64 competing directly with Nintendo and Mario with no head start.
Overall I can't say it is a great idea, in the save Sega scenario's I'd bet on nixing the 32X and putting more resources towards early Sonic titles and a big 1996 3D Phantasy Star V game than this.

>>11777935 (OP)
Since Sega 32x was only an accessory and not a full console, it was only a minor failure. It didn't require as much financial investment. It's basically the equivalent to something like the Sega CD failing.

Even though the 32x looks weird and had a ton a cables, initially Game studios were "cautiously optimistic" about supporting it. Western game studio's attitude was:

>"Okay this 32x thing looks weird, but Sega America seems serious about supporting it. That's a bit comforting. So let's cautiously start development on some 32x games and just see what happens."

Sega America announced a release date of Nov 1994 for Sega 32x.

Then Sega Japan absolutely ruined the Sega 32x by announcing the Sega Saturn would come out in Japan in Nov 1994. I even think it was the same day as Sega 32x too.

Then SoJ said Sega Saturn would come out the following year to the West. This crushed any small hopes the Sega 32x had. Western Game developers quickly abandoned ship or shifted focus to Saturn. Why bother supporting Sega 32x if Saturn was about to come out 1 year later?

This I honestly wonder if Sega Japan did this on purpose. This was just too intentional. Sega Japan announced Saturn release in Japan as the same month and same day as
Sega 32x in America? It was like they were giving the middle finger to Sega America on purpose!

Also Sega Japan may not have realized, but they pissed off American retailers and stores. They also didn't want to carry a Sega product that wasn't going to sell and was going to disappear in a year when Saturn was coming. That meant wasting precious shelf space.

To save Sega 32x you need to do two major things:

1. Sega of Japan must delay the Japanese release of Sega Saturn to December 1995. Every Sega branch must give ALL undivided focus to the Sega 32x for at least a full year.

2. The Sega 32x must be released in Japan BEFORE the Sega Saturn. Sega Japan must seriously support the 32x and make games for it. Same for Sega Europe too.

>>11777935 (OP)
They should have launched standalone system first, like a year earlier, then the stupid mushroom for half the price. Still a terrible move, but probably more studios would have jump in.

>>11777984
>The reason why the 32X was such a fundamental mistake to the Saturn wasn't just the the costs of trying to manufacture 2 consoles
Sega 32x wasn't a console. It was an accessory. Like the Sega CD. So the financial loss wasn't a big deal. The real issue with the Sega 32x was the loss of reputation and loss of customer confidence. Sega already had a bad reputation for releasing hardware and then abandoning it. Or releasing too many accessories for the Sega Genesis. This bad reputation was stinky in America. But it was much worse in Japan. You can Google search the long list of hardware that Sega of Japan made for Asian release. 80% of them were failed products.


>You'd have to delay Sega's next gen console to at least late 1996 to give the 32X a couple years of breathing room
In hindsight, this was probably the best move. The Sega 32x needed 2 solid years of breathing room.

Also the Sega of Japan probably could use that time to redesign and tweak the Sega Saturn hardware design. A major complaint from developers was that it was complicated to develop games for it and a bit underpowered for 3D.

>The downsides however is that it would also be ceding the next gen market to Sony for almost 2 years and losing out on a lot of 3rd party games to them.
This isn't really a big deal. Sony Playstation didn't really take off until 1997 anyway. Plus Nintendo was still confident with their 1996 release. Nintendo didn't care about releasing in 1996. I really don't understand this obsession with Sega being first to the market. It's not about who is first to market. It's about who comes to market with the best 3D games.

>>11778003
>Sega 32x wasn't a console. It was an accessory. Like the Sega CD. So the financial loss wasn't a big deal.

That's not how it works, just because something is an accessory does not mean it can't be expensive to make.

>>11777997
This might have helped. An affordable backwards compatible Neptune for people who didn't already own a genesis, and a cheaper addon for those who do.

>>11777985
Whose idea was the 32x? SoA or SoJ?

>>11777935 (OP)
It could've stood a chance if it was more powerful and the Saturn never existed. So essentially if it replaced the Saturn we got.

>>11778006
>That's not how it works, just because something is an accessory does not mean it can't be expensive to make.
That's exactly how it works. The Sega 32x uses significantly less hardware. It also relies on the Sega Genesis to even work for video and audio. If you open a Sega 32x, you will realize the truth. It's just a small mother board with a few chips on it.

The Sega Saturn on the other hand has A LOT more components including a CD drive (which wasn't cheap in 1993), and layers of interconnected motherboards and daughter boards. The Sega Saturn was a major investment for Sega.

>>11778003
>Sega 32x wasn't a console. It was an accessory. Like the Sega CD. So the financial loss wasn't a big deal.
It was a huge deal. An add-on first off is basically a console that mostly uses the Genesis as a passthrough device, there is not much cost savings between a 32X and a standalone Neptune, then there is the software costs of developing all those games and the cost of advertising it only for it to flop. They sunk a ton of resources needed for the Saturn into this thing at a critical moment.
>This isn't really a big deal. Sony Playstation didn't really take off until 1997 anyway.
It had accrued 10 million sales by the end of 96 whilst competing with the Saturn which sold 7 million in that time frame. PlayStation would probably eat most of those Saturn sales too if it wasn't there.
>Plus Nintendo was still confident with their 1996 release. Nintendo didn't care about releasing in 1996.
And their console sold 20 million less units than their previous console SNES. If Sega released at the same time than it would be against a Sony with more sales under its belt, more 3rd party support and fighting the N64 all with only a handful of launch games, what a terrible position.

>>11777997
The 32X wasn't even conceived a year before it launched.

>>11778026
>It was a huge deal. An add-on first off is basically a console.
It's not a console. Sega 32x is the same as Sega CD in terms of investment and function. Both are hardware add-ons for Sega Genesis.

It’s clear to me that the Genesis is the only good hardware Sega made.

Because unlike the sega CD, the Saturn and the Dreamcast, things that failed because of Sega's stupidity, the 32X was just a bad idea from the start

>>11778045
>Sega 32x is the same as Sega CD in terms of investment and function.
The Sega CD is basically a mediocre selling console in terms of investment, at least that happened in the middle of a successful generation and not at the beginning of a failed one.

>>11778009
>Whose idea was the 32x? SoA or SoJ?
It was a money laundering idea by Sega of Japan. They forced Sega of America to use Hitachi chips for the Sega 32x. Each 32x used 2 Hitachi CPUs. That means big sales for Hitachi. Kalinske says he wasn't allowed to use CPUs or hardware from other American companies for 32x. No Intel. No Nvidia. No ATI. No AMD. Sega of Japan ordered him to use Hitachi only for 32x. Kalinske had no say. SEEMS VERY SUS IF YOU ASK ME.

>>11778026
>It was a huge deal. An add-on first off is basically a console that mostly uses the Genesis as a passthrough device
Then what does that make Sega Mega Karaoke? How much money did they lose on the Mega Karoake? Answer me,!!!

>>11777970
>Sega releases the Neptune as the Genesis 32X, the third iteration of the Genesis line
>Has it's own library of enhanced 32-bit games, while remaining compatible with Genesis games and Sega CD hardware
>The Saturn releases with backwards compatibility for 32-bit Genesis games utilizing the console's cartridge port
This is the only way I could see the 32X working, and it likely would've failed anyway.

The Saturn… is… saved

add-ons are retarded, they just split the audience.

>>11778117
The Sega CD made sense for the time and was actually a success for Sega.

>>11778119
because the cd gave so much benefits to the devs to change the experience for the players too. but it's an exception, all the others add-ons failed more or less badly.

>>11777935 (OP)
I don't think it could. Even if you somehow released this in the timeframe and in replacement of the SEGA CD, not having the CD format or FMV gimmicks still make it hard to market for.

The 32X hardware was lacking. With only software rendering and 2 rather slow CPUs it just wasn't good enough to invest any major development effort into. If it even had a blitter then someone with talent might have done something clever with it, but as it stands once you've ported your software rasteriser from your PC engine, you're done. That's it, you've hit the limits of how far optimisation can go. You've already taken your cycle counted perfection and swapped the x86 for SH-2, and the hardware has no hidden bonus features.

>>11777935 (OP)
It was a terrible idea and should never have existed. Grafting machines together is never a good solution.

>>11778093
Do you mean sega only releases the neptune without the 32x addon. In that case the very reason the neptune exists is invalidated. The only reason for the 32x's braindead design is because its an addon. If one were to design a stand alone machine it would be significantly different to the 32x.

>>11778379
>hidden bonus
I think you are forgetting some anon.

We had Sega CD 32x games. These games used both the Sega CD and 32x at the same time. Double add-on power.

That's your hidden bonus.

>>11778413
The only reason the 32X existed at all was to extend the life of the Genesis into the 32-bit era. Scrapping the 32X as an add-on and using that hardware for a third Genesis model would've been the better move IMO.
>>11778430
There are only 6 Sega CD 32X games and they were all re-releases of FMV games from the Sega CD's library that nobody wanted or asked for.

>>11778430
>>11778460
How much extra horsepower is added with the Sega CD? Was there anyway to put 32x games on CD instead of cartridge?

>>11778474
32X CD games were distributed only on CDs. Their only benefit was taking advantage of the 32X's graphics and sound capabilities. The FMVs in those games had larger palette of colors and a slightly higher frame rate compared to their Sega CD counterparts, but that's about it.

>>11777935 (OP)
Luck

>>11778010
>not being grateful we're in the timeline where they both exist

>>11777935 (OP)
It always gets converted into Saturn talk with the 32x and seda CD getting retconned for R&D money to make the Saturn better and sega continuing support for the Genesis until late94-early95

>>11777935 (OP)
>So, how could the 32x have succeeded?
A third nuclear bomb wipes out Sony headquarters leaving Sega the sole 5th gen console maker until the N64.

That's the only way it could have been possible.

>>11778093
>>11778460
I'd go even further and say they should've scrapped both the Saturn and the 32x add-on, going with the Nepture as their 5th generation console to compete against the PS1, it being cheap and compatible with everything Genesis would've helped a lot.

>>11778924
Not a terrible idea really. Maybe a more powerful 32X released as the Neptune and no 32X. But unless it was actually competitive against the PS1, forget about it. Then there is the controller, if it had a better version of the Saturn analog controller. If it had both of those things and was well priced then maybe I could see it... maybe.

HERE'S HOW SEGA COULD BE SAVED

>>11778924
>it being cheap
Games were $70 each compared to the PS1's $40-50 and for the price of those cartridges the 32X was limited to 4 megabytes of storage. If Neptune was the next gen it would have fallen off in a year. Expensive cartridges with non of the power of the N64 was not the way to go.

>>11778059
I'd say the Saturn's retarded architecture was a result of Sega's stupidity and resulted in its failure in the west.

>>11777935 (OP)
More games

>>11778954
...go on

>>11778785
Side plot in Akira

>>11777935 (OP)
Wait...dumb question I could just google. Were 32x cartridges just normal genesis cartridges?

>>11777935 (OP)
there isnt a way. the 32x was what spelled sega's doom, if the 32x succeeded, the saturn wouldve failed even harder than it did, and we probably wouldnt have gotten a dreamcast as sega went the way of atari, milking the exact same hardware over and over with miniscule improvements as everyone else leaves them behind

>HOW/WHY DID XYZ SUCCEED/FAIL!?!?!?
stop posting this irrelevant zoomer garbage
why the fuck are you trash people obsessed with this utter nonsense you couldn't possibly understand the context of from a time before you were born that has absolutely no impact whatsoever on the actually playing or enjoying video games
why are you physically incapable of doing anything but desperately trying to assemble some kind of artificial comprehension of history and assemble it into a series of moral judgements like it will somehow make you a high priest of gaming if only you can assert idiot opinions on shit that happened before you were conceived

>>11779271
32x failing didn't kill Sega. Hilarious that you think that.

>>11777975
Yeah just the context itself fucked this thing. I don't think there's ever been a console generation where a *second* add-on to anything could work. It's just absurd in principle and a slap in the face to consumers, who rightfully rejected it the one time someone was dumb enough to try. It was especially ridiculous because the CD add-on was actual new technology that wasn't present in the original console so releasing a cartridge based add-on after that seemed not only excessive but regressive.

But I guess the question is, what if you completely changed the context and didn't put it in that completely compromised position? Just cancel the Sega CD and make the 32X the sole add-on? It eliminates the mixed messages and the pulling in multiple directions. It doesn't divide the consumer base so much because no one would have already bought another add-on. And if it gets released earlier maybe more people buy it as a stopgap instead of just waiting for the Saturn.

I feel like if the Sega CD never exists, the 32X gets a cartridge version of Sonic instead as a launch title and Sega puts all its eggs in the 32X basket until the Saturn it sells okay. Not great, but respectable. But of course if we're talking pure hypotheticals the best move would probably have been to just release a slightly more powerful Sega CD as its own separate conslole

>>11778504
>The FMVs in those games had larger palette of colors and a slightly higher frame rate compared to their Sega CD counterparts, but that's about it.
It varied from game to game.
Night Trap used higher resolution videos with a larger color palette.
Corpse Killer used only slightly higher resolution videos, but with a clearly larger palette of colors to use.
Fahrenheit did a bit of a reversal from Corpse Killer. The videos are more colorful(with none of that poor dithering effect), and clearly much sharper, but the video takes up less of the screen than the plan Sega CD release.
Supreme Warrior used a bit more color, and took the video to fullscreen.
Slam City used the larger palette, but left the video letterboxed in the UI.

>>11779420
the 32xs existence killed sega. it wouldnt have matter if it succeeded or failed, the fact that it was even made was the final nail in the coffin. its just that, if it succeeded, sega's failure wouldve been even more pathetic. maybe they would try to catch up like atari did with the jaguar, but it would be too late and nobody would want to make games for sega at that point

>>11779420
Indeed. Death killed Sega.

>>11779492
>I don't think there's ever been a console generation where a *second* add-on to anything could work.

The kinnect for 360?

>>11779531
>>11779271
Sega 32x being made was just Sega of Japan trying to save Hitachi. Sega of Japan's CEO had relations with Hirachi's Executive staff. We all know it. Other anons have mentioned it repeatedly. Without Sega of Japan's help, Hirachi's chip company would have went bankrupt and shut down. No one was buying their Hitachi SH-2 chips at the time. The Hitachi interviews literally say Sega saved their chip production line.

It's why Sega of Japan insisted on using Hitachi chips for the Sega 32x, and wouldn't let Tom Kalinske work out a deal with other Chip companies. Kalinske said he thought it was strange it was so strange he was ordered to use Hitachi chips and not try to get a better deal with American companies.

Sega Saturn used 2 Hitachi CPU chips for each console. Sega 32x used 2 Hitachi chips for each add-on. Even though both sold poorly, That's still tens of millions Hitachi CPU chips sold and Sega saved Hirachi's chip company. Sega sacrificed the Saturn and 32x to save Hitachi. I hope repaying that favor to Hitachi was worth it Sega!

>>11779531
If Virtual Boy didn't kill Nintendo, then 32x didn't kill Sega.

>>11779569
I wonder why they didn't just decide to use 1 faster chip like the PS1 did, instead of simply adding another CPU.

>>11779569
>>11778082
So did the Titan. It's not much of a secret that SEGA said that the 32X had that configuration as it was supposed to be a baby Saturn.

It didn't "help" that one reason why the 32X came out was because SOJ were scared of the Jaguar, and it was in the wake of Atari winning a lawsuit against SEGA. My interpretation is that SEGA was afraid of Amiga savvy 68000 devs, who carried the Genesis, were going to jump ship to the Jag.

>>11779610
Sega Japan only wanted to use Hitachi chips. But Hitachi SH3 came out too late. So they had to use two SH2 chips for Saturn and 32x.

>>11779567
What would have been the first add-on in that case?

>>11779738
He's trying to exclude CD add-ons from his argument since those are actually useful.

Sega is retarded idk what they were thinking wasn't the SEGA CD add on a failure too?

>>11777975
it left a bad taste in the mouths of consumers for future sega consoles too. if they didnt do the 32x they had a chance at retaining a lot of fans for the saturn and dreamcast. I was upset at sega launching addon cd players they wouldnt support

>>11777984
>32X released after the Saturn in Japan
I wasn't a Sega kid, so I only played Genesis games when I played with a friend who had one, so I never realized how the 32X's release lined up with the Saturn's. It would've needed at least a year and a half of breathing room (or a bargain bin price) to give it a real reason to exist, plus an exclusive holiday season to encourage people to buy it instead of just saving their money for a Saturn and more games, for either said Saturn or just regular old Genesis games. That period of time was when the Genesis should've been relegated to the budget console instead of giving it a life support add-on which was expensive enough to encroach on peoples' ability to invest in a Saturn.

>>11777975
Well said

Game Fan Magazine E3 1995 article featuring 32x games. Out of all these games, only five of them were released.

>>11779740
It was actually sort of successful.

The… the Saturn… i-it’s… saved. :)

>>11777975
this

and if you ask me, sega were always on a timer. their only 'good' IP was sonic and it was dogshit

>>11777935 (OP)
If Sega released 32x in 1993, then it would have succeeded.

>>11778924
The Neptune is a 32x and genesis stuffed in the same box. Without the 32x the Neptune does not exist.

>>11779846
32X versions of Pitfall and BC Racers are pretty infamous for being the worst ports of them. Web of Fear is also infamous for being both the last game and the worst game.
Soulstar was eventually dumped as a proto but idk how playable it is. X-Men was also dumped and it's pretty much a pre alpha demo. Spot is ... Spot, if you've played it on Genesis you've played it.

I think that Virtual Golf game is the 32X golf game, but I'm not sure.

>>11780098
Doom 32x was the one with the shitty music, right?

>>11779846
Soulstar-X looks fuckin' sick ngl

32X was the failure. This is like asking how the Titanic hitting that iceberg could have been good. That was the bad part.

The Saturn suffered so the 32X could grasp for air and flail about for a few months. If Sega had used all the resources they wasted on 32X to make a great Sonic game and a couple of good sports games and maybe a good rpg early on in the Saturn’s life it would have been more successful.

There is no realistic way the 32X could have been successful. It would have needed a couple 10/10 games I guess. Groundbreaking stuff and the hardware to run it. Like, all time classics; frontrunners for the best game of all time type stuff; of which it got none. A 3D platformer as good as Mario 64 and an RPG as good as FF7 and stuff like Metal Gear Solid, Tomb Raider, Crash and Panzer Dragoon Zwei all in 94 would’ve done it. I thought the 32X ports of Virtua Fighter and Doom were good for its hardware but they needed to look and play even better as well. Virtua Racer needed to play as good as Daytona did half a decade later. The 32X hardware was not really up to all of this. I don’t know how you succeed with a slightly fancy genesis in 1995.

>>11780138
I didn't think it was that bad, it just wasn't that good.

I really hate saying this but I loved the music in the 3DO port the best.

>>11780212
>32X was the failure.
True. But he financial loses were minimal. Sega only made about 700,000 to 800,000 units of 32x. Sega sold about 650,000 Sega 32x units.

>The Saturn suffered
The Saturn wasn't really affected by 32x. But 32x was definitely affected by Saturn. The Saturn stole all of 32x hype. It wasn't a lot of hype but it there was some.


>If Sega had used all the resources they wasted on 32X to make a great Sonic game
Blame the Japanese for this. Sonic Team didn't want to work Sonic for some reason and wanted to make "Nights" instead.

>and a couple of good sports games
Blame the Japanese and Japanese studios again. They don't care about making American sports games.

And Western game studio's warned Sega that they were not happy with the Sega Saturn hardware design. That if Sega didn't change it, then game studios like Electronic Arts would jump over to Playstation and N64 and devote more resources to those consoles.

Kalinske warned Sega Japan, but Sega Japan ignored the warnings and all opinions of Western Game studio's.

>maybe a good rpg early on in the Saturn’s life it would have been more successful.
Saturn had plenty of RPGs made for it. So that's not an excuse.

>There is no realistic way the 32X could have been successful.
Launch 32x during Early 1992. Problem solved.

The Sega Saturn design was still being worked on , but The Hitachi SH2 CPU chips were already available. That's what the 32x uses. So launch the 32x in early 1992, and give the 32x a full three years of support before Saturn comes in the 1995. Problem solved.

>>11777935 (OP)
made it a separate system with backward compatibility, or not make it at all and focus on something else

>>11777935 (OP)
Should have went arcade game heavy. Like arcade accurate versions of golden axe, outrun, fighting games... Probably still wouldnt have succeeded, but its what I would want.

Was the 32x even supposed to be "successful" on the level of a standalone console? It was just a stopgap for poor people who couldn't afford a Saturn, which is why they released simultaneously.

Could the 32x have worked? Yes.

If both Japan and America worked together to promote it and make games for it, then yeah. I imagine it could have been a moderate success.

But Sega Japan was hyper focused on hardware supremacy and making expensive hardware. They felt having the best hardware would win the console wars...even if the console was difficult to develop games for.

Sega America and Tom Kalinske was focused on keeping hardware affordable and streamlined and easy to develop games for.

They could never agree or compromise.

>>11779668
>My interpretation is that SEGA was afraid of Amiga savvy 68000 devs, who carried the Genesis, were going to jump ship to the Jag.

if true, that seems dumb to then pivot to a heretofore completely unknown architecture in the video gaming world with Hitachi which would have resulted in the loss of the 68000 devs from the genesis anyways...

>>11777935 (OP)
It didn’t so why ask
These sorts of threads would be better on /x/.
Things went the way they did.

>So, how could the 32x have succeeded?

as an add on, it simply could not have. It already had as an add-on every advantage you would expect looking in hindsight at it.

>used same cpus as next generation coming in the pipeline
>was an upgrade over every core component(audio/memory/math power), not just one part.
>was inter-compatible with other addon, segaCD
>needs its own power but used same type power brick as genesise
>designed to be left in place, uses same cart form factors to minimize cost from re-tooling.

but
>limited to people who already owned a genesis
>games didn't show a big enough difference in the tech
>few games
>knowledge of the generation to replace it was in the public already by time of launch

if instead of an add on, it was released as a backward compatible standalone, is the only way it might've stood a chance for its short time window. You could have at least eliminated the problem of only being able to sell to Genesis owners

>>11780727
see the comments about the 32X being a baby Saturn and both being based off of the Titan

>>11780782
The Sega Titan was made after the Sega Saturn. The Titan was literally a Sega Saturn console but put into an arcade cabinet. The only difference was the Titan used cartridges instead of CDs.

>>11780782

forget the video game world. the chip hadn't really taken off in embedded applications yet either.

>>11780890
Doesn't this prove that cartridges were viable over CDs?

>>11780953
What do you mean prove? Did you suddenly forget the N64 existed? Have you not heard all the arguments about low CD cost and storage vs the quick loading of cartridge? Obviously the owner an arcade machine that costs thousands of dollars is going to be willing to pay higher prices for cartridges if means his machines don't take 20-30 seconds to load every fight or stage.

>>11780890
They seem to have been developed concurrently; SEGA had a history of using souped up consoles as the bases for arcade machines.

>>11780953
Only in low volume and high cost, this made up for in the extreme durability of cartridges compred to CDs.

>>11777935 (OP)
Eiry

If the graphic upgrades of the 32X were somehow integrated into the original launch of the sega CD back in 1991/1992 it would have been a sensation. It could have lured in the better 3DO and early PC CD games games and hit FMV games like Myst that would have looked like dogshit on sega CD. Even just the upgraded colour pallet or the 32x added to the sega CD would have done wonders as it could have landed better SF2 and MK ports in their prime, without the missing colors and frames like we eventually got on the genesis.

Simply more storage (CD) or better graphics but limited storage (32x) failed individually and came too late in the consoles life. Somehow do both in 1992 and it would have mattered. Better to compete with the early 3DO than the saturn a few years later.

Jolly good show

>>11780143
HD DVD was just an external optical drive. If it doesn't play games it's not a console add-on.

>>11777935 (OP)
Having actually good games could've helped it. Same story as the Saturn. Unfortunately it wouldn't be til the Dreamcast that sega would start releasing good games again and by then they were competing with peak Nintendo and Sony both of whom were releasing hit after hit after hit.

>>11781978
>If the graphic upgrades of the 32X were somehow integrated into the original launch of the sega CD back in 1991/1992 it would have been a sensation.
It would have also been ridiculously expensive, the add-on already retailed for $299 in the US, trying to put in 2 state of the art SH-2 32bit CPU's in it in 1991/92, the year these things came out would easily add a more than a hundred to the price. Even then you wouldn't get the outcome you'd want, it's not loading by cartridge anymore, CD's need more ram and the Sega CD only has 128kb, you'd need 1mb at least, preferably 2mb to have any chance of displaying the kind of graphics those expensive CPU's are there for, another hundred plus for that ram at least.
>Simply more storage (CD) or better graphics but limited storage (32x) failed individually and came too late in the consoles life. Somehow do both in 1992 and it would have mattered. Better to compete with the early 3DO than the saturn a few years later.
There is a reason why the 3DO retailed at $699 in 1993 and the next gen consoles that waited another year after that were $3-400. Technology was advancing at supersonic speed, every year you waited can cut hundreds off the price while increasing performance. Your souped up Sega CD would carry an eye watering price.

>>11782053
Mmm, that's where you're wrong, friend

>>11782090
>It would have also been ridiculously expensive, the add-on already retailed for $299 in the US, trying to put in 2 state of the art SH-2 32bit CPU's in it in 1991/92, the year these things came out would easily add a more than a hundred to the price.

And yet that's exactly what Sega of Japan did. They chose the Sega Sh-2 for the Saturn the same year it came out despite the chip being unproven and brand new.

>Your souped up Sega CD would carry an eye watering price.
Lol. Sega of Japan can afford it. They sold arcade machines for $25,000 dollars to as high as $500,000 dollars. So you are REALLY underestimating how much money early 90s Sega was making from arcade sales. It funded their entire company. They built multiple theme parks with rollercoasters and rides for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Selling a Sega CD with 32x hardware is entirely possible.

>>11782097
I would be extremely hesitant to call Dragon's Lair a game. It was already stretching the definition of games and annoying 1980s gamers.

>>11782090
>Your souped up Sega CD would carry an eye watering price.
Neo geo price but with $45 games. In 1992 that wouldnt be the worst thing we saw.

Also it wouldn't betray the consumers by dropping it several years before the saturn instead of days apart. 32x dropping at the end of 1994 when the Saturn was already on sale in japan was insane. It was obsolete the moment it arrived on the shelf. Consumers took note and never ever trusted sega again in the west. The 32x simply existing in 1995 was an offense to all loyal sega fans and it was the reason I never once considered a saturn nor dreamcast.

>>11782117
100% agree with you. Except the Sega 32x was official announced first before the Sega Saturn. So it was Sega of Japan that made the mistake and harmed Sega fans.

Does Japan think Americans and Euros are made of money? It was insulting that Japan thought we would buy the Sega Saturn less than a year after the 32x was announced.

>>11780143
Always wondered why the 360 didn't have a hd-dvd drive built in with how hard microsoft were backing it

>>11782296
Several reasons.

Microsoft wanted to keep the price of the 360 console cheaper. Including the HD DVD drive would make it significantly more expensive. Microsoft also though DVD still had several years of life left, and wanted to use Xbox live for digital downloads instead. Microsoft also only "mildly" supported HD DVD. They didn't care as much about the format war between Toshiba VS Sony.

Lastly you can blame Nvidia. Microsoft planned the 360 to come in 2006. But had to launch the 360 a year earlier than planned because of the expensive lawsuit between Microsoft and Nvidia.

Nvidia signed a contract with Microsoft to provide GPU chips for the original Xbox. This Nvidia later broke the contract. They demanded more money, and refused to provide more GPU chips unless Microsoft agreed. Microsoft was pissed about Nvidia breaking a signed contract and sued them in court.

Nvidia was probably going to lose. But Nvidia decided to offer Microsoft a negotiated settlement (money). Microsoft agreed because they didn't want Nvidia to drag out the case in court for many years. There are a lot of tricks you can do drag out a lawsuit. Nvidia was going to lose but they could make it painfully slow for Microsoft. Part of the agreement included ending production on original Xbox since Nvidia didn't want provide chips for Xbox anymore.

So Microsoft had to scramble to push the 360 into production ahead of time. The HD DVD drive wasnt ready yet. So Microsoft went with DVD drives instead.

Would be interesting if the lawsuit never happened and MS launched the 360 in 2006 as originally planned with a potential HD DVD

>>11777935 (OP)
32x basically never had a chance, the Neptune version I think could have succeeded as a budget console(as apparently Sega had planned for it to launch at about $150)

>>11777984
Sega ditching the Saturn to instead give the Neptune more time probably would have been the smart move, the moment Sony decided to enter the console market the Saturn was doomed, meanwhile while the Neptune wouldn't have been able to compete with the PlayStation in terms of power, it also would have been only half the price(indeed by the time the PlayStation reaches the US, the Neptune probably would have become even cheaper than the initial $150 price) and would have the benefit of being backwards compatible with the majority of Genesis software(and probably most of the add-on hardware too) which would have made it more appealing to budget conscious parents, overall this would probably give Sega the time they need to make something that could actually compete with the PlayStation

>>11782341
Agreed Neptune could have worked if Sega recycled their Arcade Model 1 hardware. It already came out in 1992. Almost no research and development was needed for Sega.

So they cram it into the Neptune, make sure it's backwards compatible with Genesis games (optional), and sell it for half the cost of Playstation.

Sega would have made a killing.

My question is if the 32x could do 'decent' 3D graphics (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOWZbydnlZE), why are all the games all shit FMV games and shittily enhanced genesis 2D games?

>>11778026
>there is not much cost savings between a 32X and a standalone Neptune

stand alone Neptune would save a ton of money on components. It wouldn't need 3 PCBs, passthrough cable, servicing different MD units for compatibility fixes (the service manuals are full of these), and so on. The 32x itself was very horribly built and was full of bodge wires and 2 PCBs connected via ribbons.

but the best thing about a stand alone Neptune would mean that they could axe Genesis production and have the Neptune supersede it. this means that every Genesis released from that point on forward has 32x support. this means that 32x will have millions of units on the market, supported all the way to 1998 (or whenever they completely axed the genesis), so companies could actually attempt developing for it.

going for Neptune as the low-end home console and limiting genesis-only development to Nomad would've made a lot more sense, it would've given them a portable library that could rival the game boy.

of course the optimal direction would have been
- no 32x/neptune
- saturn has backwards compatibility, at least with a converter cartridge
- push the Nomad harder as your portable contender

Saturn… is saved…

>>11782385
Saturn backwards compatibility has always been a stupid idea. There was pretty much no hardware in common between the genesis and the Saturn. Backwards compatibility would basically require grafting on an entire genesis, at that point why not just keep the machines separate.

>>11782398
because compatibility means the machine is a 1-off upgrade to their entire library, and makes the system come with hundreds of games at launch. the consumers will expect it. especially since there's a convenient Genesis cartridge slot shaped slot on the Saturn that every kid tried shoving genesis carts into.

>Backwards compatibility would basically require grafting on an entire genesis,
make it a separate lock-on cartridge that has the hardware inside. they were selling a $50 genesis 3 by that time which was the same thing, except they don't need to add cart ports and buttons to it.

>>11777935 (OP)
Give it a CD drive, put enough hardware inside it that gives it hardware capabilities like the Saturn, call it the "Sega Saturn", release a "CDX" version of it years later.

>>11779492
>But I guess the question is, what if you completely changed the context and didn't put it in that completely compromised position? Just cancel the Sega CD and make the 32X the sole add-on? It eliminates the mixed messages and the pulling in multiple directions. It doesn't divide the consumer base so much because no one would have already bought another add-on. And if it gets released earlier maybe more people buy it as a stopgap instead of just waiting for the Saturn.
>I feel like if the Sega CD never exists, the 32X gets a cartridge version of Sonic instead as a launch title and Sega puts all its eggs in the 32X basket until the Saturn it sells okay. Not great, but respectable. But of course if we're talking pure hypotheticals the best move would probably have been to just release a slightly more powerful Sega CD as its own separate conslole

Problem with that is you would need to release the 32X much earlier, basically in place of the SegaCD. I'm not sure if the technology was there to release something like that so early, especially at an affordable price.

And personally, if one had to choose between only having a CD or 32X addon, I think the CD makes a lot more sense. Yeah the 32X added more processing capability, but the additional storage I feel was a lot more useful and helps bypass some of the limitations of the Genesis regardless.

Even more pathetic was the state of the CD32X games. Every single one was a FMV game, and every single one also existed on the standard SegaCD, they were just slightly higher-quality video versions than the standard SegaCD games. I would have loved to see what a game making full use of the Genesis, SegaCD, and 32X together could have done.

>>11782053
>HD DVD was just an external optical drive. If it doesn't play games it's not a console add-on.
It is an add-on, but yes, it had no games released on it. A fact that most people seem to not know, I guess the idea of releasing an add-on just to play movie disks was so stupid sounding that everyone thought it also had games on it and slam it for "games that required an add-on" as if it was a SegaCD situation.

>>11782097
That's not a Xbox360 HD-DVD game, that's just a HD-DVD game, it will play in any HD-DVD player. DVD and Blu-Ray games like this existed too, including Dragon's Lair. It's like arguing that the original Xbox's DVD remote plays games because there was a DVD version of Dragon's Lair and a few other FMV-like games.

>>11782108
It was definitely a game, and annoying 1980s gamers? It was massively popular in the 80s.

>>11778020
>That's exactly how it works. The Sega 32x uses significantly less hardware.
That is completely not how it works, just because it's an add-on does not mean the hardware is guaranteed to be less expensive. If you shoved an RTX 5090 into a PS5 and called it an add-on, that does not mean the add-on is less expensive, even though it has "less hardware" than the PS5.

>It also relies on the Sega Genesis to even work for video and audio.
Yes, and in that above example the RTX 5090 would rely on the PS5 to work because it's just a GPU.

You are seriously retarded if you think that just because it was not a stand-alone system that means the 32X in 1994 was significantly cheaper to make than a console from 1989, and especially so if you think it was so much cheaper to make that it's loss could be ignored when even SEGA's own internal leaked documents state otherwise.

You aren't even correct about it needing the Genesis for video, could output video on it's own, it just was designed to mix it's video output with the Genesis's. You have to plug your TV into the 32X and not the Genesis when you have one installed! If someone wanted they could make a game that renders entirely on the 32X unit and does not use the Genesis for video.

>>11778127
>all the others add-ons failed more or less badly
Hullo!

>>11782476
>That is completely not how it works, just because it's an add-on does not mean the hardware is guaranteed to be less expensive.

Anon. Listen to yourself. You are trying to claim a 32x is just as expensive to make as a Sega Saturn. The Sega Saturn uses a lot more components. Including an expensive CD drive.

>If you shoved an RTX 5090 into a PS5 and called it an add-on,

The 32x has NO GPU hardware acceleration. It's just a board with 2 Hitachi CPUs that do all the processing. It's all software acceleration. It's a extremely basic and simple design.

>>11782509
>Anon. Listen to yourself. You are trying to claim a 32x is just as expensive to make as a Sega Saturn. The Sega Saturn uses a lot more components. Including an expensive CD drive.
Saturn? I was talking about the Genesis, genius. Did you not see the part where I said "a console from 1989?" The Saturn was not released in 1989.

>>11782509
>The 32x has NO GPU hardware acceleration.
Massively missing the point, I was saying that just because something is an "add-on" does not mean it's always going to be considerably cheaper than that it plugs into.

>>11782319
>Microsoft also though DVD still had several years of life left
Then maybe they shouldn't have designed such a shitty copy protection mechanism in the Xbox360 that reduced the capacity of DVDs by over a gig compared to the original Xbox. I remember when I got a free copy of Halo Reach (which was pointless as I already had the game at the time) JUST to test out another new format they were going to use for the disks to squeeze more capacity onto them.

>Nvidia was probably going to lose. But Nvidia decided to offer Microsoft a negotiated settlement (money). Microsoft agreed because they didn't want Nvidia to drag out the case in court for many years.
Gee, I wonder why none of the console manufacturers want to use Nvidia hardware anymore. I assume the only reason Nintendo chose Nvidia for Switch (when the previous three systems were AMD) were because they didn't have much options for an ARM SoC that had a powerful GPU, and likewise to maintain backwards compatibility on Switch 2.

>>11782264
Yes, Japanese thought everyone was as flush with cash as them. Look at the fucking LaserActive.

>base unit is a mediocre Laserdisc player
>pay for NEC and SEGA PACs so that you can play vidya on them
>LD-ROM titles for either were like $150 (can't find a solid pricelist for American releases even tho it was released in the USA)
>>11782480
It didn't fail, it was a success, the problem was piracy.

>>11782543
>It didn't fail, it was a success
I know, that's what I was saying. The person I was replying to claimed that no add-on other than the Sega-CD was successful.

>>11782527
>Gee, I wonder why none of the console manufacturers want to use Nvidia hardware anymore.
Oh absolutely. Nvidia is extremely greedy. You know it's bad when other greedy companies like Microsoft and Sony tell you to cut it out, and stop being so money hungry.

As far I know, AMD has dominated console manufacturing and supplied chips to all 3 consoles.

I read an interview (I can't recall exactly who) where an AMD executive said that putting putting affordable AMD GPUs in consoles wasmore about marketing and "developing long term relationships" with the big 3 (MS, Nintendo, and Sony) than profit. The Executive said the profit AMD makes from consoles fairly modest, but the marketing it provides is priceless. In return the big 3 console makers get an affordable GPU and AMD doesn't try to rip them off.

These days Nvidia is too busy price gouging PC gamers, and getting drunk off selling so many GPUs for AI processing. It's basically all Nvidia does now.

>>11782527
There's a reason custom GPU manufacturers like EVGA stopped working with Nvidia. They said Nvidia kept disrespecting them and taking too much of a cut of the profits. It wasn't worth it anymore.

>>11777935 (OP)
The only way I could see the 32X succeeding is if Sega's competitors either didn't exist or fucked up so badly that they gave Sega a monopoly on the console market, as well as refusing to release new games on the Genesis, as well as not releasing the Saturn.
Releasing console addons like the 32X is a terrible strategy because most people don't buy them. Unless you give them away with some must-play title like Nintendo did with the N64 Expansion Pak, people aren't going to bother. And even then, there were plenty of N64 owners who didn't get Expansion Paks.
TL;DR: The 32X, by virtue of being a console addon, didn't even have a snowball's chance in Hell.

>>11777935 (OP)
Parallel earth:
>CDs were never developed
>Instead an add on, it's the Genesis 2 having the generation against the Jaguar and the UltraNes.

>>11782480
Disk System did well but ran into the issue of getting obsoleted by newer chip technology faster than Nintendo could have anticipated

>>11782940
Don't forget that the Hyper Neo Geo is a successful 3D machine and SNK continues making games.

Ok

>>11778020
>It also relies on the Sega Genesis to even work for video and audio.

Not true, you have to feed the Genesis into the 32x and hook up your TV to the 32x instead of the Genesis.

>It's just a small mother board with a few chips on it.
So was the SNES, so was the Genesis 2...

>>11779668
The Titan was just a Saturn in an arcade cab, same way as they had a Genesis in a cab before that (several times even), and before that a Master System in a cab as well. Nintendo also had a NES in a cab, and Sony had several Playstations in a cab (some with extra memory, but otherwise identical).

>It's not much of a secret that SEGA said that the 32X had that configuration as it was supposed to be a baby Saturn.
It was romanticized to be that by gaming magazines. It had absolutely nothing in common with the Saturn other than using the same chips, which meant absolutely nothing.

>My interpretation is that SEGA was afraid of Amiga savvy 68000 devs, who carried the Genesis, were going to jump ship to the Jag.
Atari was already dead as fuck by the time, nobody cared, except maybe Carmack who got a boner from the DSP chips inside.
It's true that Sega of Japan wanted them to release a new gadget to counter the Jaguar, but that's about it.

>>11779610
>>11779683
It was covered in interviews. They couldn't find any CPU that was good enough. SH1 was okay-ish, and they asked Hitachi to beef up a lot of it for the SH2, like making the multiplier unit stronger. They already chose it when the PS numbers came out, then Sega panicked and wanted Hitachi to make the chip faster. Reworking it to run at a higher clock was not possible in the time frame. Then they remembered about this obscure feature some dev added in his free time that allowed for linking two chips together, and that's how they managed to boost the math power of the machine with the second SH2.

>>11778924
Even this would've been only a stopgap, but given how garbage the Saturn ended up as, perhaps they could've went Neptune exclusively, and then maybe release a true nextgen machine in 1997.

I mean it could've ran a few early Saturn big names maybe. It ran VF1 and Virtua Racing, supposedly they also wanted to put Daytona on it.

>>11778474
both addons used the same bus so you couldn't access both at the same time. it only got FMV titles because those were fairly easy to do in a lock-step double buffering (32x is decrunching a video independently, as the Genesis is reading the Sega CD memory and copying it into its own memory, next frame the Genesis is uploading the data into the 32x while the Sega CD is busy reading the CD data into its own memory, repeat).
more importantly once sega of america figures out a basic video driver that handles this, they can send it out to all devs to make fmv movies.

>>11777935 (OP)
Honestly I wouldn't have made it. Instead I would've done with Nintendo did and sneak in the better hardware and graphics through chipsets for prexisting Genesis cartirdges. Like the Super FX Chip for SNES. Games cost more to produce but you know what costs even more to produce? an entire fucking add on.

>>11777935 (OP)
Hollow

>>11783639
>So was the SNES, so was the Genesis 2...
That's because it was the best Nintendo and Sega could do at the time of release. And were priced as cutting edge hardware.

The 32x is absolutely not the best they could do and isnt really cutting edge. It's a super budget solution.

>>11783676
>They couldn't find any CPU that was good enough.
You made a good post but I do not believe this for a single second. Do you have any idea what the late 80s/early 90s were like? There were so many companies making CPU chips in the world. If I got serious I could probably list between 1 to 2 dozen companies with CPUs on the market. I find it absolutely impossible that Sega couldn't find a single CPU for that Sega Saturn. Not to mention Hitachi SH chips weren't even that great. Which is very strange why Sega chose it.

>>11784316
Did most of those companies have the facility for mass-production though?

Can Saturn and focus on making the 32x work.
Saturn was dead on arrival and nothing could save it, genesis was still thriving.
Release the dreamcast a couple of years later and sega survives.

>>11784554
>Did most of those companies have the facility for mass-production though?
Of course they did. You can't sell CPUs on the mass market without mass production.

You know what's funny? Technology was moving so fast in the 1990s that Sega probably could have skipped the 5th generation and jumped straight to Dreamcast.

Sega just needed to wait 2 years and then skip to Dreamcast in 1997.

>>11785220
>Model 3 console
Would have been cool.

>>11777935 (OP)
Well

>>11779668
You will never be a woman

>>11783676
>Atari was already dead as fuck by the time, nobody cared, except maybe Carmack who got a boner from the DSP chips inside.
>It's true that Sega of Japan wanted them to release a new gadget to counter the Jaguar, but that's about it.

Not exactly true. People were interested in the Jaguar and their "64 bit" marketing. But once the games came out it was disappointing. Another issue was Atari struggled to get 3rd parties interested in the Jaguar.

>>11782458
>I would have loved to see what a game making full use of the Genesis, SegaCD, and 32X together could have done.
Check out the Doom CD32X Fusion project

>>11777935 (OP)
The 32X was always bound to fail. The hardware made it ridiculous to program. They should have went all out on the Saturn instead.
To think they could have had Chaotix on the Saturn instead of the 32X, supposedly someone had a prototype but it hasn't surfaced. I'll never get why they never ported it anyway or even did an enhanced version of Sonic CD instead.

>>11786241
>They should have went all out on the Saturn instead.
Sega Japan did. It was the best those Japanese Engineers could do.

>To think they could have had Chaotix on the Saturn instead of the 32X
Nah. The Japanese Sonic Team was too busy with Nights.

>>11782384
By the time they could render 3D graphics on this thing, the system was already dead.

>>11784119
https://youtu.be/gQPFKMx21Sk

SEGA got killed on manufacturing junk that wouldn't sell. The 32x was supposed to prevent situations like the Genesis version of Virtua Racing having expensive parts but not selling by having a whole console dedicated to it

Of course the problem is then nobody bought the 32x.

>>11777935 (OP)
maybe if it had launched a little earlier and with good ports of virtua racer, virtua fighter, and doom, and if they hadn't rushed the release of the saturn, it would've been successful

I remember people being happy with virtua racer at the time, but it was too close to the one on the mega drive. virtua fighter would've blown people away, but if memory serves it only got released much later (maybe when saturn was already out?). the doom port was bad and it probably did more harm than good in its state

and then the saturn released

>>11777935 (OP)
If they released it in 1992 or 1993, then it would have been amazing. But Dec 1994 was too late.

They should've put out 5-10 bangers out on the svp, and then seppuku'd whoever thought up the 32xhit.
And maybe ported over some more games to the sega cd.

>>11787363
Yes, sure, they should have just made 5-10 $100 games with a chip that was infamous for failures.

>>11777935 (OP)
I think the 32X and the Saturn were just too far apart hardware wise to make it work.

The reason you can have multiple consoles now is because a Series S and a Series X (for example) both play the same exact games, they just look or run a little worse on the poorfag console. This makes development cheaper (rather than having to develop two different games you can sort of develop one for two different consoles). This means the poorfags don't feel "left out", and there is less of a stigma toward using the cheaper console.

Outside of some basic arcade ports like Virtua Fighter and Primal Rage the 32x just couldn't run cut down versions of Saturn games. I couldn't imagine a 32X version of Last Bronx or Panzer Dragoon II running at all, let alone running well enough to be impressive.

>>11787640
>Just makes shit up on the internet.

>>11787748
>because a Series S and a Series X (for example) both play the same exact games, they just look or run a little worse on the poorfag console.


It also let's companies extend the generation without needing to create brand new hardware. The Gen 8 Xbox One was alive for what? 6 years? Maybe a little longer. And now the Gen 9 Xbox One S and Series X are 5 years old now with no end in sight. The current generation feels like it's barely begun because of lack of games.

This would never work with Sega Japan. They were obsessed with hardware and tinkering. A lot of the Japanese engineers were in positions of power in the company. That's why the focus was always on releasing new hardware every year. Look at all the exclusive Japanese hardware they released that sold poorly. Sega Mega Drive airplane models. Sega Saturn car navigation models and Sega Saturn Karaoke models. Sega Dreamcast TV models. Etc. All of them sold poorly. Yet Sega Japan kept doing it. So blaming 32x is rather shortsighted. Sega Japan was just run by people who were hardware Otakus who couldnt sit still and appreciate what they had.

>>11777935 (OP)
Checks out

>>11777935 (OP)
No

>>11785497
I'm still more of a man than you will ever be.

>>11783676
32X was similar enough that most 32X projects were just moved to the Saturn. Don't ask me about 32X CD. If if if the 32X had come out a year before we might have gotten Virtua Racing 32X CD.

>>11777935 (OP)
Only by being released as a dedicated stand-alone console that's fully compatible with all prior MD/Genesis games, just like it could play most Mark3 titles as a cool bonus - including all of those for the MegaCD addon that also works both with it AND the Pioneer's obscure LaserDisc player games.

> go back in time and show the 2020 COVID epidemic
>state the only way this can be prevented is if everyone buys a 32X
>the 32X is sold out

>>11789268
Sega Japan takes all the profit from 32x Sales. Sega America begs Sega Japan to stop.

Sega Japan refuses. Dumps all profit money into Saturn. Decides to give it 4 CPU processors to fight Playstation (before more cpu = better according Sega Japan).

Saturn still losses to PS1.

Sega goes bankrupt even sooner.

No Dreamcast.

>>11786376
Chaotic was done by former Sonic CD developers rather than Sonic Team.

>>11782398
They could have probably done it through a few ASIC chips by then.

>>11789708
I think by that time they had condensed the genesis down to 2 large asics and a few other chips. Its still a lot of dead-weight to add for no reason. The Saturn was expensive enough without adding utterly pointless backwards compatibility. Just buy a stanalone genesis if you want to play obsolete games.

>>11777935 (OP)
>So, how could the 32x have succeeded?
Put Chaotix in the oven more
Sonic 3D: Flickies Island
Phantasy Star 5 in vein of Xenogears and FF7

>>11782458
>I would have loved to see what a game making full use of the Genesis, SegaCD, and 32X together could have done.
Someone actually made a hack for Sonic CD's cutscenes that utilises the 32X's extra processing power
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT9Hnai_iWw

Compare it to the original Sega CD release:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHd7AeVT-68

>>11789939
who tf is flickie?

>>11786230
>Check out the Doom CD32X Fusion project
I mean, on one hand that is indeed cool, on the other... Doom of all things? The one game that has been ported to fucking everything and even already exists on the 32X?

>>11791257
That's still just using it for FMVs though

If I wanted to make an indie Sega 32XCD game today, is it even possible? Do development kits even exist anymore?

>>11792936
>If I wanted to make an indie Sega 32XCD game today, is it even possible?
Of course, why wouldn't it be? There are two examples of homebrew 32XCD efforts in this very thread.
>Do development kits even exist anymore?
You realize most modern console hombrew is made using homebrew dev kits/tools and not actual original ancient hard to get official dev kits right? If anything it's usually easier to do work on homebrew SDKs since they were not made decades ago.

>>11793001
>not actual original ancient hard to get official dev kits right?
I want to learn the way the original developers did and understand their methods and what they had to deal with.

It's like the difference between emulating the console and playing on original hardware.

>>11793038
>I want to learn the way the original developers did and understand their methods and what they had to deal with.
You won't get that even if you used the original SDKs and hardware.

Developers back then had far less of an understanding of what the hardware could really be pushed to do
Developers back then had far less of an understanding of the videogame market in general
Developers back then had no idea what design choices in these newer types of games would work and what would not
Developers back then had strict deadlines
Developers back then were working it as a 9-5 job, not as a hobby in your free time
Developers back then didn't have Google, or Wikipedia, or homebrew development wikis
Developers back then barely had any methods of communicating online with groups of people at all
Developers back then didn't have access to decades of documentation and knowledge of what to do and not to do
Developers back then that could actually program games were far more scarce
Developers back then lived in a completely different time

Watching an old movie on VHS isn't doing to let you know exactly what people who watched it in theaters 35 years ago for the first time felt. Using an old outdated ancient official SDK in 2025 will not make you learn the way the original developers 35 years ago did. You are far too tainted with decades of modern knowledge and technology to transport yourself back to the early/mid 90s. Just using an outdated piece of technology from back then isn't going to get you that.

>>11777935 (OP)
The usual

>>11777935 (OP)
Just support it with software and reduce the price a bit, the Ps1 and Saturn were extremely expensive for the first year and into the 2nd. It was pulled off the shelves before people even got a chance to see it.

>>11792936
Its a bit hard to get started with 32X, the main information I've found was the Spritesmind forum and https://www.chibialiens.com/sh2/. The actual SH2 there is a fair bit of documentation to program it.

For Sega CD there is the official dev manual, seems a fair bit easier than 32X, you have to talk to the bios to control the CD and deal with sending code to the other 68000.

The Genesis seems a lot easier to get started in comparison with multiple assemblers, ready to go emulators with debuggers. Multiple hello world examples for 68000. Just assemble into a bin file and see if it runs.

I'd like to do it later on but I'm doing nes and sms right now.

>>11794325
Why can't anon just find an old 32x development kit and use that?

>>11777935 (OP)
Why were all the games dog shit?

>>11778086
Incomplete installation. You need the audio cable linking the stereo output of the Mk 1 Genesis to the Sega CD. Which is why I prefer the Mk 2 Genesis, with its integrated stereo DAC.

>>11785220
>Sega just needed to wait 2 years and then skip to Dreamcast in 1997.
In order to do so they would've had to use a PowerPC 604ev with a Voodoo 2.5. Which was doable if aiming for a late 1997 launch, since the ev version of the 604 became available in mid-97 (and Sega could use trashbinned CPUs which couldn't reach the min spec of 250 MHz, by settling for 233 MHz), and the Voodoo 2 consumer version came out in February the following year.

>>11795129
They would be rare by now, even rarer would be somebody that has one that would want to sell it, and even if you do find someone selling it it would be very expensive, and all for what? To use an obsolete dev unit that might not even work anymore and would be missing many improvements the homebrew scene have made since then?

>>11795514
Because few 3rd parties would want to develop on it, or put a lot of resources into doing so. Even if they had wanted to, the thing died out well before any large projects would have gotten off the ground. A game that requires an accessory will always sell less than one that does not simply because your consumer base would be limited to those who either have said accessory or would be willing to go out and buy it for your game, which is far less likely than someone who already happens to have it buying your game. The Genesis just had an expensive accessory designed to use the new cutting edge media format a few years ago, and then they release ANOTHER expensive accessory that both goes back to the older considered inferior format and was released pretty much around the same time as the successor to the console it was made for.

Nobody in their right minds would have been putting a large amount of resources into developing for that thing, most didn't bother to at all.

>>11777935 (OP)
by discontinuing the original Genesis, and making a system where the 32X directly replaced it and the CD could connect to it and making the 32X capable of playing Genesis games. and then selling it as a budget system similar to how Nintendo sold the SNES alongside the N64 for most of the rest of the 90s.
it still wouldn't be SUCCESSFUL, but it wouldn't've bombed so hard.

>>11797784
The 32x only exists in the form it does because its an add on. Nobody would design a stand alone machine that way. If the Genesis were to be discontinued and replaced with some kind of enhanced Genesis, it would not be functionally the same as the 32x.

>>11798239
I was saying to effectively make a Genesis 2 with the 32X hardware built into it.

>>11798820
in other words, I was saying that the 32X, as it stood, could never be made successful. You'd have to completely change its core intent (a Genesis add-on) to have any hope of it.. not really being successful, but at least breaking even and 20 years later being considered a cult classic platform like the GameCube ended up being.
Never make the CD, move the CD exclusives to to the 32X, sell the 32X as a standalone budget system alongside the Saturn, bribe the RPG experts who stuck with the SNES throughout the 5th gen into making their games for the 32X instead. that's the best you could hope for with that hardware.

>>11798898
>in other words, I was saying that the 32X, as it stood, could never be made successful.

The 32x didn't fail because it sucked (it was okay/serviceable) or looked funny. It failed because Sega Japan announced the Sega Saturn right when 32x was going to launch. I dunno if it was accidental or on purpose, but that one announcement from Sega Japan destroyed any hope Sega 32x had.

Every Sega American fan suddenly thought:

>"Why the hell am I spending $159.99 on an add-on if Sega Saturn is going to come out in 6 months? I could just save this money, and put it towards a Sega Saturn. I'm not made of money."

And even if the 32x had fantastic hardware and wasn't an add-on, it still would fail. Sega Saturn stole all the 32x hype (what little there was).

Everyone would say:

>"Why would I spend money on a upgraded Genesis if Sega Saturn is coming in 6 months?"

The only way for Sega 32x to succeed is to delay the Sega Saturn by one year. Or launch the 32x one year earlier.

>>11798938
it failed because it was "just another addon" to the Genesis and nobody developed games for it. it was convoluted, complex and had no software. simple as.

>>11779846
Shellshock for 32X? Damn I wanna see that.

>>11798997
Because Saturn was around the corner. No point.

>>11778086

> CPU's
- Twin SH2 32bit RISC chips running at 23MHz.
- Motorolla 68000 @12.5MHz
- Motorolla 68000 @7.XMhz

> GPU's
- 32x VDP that can display to to 32k colours (using a pass through cable), can display polygons and do sprite scaling.
- Sega/ Mega CD ASIC - Sprite scaling, multiple 'mode 7' playing fields, video encoding, some other features.
- Sega Genesis/ MD VDP

> AUDIO
- 32x PWM audio chip with two audio channels
- Sega CD RICOH 8-channel PCM chip
- Sega Genesis/ MD - Yamaha YM2612 FM Synth, 8-bit Texas Instruments SN76489, Z80 CPU

> RAM
- 32x - 256KB work RAM, 256KB video RAM
- Sega CD - 512KB main system RAM, 256KB VRAM, 128KB Boot ROM, 128 Kbit CD-ROM Cache
- Genesis/ MD - 64KB main RAM, 64KB VRAM, 8KB Audio RAM

I have yet to see a game that could manage all pieces of hardware at once. I want to see someone try and port Resident Evil to this.

>>11799021
Too many mediocre cooks in the kitchen.

>>11799021
The Sega Saturn's hardware wasn't exactly a unified mess either though. Two CPUs, two GPUs that worked on quads instead of tris, a sound processor, and several other processors to worry about... all that you have to manually keep in sync using assembly.

>>11799021

I think Resident Evil 1 would be an interesting homebrew project for the 32xCD. I think the Sega CD could store high colour BG images and handle the audio and FMV. The 32x could render the character models and zombies... they might be flat shaded. Or Alone in the Dark 1 and 2 for the 32XCD would be a more evenly matched project.

>>11799052
This would actually be pretty kino

>>11799080
>This would actually be pretty kino

The only examples of 32XCD games are FMV games, like Night Trap:

https://youtu.be/Ia29PSVOXL4

FAHRENHEIT:
https://youtu.be/p8BkvESIqXc

Supreme Warrior:
https://youtu.be/GdfAJ1GjvC8

All Digital Pictures or Sega of America FMV stuff. But the 32x can display video from the 32x and the quality is pretty good. The boost in colour is a huge improvement. The Sega CD can run audio. I bet it can display polygons from the 32x.

>>11777935 (OP)
>No Saturn.
>Has to be stand alone.
>Alot more ram.
>S-Video and component support.
>480p support through VGA/RGBS (under special SCART/RGBS monitors) and component.
>Hardware video and sound rendering.
>Support for carts up to 128MB.
>>11779569
The 32X was 100% Sega of America's idea because of a knee jerk reaction to the 3DO and Jaguar, Japan wanted to go straight to Saturn.
>>11782480
If Nintendo knew rom chips were going to drop in price this would've never happened.
>>11799021
Specs should've been this.

> CPU's
- Sega CD support sold separately.
- Master System and video sync support (as seen in Virtura Racing with the SVP chip) not supported in favor of larger carts at 128MB.

- Twin SH2 32bit RISC chips running at 28MHz.
- Motorolla 68020 @16MHz (Sound)
- Motorolla 68000 @7.68Mhz (for Mega Drive backwards compatibility, disabled in 32X mode)

> GPU's
- 32x VDP that can display to to 16.78 million colors, can display polygons (Tris, NOT QUADS), horizontal and vertical scrolling and do sprite scaling and flipping.
- Support for W, X, Y ands Z axis.
- 150,000 textured polygons, 300,000 flat shaded polygons.
- 4 background layers
- 2 window layers.
- 4096 32x32 sprites, 256 colors per sprite, no line limit.
- 320x240p, supports 640x480i/p, 320x224, 320x448i and 256x224 (the later 3 only for backwards compatibility)
- Sega Genesis/ MD VDP (disable in 32X mode)

> AUDIO
- YMF278C (YMF278B based but with 18 4OP FM channels instead of 6 (out of 18), known as OPL5, also audio compressing support).
- Sega Genesis/ MD - Yamaha YM2612 FM Synth, 8-bit Texas Instruments SN76489, Z80 CPU (disabled in 32X mode)

> RAM
- 32X - 4MB Work RAM, 2MB VRAM, 1MB Audio ram.
- Genesis/ MD - 64KB main RAM, 64KB VRAM, 8KB Audio RAM (disabled in 32X mode)

>>11799130
>The 32X was 100% Sega of America's idea because of a knee jerk reaction to the 3DO and Jaguar, Japan wanted to go straight to Saturn.
If you actually looked at the 32x, it says "Made in Japan".

>>11799173
Thats where it was manufactured, modern systems are made in China but China isn't the ones designing these consoles.

>>11799130
>If Nintendo knew rom chips were going to drop in price this would've never happened.
Yeah, no shit if a company could predict the future they would make different decisions
Doesn't change the fact that the FDS did come out and it was a successful accessory

>>11799130
You have just invented a new console. Its not a 32x. Completely defeats the original premise of the thread.

>>11799252
Thats the point.

>>11799184
>Japan
>Thats where it was manufactured
Exactly

>>11799130
>Has to be stand alone.
yeah, point has come up before in other threads.

>Alot more ram.
$$
>S-Video and component support.
>480p support through VGA/RGBS (under special SCART/RGBS monitors) and component.
in 1994? are you nuts? 99% of the PSX and Saturn library never ran progressive resolution, and 90% of the PS2 library was not progressive.

>Hardware video and sound rendering.
what do you even mean? a hardware codec? or something else?

>Support for carts up to 128MB.
in 1994 prices for silicon?

>- 320x240p, supports 640x480i/p,
digital tv wasnt a thing until deep into the 2000s to 2010. the ask of those resolutions just shows some gap in the tech understanding of things going on at the time.

>>11800849
>in 1994? are you nuts? 99% of the PSX and Saturn library never ran progressive resolution, and 90% of the PS2 library was not progressive.
PSX and Saturn were mostly 240p, as in progressive, 480p would be future proofing.

>What do you even mean? a hardware codec? or something else?
Hardware chip set.

>in 1994 prices for silicon?
N64 supported 64MB carts, this is future proofing.

>Digital tv wasn't a thing until deep into the 2000s to 2010. the ask of those resolutions just shows some gap in the tech understanding of things going on at the time.
Most game systems before the Dreamcast were in 240p and under.

>>11777935 (OP)
cancel the Saturn or postpone it until 96-97 at the minimum, giving it a real 3d processor instead. Make the 32x not an add-on, but the Neptune, completely replacing the Genesis.

there you go, 32x has now market validation. it still wouldn't have succeeded because the hardware itself sucked, but it could've done a lot more.

>>11784316
>I do not believe this for a single second.
it was confirmed by hideki sato himself in an interview.

>>11785684
>People were interested in the Jaguar
>Atari struggled to get 3rd parties interested in the Jaguar

these two statements directly contradict each other.

>>11785684
Sega of America, Japan wanted to go straight to Saturn and wait until it was ready.
Sega of Japan HATED the idea of the 32X.

>>11787363
>They should've put out 5-10 bangers out on the svp, and then seppuku'd whoever thought up the 32xhit.

They couldn't, Samsung screwed them over with the SVP chip. They sold like 400k of them to Sega but it turned out that most of them were barely working at all. Sega had to send the chip over to Hitachi to see what was going on, apparently it was built on a bad node and had a too high failure rate. So the 400k they sold amounted to like half of them really working.

They wanted to make Sonic 3 with the SVP first and had to can half a year of work and rush out an edited sonic 2 instead.

>>11800939
>it was confirmed by hideki sato himself in an interview.

Were you kicked in the head by a Donkey?

Sato is obviously lying. A simple Google search will tell you that there were at least 2 to 3 dozen different companies making computer chips at the time that could have been used in the Saturn.

>>11800950
>They couldn't, Samsung screwed them over with the SVP chip
Lmao. In other words Sega tried to be sneaky and buy some cheap chips from an unreliable (at the time) Korean manufacturer and tried to outsource the work. And Sega didn't even bother asking Samsung WHY the chips were so cheap.

>>11800958
>A simple Google search will tell you that there were at least 2 to 3 dozen different companies making computer chips at the time that could have been used in the Saturn.

Yeah, they should've been doing simple google searches in 1992, that would've saved the Saturn.

>>11800968
So now you are saying Sega of Japan is stupid. You reeally aren't helping your case here

>>11800939
I just fact checked the interview and Sato even admits there were around 12 other options for chips they were considering for Saturn. Even the Hitachi reps were surprised they were chosen since their chip wasn't the best performing.

>>11800968

they would have known what was out there just from the cross-pollination of their own arcade division. Its not like they were starved for production knowledge

>>11800968
Sega probably had connections to lots of chip companies. What's surprising is Sega Japan went with a Japanese chips for the Saturn after using Intel Chips in their arcade boards. It's would have made porting games from Sega arcade cabinets to Sega Saturn so much simpler and easier if they used the same Intel chips across platforms. Yu Suzuki helped port Virtua Fighter to Sega Saturn and commented that it was very challenging to create the port.

>>11777935 (OP)
The Sega Saturn would have to not exist in any form or function.
It would have to be able to play near Arcade Perfect VF2 and Sega Rally, I don't know how that done with Genesis sprite scaling handling the background graphics.
The SOA/SOJ feud would have to stop and SOA would have to actually localize Japanese games
The power supply situation would have to be resolved so you could plug in a Genesis, 32X, a Sega CD, a VCR and a TV In the same 2 prong outlet without blowing a fuse or setting a fire.
I

>>11799010
Metal Head was a pretty good approximation of what Shellshock could have been

>>11777985
SoJ doing something insanely petty to spite their American counterparts and shooting themselves in the foot in the process is essentially the entire history of the company as a game developer.

>>11800919
>PSX and Saturn were mostly 240p, as in progressive, 480p would be future proofing.
There is a reason they were 240p or 480i, do you have any idea how much a significant increase in processing power it would have been to make them 480p? Console manufacturers won't want their systems to be "future proof", they want you to buy the successor in 5-7 years. Trying to future-proof just causes a "Five Hundred And Ninety Nine Dollars" situation.

>64 supported 64MB carts
Yes, AT THE END OF IT'S LIFE! Just like how the FDS was supposed to make up for the lack of ROM sizes until the chips fell down in price later, the N64 would not have been able to have 64MB games at launch, especially not at an affordable price. And you want a system that was a generation BEFORE the N64 to have carts that were DOUBLE that size?

That's not future-proofing, that's trying to invent magic.

>Most game systems before the Dreamcast were in 240p and under.
Yet they all output interlaced, at best some had an RGB signal that was just left over from it's video processing that you would need additional equipment to make any use of.

>>11801507
Games from gen 5 onwards are rendered internally in 480p and then outputted in 480i, only the Genesis, Super NES and maybe the 3DO have true locked interlace modes as everything after words can be forced to run in 480p through homebrew if the box only says 480i (see Dreamcast, PS2, Game Cube, XBox and Wii).

240p is a progressive resolution.

>>11801314

one might be able to argue this as a one-off, but then the dreamcast happened.

>>11777935 (OP)
Maybe if it came out a year earlier, the Sega CD didn't exist, and the Saturn wasn't gonna be out until 1996 or so. It was a bad idea regardless though.

>>11799184
SoA had so little faith in the 32X that they pushed the release date of the Saturn forward half a year stateside because they didn't think the 32X could do battle with the PS1.

SoA wanted the 32X to be a standalone console, SoJ are who pushed for it to be an add-on to the Genesis.

>>11801740
SOJ hated the idea of the 32X and wanted to go straight to Saturn immediately, SOA were the only ones who wanted the 32X and Neptune to exist.

>>11801750
SoJ are who pushed it through despite SoA repeatedly telling them it was a bad idea.

>>11777935 (OP)
Good song

>>11777935 (OP)
Did the whole bottlenecked through the genesis cartridge slot fuck it? At that stage you might as well make a new processor?

>>11801787
nvm, >>11801740 literally answered my question a few posts before me.

>>11800961
>>11800950
Did Sega sue? And was it revenge by the Koreans for the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsular?

>>11801762
Other way around, SOA was the one who was pushing for the 32X while SOJ deemed it a bad idea right from the start and demanded SOA to just go straight to Saturn instead.

>>11800919
>N64 supported 64MB carts

What was stopping them supporting 128, 256, 512 etc carts?

>>11801829
Cost, 128MB carts were produced but no N64 games used them, if the GameCube kept the cartridge format we would've seen these 128MB+ carts.

>>11801750
CEO Tom Kalinske said he didn't want the Sega 32x (and that he hated the Saturn's hardware design). Kalinske said he could have gotten 1 more year out of the Sega Genesis in the West. Similar to what Nintendo did with the N64.

>>11801819
>Other way around, SOA was the one who was pushing for the 32X while SOJ deemed it a bad idea right from the start and demanded SOA to just go straight to Saturn instead.

Lmao.

Sega America wanted to partner with Sony to make the Saturn. Sega Japan said NO, and canceled the deal. Sony then went to make PS1.

Then Sega America wanted to partner with SGI Graphics. Sega Japan refused (using some lame excuse saying SGI chips weren't good enough for consoles). Then SGI went on to help make the Nintendo 64.

Then Sega America wanted to partner with 3dfx to help make Sega Dreamcast. Sega Japan refused and used Hitachi instead. Then 3dfx went on to partner with Midway Games to release a ton of successful 3D arcade games (like Hydro Thunder, NFL Blitz, Gauntlet Legends, Artic Thunder etc). 3dfx was also huge in the PC industry.

Microsoft also offered to buy Sega Japan, and help fund the Dreamcast. Sega Japan refused saying they didn't need Microsoft's help. Microsoft went on to make the Xbox and Xbox 360.


Sega Japan made one bad call after another. Stop defending them.

>>11801846
Oh lord, imagine trying to put GTA3 on a 128mb cart

>>11801867
No, that was Hayao Nakayama, he was the one who said that he hated the 32X but no one at Sega wanted the Genesis to last longer then 1994.
>>11801879
No.

Sega of Japan were the one who called for SGI Graphics.

Sega of America refused.

Sega of Japan put so much money on Saturn and the SGI deal came in so late that they couldn't use SGI's chip set and the most they can do with it was a 32X style add on, which Sega of Japan hated.

Nintendo didn't want SGI either, their original plan was to just have a NEC V810 powered Super NES running at 21.48Mhz (with the original CPU sped up used to run the controllers) with more sprites, more background layers, more colors, more ram and 32 ADPCM channels and have a built in Super FX chip for 3D graphics but because 3D took off sooner then it did they had no other option, it was either SGI or not have a proper 3D system until 2000.

In other words, a stationary 60Hz color Virtual Boy that had a much more advance sound chip and better 3D support then what was seen in Super FX games.

Microsoft wanted to buy Nintendo, not Sega, Nintendo ended up laughing them out of the room and got Rare just to make them leave (invested forced them to sell Rare due to the N64 being too western focused, if Japanese N64 sales were doubled Nintendo would've been allowed to keep Rare and GameCube sales would've been tripled of what they were).

Sega of America were the one who were making one bad call after another, Japan wasn't
>>11801891
GameCube never got GTA3 to begin with, and by the time GTA3 was a thing 256MB carts would be the norm with special titles getting 512MB carts.

That is if Nintendo kept the cartridge format.

>>11802092
>Sega of Japan were the one who called for SGI Graphics.
>Sega of America refused.

Come on anon. If you are gonna troll, then at least make it believable. Literally every source, even Sega of Japan, says this isn't true.

Sega of Japan favored Hitachi chips very early on in Saturn development despite protests from Sega of America. SoA has NEVER liked the design of the Sega Saturn. Many Western game studios didn't like it.

>32X style add on, which Sega of Japan hated.

Sega of America CEO Tom Kalinske disagrees. He never liked the Saturn or Sega 32x. What Kalinske ORIGINALLY wanted to was for Sega of Japan to partner with Sony to make the Sega Saturn. Meanwhile Sega of America milks the Sega Genesis until 1995 or early 1996. Kalinske was confident he could squeeze some more game sales out of the Genesis until the "Sega Sony Saturn" was ready.


>Nintendo didn't want SGI either, their original plan was to just have a NEC

More lies.

NEC was never the core choice for the N64's main technology. NEC was used to make memory for the N64. Get it right.

>Microsoft wanted to buy Nintendo, not Sega

More lies.

1. Microsoft has tried to buy Sega repeatedly since the 1990s.

2. Sega is not doing well financially. Outside of the Sonic movie, their game and merchandise sales are way down. Even being forced to sell their arcades to pay their bills.

3. Microsoft even tried to buy Sega as recently as 2020.


>We believe that Sega has built a well-balanced portfolio of games across segments with global geographic appeal
>The proposal listed Sega's enterprise value at $2 billion and listed it as one of 12 gaming acquisition for Microsoft

Source:
https://www.axios.com/2023/06/26/microsoft-sega-bid


Cry more.

>>11802130
SOA wanted the 32X, SOJ wanted Saturn, both used Hitachi chips.

Ken Kutaragi wanted Sega after Nintendo back stabbed him with their Philips deal that went nowhere (besides 4 infamous CDi games), they made some 3rd party deals with the Sega CD but rejected the PlayStation because Sega wanted too large of a cut from it.

The N64 wasn't Nintendo original plan for a 5th gen system, 3D took off faster then expected and Nintendo took whatever that was available to get a 3D system on the market.

By Gen 5 NEC became a parts supplier for Nintendo as NEC's own PC-FX bombed due to not having a 3D GPU in it.

Microsoft and Sega is much more recent (2020 at the earliest) and the plan with Sega was that Microsoft was only going to buy the gaming potion of Sega and sell everything else like Sammy (the pachinko branch) and non-gaming companies such as real estate, Macau casinos, golf courts, animation studios to other companies by peace meal.

If the sale went through all Microsoft would've got was Sega themselves, Atlus and Rovio, thats it.

Meanwhile Microsoft tried to buy Nintendo back in 2000 but they were laughed out of the room as a result.
https://www.youtube.com/video/pafFx9X82ks
https://www.eurogamer.net/microsoft-tried-to-buy-nintendo-but-they-just-laughed-their-asses-off

>>11801740
>>11801750
I know that SEGA's Japan and US branches were a bit more independent than their rivals at the time, but how could SoA force something that big through if SoJ was against it?

>>11801829
Like >>11801846 said, cost, but also the tech was not available at first cost or not. There was only a handful of 64MB games and they all released near the end of the N64's life, these games would not have been possible early in the N64's life. Most of the early N64 games were much much smaller. I remember when OOT was massive for it's time for being a 32MB game when others like Mario64 were 8MB.

This is why the 64DD was created and quickly flopped, to try to get past this limitation by using cheaper magnetic disk storage, the disks held 64MB. Rapid improvements in solid state storage tech however made it rapidly obsolete and it soon had no advantage over carts other than the disks being cheaper (but requiring a much more expensive add-on) and that 64MB being writable, which would have been pointless for all but that artist game they made for it.

Similar to how the FDS was created for the Famicom to get past the limitations of ROM sizes at the time, but in that case tech not only caught up but rapidly exceeded it, but this takes time. They could not have made a massive game like Kirby's Adventure (A massive 768KB game) at the start of the NES's lifespan, and a game that likely would have taken up 10 or so FDS disks (Which held 112KB per disk) had it been released in that format instead of on a single cart.

In both the Famicom and N64 (Especially the N64 since they refused to switch to CDs) Nintendo was starting to suffer from ROM size limitations and tried to make a floppy-like addon to alleviate this, and in both cases they underestimated how rapidly solid state storage tech would improve, but it still took time for it to improve, the larger carts were not possible early in the system's life. Unlike the 64DD the FDS was actually successful for a while (Probably helped that it almost had a rudimentary redbox-like system where you could go to a kiosk to get a game or have a new game written on a disk, not bad for 1980s tech).

>>11802391
>>11801829
Also, there IS technically a limit. There are ways to bypass it, but they become increasingly not worth it the further you go.

The NES/Famicom for example had a limit of 40KB, 8KB for the graphics and 32KB for the programming/music. Larger games bypassed this with mapper chips, which could swap out chunks of that 8KB or 32KB (Or in some special cases like Elite map part of it to a SRAM chip to do things the PPU literally cannot do). Some of these mapper chips also had some extra features not present on base hardware but their main purpose was to rapidly swap out chunks of memory in that 8KB and 32KB area with different ones on the ROM. The NES could never access more than 40KB (in that 8/32 split) at a time, the data it could access with those larger games was always just being swapped out, but this has limits. It's not the same as just having full access to the entire ROM of the game at once.

Not sure what the N64's limit is (I see some mentions of 252MB but no idea if that's true) but you can't just use modern tech to create a massive 128GB cart and have it all accessible at once.

>>11801819
>>11801750
>>11802163
Stupid. SoA is a branch. SoJ is the headquarters. SoA can't do anything unless SoJ wants it or approves of it. They are the ultimate responsibility.

>>11802376
SOA was the one that was in the driver's seat.

>>11802456
Not in this case, also Sega isn't Nintendo where NOA is a branch and NCL is the headquarters.

Sega has equal amounts of power between the US and Japan, it's part of why they became 3rd party.

>>11802461
>>11802458
Sega America CEO Tom Kalinske literally says he was subordinate to Japan and couldn't do anything without their approval. Same with several other Executives who quit Sega America to work for other companies. They all left because Sega Japan took away Sega America's authority at the end of Sega Genesis' run and Sega Japan kept making bad decisions. Japan didn't understand the Western market at all.

>>11802473
That wasn't until the Dreamcast when that happened, and that was after Tom Kalinske left the company.

>>11802487
>admits Sega Japan had ultimate authority.
>tries to say it was only during Dreamcast era

Anon just stop. You are too cringe.

>>11802521
No, you're just making shit up.

>>11802487
>>11802163
What a dumb argument. You claim Sega of America has freedom to do what it wants and Sega of Japan obeys whatever Sega of America wants. That's why the Sega 32x was made.

Okay, then how do you explain Sega of Japan not listening to Sega America requested they partner with Sony?

Or why Sega of Japan didn't listen when Sega of America strongly demanded they redesign the Saturn hardware to be less complicated and more developer friendly?

Or why Sega of Japan didn't listen when Sega of America said they should use American chips in the Saturn?

See your entire argument of

>"Sega of Japan made the 32x because they trusted Sega of America so much"

makes no freaking sense at all. Your entire argument is full of holes.

If Sega of Japan truly listened to Sega of America, then they would have done what Sega of America asked when it came to Saturn.

>>11802802
The 32X was Sega of America's idea, Japan wanted to go straight to Saturn.

Ken Kutaragi was the one who wanted a partnership, Sony ended up rejecting it because Sega wanted to much of a cut from it.

Sega of America never asked for changes to the Saturn.

SGI came to Sega themselves, Sega rejected it because it would result in another 32X mushroom situation, while Nintendo only picked up SGI's hardware because 3D took off much sooner then expected.

SOJ had nothing to do with the 32X's hardware itself, design was 100% SOA.

>>11801297
Right, this was alright

>>11802821
>Sega of America never asked for changes to the Saturn.
Yes they did. Tom Kalinske repeatedly said this to Sega Japan. And several Western Studios like EA expressed their distaste for the Saturn's Hardware.

You aren't getting out of this.

>SOJ had nothing to do with the 32X's hardware itself, design was 100% SOA.
Idiot. The 32x was made in Japan.

>>11802854
This is the only 32x game i've played, there's a cheat code that switches the character portraits to anime style which I assume was the default for the JP release.

America does what Japandon't

>>11780098
>32X versions of Pitfall and BC Racers are pretty infamous for being the worst ports of them.

Pitfall on 32x uses the 32x sprite layers and even displays the backgrounds using the 32x higher colour layers. But I think it scrolls at 30fps. BC Racers was originally made for the Sega CD and is a Mario kart clone on sorts. It was ported to the 3DO, 32x and PC. The 32x scales sprites faster than the Sega CD version, but has worse controls. Never played the 3DO version.

> Web of Fear is also infamous for being both the last game and the worst game.
It's a weird release.

>Soulstar was eventually dumped as a proto but idk how playable it is. X-Men was also dumped and it's pretty much a pre alpha demo. Spot is ... Spot, if you've played it on Genesis you've played it.

Soulstar was also a Sega CD game originally. It was going to be ported to the 32x and Jaguar. I have played a little bit of the 32x ROM and it feels incomplete. The Cool Spot game was leaked and made public. I think the 32x version is complete. But was never released due to the cancellation of the 32x. That X-Men game was a neat tech demo by Scavenger, but it seems like they struggled to figure out what to do with the gameplay. There were a lot of 32x games shown at E3 1995 that were quickly cancelled after the Sony $299 announcement.

Cancelled Rayman 32x:
https://youtu.be/5Dv_rylhAcs

Spot goes to Hollywood:
https://youtu.be/Ah0EK8_PDvY

X-Men: Mind Games:
E3 1995 demo with Wolverine.
https://youtu.be/wM6zbN_gZKM
The Cabal demo:
https://youtu.be/1fZQmCOqQbs

The game was meant to have four playable characters. Wolverine, Cabal, Rouge and Cyclops.

Soulstar-X 32x prototype:
https://youtu.be/g8JUCVbRGKw

>>11780098
>think that Virtual Golf game is the 32X golf game, but I'm not sure.

Nope, The Virtual Golf game was cancelled. It started as a Sega CD game called Tee-Off, apparently. Was moved over to the 32x, cancelled on the 32x and then was moved over to the Saturn.

>>11802863
No, he didn't, Tom Kalinske wanted 32X, SGI hardware that Nintendo ended up getting and the PS1, but for the later both sides wanted the PS1 but wanted to much of a cut from it.

EA bailed out of Saturn because Dreamcast came too early for their tastes, not because of the hardware.

The 32X was MANUFACTURERED in Japan, it was produced by Sega of America.
it's like how XBoxs are MANUFACTURERED in China but their designs are 100% American.

>>11782384
>My question is if the 32x could do 'decent' 3D graphics (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOWZbydnlZE), [Remove] why are all the games all shit FMV games and shittily enhanced genesis 2D games?


The in-door 3D section at 3:50 is definitely the X-Men Mind Games engine seen here:

>>11802893
>https://youtu.be/wM6zbN_gZKM [Remove]

The very last voxel demo shown in that 32x reel looks like AMOK running on the 32x. I am pretty sure it is the exact same engine, you can tell by the assets used:

https://youtu.be/FJxAJkTCWlo

>>11802863
Stop arguing with the other anon. It doesn't actually matter if you are right. The other anon just trolls threads and always says the opposite. He always takes the side of Japan. He's an Otaku weaboo. He actually lost an argument in an older thread. We presented evidence and his only comeback was that he doesn't trust sneaky Tom Kalinske's words and that Japan is more honorable. Kek.

>>11778082
>CPUs or hardware from other American companies for 32x. No Intel. No Nvidia. No ATI. No AMD.
Intel and AMD weren't really interested in low power CPUs. x86 was out of the question, and their RISC chips were too expensive and crap
Nvidia had nothing ready at that time
ATI only made 2D PC graphics chips at the time

>>11803163
This makes no sense. Sega was already using Intel for their arcade boards.

>>11803174
Arcade boards which cost a lot more than an addon gimmick for the megadrive

>>11803163
>x86 was out of the question
Why not?

>>11803208
Too expensive (486) or too low power (286, 386EX)

>>11803163
Pretty sure IBM had several options for Sega to use. Intel was also used in Sega arcade boards.

>>11801819
This isn't true in the slightest.

>>11801879
>>11802092
>>11802163

neither is any of this

>>11802893
Try actually playing the games. Pitfall on Genesis or SCD is probably the best port. It was also used as a showpiece for Windows 95 gaming when it came out.

BC Racers was originally an Amiga game because of course it was. 3DO version is trash. It's also not a very good game but BC Racers is frequently brought up as a comparison.

Cool Spot 32X is complete but it's not really worth playing if you've already played one of the billion ports of it already. I played some of it when the proto got out and there was nothing in it that made me think that it was really a great game on the 32X or worth releasing.

Rayman was also originally developed as a SNES game, went to the Jag, I never thought any 32X development really took off on it.

I didn't know about Tee Off.

>>11803126
guessing that dude is the Sharp schizo

>>11803163
>>11803214


Should also bring up that SEGA had relationships with IBM and Amstrad.

>>11803245
Did Amstrad even make chips, let alone CPUs?
Atari didn't choose any IBM designed chips either when they let IBM manufacture the Jaguar

>>11803249
Amstrad MEGA PC was manufactured by Amstrad, I don't know anything about where it was manufactured, I assume Taiwan like literally everything else from 1985 on?

>>11803163
Are you forgetting about Motorola and IBM?

The British also made ARM chips used in the Panasonic 3DO

>>11803249
for the amstrad mega cd, the chips were the same Yamaha made chips that were used in the model 2 Megadrive, the ones with the integrated ym2612.

well I say "chips" but it really only was one chip, plus off the shelf 68000 and z80 and ram.

>>11803257
>Amstrad MEGA PC
Literally just a generic PC with a mage drive on an isa card.

>>11802897
>EA bailed out of Saturn
EA was releasing Saturn games up till the end of 1997. They bailed out of the Dreamcast because Peter Moore wouldn't give them sports games exclusivity. If you mean 1998 Saturn releases, every third party bailed on those.

>>11803268
Motorola had the 68k family, but apart from he old 68000 they were too expensive
The 3DO CPU is slower than a single SH2

>>11803245
Yes it is, theres even documentations about this.
>>11803284
Project Black Belt, nothing to do with Sports games.

Japan still had heathy 3rd party support for the Saturn in 1998.

>>11803291
Not the case, they just never bother being picked up.
>>11803126
That is the case, there is even documentation about this.

>>11803381
>Yes it is, theres even documentations about this.

May I see it?

>>11803126
No evidence was ever posted other then the fact that the 32X was Sega of America's idea and that Japan wanted to go straight to Saturn.

>>11803385
https://www.sega-16.com/2006/07/interview-tom-kalinske/

>>11803408
>ctrl+f 32X

weird how other documentation said that Nakayama wanted the 32bit addon to compete with the Jaguar then

>>11803419
https://www.sega-16.com/2020/10/classic-interview-tom-kalinske/
https://www.sega-16.com/2006/04/interview-michael-katz/
https://www.sega-16.com/2005/02/tom-kalinske-american-samurai/

The 32X was SOA's idea because only SOA had the knee jerk reaction about the Jaguar and 3DO, Japan and Pal regions saw them as the nothing burgers they really are.

That interview also claimed Joe Miller was the "father" of the 32X, meanwhile

>According to Latham, Miller dismissed an upgraded Genesis as "just a horrible idea. If all you're going to do is enhance the system, you should make it an add-on. If it's a new system with legitimate new software, great. But if the only thing it does is double the colors...."[8] Miller said his idea was to leverage the existing Genesis as a way to keep from alienating Sega customers, who would otherwise be required to discard their Genesis systems entirely to play 32-bit games, and to control the cost of the new system in the form of an add-on.[9] From these discussions, the new add-on, codenamed "Project Mars", was advanced.[2]

https://www.sega-16.com/2013/02/interview-joe-miller/

Interesting bits from this interview include:

>One of the stories that hasn’t been told is that the 32X actually helped development teams that had been successful on Genesis make the step up to the Hitachi SH-2 – dual SH-2s in that case – and there were a bunch of routines, a collection of tools and compilers that were created to support 32X development that were adapted and ported over to Saturn.

Which is exactly what game magazines were saying at the time.

>Let me just put it this way. At CES ... it became clear that there was a desire for us to take a product that was in the early design stages in Japan. It was a new platform (nobody was codenaming things “Jupiter” then, or even “Mars” at that point), and there was certainly an awareness that Japan had an idea of what they wanted to do with a Genesis platform that had more colors and was able to do 3D… take some of what we learned on the SVP chip – the polygon-pusher chip – and integrate something that was more capable and build a new platform. It was still going to be a 16-bit machine with some limited 32-bit capabilities.

And that means it was already being worked on.

Would love to quote more but this post is too big.

>>11803431
There is absolutely nothing in that interview with Katz about the 32x. Did you even read it?

>>11803432
>And that means it was already being worked on.
By Sega of America, Japan was doing Saturn and that was meant as a 2D power house before Sony decided to go solo on the PS1, which resulted in Sega added in a 2nd SH-2 chip just to make it 3D ready.

>>11803438
No, Miller outright said it was based off designs from SOJ, and I posted the relevant quotation.

There is no evidence that SONY was going to work with SEGA for a 3D nextgen system. May I also see this evidence?

>>11803441
Miller said the 32X was a Sega of America design, Japan wanted to go straight to Saturn.

In fact, where did the reports of Sony pitching the PS1 to Sega even came from anyway?

>>11803451
>Miller said the 32X was a Sega of America design

Based on stuff Japan had already worked on and the SVP chip.

>s Japan wanted to go straight to Saturn.

Nakayama apparently didn't.

>>11803245
>BC Racers was originally an Amiga game because of course it was.

BC Racers was a weird kart racer spin-off of the Chuck Rock series. It was originally made as a Sega CD game and took advantage of the Sega CD's sprite scaling and 3D playing fields. IT was later ported to the 3DO and MS-DOS. Core made quite a few Sega CD games that took advantage of the sprite scaling hardware.

https://youtu.be/T1jolV7IyHk

The 32x version has much better scaling and moves faster. But for some reason plays worse, also the game lacks a 'left attack'. The framerate in the 3DO version isn't much better than the Sega CD port. The Sega CD BC Racers was a pretty late 1995 release.


https://youtu.be/_f9Wbv3Pd3s?t=43

>>11803583
I thought it was an Amiga game because it was both on the Mega Drive and MS DOS. I am legitimately surprised it was not on the Amiga.

I've only played 3DO and 32X. Based off of that I would not recommend the game, but if it was originally for the SEGA CD I should try it out.

>>11803542
>Based on stuff Japan had already worked on and the SVP chip.
The SVP chip was designed by Samsung due to their deal of distribute Sega hardware in South Korea, 32X came because of how faulty the SVP chip was.

Nakayama wanted Saturn, no one in Japan wanted the 32X.

>>11803619
They didn't want 32X, Nakayama just had them design an addon to compete with the Jaguar?

The SVP was originally going to be an addon in itself too.

>>11803585
>I thought it was an Amiga game because it was both on the Mega Drive and MS DOS. I am legitimately surprised it was not on the Amiga.
>I've only played 3DO and 32X. Based off of that I would not recommend the game, but if it was originally for the SEGA CD I should try it out.

I haven't played the MS-DOS port, but I would say that the Sega CD BC Racers is the best overall version of the game. The 3DO version looks pretty close. But for some reason the 3DO and 32X ports remove the 'left attack' from the game. The Sega CD original has 'left' and 'right' melee attack buttons, while the other versions only have a 'right' melee attack. The framerate scaled at about 20fps on the Sega CD. But it is also scaling a lot of background sprites.

Core got their start of the 8 and 16-bit microcomputers from back in the day. But by 1993-1994, they were making a lot of games for the Sega CD attachment.

Battlecorps :
https://youtu.be/TDThZA0v2GA

Soulstar (The original):
https://youtu.be/FqrHabC7xmc

Thunderstrike/ Thunder Hawk:
https://youtu.be/w0NDUj3QBdA

>>11803635
SOA design an addon to compete with the Jaguar and 3DO due to a knee jerk reaction.

>The SVP was originally going to be an addon in itself too.
Until the chips came back faulty and Sega had to move whatever good chips they had to the only game that really needed it (Virtua Racing).

>>11803762
No, it was to Nakayama's reaction.

>>11803767
SOJ hated the idea of the 32X and wanted to move to Saturn right away, Joe Miller was the creator and designer of the 32X, which you already posted here >>11803432
The 32X wasn't "Already finished" by the time Joe Miller got to it, Joe Miller created it.

Had Sega Japan ever accepted responsibility for ANY of their failed designs? Sega released a crap ton of hardware that didn't sell in Japan.

I've read dozens of Sega interviews and not ONCE have I ever seen someone say,

>"Yeah we messed up with the Sega Mega Drive."

or

>"We absolutely blew it with the Sega Mega Karaoke"

Or

>"The Sega Mega Jet (airplane version of Sega Mega Drive) was a bad idea and we regret doing it".


It's like the Japanese are culturally incapable of accepting they messed up.

Meanwhile Sega America freely admits when they failed. How they messed up against Sony's edgy marketing. How they tried to make the best of a bad situation, but failed. Etc etc.

>>11803807
>Had Sega Japan ever accepted responsibility for ANY of their failed designs?
Saturn.

>>11803438
The idea that the Saturn was intended to be 2D until the point the second sh2 was added is just plain nonsense. This whole idea that the Saturn was useless at 3d is the wrong way to look at things. Its not that the Saturn was bad, rather the PSX is incredibly good. Its like the PS1 skipped half a generation.

>>11803821
Sega themselves already admitted that the Saturn was going to be a 2D system until Sony went solo and slapped a 2nd SH-2 chip just to play catch up with it, if Saturn was always going to be 3D it would've used triangles instead of quads (sprites).

More then once really.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L3WHe7Fa-0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_l01gZVN7s

N64 was the system that was half a generation ahead due to it's W and Z axis that both the Saturn and PS1 lack, not the PS1.

>>11803816
>Saturn
Since when? Did they actually admit that dual CPUs were a mistake? Or that the console wasn't developed friendly and they regret the design?

>>11803831
Dude you need to be careful and avoid using these YouTube videos as direct sources. Several of them get facts wrong. I've told a few of them in the comments.

It's best for you to find old interviews and see for yourself. Even if it means translating old Japanese interviews.

>>11803843
Yes.
>>11803849
Those guys always replace the videos if they find something wrong, and they got their Saturn video 100% right.

>>11803831
The use of quads was just a peculiarity for Sega back then. All of the Model series of arcade boards use quads as their primary, and all of them were purpose built for 3D graphics.

>>11780267
>Launch 32x during Early 1992. Problem solved.
That's not even possible.

>>11805274
Not the case as Model 3 used triangles due to it's date of release.
Do you have a source to that?

>>11805274
Did anything other than the Saturn, NV1, and Model 1/2/3 use quads? Wasn't absolutely everything else with hardware-accelerated polygon rendering using tris?

>>11805316
Model 3 could work with triangles or quads, it was up to the developer which one they wanted to use. I don't know off-hand how many games used one or the other.

>>11805337
3DO, Jaguar and the DS(i) used quads to save on CPU resources (render per second rather then frame so a 60% CPU performance bump).

DS(i) also supported triangles but most used quads to save on CPU resources.

>>11805369
From my understanding the DSi didn't actually render quads, you could tell it to use quads just to make things easier but it would still process them as two triangles.

>>11805369
From my understanding the DS/DSi didn't actually render quads, you could tell it to use quads just to make things easier but it would still process them as two triangles.

Also aren't quads significantly less efficient to render than tris which is a major reason everything has been using tris for decades and nobody has touched quads since?

>>11805425
Quads are rendered per second while triangles are rendered per frame, it's why the 3DO, Jaguar and Saturn used them, to save 60% of CPU resources.

>>11805306
Totally possible. The Hitachi Sh-2 was released in 1992. Sega 32x could have been made much sooner than the complicated Saturn.

>>11803245
>Rayman was also originally developed as a SNES game, went to the Jag, I never thought any 32X development really took off on it.

Rayman did start as a Jaguar game. It honestly is a nice 2D showcase of the Jaguar hardware. It was a restart from the SNES version. Yeah. I am pretty sure that the 32x version was put into development around the same time as the Playstation, Saturn and PC versions. I think UBISoft really were not happy with the Jaguar sales and made the game multiplatform for 'Next generation consoles". Image released is an add for the original Jaguar version. I think it was released on the Jaguar a month before the other versions. Rayman was a launch PS1 title for the September 9th release. It was one of the very first games that I ever played for the PS1. That 32x footage is from E3 1995 amd was the real version of that game. I would like to see the 32x Rayman leak.

>>11805981
>The Hitachi Sh-2 was released in 1992.

That was the SH1 surely? The SH2 only had engineering samples as late as 1994 summer.

>>11803245
>Pitfall on Genesis or SCD is probably the best port. It was also used as a showpiece for Windows 95 gaming when it came out.

The Sega CD version has the same sprites and graphic as the Genesis version, with maybe some additional animation, better audio and some FMV cutscenes.
The Jaguar version looks nice with all of the high colour detail. But I think it runs at 30fps? The 32x version seems to take the background tiles from the Jaguar version slightly lowers them in detail. Uses the Genesis/ MD layers for the backgrounds. The 32x version is using its high colour layers to scroll the playingfield layer at 30fps with slowdown. It's using the 32x hardware. I think the Windows version uses the same tiles as the Jaguar version?

https://youtu.be/TiMrUz5iViQ?t=544
https://youtu.be/TiMrUz5iViQ?t=612

>>11802893
>https://youtu.be/5Dv_rylhAcs

This cancelled port of Rayman looks like it is using the 32x sprite layers, but maybe the Genesis for the playingfield tiles, like Knuckles Chaotix and Tempo did. The far layers are 32x. It seems like a real playable build. Maybe a port of the Jaguar version?

>>11805337
>>11805274
quads were used industry wide in the early 90s. at that time it was not yet decided if quads or triangles are better. you can do lots of crazy things with quads like warping them at the mid points to create b-splines, resulting in perfectly curved surfaces. you can't do that shit with polygons and you couldn't approximate it until pixel/vertex shading became the norm. animation studios like Pixar used those.
otherwise Nvidia would not have banked on quads either, since the NV1 can do b-splines/nurbs in hardware, but nobody ever used this because it would've been a vendor lock-in. it's why nvidia wanted so hard to have their chips go into the saturn successor, but they couldn't demo the NV2 to japan so sega quietly backed away, leaving them with a large donation for their troubles. that money was enough to finish the chip, have the quads and b-splines fused off, and calling it NV3 aka RIVA128. it still had the bullshit pipelined hardware architecture of the NV1/2, you just couldn't see it because it was all hidden behind the drivers.

>>11805274
>The use of quads was just a peculiarity for Sega back then.

ppenGL spec 1.0 in 1992-4 defined both triangles and quads. it was not a peculiarity, it was an industry standard.
https://registry.khronos.org/OpenGL/specs/gl/glspec10.pdf

then they noticed they can do a quad by breaking it up to two triangles, which made implementations in silicon much cheaper, and it quietly got dropped.

>>11777935 (OP)
If it was going to have succeeded it would have needed both sega usa and japan both on board and that wasn't going to happen.

SegaJap went off on one on sega usa because of the jaguar64 and they responded by wasting millions on creating the 32x but not really telling sega Japan about it. Then talking to publishers and developers to get on board to work on it.

Then sega Japan just announces the saturn out of the blue. No warning to usa branch and then they tell publishers and devs NOT to work on the 32x because the saturn is coming.

They literally pissed everybody off making this thing and wasting everybody's time.
Even if both sides had been onboard the 32x isnt very good at all.
If they released that as their 32bit system then they really would of humiliated themselves even more once the ps1 came out

>>11806187
Pixar did switch to triangles however.

>>11806198
>but not really telling sega Japan about it.
Anon the Sega 32x was made in Japan. Of course Sega Japan knew about it. They approved it and used their factories to make it!

>>11806284
Manufactured =/= made.
The 32X was a Sega of America creation, all Japan did was software.

>>11805447
That doesn't make sense, games move much faster than one frame per second, you would need to update your polygons much much faster than that regardless if they are tris or quads.

>>11806187
I know there were a lot of different ways to do polygons in the early days of 3D, especially for non-realtime rendering. I recall that the original models that were used to create the sprites for Donkey Kong Country used NURBS for some of the curved parts, making it impossible to replace the same look such as Diddy's tail with any modern rendering technique.

But those were high-end CGI rendering that could take hours or weeks, once we started to get into needing to do it in realtime, and not just that but at a playable framerate, the only techniques I am aware of were quads and tris, and quads barely lasted.

>>11806674
Sprites are rendered per second and quads are just sprites.

>>11806516
>Manufactured =/= made.
>The 32X was a Sega of America creation, all Japan did was software

Sega Japan co-created the Sega 32x. They even forced Sega America to use Hitachi chips in the Sega 32x. Sega America wanted to explore the idea of using American chips such as Intel, IBM, or Motorola. But Sega Japan ordered Sega America to use the same Hitachi chips that the Sega Saturn used. Sega America tried to argue against this by saying Sega Japan doesn't even use the same chips in their arcade boards (at the time, the arcade division used a mix of CPUs Rom Intel, NEC, Fujitsu, etc).

Sega Japan said no. Sega Japan's reasoning was that "it would be good practice for developers to understand how to program games for the upcoming Sega Saturn in the future". So Sega America was forced to use the same Hitachi Sh-2 chips in the same dual CPU configuration as the Saturn. And Sega 32x became nothing more than "training wheels" for Sega Saturn.

>>11805981
The SH-2 was too expensive in 1992. The Sega CD came out late 1991 has a single 12.5 MHz processor and was very expensive. The 32X uses 2 23 MHz SH-2's, it's not going to happen.

>>11806779
Wasn't the Sega CD just an accessory to add more storage space, and CD quality audio? Sega wasn't trying to do 3D or enhance the visuals with Sega CD. Unfortunately this led to a lot FMV slop on the Sega CD.

>>11806789
>Wasn't the Sega CD just an accessory to add more storage space, and CD quality audio?
No, it was a somewhat mini-console in and of itself. There were some SegaCD games that ran entirely on the SegaCD unit itself and just used the Genesis for video/audio output and controller input. Apparently it was a bitch to communicate across the bus between the Genesis and CD.

>>11806789
It also added RAM and another processor more powerful than the Genesis itself.

>>11806767
Japan had nothing to do with the 32X, Japan was against the 32X, SOA used Hitachi chips just to reuse the same dev tools between the 32X and Saturn, the reusing of dev tools was 100% SOA's idea just to save on cost.
>>11806779
The 68000 cost next to nothing by 1991, it was already $15 dollars by 1984 and by 1991 it was pennies on the dollar, Sega could've easily place in a 16MHz 68020 in to the Sega CD instead of the 12.5MHZ 68000 it did use and only cost them CENTS in terms of profit.

If Sega was going use a CPU that did cost money they would've used a NEC V810 running at 25MHz.

>>11807139
Sega America and CEO Tom Kalinske outright said they were not a fan of Hitachi's chip design for the Saturn, and thought it was too complicated and underpowered compared to other available options.

>>11807248
The interview that was brought up never had him say that.
https://www.sega-16.com/2006/07/interview-tom-kalinske/

>>11806516
>The 32X was a Sega of America creation, all Japan did was software.

You don't know anything t at all. Japan is awful at software creation. It's what of their worst weaknesses. They regard software developers as lowly and not good career paths. Japan hyper obsesses over hardware.

>>11807587
All of the greatest games made between 1978 to today were all made in Japan, case in point.
Atari, Rare and Wayforward being the exceptions.

>>11807663
Anon...All their software (besides games) are pretty trashy. Even some of their game engines are flawed and just a patchwork of code.

Japan makes great hardware there. For example, Sony made great TVs and audio equipment. Though their software sucks.

>>11777935 (OP)
releasing about 20 more multiplayer arcade sports, racing and shmups and a few more puzzle games

>>11807663
Anon why are you playing kirby and mario only for 40 years?