/vr/ - Retro Games

32X never reached a critical mass of a user base to make development for it after the initial launch period viable.

Because all interest for the 32X died soon after it's launch, and the SEGA CD, although not as strong of a failure, also had a very limited userbase. So making a game requiring 2 separate add-ons is selling to a fraction of a fraction of the Genesis userbase. Also I have heard there were strong bottlenecks within the combined tower of power that made the combination useless aside from using the 32X as enhanced color output for the several FMV games that used it, but I could be wrong on that.

because as much as this board likes to meme about it, the nes and snes enhancement chip policy was correct in that it did not fragment their userbase. Sega tried it once and gave up, should have scrapped all this garbage and done SVP iterations until the saturn.

>>10216889
PC Engine cd add on killed in Japan and made i the pce16 the generation winner in Japan.

Sega didn't support the cd in America because dumb fuck jewy stealer hated anime and thought fmv faggotry was the future.

32X was poorly planned and came out too late. If sega had made a special chip that competes with the super fx or whatever, but made it with a pack in game, kind of like sonic & knuckles, that would have been fantastic.

Why did Sega make a CD-based console with a cartridge slot on the back that isn't backwards compatible with their previous cartridge based systems?

>>10216857
Because sorry bro, i dunno

>>10216857
Look at that monstrosity

Just get the segacd and call it a day

>>10216915
megadrive wasnt popular in japan
sega japan didnt give a flying fuck what the west wanted

>>10216905
https://segaretro.org/Sega_Virtua_Processor

>>10216905
>Sega didn't support the cd in America because dumb fuck jewy stealer hated anime and thought fmv faggotry was the future.
And on what format was the "fmv faggotry" distributed, may I ask?

>>10216857
Because actually trying to use all 3 systems together is convoluted mess that's riddled with bugs. It makes the Saturn look simple by comparison.
>>10216889
It's not even an enhancement chip vs add-on issue. Sega CD on it's own was fine and sold relatively well for an add-on. Same with the PC-Engine CD in Japan. The issue is the 32X which was just a terrible idea from the start. They should have just focused on Saturn instead of 32X and SVP.
>>10216915
Because the cart port wasn't intended for that. It's for running Saturn Cart based games as well as expansion capabilities. Secondly you could easily add a Genesis on a Chip into a cartridge port adapter to get backwards compatibility. All the pins are there to feed Audio and Video signals straight into the Saturn to allow for such a device.

>>10216984
>It's for running Saturn Cart based games
wait, those exist?

>>10216974
Sega in Japan was ruthless for some reason when it came to last gen consoles.
SG-1000 was killed instantly when Mark III was released.
Mark III was killed instantly when Mega Drive was released, despite Master System having a few years of life in North America and a very healthy retirement in PALand.
Mega Drive was kept alive for only a year after Saturn came out. Outside Japan it pretty much outlived Saturn..

the latest version of doom 32x resurrection uses the base genesis and the sega cd as coprocessors

>>10216985
They don't, but the ability is there to do so. Sega forbid it early on because it opened up the possibility to bypass the security system. You can read the early dev manuals that describe the boot process and detail booting both Cart based and CD based games.

For what it's worth STV Titan games are cart based, and the hardware is identical to the Saturn save for some additional circuitry for JAMMA and other arcade cabinet connections.

>>10216974
Sega of Japan did care which is why 32X exists. Sega of America didn't want to move on from the Genesis so Japan offered them a new and improved Genesis to help it hold up against the new systems. Sega of America countered with the 32X idea and the idea was 32X for the US and Europe, Saturn for Japan.
>>10216998
Those systems were killed quickly in Japan where they weren't popular, but in the west the lasted longer. Saturn was the one that was actually popular in Japan and doing well. But Sega of Japan killed it off early for the Dreamcast to try and help the other regions out where Saturn wasn't doing well.

If anything there's more evidence that Sega of Japan was constantly bending over backwards to appease Sega of America and Europe.

>>10217004
Leave it to the Doomfags to fully take advantage of esoteric hardware.

>>10217013
>and the idea was 32X for the US and Europe, Saturn for Japan.
Then why did 32X even release in Japan? It came out after Saturn, for god's sake.

>>10217019
To try and get rid of them, along with giving Japanese games that were moved from Saturn to 32X an opportunity to sell in Japan.

32X was dead on arrival, no one wanted it. They only made 800k of them and by 1996 were still sitting on over half of that initial production run. They ended up scrapping them and reusing the boards in the Picture Magic tablets.

>>10217019
Because Sega and good hardware decisions go together like mayo and jelly.

>>10216985
>>10217005
Saturn cart is a vestige of the Sega Jupiter project, you can tell from the fact it officially supports cart games but none were allowed to be made.

>>10216905
>If sega had made a special chip that competes with the super fx or whatever,
they did, but it was all too late. games with the svp and the 32x both came out at the end of 1994, while nintendo has star fox out at the very beginning of 1993
>but made it with a pack in game, kind of like sonic & knuckles, that would have been fantastic.
i think this wouldve been the way to do it, the svp as an addon cartridge. you spend a lot of money the first time, but you get the pack-in game. then all future games that use it would be comparatively cheaper. but again, this needed to be out in 1993

>>10217068
32X was essentially a gigantic expansion chip removed from game cartridge and sold separately. People were less likely to invest into an expansion hardware upfront to save on games later, rather than buy a few more expensive games they really wanted and waste extra money by buying the same expansion chip multiple times.

>>10216979
Damn that thing was a beast. Nothing ever used it?

>>10216974
>megadrive wasnt popular in japan
All the more reason to include B/C, since it'd help sell more Genesis carts which was still a viable platform in the west and meant games should still be produced for that platform.

But no, Sega went full jew and decided to do ports instead, of games Sega fans already played a generation prior. Greedy fucks.

>>10217143
Virtua Racing used it, but any further games were cancelled because V.R. had to be sold for $100 to cover production costs.

>>10217147
>All the more reason to include B/C, since it'd help sell more Genesis carts which was still a viable platform in the west and meant games should still be produced for that platform.
But this isn't really true. The Genesis was fizzling out and we know this from the recently leaked internal documents. Sega was sitting on millions of unsold Genesis Systems, games, and accessories. 16-bit stuff was on it's way out and the games weren't selling like they used to.

Trying to add backwards compatibility into the Saturn would have made the hardware even more expensive and complicated. If there was demand for it they could have just made a cartridge adapter with the Genesis hardware built in. But there wasn't demand for it.

So it was more cost effective to just port some of those games as compilations to give them new life in Japan where Saturn was significantly more popular. Sonic Jam was done solely because Sonic Team got letters from kids in Japan asking "What's a Sonic?" when they were playing stuff like NiGHTS and seeing the Sonic Team logo.

>>10217209
>Implying Sonic Team knows what a Sonic is

>>10216905
>PC Engine cd add on killed in Japan and made i the pce16 the generation winner in Japan.

pce did better than megadrive but both were still slaughtered by the super famicom

the megadrive still ended up with more games in japan, and had overall stronger 3rd party support. many of the best 3rd party games on pce were ported via hudson, NEC or naxat

Because cartridges were still 4MB so making real big Neo Geo style games was more trouble than it’s worth and no one wanted to force people to have both a CD and the 32X. 32X should’ve been CD compatible from the start

>>10217340
Or better yet, scrap the Saturn and go with the Neptune instead, and later on release a CD add-on that's able to play Sega CD games along with new CD games using the 32X hardware.

Genesis/SCD owners would be happy because it would be able to play the games they already own, along with new 3D games like Daytona at a fraction of the cost of the Saturn. Being less expensive than the PSX would have secured victory for Sega over Sony.

>>10217243
PCE did better than SNES in Japan

>>10217427
Not even close.

>>10217427
Super Famicom sold 17 million units in Japan.

>>10217004
based homebrewers

>>10217435
NEC PC engine Demolished the Mega Drive in Japan throughout its production life. It also shortly outsold the OG Famicom until the Super Famicom was ready to be shipped to stores and shops over there in November of 1990. Not even close MY ASS

>>10217484
PC Engine did not outsell Famicom. It sold better than the Famicom did during the same time period, not the total sales since 1983.

>>10217360
>Or better yet, scrap the Saturn and go with the Neptune instead
This would be completely fucking retarded. The Saturn is leaps and bounds more powerful than the 32X. And that's not even getting into the fact that Saturn's design was pretty much final with games being made for it by the time 32X was conceived. Without Saturn, there is no SH2 or 32X.
>and later on release a CD add-on that's able to play Sega CD games along with new CD games using the 32X hardware.
So just a Sega CD to attach to a Neptune/Genesis +32X? At that point just make the Neptune compatible with the existing Sega CD.
>along with new 3D games like Daytona at a fraction of the cost of the Saturn.
Lol, no. There's no way in hell the 32X could run Daytona USA even at the same level the Saturn did. The 32X is all software rendering and software sound mixing. There's no graphical hardware or sound hardware to hand stuff off to like you have on the Saturn.
>Being less expensive than the PSX would have secured victory for Sega over Sony.
Saturn only cost about $40 more to make than the PS1. By the time PS1 launched in the US, Saturn was able to price match. Cost was not as big of an issue as people make it out to be. Saturn was even cheaper than PS1 for months in 1996 at a price of $249 and eventually $199 before Sony finally dropped to $199 from $299.

At the end of the day the best option was to not do 32X, focus on sunsetting the Genesis and Sega CD starting in 1995 into 1996 and start prepping for Saturn around 1993/1994 to release in 1995. If all the resources they put into 32X's 1994 launch went into Saturn's 1995 US launch, they could have launched with a pretty spectacular line up in the fall of 1995 and been fine.

>>10216998
>SG-1000 was killed instantly when Mark III was released.

all their consoles up to th eMegadrive was backwards compatible.

>>10217801
32X fans are still coping from the leaks, they genuinely believed if the Saturn was cancelled the 32X Neptune would be enough to beat PS1 and N64

>>10217873
The leaks only "proved" that releasing 2 systems at the same time was full retard, which we already knew, but if it was just the 32X (or Neptune), it would've done much better.
Also, neither Saturn nor 32X ended up being able to compete with later PSX and N64 games (hence why Sega had to rush the Dreamcast out), so may as well go with the cheaper system: the 32X / Neptune.
That would've given Sega at least 1-2 years to get a better system that wasn't overly costly to manufacture, a pain to develop for, or bad at handling 3D ready while the 32X acts as a stop-gap system for early 3D games.
Instead, though, we ended up getting a shitty console that killed a decent add-on with potential, if it were given a chance.

>>10216857
There were a handful of CD 32X games released, all of them just being basic FMV titles. By this point though the Saturn was right around the corner and you could play some of the same games like Night Trap on 3DO with higher quality video. Really SEGA CD didn't need 32X to be good, it could already handle some pseudo 3D games like Starblade using its scaling effects and FMV technology. Really the 3DO is pretty much how the CD would've ended up if they had continued making games for it. Would've been sick to see something like Gex or Total Eclipse on SEGA CD or 32X imo.

>>10216915
They did exactly this, it was called the CDX and you could play SEGA CD and Genesis games on it, or attach a 32X or Power Base Converter for 32X and SMS games.

>>10218095
Pic related, a lot of people don't know this console exists but it is basically the answer to the "Genesis 2" people are looking for. Obviously it's still 16-bit but if you prefer Genesis over Saturn it's a nice alternative and you still get cool stuff like Sonic CD and Popful Mail

>>10217013
>Sega of Japan did care
Not really. Their attitude was "take whatever we make and give us money you stupid gaijin". No one in the West, not even fans, we're begging Sega to make an add on.

>which is why 32X exists.
It exists because SoJ Chairman ordered a "filler system" to be released to counter the ATARI Jaguar. He was worried Atari would take their market share in the West.

>Sega of America didn't want to move on from the Genesis
There was no reason to. The Sega Genesis was still doing well. And they were happy to wait for the Saturn to come - even if it was slightly delayed reaching America.

>so Japan offered them a new and improved Genesis
SoJ ordered SoA to release a filler system. It wasnt a request. Also an "improved Genesis" was a stupid idea. Why would customers want a filler system that's barely better than Genesis?

>to help it hold up against the new systems.
Unnecessary and idiotic thinking.

>Sega of America countered with the 32X idea and the idea was 32X for the US and Europe, Saturn for Japan.
SoA was ordered to release something. They made the best of a bad idea (that idea being a filler system). At least add on will cost Sega less money than a new system. In the end, SoA was proven right. SoJ ran the company into the ground after the Genesis. Sega declared bankruptcy and got bought by a freaking gambling company. What a disaster. Sega of Japan should commit ritual suicide for their mistake.

>>10216905
Both CD add-ons were honestly way better than Famicom Disk System or 64DD. It's easy to look at Sewer Shark or something and declare the CD useless, but it still had a lot more games than Nintendo's diskette add-ons, plus it was released worldwide. Personally I give the edge to SEGA CD as many of the TurboGrafx-CD games are not in English and some of them like Chiki Chiki Boys are arguably better on Genesis. They are both great systems though

>>10217209
>The Genesis was fizzling out and we know this from the recently leaked internal documents.
It wasn't "fizzling out". I lived through that era. Sega was still popular, had brand recognition, and huge market share in the West. The 32x and Saturn killed all that. I remember friends dropping Sega because of all Sega's dumb decision.

>>10218029
>but if it was just the 32X (or Neptune), it would've done much better.
And your evidence of that is what?
>Also, neither Saturn nor 32X ended up being able to compete with later PSX and N64 games (hence why Sega had to rush the Dreamcast out), so may as well go with the cheaper system: the 32X / Neptune.
The Saturn had a far better chance of competing than the 32X did. Price wasn't the issue. If all that mattered was price, than 32X would have actually sold. It didn't. They were still sitting on over half of the initial 800k production run a full year and a half after launch.
>That would've given Sega at least 1-2 years to get a better system that wasn't overly costly to manufacture, a pain to develop for, or bad at handling 3D ready while the 32X acts as a stop-gap system for early 3D games.
By the time the Saturn would have launched in fall of 1995, cost was no longer an issue. By early 1996 they were actually making a profit on the hardware at the $299 and $249 prices. The system was no more difficult to develop for than the N64. In fact there's a stronger argument that the 32X is far more complicated to deal with when you try to bring the Genesis and Sega CD hardware into the equation.
>Instead, though, we ended up getting a shitty console that killed a decent add-on with potential, if it were given a chance.
The Saturn didn't kill the 32X. 32X was dead on arrival because no one wanted the thing. Saturn was rushed out to try and sweep the 32X failure under the rug.

>>10217801
>Saturn only cost about $40 more to make than the PS1.
>only $40 dollars

Nibba, $40 dollars makes a huge difference. That's tens of millions of dollars when you make millions of Saturns. Every dollar matters. You know this.

>>10217209
>The Genesis was fizzling out and we know this from the recently leaked internal documents. Sega was sitting on millions of unsold Genesis Systems, games, and accessories. 16-bit stuff was on it's way out and the games weren't selling like they used to.
This is a myth. Nomad was released in October 1995 after the Saturn, and Genesis was officially supported until 1998 when they released the Majesco-made Model 3, the same year as Frogger on Genesis... and Panzer Dragoon Saga. SNES was also still receiving support this year especially in Japan with stuff like Rockman and Forte. tl;dr the Genesis literally survived all the way until the Dreamcast

>>10216915
Why didn't they make it play 32X games instead?

>>10218117
>Not really.
Then why did they send Irimajiri to get Sega of America's input to understand how they wanted to move forward?
>ATARI JAGUAR!
This story is severely out of context. Atari Jaguar was only mentioned because it was an upcoming new system, it was included along with 3DO and PS1, which were all potential threats in 1993/1994.

Sega of Japan was asking "If you wont sell Saturn, how are you going to compete with these new systems? How can we help you stay competitive?"
>The Sega Genesis was still doing well.
No, it wasn't. Sega was sitting on millions of unsold systems and games because the market was fizzling out. What games they were "selling" in 1994 were being returned by retailers to rot in warehouses
>SoJ ordered SoA to release a filler system
The 32X came about because Sega of America told Japan they couldn't abandon the Genesis. So Sega of Japan offered an improved Genesis to try and breath new life into the aging console to help them out. Sega of America said an add-on would be better so 32X came about.
>Unnecessary and idiotic thinking.
Considering how fast PS1 took off it doesn't seem that idiotic to think you need to do something to stay competitive.
> In the end, SoA was proven right. SoJ ran the company into the ground after the Genesis.
I think the fact that the bulk of Sega's financial problems are now proven to be mostly Sega of America's fault says otherwise.

>>10218117
again defending sega of america???
you know the truth and if it wasn't for sega of america,sega would still be making consoles.
in fact if sega of japan wanted money as you claim they would have sold all the shares of sega of japan instead of doing you know.....buy all the shares from sega of america before stopping developing consoles back then.
Sega of japan wanted to release a middleground system that had CD,32 bit,retro compatible,SDK was to allow developers to learn how to develop for the saturn while saturn was delayed so by the time saturn was released it would have dozens of games ready while it would have better specs (similar ideology to ps4 and ps4 pro that are just 2 different consoles) sadly sega of murrica wanted money and said "just make it 2 addons,no one would buy a new console just because has better specs and can play CD" and that was a big mistake.
Well thanks to those differences something similar to what sega of japan had in mind was born >>10218104 is not the whole "32bit and retrocompaitible" but at least somehow delivers.

>>10218139
>Nibba, $40 dollars makes a huge difference.
Possibly, but again these are based on the launch VA0 Saturn. In less than a year Sega significantly consolidated things down for the VA1 revision. That along with falling RAM prices brought down the manufacturing cost. Sony on the other hand wasn't making these kind of dramatic changes with the PS1 motherboard, just relying on falling RAM prices to do price cuts.

As a result Sega was able to lower the manufacturing cost of the Saturn from about $540 in late 1994 to about $232 in early 1996. It's why they were able to drop their price to $249 in early 1996 and still make a small profit on the hardware. At that point as long as they're breaking even on the hardware or have a loss that can easily be made back by selling a game, the production cost isn't an issue as the main place you make money is selling games.

>>10218130
>It wasn't "fizzling out". I lived through that era.
The financial reports, inventory reports, and FY reports all say otherwise. Your anecdotal evidence is worthless.
>>10218151
Nomad was dead on arrival as well. And a lot of Majesco's early inventory came from them buying all the unsold inventory rotting in Sega's warehouses when they liquidated it in FY98. This is why the early Majesco units are Model 2s and renumbered as MK-1451.

Again, we have the inventory reports, the financial reports, the sales and revenues reports. They don't lie. The recent Irimajiri lecture also gives insight into what was going on with this stuff.

> SNES was also still receiving support this year especially in Japan with stuff like Rockman and Forte.
That speaks more volumes for how bad of a failure the N64 was in Japan than how strong the 16-bit market was. It was more cost effective for Capcom to make a new 2D Megaman game on the SNES than it was for the N64.

>>10218163
sega of america fucked up great and too much.
for example one of the biggest issue with dreamcast was....
>American version was made with american hardware that costed more.
>American version was sold at same price of japan and european version.
>american dreamcast biggest issue was it was more expensive to make and harder to port games due to different hardware.

>>10218190
>The financial reports, inventory reports, and FY reports all say otherwise. Your anecdotal evidence is worthless.
Different anon here. The public stock price of Sega and publicly released financial information made available say otherwise. You "leaked documents" mean nothing. Shareholders still had confidence in Sega. There's was zero reason... ZERO.... to do anything except wait for the Sega Saturn.

>>10218202
Public stock doesn't show Sega of America's switcheroo fraud of selling a bunch of stuff to retailers and counting it as sales, only for it all to come back and sit in warehouses and rot less than a year later.

>>10218194
>>10218190
>>10218176
No matter how much you whine... Sega of America (and to a lesser of extent Sega of Europe) is what made Sega the most money. In Japan, Sega of Japan got their ass kicked by Nintendo and later Sony. There's nothing else to be said.

>>10218095

Fahrenheit is an interesting release, because it was actually released as a 32x and Sega CD combo where it came with both the 32x disc and Sega CD disc in the same package.

>>10218220
Even with any "hypothetical fraud" , Sega of America made a ton of money and put Sega on the map. You have no argument.

>>10218257
>Even with any "hypothetical fraud" , Sega of America made a ton of money and put Sega on the map. You have no argument.
It made a lot of short term money, but eventually that became a massive loss as unsold inventory was returned and left to rot in warehouses only to be written off as a massive loss in FY98. That write off is what made Sega post their first major operating loss. It wasn't due to Saturn, it was due to dumping a bunch of unsold Genesis and Game Gear inventory at a loss to get rid of it.

>>10218095

Night Rape, amirite?

>>10218231
Why did they release Indigo Prophecy on the Sega CD, an eleven years old system?

>>10218325
>Indigo Prophecy

IN THE HEEEAT! OF THE FII-RE!

https://youtu.be/VH8xhqr8kJc

>>10218303
>It wasn't due to Saturn, it was due to dumping a bunch of unsold Genesis and Game Gear inventory at a loss to get rid of it.
Hahahahahaha. This anon is blaming the Sega Genesis for he failure of the Sega Saturn. That's a new one. The Sega Genesis was highest amount of consoles Sega ever sold. But somehow the Saturn's failure is Genesis' fault.

>>10218381
>This anon is blaming the Sega Genesis for he failure of the Sega Saturn.
That's not what I said. I said unsold inventory rotting in Sega's warehouses was liquidated in FY98 and that's what resulted in the massive loss in FY98. This is stated in Sega's FY98 report and the FY97 Brand Review documents leaked show that the bulk of that unsold inventory was Genesis and Game Gear hardware and software.

>>10218398
What resulted in Sega's net loss was investing hundreds of millions dollars into the Sega Saturn and it failing to sell many units outside of Japan.

Some unsold Genesis inventory barely made a dent in the Financials when compared to that. The Sega Genesis had long since paid for itself many times over by 1998. Look at the bigger picture and set aside you fanboyism for 2 minutes. You know I'm right.

>>10218412
>What resulted in Sega's net loss was investing hundreds of millions dollars into the Sega Saturn and it failing to sell many units outside of Japan.
Again, that's not what the FY98 report says, nor does it align with the inventory reports. You can see in the inventory reports they were sitting on tons of unsold Genesis and Game Gear inventory, with 32X being the next big one. They also had some unrealistic sales goals. There was no way they were going to sell 4 Million Genesis games and systems in FY97. In reality they didn't even sell 500k. Saturn on the other hand isn't anywhere near as bad in that sense.

So it's pretty clear that the statements about disposing of unprofitable assets, writing off inventories, putting too much emphasis on the Genesis, etc. is referring to all this unsold inventory and eventually dumping it in FY98, resulting in a massive loss. The inventory reports from the previous year give us the context for the statements in the FY98 report.

>>10218412
>What resulted in Sega's net loss was investing hundreds of millions dollars into the Sega Saturn and it failing to sell many units outside of Japan.
Again, that's not what the FY98 report says, nor does it align with the inventory reports. You can see in the inventory reports they were sitting on tons of unsold Genesis and Game Gear inventory, with 32X being the next big one. They also had some unrealistic sales goals. There was no way they were going to sell 4 Million Genesis games and systems in FY97. In reality they didn't even sell 500k. Saturn on the other hand isn't anywhere near as bad in that sense.

So it's pretty clear that the statements about disposing of unprofitable assets, writing off inventories, putting too much emphasis on the Genesis, etc. is referring to all this unsold inventory and eventually dumping it in FY98, resulting in a massive loss. The inventory reports from the previous year give us the context for the statements in the FY98 report.

>>10218221
what made sega get the most money was selling production blueprints to brazil,china and russia.
in fact brazil still makes megadrive console to date and sega of japan still get money from that something sega of murrica didn't consider for a second.
>If it was like that why the saturn dropped support of saturn (game licenses) until 2004.
>If is like you argue why the dreamcast dropped support of dreamcast (game licenses) until 2009.
no matter how much you argue that X branch made the most money,what is the point of making more money if they are doing company fraud instead of you know selling the consoles.
The reason sega is still around doing arcade machines and videogames is thanks to deals sega of japan did back then without informing the other branchs of those movements (otherwise it wouldn't exist today)

>>10218517
Post sales of Sega Saturn.

>>10218475
You realize this is 1998 right? Not 1992. This was well into 5th generation of gaming.

>>10218591
>Post sales of Sega Saturn.
He won't. But I will. Saturn was a joke.

>>10218591
>You realize this is 1998 right? Not 1992. This was well into 5th generation of gaming.
This is from April 1996, about a year and a half after 32X launched. That inventory was building up from back around 1994. The market was starting to fizzle out around late 1993 early 1994:

https://mdshock.com/2021/04/14/segas-financial-troubles-an-analysis-of-export-revenue-1991-1998/
https://mdshock.com/2022/05/09/a-second-atari-shock-the-decline-of-the-16-bit-console-era/

They were sitting on about 200k unsold copies of Sonic and Knuckles and another 100k of unsold copies of Sonic 3. They were sitting on over 100k unsold copies of Sonic Chaos, over 400k unsold 32X systems and 600k unsold 32X games. They had over 300k in unsold sports games from previous years. That shit doesn't magically get printed in 1998. It was accumulating over the years.

Even worse, they were betting on selling hundreds of thousands of those games, systems and accessories. For example, they were planning to sell 500k 3 Button Genesis controllers in 1996-1997. But they didn't have that many on hand, meaning they were planning to produce more of them. Sega of America was delusional in thinking Genesis was still selling that well to justify those kinds of sales projections going into FY97.

>>10218616
>He won't. But I will. Saturn was a joke.
That's mostly because Sega of America bet on the wrong horse.

>>10218131
>By the time the Saturn would have launched in fall of 1995, cost was no longer an issue.

Interesting. Whats your source on this?

>>10218630
>That's mostly because Sega of America bet on the wrong horse.
Then explain poor sales in Europe and other territories.

>>10218631
The recently leaked documents show that Saturn cost about $232 to produce in early 1996, and was being sold for $249-$299 at the time. RAM prices fell dramatically from 1994-1997 and that's where the bulk of Saturn and PS1's production cost came from.

In Japan they were also able to get the VA1 out by around June which significantly reduced the board complexity of the system which allowed them to cut the price down to the yen equivalent of $299. So it's fair to say by September of 1995 they probably could have launched at $299 without it being too much of an issue.

>>10218636
>Then explain poor sales in Europe and other territories.
Because Europe was pretty much Sega of America's bitch at that point in time. So they too bet on the wrong horse (32X) and when that blew up and to shift gears fast to the Saturn and were completely unprepared like Sega of America.

The one region where they did bet on the Saturn and focused on prepping for it's launch is the one region the system did well in, Japan. The system sold well and had good third party support which lead to a 9:1 software attach rate.

>>10218641
>The recently leaked documents show that Saturn cost about $232 to produce in early 1996,

That was 1996 April in the document. You mentioned that cost was no longer an issue at the 1995 launch.

Please post your source on how cost was not an issue at the 1995 launch. Not a year after that.

>>10218651
>That was 1996 April in the document.
It's from March.
>You mentioned that cost was no longer an issue at the 1995 launch.
I said a Fall of 1995 launch, not the actual May launch. And secondly I mean retail cost of the system, as in being able to launch at $299 instead of $399. The system may have still been sold at a loss at this point, but so was the PS1. Considering 6 months later they were already selling the system at a slight profit at $249, I'd imagine the losses couldn't have been that bad.

>Please post your source on how cost was not an issue at the 1995 launch.
I did, the VA1 revision was released in June of 1995 in Japan and with it came the first major price cut of the system by about $100 bringing it down to about $349 with Virtua Fighter Remix included. Without a game they could probably do $299 by that point.

So with that in mind there shouldn't have been an issue with them launching at $299 in Fall of 1995 with no pack-in software like Sony did, especially considering they dropped the price to that a few weeks after PS1 launched:
https://segaretro.org/Press_release:_1995-10-02:_Sega_announces_$299_Sega_Saturn_core_pack

>Not a year after that.
September to March is 6 months, not a year.

Go away Saturn schizos

Educate me on why the Saturn flopped.

>>10218715
Please don't...

>>10218715
It had an official floppy drive.

>>10218643
So you are telling me the entire world is wrong and Japan is correct. That poor sales in Europe, America, South America, India, and parts of Asia...wete all Sega of America's fault?

I was willing to humor your argument, but it's clear you are deluded.

>>10218742
Sega of Europe was pretty much under Sega of America at this point in time. So yes, Saturn doing poorly there is also a direct result of Sega of America betting on the wrong horse, the 32X.

And since when do we care about South America, and India in these discussions?

>>10218715
It was surprise launched in May 1995. This launch was notable for pissing off everyone, customers, developers, and retailers. It's a spectacular failure that hasn't been replicated. You can imagine the 3DO, the PS3, the Wii U, the Xbox One. None of them pissed off all three at once, that's how bad the Saturn was.
The customers was bummed because they bought the 32X, and those looking towards the Saturn didn't have their purchasing plan set for a surprise May release, and the PS1 was $100 cheaper.
The developers didn't have their games ready for the launch, and the complexity of its hardware didn't help.
Many retailers were left out of the surprise launch, and swore off Sega, only stocking PlayStation. Many of those retailers were the only one in the rural redneck regions, so Sega lost the entire rural redneck market. Some of those retailers were Walmart, so Sega lost the idiot consoomer market as well.

>>10218757
So Saturn flopped because of poor planning, got it.

>>10218779
Mostly from Sega of America.

>>10218697
>It's from March.
It has inventories dated to April 2nd, 1996 and emails dated up to March 28th (with 30 and 31 being weekends).

>I did
You posted a manufacturing cost of $232 for April 1996, with a source, and $540 for late 1994 with no source. I was asking for a manufacturing cost at the 1995 launch (the one that actually happened in May). You did not post this.

>September to March is 6 months, not a year.
May 1995 launch to April 1996 document is 11 months, but the consoles have to be made 1-2 months in advance (launch units had April 1995 stamps on them), which gives us almost exactly 1 year.

>>10218754
south america is one of Sega's biggest markets thanks to Tectoy.

>>10217004
Why are Sega consoles so amazing? From master system to dreamcast they really were great and had better graphics than all their competition. Even the mighty ps2 couldn't run Shenmue. Their handhelds could have been better.

>>10218715
Play the games and that will show you exactly why. People like to claim it's as good as or better than the PS1, but you won't find anything like Crash, Spyro, or Tony Hawk games on here. Dreamcast maybe, but not Saturn. No proper Sonic game and no real use of SEGA's other Genesis IP's in general. It still has a decent first party lineup but overall it just pales in comparison to their other consoles. Combine that with being the least powerful console that generation (barring stuff like 3DO) as well as the most expensive one at $399, and everything mentioned here >>10218757 and you've got a recipe for disaster. It was kind of popular in Japan? But still didn't have the staying power of the PS1 or the unique style of the Dreamcast.

>>10218104
Everyone knows that thing exists. We know about the MegaJet, the SNASM, the Aiwa model; the unreleased disk drive, the modified-for-32X Wondermega. We know everything. Where do you think you are?

>>10218936
With the amount of people who ask about the cartridge slot on Saturn I highly doubt this

>>10218930
>Combine that with being the least powerful console that generation (barring stuff like 3DO) as well as the most expensive one at $399, a

It also shipped in the lowest quantities. Sony had every store fully loaded with consoles, Sega could barely ship a few thousand units total to like two store chains in all of north america.

>>10218936
>the unreleased disk drive
the what?

>>10218948
https://segaretro.org/Mega_Drive_Floppy_Disk_Drive

>>10218938
They don’t ask
It’s some retards head canon that it was originally supposed to be a mega drive cartridge slot

>>10218953
Oh man, Mega Drive almost flopped.

>>10219040
>*ba dum tss!* Thanks! I'll be here all week!
No, you won't. Get out.

>>10218953
oh that.
I thought it was the Saturn hard disk drive.

>>10218379

Looking back at this game in current year, it is starting to look like Tacoma FD: The game.

>>10216857
Because the way Sega designed the Sega CD it basically made the Genesis have half the RAM it actually did. That's why all the 32X-CD games are rail shooters.

>>10218715
Jews.

>>10219040
Took me a while to get that lol

>>10218715
Because it was a piece of fuckin' shit.

Did anyone make an FOSS clone of that MSDEXP adapter for the Mega SD?
https://mobiusstriptechnologies.com/product/msdexp/
It had a very limited run for whatever reason, but it's the only way to run 32X CD games without owning a SEGA CD.
Also, will anyone ever make an ODE for the OG SEGA CD hardware? I'm thinking it would be useful for a lot of people.

>>10218843
Reminder that even the GameCube had issues with some visual effects in the Sonic Adventure games.

>>10223939
>Reminder that even the GameCube had issues with some visual effects in the Sonic Adventure games.
no it didn't, it just had different lighting

>>10218843
why are segafags so delusional?

>>10218754
>Sega of Europe was pretty much under Sega of America at this point in time.
Correct.
>>10218742
In Europe we got what SoA decreed and nothing more. if SoA didn't want to bring any of those JP exclusives to the west, Europe didn't get them either.
The 32X was such a fuckup the dedicated SEGA magazines at the time were taking the piss out of it. No one understood why it needed to exist yet it happened anyway because SoA were determined and SEGA Europe was just along for the ride.

>>10223970
It had different lighting because the gamecube hardware was not 1:1 with the Dreamcast. We were still in the era of fixed function graphics chips and so when you took a game designed for PowerVR - a chip lauded for its advanced lighting support - and port it to a console that instead had a configurable render pipeline then you have to redo the rendering. And since ports are usually handled by the newbies, it's fairly typical they come out worse.

>>10224064
correct, they did work it out in later games though, Skies of Arcadia looks a lot better

>>10224053
Delusional.

Anyway, yes the Mega Drive was definitely getting a bit old by the mid-90s; the average commercial lifespan of a game console is about six years and it turned six in '94. SOA were dumb to want to hold onto 1980s hardware that couldn't keep up with the latest games.

>>10224201
The NES lived for almost a decade in the west; Sega was dumb to kill the Genesis off when it still had some steam left. You underestimate the buying power of poorfags.

>>10224201
Megadrive only really picked up from 1990 in the USA so it still had 1-2 good years. And it actually got some great games in 1995 and 1996, so it worked out. Plus they had a huge install base to leverage.

>>10224796
Dreamcast got games up till 2006 and the PS2 still got ports in 2013. If you count jank from Brazil, the Master System probably still gets games to this day.

>>10224053
Europe got a handful of games not released in the USA for both Megadrive and Saturn, plus actual PAL optimizations (especially for the Saturn). Then for the Dreamcast there was PAL60 support for damn near everything.

>>10223939
>Reminder that even the GameCube had issues with some visual effects in the Sonic Adventure games.
That's just because it was a poor port.

the fucking atari jaguar of all things made sega panic

>>10224853
for comparison the Famicom was considered passe in Japan just as the NES was peaking in the West

Tom Kalinski was so dumb that he refused to even translate Saturn dox while ordering a giant pile of Mega Drives they couldn't unload because he still assumed they could sell them at 1992 levels.

>>10225945
>hindsight is 20/20

>>10225975
You really gotta let this fanboyism go anon.

>>10225948
The Famicom was still played in Japan well into the 00s and the hardware was supported up until something like the late 90s by Nintendo over there.

>>10216857
Because why the fuck would you put all that effort into something only like 30 people would take advantage of?

>>10220145
>Tacoma FD
This show baffles me cause it's set in Tacoma Washington yet it's blatantly obvious they filmed it in LA. Like they don't even try to hide it.

>>10225975
Sega Branch Wars is the stupidest fanfiction I've ever read.