Shenmue 3, or a New Sega Console?

[MrSega]

The 32X/MARS was a disgusting freak of nature. It was a horrible abomination dreamed by a division of Sega oblvious to the management of SEGA of Japan. SOA created this "tumor" using recycled hardware of System 32 hardware. Development had started in June 1993 after SegaSonic Arcade was exported to America WITHOUT SEGA of Japan's consent. The actual concept for the add on was litteraly drawn on a napkin by someone at Skunkworks who also developed PICO & Nomad!

Now the reason why 32X sucked so bad is because it suffered from too many problems. The first was its design. Unlike Sega CD, it lacked its own internal proccessor & fed off Genesis' power. Second, it used cheap hardware chips from.a phantom contractor "Mega Drive Systems" & when SOA got Jupiter's hardware, they only used its VDP. The hardware was lousy & poorly made. Third, NONE of the 32Xs,were properly tested before it was ready for launch.


Forth, SOA spent little in R&D on how to design a proper dev kit for it. As a result,its 1st party IPs were awful.

And 5th, SOA rushed its 3rd party developers as a result,3rd party devs had little time to ulilize its power & just released a bunch of Genesis ports.

All these factors were the main reason Why 32X should have NEVER been made.

[stu]

The 32X/MARS was a disgusting freak of nature. It was a horrible abomination dreamed by a division of Sega oblvious to the management of SEGA of Japan. SOA created this "tumor" using recycled hardware of System 32 hardware. Development had started in June 1993 after SegaSonic Arcade was exported to America WITHOUT SEGA of Japan's consent. The actual concept for the add on was litteraly drawn on a napkin by someone at Skunkworks who also developed PICO & Nomad!

Now the reason why 32X sucked so bad is because it suffered from too many problems. The first was its design. Unlike Sega CD, it lacked its own internal proccessor & fed off Genesis' power. Second, it used cheap hardware chips from.a phantom contractor "Mega Drive Systems" & when SOA got Jupiter's hardware, they only used its VDP. The hardware was lousy & poorly made. Third, NONE of the 32Xs,were properly tested before it was ready for launch.


Forth, SOA spent little in R&D on how to design a proper dev kit for it. As a result,its 1st party IPs were awful.

And 5th, SOA rushed its 3rd party developers as a result,3rd party devs had little time to ulilize its power & just released a bunch of Genesis ports.

All these factors were the main reason Why 32X should have NEVER been made.

The 32X was developed WITH Sega of Japan's assistance and it was mostly their idea, in fact some of SOJ's engineers came over to assist with its development. As for that bogus **** about the custom chips that you just posted, it actually used one VDP and 2 SH2 CPUs (the same as used in the Saturn) clocked at 23Mhz, there was no "MegaDrive Systems" it appears you are making that up to make it sound like you know what you are talking about. Maybe if you actually did a bit of research you'd know what you were talking about.

[CruSega]

For me it looks desperate when you launch a system with only 6 titles without anymore for the remainder of the summer. It looked desperate when Saturn was launched with an awful translation of Daytona USA, the flagship launch title, running at around 20fps. Sega should have also launched with VF Remix, not the extremely flawed VF1 since the series was not huge in America so it's flaws wouldn't be overlooked by US gamers like it was in Japan.

As for 32X, whether it was SOA or SOJ really doesn't matter. Sega, as a corporation, allowed a piece of junk to be released that would damage it's reputation and that was a terrible mistake.

Very true, most of decisions that Sega made during that crucial period of time between the end of 1993 through to May 1995 were disasterous for the company, it was like the entire company was operating like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off. Desparate to fend off the impending launch of the Playstation, you then factor in Sega Japan desparately wanting to capitalize on the success of Virtua Fighter and Sega US wanting to safeguard the marketshare that they worked hard for on the Genesis. All these different objectives made the company come up with some really crazy decision making. Hardly surprising that the whole thing came tumbling down around Sega.

As for the article you posted, that was pretty interesting, I found the information about the technology from the Jupiter project ending up in Mars/32X kind of interesting, from what I can recall from the magazine articles I read on the subject the Jupiter was merely a Saturn without the CD-Rom drive and some of the RAM, the rest of the system was essentially the same, from what I recall Sega planned to launch 2 different versions, one with the CD-Rom and one cartridge only, that plan was thankfully dropped early on and they went with the CD-ROM Saturn and killed off Jupiter.

As for MARS I thought that grew out of a SOJ plan for a 32 bit MegaDrive with an increase color palette, more sprites etc. I could be wrong though!

I think Sega wanted to have their cake and eat it too. They wanted desperately to retain the huge Genesis userbase in America with 32X while winning the Japanese market with the Saturn. All that time and money wasted on developing,marketing, packaging the 32X could have been used towards the Saturn in the US market, a market that Sega was enjoying immense success with Genesis. Star Wars Arcade could have, for example, been retooled into a Saturn launch title along with possibly a Virtua Racing Remix (fully texture mapped)--instead, these two decent games were wasted on the magic mushroom 32X. There was a Virtua Racing for Saturn from Time Warner Interactive but it sucked. At least in Japan, consumers had the choice of 32X or Saturn from the get go (and they sold around three 32Xs there). In the West, 32X was shoved down our throats and it was wrong since the western gamers were the ones supporting Sega and embracing Sonic, Streets of Rage, Ecco the Dolphin...but we get shafted.

In one magazine, possibly GamePro, Tom Kalinske described Sega's strategy as that of GM: Genesis would be the Chevrolet (for budget gamers), 32X would be for the everyday gamer (kind of like Buick) and Saturn would be the "Cadillac" of Sega's hardware lineup. I was stunned at how moronic the statement was, considering Sony had the PSOne ready for battle and Donkey Kong Country was helping Nintendo regain the lead in the 16 bit market. Sega must have really felt the US gamers were dumb enough to buy anything from them which clearly was not the case... as Pico failed and Nomad was disastrous. I picked up a Nomad for about 20 bucks in 1995 or 1996. It devoured batteries after 30 minutes of use.

[MrSega]

@CruSega. Sega of America's problem in 1994 was that they let the success of Sonic & theGenesis go to their heads. SEGA's Skunkworks department was just too ambitious for their own good. By developing the useless Mars/32X & forcing Genesis owners to invest in another add on without realizing that Genesis owners were already satisfied with SEGA CD & wanted Sega to release quality titles for it, SOA pushed their luck by playing a trump card that they lost. By 1994, Kalinske was full of himself, if I ever met him, I'd ask him what the HE LL was he thinking coming up with that vile piece of trash & rushing the Saturn out 4 months early.

Pico was developed with instructions & advisory of SEGA of Japan, SEGA had heard about Vtech and was so enthralled by the idea that they commisioned Skunkworks to develop an interactive game device for toddlers, this creation led to the birth of SEGA TOYS.

Nomad was developed in July 1994, as a means to keep Genesis alive for 5 more years. It was developed after SOA sold off all of Genesis' patents to various companies.

As for 32X in Japan, it was ignored since it a western made product and because it came out in February 1995 5 months after Saturn.

Your right the R&D spent on 32X could have been spent to built a US Market for Saturn. It could have also been spent on better SEGA CD games & on the vaporware console "Jupiter" or "Sega Neptune".

[stu]

I think Sega wanted to have their cake and eat it too. They wanted desperately to retain the huge Genesis userbase in America with 32X while winning the Japanese market with the Saturn. All that time and money wasted on developing,marketing, packaging the 32X could have been used towards the Saturn in the US market, a market that Sega was enjoying immense success with Genesis. Star Wars Arcade could have, for example, been retooled into a Saturn launch title along with possibly a Virtua Racing Remix (fully texture mapped)--instead, these two decent games were wasted on the magic mushroom 32X. There was a Virtua Racing for Saturn from Time Warner Interactive but it sucked. At least in Japan, consumers had the choice of 32X or Saturn from the get go (and they sold around three 32Xs there). In the West, 32X was shoved down our throats and it was wrong since the western gamers were the ones supporting Sega and embracing Sonic, Streets of Rage, Ecco the Dolphin...but we get shafted.

In one magazine, possibly GamePro, Tom Kalinske described Sega's strategy as that of GM: Genesis would be the Chevrolet (for budget gamers), 32X would be for the everyday gamer (kind of like Buick) and Saturn would be the "Cadillac" of Sega's hardware lineup. I was stunned at how moronic the statement was, considering Sony had the PSOne ready for battle and Donkey Kong Country was helping Nintendo regain the lead in the 16 bit market. Sega must have really felt the US gamers were dumb enough to buy anything from them which clearly was not the case... as Pico failed and Nomad was disastrous. I picked up a Nomad for about 20 bucks in 1995 or 1996. It devoured batteries after 30 minutes of use.

I agree there on your first point. Sega definitely got too greedy and wanted to keep both their domination of the US and European markets and then also take advantage of Virtua Fighter's popularity over in Japan, however the way they went about it was terribly flawed. As far as the US launch goes they should never had planned the 32X, that was going to end up a mistake from the very start. They should of gone ahead with the original plan to launch it in September so as to maximize the number of games available, maybe then they could of worked to improve the US/EU version of Daytona so that it didn't have that huge border around it, going through with the original plan would of kept that retailers on their side and would of meant that there were more 3rd party titles to choose from, it wouldn't have solved any of the Saturn's other shortcomings tech wise but an improved launch range of games would have given prospective owners a better choice of games.

As for that article you mentioned I think I read something in a UK magazine saying much the same thing, sadly I think by the time I read that I was already starting to lose faith in Sega and their plans, having both the 32X and the Saturn on the market created a lot of confusion in the marketplace and I really didn't feel like choosing either for fear of picking up the wrong one. I eventually waited till about May 1996 to make my choice, since things had started to settle down by that time in the UK. I ended up picking the Playstation as it had more games available that I wanted to play.

[CruSega]

I think Sega wanted to have their cake and eat it too. They wanted desperately to retain the huge Genesis userbase in America with 32X while winning the Japanese market with the Saturn. All that time and money wasted on developing,marketing, packaging the 32X could have been used towards the Saturn in the US market, a market that Sega was enjoying immense success with Genesis. Star Wars Arcade could have, for example, been retooled into a Saturn launch title along with possibly a Virtua Racing Remix (fully texture mapped)--instead, these two decent games were wasted on the magic mushroom 32X. There was a Virtua Racing for Saturn from Time Warner Interactive but it sucked. At least in Japan, consumers had the choice of 32X or Saturn from the get go (and they sold around three 32Xs there). In the West, 32X was shoved down our throats and it was wrong since the western gamers were the ones supporting Sega and embracing Sonic, Streets of Rage, Ecco the Dolphin...but we get shafted.

In one magazine, possibly GamePro, Tom Kalinske described Sega's strategy as that of GM: Genesis would be the Chevrolet (for budget gamers), 32X would be for the everyday gamer (kind of like Buick) and Saturn would be the "Cadillac" of Sega's hardware lineup. I was stunned at how moronic the statement was, considering Sony had the PSOne ready for battle and Donkey Kong Country was helping Nintendo regain the lead in the 16 bit market. Sega must have really felt the US gamers were dumb enough to buy anything from them which clearly was not the case... as Pico failed and Nomad was disastrous. I picked up a Nomad for about 20 bucks in 1995 or 1996. It devoured batteries after 30 minutes of use.

I agree there on your first point. Sega definitely got too greedy and wanted to keep both their domination of the US and European markets and then also take advantage of Virtua Fighter's popularity over in Japan, however the way they went about it was terribly flawed. As far as the US launch goes they should never had planned the 32X, that was going to end up a mistake from the very start. They should of gone ahead with the original plan to launch it in September so as to maximize the number of games available, maybe then they could of worked to improve the US/EU version of Daytona so that it didn't have that huge border around it, going through with the original plan would of kept that retailers on their side and would of meant that there were more 3rd party titles to choose from, it wouldn't have solved any of the Saturn's other shortcomings tech wise but an improved launch range of games would have given prospective owners a better choice of games.

As for that article you mentioned I think I read something in a UK magazine saying much the same thing, sadly I think by the time I read that I was already starting to lose faith in Sega and their plans, having both the 32X and the Saturn on the market created a lot of confusion in the marketplace and I really didn't feel like choosing either for fear of picking up the wrong one. I eventually waited till about May 1996 to make my choice, since things had started to settle down by that time in the UK. I ended up picking the Playstation as it had more games available that I wanted to play.

The Saturn was going to pose a problem for developers regardless of 32X which begs the question: why didn't Sega offer better support and tools for them right from the beginning? If all Saturn games looked as good as Sega Rally or Virtua Fighter 2, the pendulum may have swung in Sega's favor, but Saturn would receive PS1 ports that only used one SH2 such as Aliens Trilogy. The ports got worse and more sparse as Saturn faded from the market.

[MrSega]

@CruSega. In addition to the 32X,Sega of America's other problem with the ill fated Saturn Saturn was THEY themselves had no idea how to properly program it. But thats mostly SEGA of Japan's fault since in Early 1995 they sent SOA unusable prototype kit & not the actual development kit which wasn't sent out until March 1995. To add insult to injury, in '94-95 ALL of SOA's resources were being poured into the Genesis & doomed 32X. In fact SOA's effort was given to the 32X.

They focused little on Saturn & left that to SEGA of Japan.

This should anwser your question.

[CruSega]

@CruSega. In addition to the 32X,Sega of America's other problem with the ill fated Saturn Saturn was THEY themselves had no idea how to properly program it. But thats mostly SEGA of Japan's fault since in Early 1995 they sent SOA unusable prototype kit & not the actual development kit which wasn't sent out until March 1995. To add insult to injury, in '94-95 ALL of SOA's resources were being poured into the Genesis & doomed 32X. In fact SOA's effort was given to the 32X.

They focused little on Saturn & left that to SEGA of Japan.

This should anwser your question.

From what I remember, when AM2 and AM3 created VF2 and Sega Rally, they wanted to keep the development secrets from everybody. Early SOA Saturn titles such as Bug! were obviously not taking advantage of the Saturn architecture nor were (non-AM2/AM3) SOJ titles such as Cyber Speedway or Robotica. Team Andromeda did a great job with the Panzer Dragoon titles though.

[Neohound]

Can I interject for a moment ? lol

I was reading somewhere that if you put the Shining Force III: Premium Disc cd in a PC you will find a secret text document that

criticises Sega's actions during the Saturn/Dreamcast era

I'm curious ! Just thought it might be of interest ...........

[MrSega]

Can I interject for a moment ? lol

I was reading somewhere that if you put the Shining Force III: Premium Disc cd in a PC you will find a secret text document that

criticises Sega's actions during the Saturn/Dreamcast era

I'm curious ! Just thought it might be of interest ...........

Umm,well..... Could you photoshop the message? Or at least google it?