I hear that. I bought Spider-Man vs Kingpin and it felt like such a next level experience with the cut scenes and soundtrack. Then I got Jurassic park and had so many all nighters trying to figure it out being jump scared. Amazing machine
When my son was a new born, he had colic and I was often up with him all night. When he would finally fall asleep on my chest, I would play Lunar on my Sega CD. It saved my sanity and I believe in part helped me bond with my son as my wife left me when he was 2. If not for those nights I often wonder if we would have the relationship we do today. As a funny side note, one of his favorite games as a teen was Lunar Legends on the GBA and at that point I had never even talked to him about the original Lunar.
I always felt that not being able to use the cartridge slot for additional RAM was a huge mistake. That was a big reason why the PC Engine lasted so long in Japan.
It could have, it's just the way the interface worked it would have caused more slowdown, it would have required a faster CD ROM drive to get any use. There is a guy who made a video about how the Genesis/Sega CD shares its memory.
Using the cartridge slot for additional RAM is why I though Nintendo's SNES CD ieda was more rigth on. Since an new cartridge for additional RAM and enhancement chips was all you needed for the new games. Tech iusses at the time is why I never beamed Nintendo for backing out of Sony's deal.
The SegaCD was a fever dream to me back in the day. At least until my neighbor got one. I remember watching him play Snatcher and being insanely jealous. We played Final Fight everyday after school for weeks. Replaying it constantly.
Given that the full capacity of the CD was rarely used, one neat idea would be to include the games manual on the disc in a digitised format. You could make it so that you could access the manual directly from the Mega CD BIOS and read it on your TV screen. You could also provide the manual on the part of the disc that can be read by a PC and print it out. This would be especially helpful in Europe/PAL territories where the manual needed to be extra thick and translated into about a dozen different languages. This would also mean that you could standardise the Mega CD game cases to the regular single CD jewel case in all territories, with just a simple manual a few pages long in the cover like the Japanese releases, which would further save on manufacturing costs.
Sega CD and Saturn Playstation Nintendo 64 was such a crazy time u had the beginning of where gaming was going but u still had the genesis and super nintendo still releasing games
Ah, Sega CD...How I miss ya. Voice acting, FMV, CD quality sound, and really creative offerings. Snatcher and Working Designs' games, not to mention Sonic CD, Shining Force CD, and Dark Wizard. Seriously good times.
Dark Wizard was awesome, it was my go to rental at BB. You can actually play this in your browser... let's just say games have come a long way in the past 30 years!
I received the Sega CD for Christmas from my mom and grandparents, and one of my fondest Christmas break from school memories was playing and finishing Lunar Silver Star. The Sega CD as well as the Lunar games will always have a spot in my heart.
It still would have been kludgy compared to the Super FX chip. Sega never included a pixel buss on the cartridge port and any expansion chips had to DMA data to the VDP through the 68000. This is the same problem the Sega CD had with sprite scaling, it was kludgy and hard to program. The worst part was that the VDP was designed with pins for more VRAM and color pallets but they weren't connected to anything, they should have been brought out to the expansion port. If they had been then the Sega CD could have had 64k of shared VRAM and could have put sprite data directly into the VDP's memory space without involving the 68000 at all (and also it could have had up to 16 color pallets compared to the standard 4)
@@atomicskull6405 That's why I've said that a $199 CDX-style console would've made more sense. It could be a 12.5MHz upgraded unit with twice the RAM and twice the VRAM, still playing 95-99% of old Genesis titles while using the 2 MIPS CPU for scaling, rotation, and 3D graphics, vastly boosting bandwidth and drawing 256 out of 65,536 colors and increased sprites and Mode 7 features built in.
@@atomicskull6405 What?! No it doesn't, the cartridge tile data goes straight to the VDP's VRAM; the VDP has the DMA unit, not the 68000. Both the 68000 _and_ VDP have direct access to the SVP chip's DRAM. In fact, the particular bus the Super FX has access to is actually rather low bandwidth.
All things considered, the Sega CD, being an expensive addon for a niche market, it did pretty well, I don't think SEGA themselves thought it would be an immense hit, like the 3DO, which was too expensive and the 5th generation coming in a few years, it faired well. I had fun with it at the time, a friend at the other side of the street had one, it was something you didn't see every day, way too much for parents to buy for their kids, still, it will always be a cool addon.
I would have kept the sound capabilities, the extra (and better sounding) voices in Mickey Mania were a nice addition. In general, I wish there had been more CD versions of cartridge games, like Earthworm Jim SE.
Really is remarkable how most Sega hardware could've dramatically lowered in price and been more successful if they had only been redesigned a year or so after release. Enjoying this series a ton! I'd love to see how the Game Gear could've been saved next.
@@madhatter8508 Nah, it easily could've been designed to have a better battery life and still have color (Even Atari Lynx had a better battery life, and that was 16-bit).
@@Stinkaroni Lynx battery life was still pitiful. Give the Game Gear a grayscale screen (16 shades) with an electroluminescent backlight. Handhelds didn't need color at that time, the novelty of playing games on the go was enough. They could have released a color Game Gear later instead of the Nomad
@@madhatter8508 You may be right. What I think is if they let the game gear cook a little longer, and made 1 or 2 redesigns with longer battery lives and lower price points when the technology came around, it could've competed against the Gameboy better while still having color.
I really love these videos. This gives a glimpse of what Sega could've been if SOA and SOJ cooperated with each other and I'm sure in that universe Sega would still be making consoles to this day.
Pretty sure that the 256KB (not counting audio) was sufficient. IMHO, the system should've been sold as a $199 CDX that was backward compatible with the Genesis, rather than an addon. The Megadrive was originally developed with 128KB of VRAM (giving it twice the VRAM bandwidth) and could've supported 256 out of 65,526 colors, 12.5 MHz CPU, and much less expensive games built for the unit, while being backward compatible with 95-99% of the Megadrive games. Afterburner and others that wouldn't work with this setup could be easily ported and included in the pack in CD.
It needed expanded color palette, period. That only happened with the 32X when it was too late. Imagine if they had bumped the on-screen color-palette of the Sega CD to SNES levels (256), the whole platform would have transformed immediately. As it is, the Sega CD offered nothing but rotation effects (that is great, sure, but niche) and extra storage for FMV and soundtracks. I know Sega Lord X loves Sega CD, but for me... complete let down. It was the beginning of a chain of bad things happening for Sega. The 32X was decent, the Saturn was decent... but they were hamstrung by the pitiful showing of the Sega CD. By the time Sega produced an ace, top-tier piece of hardware (Dreamcast) the writing was on the wall.
@@mercster Sega CD could draw 256 out of 512 because you can change the color palette on each line. SHM allowed for a pallette of 3,375. Toy Story did 177 out of 3,375. Other techniques let you draw thousands of colors.
@@mercster Additional colors on the Sega CD would only have been possible under two scenarios: 1. Connect the VDP and VRAM pins to the expansion bus, which would have happened had Sega designed the Genesis for a CD-ROM add-on rather than the floppy disk add-on that expansion bus is there for. The Sega CD would, then, have included another 64 kB of VRAM, a 32,768 color palette chip, and a video color encoder like the PC Engine and Sega's own System C/C2 arcade platforms. 2. A 32X-like scheme where the Sega CD has its own VDP and color palette that connect to the Genesis through a pass-through cable. This would only have happened had SOJ included Sega of America in the design of the Sega CD, since it was Sega of America engineers who came up with that idea for the 32X. This is less likely to have happened than option 1.
@@madhatter8508 I understand there would have been a technical decision involved... I'm saying they should have done it. :-) But yeah, having the color capabilities of the PC Engine would have been great. It's all water under the bridge and people will have different opinions about "what could have made the Sega CD great"... Sega Lord X is of one mind and that's fine (I mainly agree with what he would have done as well...) And I recognize, everyone has a different subjective view of what makes a game "look good." All I know is, to MY eye... when I look at Genesis/Sega CD graphics in comparison with SNES/PCengine, the glaring difference is color palette. Maybe other people don't agree, or maybe people have just never thought about how the number of colors affect the resulting image. Genesis had higher resolution and a fast CPU (there are debates about whether, due to architecture, the Motorola 68k and Ricoh 5A22 are generally equivalent in performance, despite the 68k having a higher clock speed)... there are so many Genesis games that, even though praised for great graphics, could have looked so much better with a wider on-screen palette count to utilize. I'm not sure there's any utility in saying either solution is "less likely" or "more likely" based on architecture. Anyone should have been able to see, the gap between SNES and Genesis was mainly in palette. Rotation/scaling/Mode 7 etc being secondary effects that, while nice to have, aren't even applicable to many game types, but color palette affects every game.
Phantasy Star IV for 29.99 would have been an insane deal. I remember picking up that game for $89.99 at Toys R’ Us in America. That game was expensive.
Wholeheartly agree about the competitive individual success mentality that rotted inside SEGA at the time, that's a problem that should've been solved since the beggining. I agree as well with the ability to use the cartridge slot for RAM, expansion and what have you, always thought that should've been a must for the Mega CD. That being said, I can't agree with the rest. But for me the problem lies way beyond the CD system, SEGA needed to make things right before that: In my ideal world, SEGA should've treated the console market like a priority since the beggining as they did with their arcade machines, and not half-assing it. *) Launch the Master System in 1984 (or 1983 if possible) with better audio and chip enhancement capabilities from the cartridge slot, make a full fledge strategy for their games and don't let Nintendo get to the point where they could make third parties abide to those "exclusivity" shenanigans. *) Mega Drive comes next in 1990, a full on assault with sprite and tile scaling+rotation akin to the Mega CD capabilities, better sound and better color handling, a 12MHz Motorola 68000, again chip enhancement capabilities from the cartridge slot, and a killer game library (better Golden Axe and other game ports at launch, Sonic with even better colors and transparency, more focused first and third party management...), and a very aggresive price policy *) Mega CD at 1991 or 1992, with then yes, no need for the ASIC as the Mega Drive is mostly capable of the same or somewhat akin capabilities, and no extra CPU, but with the glorious PCM Ricoh chip on it, and the catridge and CD reader enhancementes you mentioned in the video. 199$ with this hardware should be doable, I think 199$ without the Ricoh chip is outrageous. *) And then, Saturn in 1995 instead of 1994, with way better 3D focus and capabilities integrated with the infinite planes and image effects of what we got. Of course no 32X, that thing should've never gotten past the proposal phase. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that, yup, but I always felt that SEGA had the possibility of doing things in a marvelous way but failed in the worst ways :(
It was FMV that killed the Sega CD if they had focused on original games that took advantage of the extra horsepower, it had. I believe we would be talking about the Sega CD in a different light than we are now which is in a mostly negative light, at least that’s how it’s perceived in a negative light due to all of the FMV crap, that saga of America was quite fond of.
I adored my mega cd... My dad sadly suddenly passed away recently. He got me a collection of all Sega stuff until a decade ago unfortunately life dictated I had to sell it all... I always associate my mega cd with dad. I was probably one of the first to have one in the uk.... Soulstar, batman, battlecorps, thunderhawk, snatcher, final fight, sonic cd, terminator, jag xj220. List is actually quite extensive.
One hardware change I'd make would be removing the AUX speaker sockets on the back, since the Mega Drive does the audio mixing anyway. The machine could be shipped with a Y-adapter and a new AV cable would be made available to inject the headphones audio. I'd also have the game packaging use the smaller standardized CD jewel case across all regions. Those giant boxes are the bane of my US CD/Saturn experience.
I'm sold. Give this man the Dial of Sega's Destiny. I got my Sega CD unasked for, I was home sick from school and my mom just wanted to make me feel better. I had said I didn't want one, the technology wasn't there yet for good games, and I could see that from the ads alone. So I ended up just feeling even worse because she had wasted all that money, with only the best intentions. Out of that guilt I kept renting Sega CD games for years, trying to find one worth owning, but I don't think I ever bought a single game for the system, and I rented very few by comparison to everything else. She had gotten me Sherlock Holmes and Sol Deace or Feace, and that was what I mostly played, a shmup that would have been fine on the Genesis. I don't know if this remake would have worked, but it could not have done any worse. I honestly played with my Power Glove and my Virtual Boy far, far more than I ever used my Sega CD.
I found my copy of Snatcher the other day in my parents loft! First playing this with the Justifier gun blew me away what an experience for a young kid in the 90s there was nothing like it at the time!
Just Picked up " streets of rage II: Samurai Pizza Cats Homebrew". Comes in a SEGA case, with full cover, back, cartridge sticker, everything!!! literally just adds Yattarō (Speedy) as a character nothing more, nothing less BUT PERFECTION
@@elodvezer1790 That sounds awesome, lol. The local game shop that I go to plays a loop of old 90's era cartoon shows openings. One of them is Samurai Pizza Cats so now I have to look that up and show that to them.
@@CrawlingPanther Funny thing is That I didn't grow up with a Sega Genesis. I had a SNES that we would swap with a friend of my brother to play Genesis. I started getting into Genesis last year as I wanted to see the Sega CD and 32X addons.
@@magiccardmaker3588 Lol good luck with that. Think those games are getting really expensive. Yeah for whatever reason my whole friend group had Genesis. Genesii? We had Segas. And one kid was lucky (or unlucky) enough to get trapped in the Sega CD and 32x promotions. They were certainly interesting consoles or addons. But soon after that most of us were getting Playstations. It's too bad about Sega because I am really getting into the Saturn right now and would have enjoyed it as a kid.
Dunno if we need 8 channels but some PCM upgrade is needed. Genesis sample playback was rough unless you spent the whole CPU on it, and forcing redbook audio for useable voice is rather limiting. It would be a big miss on the mutlimedia experience CD ROM can bring.
I almost agree with you 100% on the internals, EXCEPT: Design the Sega CD alongside the Genesis in 1988. It doesn't have to come out until 1990/91, BUT designing the add-on and the Genesis at the same time gives you the foresight to connect the proper VDP pins to the expansion bus that will allow you to double VRAM and connect an external color palette chip and color encoder chip. That way you can have a Sega CD with graphics performance similar to Sega's System C or C2 arcade systems, and at least on par with the SNES. But that would only be possible had Sega had the foresight to connect those VDP and VRAM pins to the expansion bus.
@@MaxAbramson3 If they did that it would not have been backward compatible with Master System games, which I'm fine with, but backward compatibility was something SOJ really wanted at the time. It would also be more expensive, though.
@@madhatter8508 Think of SEGA's out of pocket options: 1. Megadrive $200 + $200 in game cartridges (then $400 for the Sega CD) 2. Sega CD + System C-2 $300+ to make the console + $80 game CDs If SEGA had chosen option 2 in 1988, then they certainly would've sold a lot more consoles and had a much greater diversity of titles, including educational, media, music, CD+G, pure arcade ports, etc. Being able to display 4,096 out of 98,000 colors would've kept the system alive until the late 1990s, with no Sega CD, 32X, SVP, Saturn, Neptune, Jupiter debacle and changing roadmap that upset gamers, parents, devs, and retailers. In fact, the total upfront loss would be lower because it cost SEGA $17 to make each cartridge (more for high memory carts), and tens of millions to advertise and develop software tools for each piece of hardware. Even with a 16.67 MHz 68010, that CPU would not be able to keep up over time, but we'd at least have 4-5,000 textured polygons/sec or 10-15,000 flat shaded for the Virtua Series and Star Wars Arcade. A $150 loss per console instead of $50? Yes, but SEGA would go on to lose $100 on the Saturn, Sega CD, and every other piece of hardware that they put out on the market. Only losing $150+marketing for 1988-98?
When it comes down to it, even keeping FMV as backgrounds wouldn't resolve the issue hardware limitations of the Genesis / Mega Drive bottle necking the device as it did/does for the 32x as well.
I was so fascinated by Sega CD when it came out! I was a kid and nobody I knew had a computer with a CD drive yet, so Sega CD was my first experience with gaming on disc! It was mind blowing at the time to play the Working Designs games with CD audio dialogue and music
A nice video to watch on a Sat morning. This kind of thought experiment is fun - and I agree that some of these moves would have been sensible. Whether an add-on for the genesis / Mega drive could ever have been truly succesfull is debatable it would certainly have helped. I must admit that as an Amiga fan I often consider what should have been done to make the Commodore CD32 a success. Admittedly this is all about software as the console just never got any killer-aps that might have sold it. But we can dream, right?
About the color palette issue... Every Sega CD game uses the Genesis hardware for video output, so for an increased color palette, the Sega CD would've needed its own video output - similar to the 32X - and probably also an additional VDP chip. I think the Genesis needed hardware sprite-scaling more than it needed an increased color palette. There are plenty of highly colorful games on the Genesis. Many of the arcade conversions have accurate colors as well. The Sega CD finally delivered sprite-scaling, but Sega's studios bafflingly failed to take advantage of it.
Removing all the extra hardware and adding more internal RAM and the ability to use expension cartridges is exactly how I would have redesigned the Mega CD.
I have to admit the scaling and rotation is what originally attracted me, but honestly what sold me on the Sega CD was the Japanese intro to Sol Feace - just some simple sprite animations. I was watching it in a local store that had imported a Japanese unit early and was so impressed I actually asked if that was a SNES. When they said no, I knew I wanted one. I actually ended up buying that very unit for $100, a ton of money for me then, after a renter damaged it. They had just bent the CD drive motor (somehow), and I was able to straighten it and loved the system... except Heavy Nova. ;) Batman Returns (driving) was the most impressive title I'd played in the home at the time. And I'm sure Sega felt they needed the scaling and rotation to fend off the SNES a little longer (though the software solution that came soon after seems to have been pretty adequate!) So I'm torn on your decision to pull the ASIC. But can't deny the software approach. It's sad today to know how much Sega competed with themselves when they had the market and could have done it all.
It’s nice that you didn’t get greedy and want the CD ADD On to be a Super Scaling Monster because I, like you, love that feature. You are realistic and willing to leave your favorite feature out of the build, a hard pill to swallow indeed but a needed sacrifice for cost purposes. Really quick here back then I had seen a movie called Gung Ho, movie about Japanese auto making and their awesome work ethic and not being selfish and putting the company First. Doesn’t seem like Sega had that philosophy because it’s seems having some developers with overinflated egos went against their principles. Great video sir I will go to bed crying myself to sleep tonight thinking what could’ve been.
The whole FMV thing was hyped beyond belief. PCs suffered the same dithering and resolution issues as the TG-16 and the Genesis. There are exceptions, and talent and time we’re able to really use the feature FMV as a proper extension of their respective devices. Audio and storage capacity was what I was excited for. I wished for the SEGA CD to have been what you envisioned here. Honestly, even now I think you could give SEGA a proper direction over use of their resources and how to be more successful.
The price was certainly a obstacle. Every time I get out my old Sega visions magazine and read how sega promised "$29" games I get so disappointed. If only they would have stood by there word.
I don't think an PC-Engine CD design would work that well because the PCE is a system with lots of untapped potential due to its limited card and ram sizes. The same can't be said about the MD, which could fully use its original hardware only with cartridges. Removing the video ASIC is logical, the thing was technically slower than a Super FX regarding transfer rates, it's something better reserved for a reengineered 32x. With that we cut the VRAM as well and go after the CPU. I don't think we should have no CPU at all, but rather a second Z80 managing the CD drive, sound chip and extra game tasks (such as decompression) with its own dual paged 128k of ram. I mentioned keeping the sound chip, and that's because sampled sounds is something the MD really needed expertise in programming to play correctly, plus it could give a much richer sound to cartridge games that supported it, and i believe it wouldn't raise the costs as dramatically as the Video ASIC and VRAM. Sound Ram would be gone and replaced with the same ram as the Z80 however. Lastly, i wouldn't move system RAM entirely to the cartridge port because of adressing limitations. The cartridge port can only adress 4MB without mappers, making the Sega CD share that adress space with carts is not an wise engineering decision IMO, specially when the expansion port has its own 4MB memory space that would be wasted with this design. Maybe making a card slot for future extra ram on the SCD would be a better move. Lastly, this design allows for regular cartridge games to be enhanced by the presence of an SCD in more way than just playing redbook audio. A little extra processing, more audio channels and specially a huge pool of ram is something that would completely transform some games.
@ManulTransmission yes, but it could have been so much better, for 1, nearly every game has frame drops and lags, about every game was planned to be so much more but tons of content had to be cut due to lack of space on the cartridges, and the controller, although I don't find it bad, a lot of people hate the controller.
@ManulTransmission some games aged really bad, especially non Nintendo and RareWare created games, most Rare games are on XBOX with far better resolutions, framerates, and better controls
@@PaperBanjo64 I doubt every game had removed things, except for higher quality music and more FMV. Actual gameplay wise, apart from RPGs, they included similar or more to what CD games used.
@5:10 as far as your "new" hardware profile goes, I'm not fully onboard. I do like the idea of a pass-through system ram cart, especially to account for extra options... But the additional audio hardware could have been PAIRED with the stock genesis audio to make a fantastic sound/music platform without having to solely rely on streaming redbook audio (and thus also leave the disc available for loading content/assets during gameplay to improve presentation and minimize obvious load times, as well as encourage creativity from composers). The extra processor for sprite scaling was one of the main reasons I was impressed by the prospect of the Sega CD as a kid (I was like 8 when the system launched, and 9 or 10 when my friend's father bought the model 2 unit and i finally got to play some of the stuff I had seen in magazines). "real" video never impressed me as a kid because it only ever felt like a segue between/to actual gameplay segments. I wanted the extra hardware ability to be funneled into the actual gameplay at all times. I never cared about FMV games, I always thought that was a weird angle for sega's marketing team when the add-on was really a powerful upgrade to the stock genesis that allowed much bigger and potentially more impressive games...
The RAM cart from this video combined with the SVP passthrough cart from the Saturn video would make a killer Tower of Power. I really wonder what it would've been like in this alternate universe - would it have been taller or shorter?
Probably shorter. The scaled back CD unit that Sega Lord X describes here would have looked more like the Model 2 CD peripheral, only with even less of an underbase than that unit had.
One thing you would have to watch out for is to resist the temptation to have the cartridge version and the CD version interact with each other and provide some extra benefit for buying both versions. You wouldn't want to make customers feel like they would need to shell out $30 for the CD and $60 for the cartridge to get the "full experience"
While the Core Designs games not being possible would suck, it would be better in the long run. If they had went with a game plan like this, we could have gotten games like Castlevania Rondo Of Blood, which Sega could have rubbed in Nintendo's face when Dracula X came out on Super Nintendo. Considering that the Sega CD got PC Engine/Turbografx CD titles like Sherlock Holmes and Lords Of Thunder, if the Sega CD had been more successful and better to do business with there is no reason why Konami wouldn't have ported it. We also could have gotten stuff like Turbografx CD versions of the Valis games and maybe even a translated version of Valis 4. So many missed opportunities that could have easily happened.
My top 10 future 'Let's Save' wishlist for you to cover in your future videos. 10) Let's Save the Master System(in North America and Japan) 9) Let's Save the Game Gear 8) Let's Save the Atari 5200 7) Let's Save the Atari 7800 6) Let's Save the Atari Jaguar + Jaguar CD 5) Let's Save the N64DD 4) Let's Save the Neo Geo + Neo GEO CD 3) Let's Save the Wii U 2) Let's Save the PS Vita 1) Let's Save the SNES CD add-on
I love your content so much! When I first found you 3 years ago, I was able to enjoy hours and hours of your old stuff. Now that I have a little love to spread, I'm a proud Patreon Supporter! (I wrote this imagining it being said in your great narrative voice my brother!)
Super interesting video dude! Great to see you doing something totally original, and you obviously put a lot of thought, time and effort into it. Cheers!
I'd focus the machine and the marketing around its CD player capabilities and superior audio quality. Make it an actual stereo-system with an amp and speaker outputs on the back, and an actual volume knob on the front (and have digital controls for treble, bass, etc.). That would've been pretty novel in 1991, and it might've appealed to a wider market (just like the PS2 did).
I think the one upgrade they should have included with the Sega CD was an increased the color palette with a massive increase of the number of colors available on screen on each frame. This was the Achilles heel of the Genesis as compared to the TG-16 and SNES. They could have had the video signal come out of the Sega CD unit instead and also allow for cartridge games to have enhanced graphics modes that use the Sega CD's color rendering hardware for better looking cartridge-based games, as well.
Paco Pastor (Sega Spain´s president) tried to convince the responsible in SEGA Japan to do that about the games... all Genesis games could be published on SEGA CD with some extras and lower prices and lot of cheap compilations so the users could conclude that they would recover easily the money with the games and feel that buying a SEGACD was a must deal and, at the same time, it would increase the attention of developers to use the addon.
I just have to say that your "let's save series" is one of the best and most creative video compilation ideas out here on the internet. It truly is like stepping into a time machine. Not to mention, your plans to save each console seem highly plausible. It takes a lot of technical and business knowledge and imagination.
I feel the problem with the 16 bit cd add ons were that game development tech wasn’t at the point where it could truly take advantage of cd roms. Most cd based games were pretty similar to what cartridge/ hu card games were offering except they had cutscenes and better music. I think the sega cd/turbographx cd/etc. should have been new console models from the start instead of add ons and priced comparably to the base consoles. Cd games should also be marketed as supplements to the main experience in order to maintain trust with consumers who bought the genesis/tg 16. Basically the base console is for casuals and the updated model is for hardcores who could sell their old consoles if they wanted to buy a cd/cartridge combo machine. As an addendum. The jaguar should have been a fully cd based console from the start with a disk drive that actually worked.
I agree that they made mistakes during the design phase, I disagree on the direction they should have taken. What you have described IS cheaper than what we ended up with, thus easier to sell in theory, but does little to really boost the Genesis. What they should have done IMHO is used a second Genesis board but with more RAM, higher clockspeeds (preferably double the Genesis rather than the roughly 50% faster we got), and MAYBE a slightly upgraded VDP supporting more colors in hardware. Even if you use the stock VDP, you still get more effective colors by the simultaneous use of two VDPs. This gives you more colors (one way or another), more audio capability (including lots of FM channels), more/bigger/better animated sprites (plus potentially optional cart DMA for late-gen combo games), background layers, CD capability, more raw horsepower to do effects in software - even scaling or polys (look at the Genesis demo of Starfox, now triple the effective horsepower). One of the games you showed, Jaguar XJ220, actually used software sprite scaling. This is stuff that's immediately evident, allowing you to build games that compete even with SNES games with enhancement chips. Use the video output on the Sega CD, and if transfer rates from Genesis to Sega CD are too slow, go the video compositing route to combine graphics. The extra background layers could be used to insert the composited image anywhere the dev pleases. Depending on the dev, they might use both methods simultaneously. Discourage FMV games as much as possible, reduce the licensing fee for games that DON'T use FMVs extensively in gameplay. By using the Genesis mainboard configuration (minus cart slot), the regular design improvements/shrinks can be carried over to the Sega CD. They also should have aggressively pushed cost-reductions and combo hardware as early as possible.
I may have missed it if you did one, but I need a what if episode about saving the 32X! Damn the Saturn, I need this console to be a success for weirdly personal reasons!
Your design is interesting but I would include an expansion bay so they could add sprite scaling through a booster addon and the Sega CD should take over display so more colors can be added!
I usually agree with your vids on these, and your take on this is interesting, but I feel that it misses a fundamental point - the SNES/Mega Drive war was raging, and the SNES was doing things that the Mega Drive couldn't do. I think automatically at the time, a CD add-on seems like it would add new features, but this take on it seems to remove almost everything that would make an upgrade interesting; this version of the MEGA CD seems to warrant its existence less than the original unit did. The similarity to the PC Engine CD is a great idea in theory, but it struggled to make any waves in the West, so I'm not sure that template is the way to go if SEGA wanted the unit to succeed around the world, even with the excellent Japanese support it had behind it. I personally think that keeping the scaling features and doubling down on those games would allow it to compete with the SNES. SEGA Arcade ports, more games with Mode 7-style effects, more CD versions of SEGA IP and a focus on securing more SNES/PC Engine-style RPGs would have helped the system to no end, at least in my mind. This approach would work hand in hand with a new, highly co-operative version of SEGA that thought globally. Hell, I think excising most of the FMV games and diverting all those resources to actual games would have done wonders on its own. Great video though, and food for thought; you definitely got me thinking! Appreciate the effort, as always, SLX :)
I feel the core Genesis appeal was more than enough to compete with the SNES, and the best Sega CD games didn't use any of its extra abilities. They were simply great games. Sega CD's biggest issue was price and messaging. The scaling features didn't sell it then and keeping it was guaranteed failure in my view. Sega CD needed to morph into a value console with its own batch of big hit exclusives. My thinking, anyway.
@@SegaLordX ''Sonic CD'' was one of those best selling games on the system and it did use the scaling hardware in the game along with red-book audio. Had there been more games made like this the system would have done much better. I think the consumers needed to see more of this but the FMV stuff overshadowed it. (Just my opinion my Lord).
@@SegaLordX Fair points, and I understand your reasoning. Agree that the scaling stuff didn't sell it then back then either, but to be fair, there weren't any real heavy-hitters that used the scaling features either. It was relegated to bonus stages, or was showcased by IP that wasn't all that big to begin with. I think with ports of OutRun/OutRunners, a new scaling version of Super Monaco GP etc, it could have generated some real excitement. A proper Road Rash that used hardware scaling would have been neat too. Also agree that the messaging was wrong. FMV was a neat bonus, but not the future. Pricing was OK, at least for the Mega CD 2 in Australia - I can't speak for the US, though. I mean, my parents were not well off, but I still managed to end up with one and a decent stack of games. I still have to wonder what would make people run out to buy one if the unit basically only just added more storage and CD soundtracks; that was a heavy criticism of the unit back in the day. I think holding off release by a year, and having Sonic CD as a pack-in, along with some high-profile launch titles would have been a great idea. Software sells a system, and the Mega CD really lacked a killer launch line-up. This was the beginning of SEGA's nasty habit of not leveraging its strong IP to launch and keep a system afloat.
Everything SLX said in his redesign for the Sega CD system ...i wonder how much of that was actually implemented in the Genesis Mini 2 (it does have Sega CD games installed)
I would also like to add a video out on the sega cd and a greater color pallet. 61 simultaneous colors really hindered the genesis late in its life cycle.
That was impossible because Sega left the pins on the VDP for extra VRAM and color pallet RAM on the Genesis PCB unconnected to save a few pennies. If they had brought those out to the expansion port they could have added a second 64K chunk of shared VRAM to transfer sprite data (instead of the cartridge type DMA it used) and it could have had up to sixteen color pallets. The reason the SNES had so many different expansion chips was because the cartridge port had a buss for that stuff, the Genesis didn't because Sega was short sighted.
@@kathleendelcourt8136It already had a new graphics chip though, remember the ASIC blitter? Expanding the contents of the die to include a CRAM unit wouldn't have been be as expensive as you think.
When you first said "Ditch the CPU and ASIC" I thought you were nuts! But when you presented your arguments and I thought about it, you are exactly right about this. The cost increase was terrible, and only a few games really used the power. Very good thought!
I get the logic behind some of these changes, but Sega still managed to launch the Sega CD 2/Mega CD 2 at a much more affordable price with the same hardware behind it - although I appreciate costs of chips would have come down by the time of its launch. Having an add-on system connected to the side with the pop up lid as opposed to the automatic retractable CD tray would have cut down on costs instantly. There were some unnecessary bells and whistles with the original physical product which the Sega CD 2/Mega CD 2 removed to reduce its costs. In terms of its capabilities, I would have absolutely retained the sprite scaling hardware and ensured more games were programmed to take advantage of the super scalers out there - Sega themselves had the assets and completely ignored them! Doing so would have really ensured you got quality - not novelty like FMV - which stood the system apart from the Genesis/Mega Drive and gave people a compelling reason to own one. The other thing I would have liked to have seen would have been an increased colour palette and ability to display far more colours on screen than the Genesis/Mega Drive. Again, this would have really upgraded the graphical presentation of games and created another compelling reason for gamers to choose to invest in the CD add on. Games like Mortal Kombat would not only have sounded better, but also looked a step above the Genesis/Mega Drive original.
I'd love to have seen games in the form of cartridges and CD-ROMs in one game case. You could buy the game as a Genesis/Mega Drive owner and play, say, an 8Mbit cart version of a game, and have a bonus CD soundtrack if you have a CD player. But if you have a Sega CD also, you get to put them together and also access cutscenes, more animation and voice samples, maybe extra stages, and smaller load times compared to having the CD-ROM alone. With that, the need for extra RAM isn't quite so great. And I do agree that the hardware needed to be cheaper, preferably no more than the cost of the Genesis alone, especially if it only has an effective life of three years before the Saturn turns up. The question is, was a cart and CD-ROM data combination ever technically possible? The cartridge Flux works with the Mega CD, and the new 32X Doom, but they're the only examples I can think of and they only use the 'redbook' audio aspect. A Sonic level editor sounds cool, but the way the engine was built to sneakily recycle big chunks of scenery is complex and limiting, so I doubt that could have ever happened. However I don't think anything is stopping Sega from going ahead with a 'Sonic Maker' of their own for much later hardware. I'm sure there'd be lots of interest!
We often talk about many mistakes Sega did in 90s, but we forget that Sega CD was not unsuccessful and it could be more successful if Sega would not screw up with other stuff, I think among 32X, Saturn, Sega CD, and some other stuff Sega did in 90s, Sega CD is the one which Requires least changes and those changes relate to game library and not the console itself. Also i would definitely keep scaling.
These are all good idea. I agree that getting the base cost down and offering existing cartridge titles at a lower price could've helped it. The sprite scaling was cool but most games could've benefitted more from additional working memory. That said, I still probably wouldn't have purchased it at the time. I was off to college when it came out and while some people brought their game consoles with them, I decided to focus on my computer and get a CD-ROM drive for it. After a few years of heavy Genesis play time, gaming during my college years were almost entirely done on my computer.
Well, I would keep the scaling features. I would also like to make it so we could use a cartridge not only for back up ram but also to instal a partial amount of the CDROM game to cut down the load times a little.
The Make Your Own Music Video ones were awesome at the time. My love for game design was expanded to want to make music and videography projects too. Jaguar XJ220 with the ability to make your own tracks was fun too. CD+G (graphics) CDs were awesome to enjoy on the Sega CD and to play CDs overall.
I definitely agree with a Sonic 3 and Knuckles special edition. To have Sonic 3 the way it was originally supposed to be released with and upgraded soundtrack would have been epic. Sega could have also tried to get Castlevania: Rondo of Blood on the Sega CD. That way, we could have had an American port available a lot sooner than we eventually did.
Good video! This is fun to think about. Yeah, I totally agree that the business mistrust between Sega of Japan and Sega of America really was a huge underlying issue. That behavior should never have been tolerated. They should have just saved the sprite scaling for the Saturn and downplayed the FMV games. The FMV games aged like milk anyways. I like the idea of taking classic Genesis games and adding enhancements with extra content. Many of the Genesis ports to the Sega CD were my favorite Sega CD games. It reminds of me of the current MD+ hacks which takes many Genesis games and adds the ability to have a fully upgraded CD-quality soundtrack.
It didn't help that a PCB layout error with the address lines on the expansion port in the first batch of Megadrives meant that DMA transfers between the Sega CD and the Genesis were limited to 128 bytes at a time. Even though the error was fixed that first batch was still out there because Sega never issued a recall on those units and the software had to assume it might be running on one of them. Also the Genesis VDP had pins for extra 64k of VRAM and color pallets that were not brought out to the expansion port, if they had it could have been match more capable than it was. In particular the sprite scaling functions could have been made much easier to use if the VDP and Sega CD had shared 64k of VRAM to transfer data instead of having to download it through the 68000 into VRAM. (these pins *were* used in the System C/C2 and System 18 arcade boards)
This add-on for sega made me lean it to gaming hard. Master systems-genesis- sega cd-playstation-ps2-xbox-360-ps3-ps4- Ps5-series S. Thats my gaming history in ownership.
In my opinion the best Sega CD would've been no Sega CD. Sega's position in the market was always way more fragile than it seemed, and they needed to focus the power they had on what would be happening in five years, instead of trying to ride the wave of the "next big thing" as it came along over and over again. If they were going to keep it, I'd have pushed out the release a few years so that the more advanced features you cut could be added more cheaply. The Genesis didn't need a refresh yet in 1991; if Sega had waited until Christmas 1992 or even mid-1993, they could've offered a more fully baked peripheral that had their advanced scaling, maybe even included the 3D chip from Virtua Racer, and gave devs enough time to learn how to use these new toys. From a marketing standpoint of dialing back FMV and pushing compilations and real games I think you're spot on, and if this had released in 1991 I agree that scaling back to get prices down was a good approach. But honestly if I just bought my kid a Genesis for Christmas in 1990 and they were already whining about buying a $200 add-on for it the very next year I'd be kinda peeved. Waiting one more year to add more features for a lower price might been a better look.
29.99 Phantasy Star IV...I'd have been ALL OVER THAT. I waited forever to get that game on clearance. I think I might have already been playing 32 bit games.
Lots of us love the FMV games. But yes, they needed to better use the power of the device. Still have my launch Sega CD, changed the belts and running great.
What I would do to save the Sega-CD: - Remove the CD drive to reduce cost; - Add audio/video IN/OUT connections like the 32X; - Upgrade the number of colors used by the VDP to something, at least, similar to the SNES (the main feature highlighted as a disadvantage of the Mega Drive); - Add a data compression chip in order to squeeze more game onto the MD cartridges. I would let this new console run the main part of the games and the MD would do the secondary parts like backgraund and NPCs. The same cartridge could have the game in the MD version and the expanded version, with more colors and graphic effects (for those games that didn't have many improvements).
Using my $1/hr babysitting job, I bought a Super Nintendo in 1991. I was a huge fan of the WWF Akklaim games. When WWF Rage in the Cage came out for the Sega CD, I was one classified ad away from selling my Super Nintendo and buying the Sega CD. Close call.
Really like these "Let's Save" videos. Not only in terms of what we could've gotten for a library of games but also the console specs and overall game plan of how to sell this console successfully.
![Sonic 3 & Knuckles - All Emeralds Glitchless Speedrun with Knuckles (100%) in 54:32 [Current Record]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/a2GWmbhFcAE/mqdefault.jpg)
Playing Snatcher as my first Sega CD experience is a feeling I'm still chasing to this day.
I hear that.
I bought Spider-Man vs Kingpin and it felt like such a next level experience with the cut scenes and soundtrack.
Then I got Jurassic park and had so many all nighters trying to figure it out being jump scared.
Amazing machine
@@FloridaEbikesamen. Jurassic Park Sega CD was one of my favs. Amazing experience.
Snatcher needs a re-launch badly.
@FloridaEbikes you said it brotha. Right on.
@@Gorilla_Jonesyup 🙏
You guys aren't ready for this. But your kids are gonna love it.
The Future Is Now!
SNK
Back to the Future reference, nice 👍
@@ThomasHostvedt you got it. Ha.
When my son was a new born, he had colic and I was often up with him all night. When he would finally fall asleep on my chest, I would play Lunar on my Sega CD. It saved my sanity and I believe in part helped me bond with my son as my wife left me when he was 2. If not for those nights I often wonder if we would have the relationship we do today. As a funny side note, one of his favorite games as a teen was Lunar Legends on the GBA and at that point I had never even talked to him about the original Lunar.
So many tales and links when it comes to this system. Find my comment for my story and sentimental value of it.
Great to know you have a good relationship with your son. That's the bottom line.
Where did she go?
Wow! Beautiful story
Gaming and parenting are a tough combo, but so rewarding. Glad you pulled through and remember a fantastic memory of tough times.
I always felt that not being able to use the cartridge slot for additional RAM was a huge mistake. That was a big reason why the PC Engine lasted so long in Japan.
It could have, it's just the way the interface worked it would have caused more slowdown, it would have required a faster CD ROM drive to get any use.
There is a guy who made a video about how the Genesis/Sega CD shares its memory.
@@DukeDudeston right. the bigger problem is the SegaCD was still hampered by the video output capabilities (rez and color depth) of the Genesis.
@OnafetsEnovapthey should of not released it and the 32x
@OnafetsEnovap the Sega CD was killed with FMV and Genesis ports. It shouldn’t been released.
Using the cartridge slot for additional RAM is why I though Nintendo's SNES CD ieda was more rigth on. Since an new cartridge for additional RAM and enhancement chips was all you needed for the new games. Tech iusses at the time is why I never beamed Nintendo for backing out of Sony's deal.
Sega Lord X saving Sega one video at a time we all appreciate you
The SegaCD was a fever dream to me back in the day. At least until my neighbor got one. I remember watching him play Snatcher and being insanely jealous. We played Final Fight everyday after school for weeks. Replaying it constantly.
Still rocking my launch Genesis and Sega CD. Had to change the belts but she's still chugging. 😁
Beautiful my guy...just beautiful
Props to you. So they really used belts on those old cd drives huh?
Given that the full capacity of the CD was rarely used, one neat idea would be to include the games manual on the disc in a digitised format. You could make it so that you could access the manual directly from the Mega CD BIOS and read it on your TV screen. You could also provide the manual on the part of the disc that can be read by a PC and print it out. This would be especially helpful in Europe/PAL territories where the manual needed to be extra thick and translated into about a dozen different languages. This would also mean that you could standardise the Mega CD game cases to the regular single CD jewel case in all territories, with just a simple manual a few pages long in the cover like the Japanese releases, which would further save on manufacturing costs.
Sega CD and Saturn Playstation Nintendo 64 was such a crazy time u had the beginning of where gaming was going but u still had the genesis and super nintendo still releasing games
Sega CD was released in like 91.
Seeing your revisions makes me wonder wtf Sega was thinking. Extra content on CDs is genius
Ah, Sega CD...How I miss ya. Voice acting, FMV, CD quality sound, and really creative offerings. Snatcher and Working Designs' games, not to mention Sonic CD, Shining Force CD, and Dark Wizard. Seriously good times.
Dark Wizard was awesome, it was my go to rental at BB. You can actually play this in your browser... let's just say games have come a long way in the past 30 years!
I received the Sega CD for Christmas from my mom and grandparents, and one of my fondest Christmas break from school memories was playing and finishing Lunar Silver Star. The Sega CD as well as the Lunar games will always have a spot in my heart.
Literally my favourite machine of all time. I played so many great games on it (almost all from Core Design). Under appreciated for sure
Core helped me see what was possible on SCD and what other companies missed. If they were the same company I'd buy them a sub.
The SVP Chip as an additional cartridge is genius in itself. It would have made the SCD the precursor to modern gaming PCs. Well done, Sega Lord.
It still would have been kludgy compared to the Super FX chip. Sega never included a pixel buss on the cartridge port and any expansion chips had to DMA data to the VDP through the 68000. This is the same problem the Sega CD had with sprite scaling, it was kludgy and hard to program. The worst part was that the VDP was designed with pins for more VRAM and color pallets but they weren't connected to anything, they should have been brought out to the expansion port. If they had been then the Sega CD could have had 64k of shared VRAM and could have put sprite data directly into the VDP's memory space without involving the 68000 at all (and also it could have had up to 16 color pallets compared to the standard 4)
@@atomicskull6405 That's why I've said that a $199 CDX-style console would've made more sense. It could be a 12.5MHz upgraded unit with twice the RAM and twice the VRAM, still playing 95-99% of old Genesis titles while using the 2 MIPS CPU for scaling, rotation, and 3D graphics, vastly boosting bandwidth and drawing 256 out of 65,536 colors and increased sprites and Mode 7 features built in.
@@atomicskull6405 What?! No it doesn't, the cartridge tile data goes straight to the VDP's VRAM; the VDP has the DMA unit, not the 68000. Both the 68000 _and_ VDP have direct access to the SVP chip's DRAM. In fact, the particular bus the Super FX has access to is actually rather low bandwidth.
@@MaxAbramson3 That would have cost at least $450 to manufacture in 1992. There's just no chance in hell that would work.
@@ostiariusalpha No, because it would just be another Genesis console with twice the memory and an audio grade CD player.
Man I wish you were in charge at Sega back in the day. I love the Saturn & Mega CD, and still play em to this very day.
All things considered, the Sega CD, being an expensive addon for a niche market, it did pretty well, I don't think SEGA themselves thought it would be an immense hit, like the 3DO, which was too expensive and the 5th generation coming in a few years, it faired well. I had fun with it at the time, a friend at the other side of the street had one, it was something you didn't see every day, way too much for parents to buy for their kids, still, it will always be a cool addon.
I would have kept the sound capabilities, the extra (and better sounding) voices in Mickey Mania were a nice addition. In general, I wish there had been more CD versions of cartridge games, like Earthworm Jim SE.
Really is remarkable how most Sega hardware could've dramatically lowered in price and been more successful if they had only been redesigned a year or so after release. Enjoying this series a ton! I'd love to see how the Game Gear could've been saved next.
The Game Gear could have been saved with a grayscale screen
@@madhatter8508 Nah, it easily could've been designed to have a better battery life and still have color (Even Atari Lynx had a better battery life, and that was 16-bit).
@@Stinkaroni Lynx battery life was still pitiful. Give the Game Gear a grayscale screen (16 shades) with an electroluminescent backlight. Handhelds didn't need color at that time, the novelty of playing games on the go was enough. They could have released a color Game Gear later instead of the Nomad
@@madhatter8508 You may be right. What I think is if they let the game gear cook a little longer, and made 1 or 2 redesigns with longer battery lives and lower price points when the technology came around, it could've competed against the Gameboy better while still having color.
I really love these videos. This gives a glimpse of what Sega could've been if SOA and SOJ cooperated with each other and I'm sure in that universe Sega would still be making consoles to this day.
If Sega CD could have added just extra 1MB RAM and CD audio pass through at $199 Sega may have gotten themselves some time to do the Saturn right!
Pretty sure that the 256KB (not counting audio) was sufficient. IMHO, the system should've been sold as a $199 CDX that was backward compatible with the Genesis, rather than an addon. The Megadrive was originally developed with 128KB of VRAM (giving it twice the VRAM bandwidth) and could've supported 256 out of 65,526 colors, 12.5 MHz CPU, and much less expensive games built for the unit, while being backward compatible with 95-99% of the Megadrive games. Afterburner and others that wouldn't work with this setup could be easily ported and included in the pack in CD.
It needed expanded color palette, period. That only happened with the 32X when it was too late. Imagine if they had bumped the on-screen color-palette of the Sega CD to SNES levels (256), the whole platform would have transformed immediately. As it is, the Sega CD offered nothing but rotation effects (that is great, sure, but niche) and extra storage for FMV and soundtracks. I know Sega Lord X loves Sega CD, but for me... complete let down. It was the beginning of a chain of bad things happening for Sega. The 32X was decent, the Saturn was decent... but they were hamstrung by the pitiful showing of the Sega CD. By the time Sega produced an ace, top-tier piece of hardware (Dreamcast) the writing was on the wall.
@@mercster Sega CD could draw 256 out of 512 because you can change the color palette on each line. SHM allowed for a pallette of 3,375. Toy Story did 177 out of 3,375. Other techniques let you draw thousands of colors.
@@mercster Additional colors on the Sega CD would only have been possible under two scenarios:
1. Connect the VDP and VRAM pins to the expansion bus, which would have happened had Sega designed the Genesis for a CD-ROM add-on rather than the floppy disk add-on that expansion bus is there for. The Sega CD would, then, have included another 64 kB of VRAM, a 32,768 color palette chip, and a video color encoder like the PC Engine and Sega's own System C/C2 arcade platforms.
2. A 32X-like scheme where the Sega CD has its own VDP and color palette that connect to the Genesis through a pass-through cable. This would only have happened had SOJ included Sega of America in the design of the Sega CD, since it was Sega of America engineers who came up with that idea for the 32X. This is less likely to have happened than option 1.
@@madhatter8508 I understand there would have been a technical decision involved... I'm saying they should have done it. :-) But yeah, having the color capabilities of the PC Engine would have been great. It's all water under the bridge and people will have different opinions about "what could have made the Sega CD great"... Sega Lord X is of one mind and that's fine (I mainly agree with what he would have done as well...) And I recognize, everyone has a different subjective view of what makes a game "look good."
All I know is, to MY eye... when I look at Genesis/Sega CD graphics in comparison with SNES/PCengine, the glaring difference is color palette. Maybe other people don't agree, or maybe people have just never thought about how the number of colors affect the resulting image. Genesis had higher resolution and a fast CPU (there are debates about whether, due to architecture, the Motorola 68k and Ricoh 5A22 are generally equivalent in performance, despite the 68k having a higher clock speed)... there are so many Genesis games that, even though praised for great graphics, could have looked so much better with a wider on-screen palette count to utilize.
I'm not sure there's any utility in saying either solution is "less likely" or "more likely" based on architecture. Anyone should have been able to see, the gap between SNES and Genesis was mainly in palette. Rotation/scaling/Mode 7 etc being secondary effects that, while nice to have, aren't even applicable to many game types, but color palette affects every game.
Phantasy Star IV for 29.99 would have been an insane deal. I remember picking up that game for $89.99 at Toys R’ Us in America. That game was expensive.
I really like the concept of this series. Keep em coming!
Wholeheartly agree about the competitive individual success mentality that rotted inside SEGA at the time, that's a problem that should've been solved since the beggining.
I agree as well with the ability to use the cartridge slot for RAM, expansion and what have you, always thought that should've been a must for the Mega CD.
That being said, I can't agree with the rest. But for me the problem lies way beyond the CD system, SEGA needed to make things right before that: In my ideal world, SEGA should've treated the console market like a priority since the beggining as they did with their arcade machines, and not half-assing it.
*) Launch the Master System in 1984 (or 1983 if possible) with better audio and chip enhancement capabilities from the cartridge slot, make a full fledge strategy for their games and don't let Nintendo get to the point where they could make third parties abide to those "exclusivity" shenanigans.
*) Mega Drive comes next in 1990, a full on assault with sprite and tile scaling+rotation akin to the Mega CD capabilities, better sound and better color handling, a 12MHz Motorola 68000, again chip enhancement capabilities from the cartridge slot, and a killer game library (better Golden Axe and other game ports at launch, Sonic with even better colors and transparency, more focused first and third party management...), and a very aggresive price policy
*) Mega CD at 1991 or 1992, with then yes, no need for the ASIC as the Mega Drive is mostly capable of the same or somewhat akin capabilities, and no extra CPU, but with the glorious PCM Ricoh chip on it, and the catridge and CD reader enhancementes you mentioned in the video. 199$ with this hardware should be doable, I think 199$ without the Ricoh chip is outrageous.
*) And then, Saturn in 1995 instead of 1994, with way better 3D focus and capabilities integrated with the infinite planes and image effects of what we got.
Of course no 32X, that thing should've never gotten past the proposal phase.
Hindsight is 20/20 and all that, yup, but I always felt that SEGA had the possibility of doing things in a marvelous way but failed in the worst ways :(
It was FMV that killed the Sega CD if they had focused on original games that took advantage of the extra horsepower, it had. I believe we would be talking about the Sega CD in a different light than we are now which is in a mostly negative light, at least that’s how it’s perceived in a negative light due to all of the FMV crap, that saga of America was quite fond of.
I adored my mega cd...
My dad sadly suddenly passed away recently. He got me a collection of all Sega stuff until a decade ago unfortunately life dictated I had to sell it all...
I always associate my mega cd with dad. I was probably one of the first to have one in the uk....
Soulstar, batman, battlecorps, thunderhawk, snatcher, final fight, sonic cd, terminator, jag xj220. List is actually quite extensive.
The first time I saw the sega CD Iwas blown away. Much the same feeling I had with the PS1, PC, DC.
ONE OF MY PERSONAL FAVORITES
If only Mega CD had good port of After Burner, Out Run and Space Harrier using scaling hardware to full potential at launch...
Don’t forget Enduro Racer and Super Hang On!
One hardware change I'd make would be removing the AUX speaker sockets on the back, since the Mega Drive does the audio mixing anyway. The machine could be shipped with a Y-adapter and a new AV cable would be made available to inject the headphones audio. I'd also have the game packaging use the smaller standardized CD jewel case across all regions. Those giant boxes are the bane of my US CD/Saturn experience.
Great take, I'm starting on the time machine so we can get the important work done!
A Let's Save the Game Gear episode would be great in this series
I'm sold. Give this man the Dial of Sega's Destiny. I got my Sega CD unasked for, I was home sick from school and my mom just wanted to make me feel better. I had said I didn't want one, the technology wasn't there yet for good games, and I could see that from the ads alone. So I ended up just feeling even worse because she had wasted all that money, with only the best intentions. Out of that guilt I kept renting Sega CD games for years, trying to find one worth owning, but I don't think I ever bought a single game for the system, and I rented very few by comparison to everything else. She had gotten me Sherlock Holmes and Sol Deace or Feace, and that was what I mostly played, a shmup that would have been fine on the Genesis. I don't know if this remake would have worked, but it could not have done any worse. I honestly played with my Power Glove and my Virtual Boy far, far more than I ever used my Sega CD.
I really like your episodes like this. They are creative and engaging.
I found my copy of Snatcher the other day in my parents loft! First playing this with the Justifier gun blew me away what an experience for a young kid in the 90s there was nothing like it at the time!
Love your profile pic
America!! *uck Yeah!!
You should see what snatcher goes for online,big bucks😊glad you found it
Best way to save the sega cd back then is having it come packed in with the genesis model 2 when the genesis model 2 came out.
I know. Ps1 was the way to do it
Thanks!
You bet!
"Hey! You still don't have a Sega CD? What are you waiting for, Nintendo to make one?"
"Deeerrrrr"
"Wrong answer....show em man...."
🎉🎉💀 ☠ 💀 ☠ 🎉🎉🎉🎉
Sony: 😐
Retro homebrew is Sega's future.
My Genesis was the only console from growing up that survived, so I'm stoked to see all these "new" games coming out again.
Just Picked up " streets of rage II: Samurai Pizza Cats Homebrew". Comes in a SEGA case, with full cover, back, cartridge sticker, everything!!! literally just adds Yattarō (Speedy) as a character nothing more, nothing less BUT PERFECTION
@@elodvezer1790 That sounds awesome, lol. The local game shop that I go to plays a loop of old 90's era cartoon shows openings. One of them is Samurai Pizza Cats so now I have to look that up and show that to them.
@@CrawlingPanther Funny thing is That I didn't grow up with a Sega Genesis. I had a SNES that we would swap with a friend of my brother to play Genesis. I started getting into Genesis last year as I wanted to see the Sega CD and 32X addons.
@@magiccardmaker3588 Lol good luck with that. Think those games are getting really expensive. Yeah for whatever reason my whole friend group had Genesis. Genesii? We had Segas. And one kid was lucky (or unlucky) enough to get trapped in the Sega CD and 32x promotions. They were certainly interesting consoles or addons. But soon after that most of us were getting Playstations. It's too bad about Sega because I am really getting into the Saturn right now and would have enjoyed it as a kid.
SEGA was ahead of the curve with the SEGA CD.
Dunno if we need 8 channels but some PCM upgrade is needed. Genesis sample playback was rough unless you spent the whole CPU on it, and forcing redbook audio for useable voice is rather limiting. It would be a big miss on the mutlimedia experience CD ROM can bring.
I agree pcm on the genesis was rough. But screeching and terrible quality of audio.
I almost agree with you 100% on the internals, EXCEPT:
Design the Sega CD alongside the Genesis in 1988. It doesn't have to come out until 1990/91, BUT designing the add-on and the Genesis at the same time gives you the foresight to connect the proper VDP pins to the expansion bus that will allow you to double VRAM and connect an external color palette chip and color encoder chip. That way you can have a Sega CD with graphics performance similar to Sega's System C or C2 arcade systems, and at least on par with the SNES. But that would only be possible had Sega had the foresight to connect those VDP and VRAM pins to the expansion bus.
Or just use the System C2 arcade board which had a 10MHz 68000, 128KB of VRAM, 16KB CRAM, and could put 4,096 colors out of 98,000.
@@MaxAbramson3 If they did that it would not have been backward compatible with Master System games, which I'm fine with, but backward compatibility was something SOJ really wanted at the time. It would also be more expensive, though.
@@madhatter8508 Think of SEGA's out of pocket options:
1. Megadrive $200 + $200 in game cartridges (then $400 for the Sega CD)
2. Sega CD + System C-2 $300+ to make the console + $80 game CDs
If SEGA had chosen option 2 in 1988, then they certainly would've sold a lot more consoles and had a much greater diversity of titles, including educational, media, music, CD+G, pure arcade ports, etc. Being able to display 4,096 out of 98,000 colors would've kept the system alive until the late 1990s, with no Sega CD, 32X, SVP, Saturn, Neptune, Jupiter debacle and changing roadmap that upset gamers, parents, devs, and retailers.
In fact, the total upfront loss would be lower because it cost SEGA $17 to make each cartridge (more for high memory carts), and tens of millions to advertise and develop software tools for each piece of hardware. Even with a 16.67 MHz 68010, that CPU would not be able to keep up over time, but we'd at least have 4-5,000 textured polygons/sec or 10-15,000 flat shaded for the Virtua Series and Star Wars Arcade.
A $150 loss per console instead of $50? Yes, but SEGA would go on to lose $100 on the Saturn, Sega CD, and every other piece of hardware that they put out on the market. Only losing $150+marketing for 1988-98?
When it comes down to it, even keeping FMV as backgrounds wouldn't resolve the issue hardware limitations of the Genesis / Mega Drive bottle necking the device as it did/does for the 32x as well.
I was so fascinated by Sega CD when it came out! I was a kid and nobody I knew had a computer with a CD drive yet, so Sega CD was my first experience with gaming on disc! It was mind blowing at the time to play the Working Designs games with CD audio dialogue and music
If both Sega of America and Japan actually had collaborated, we would never had Sonic 2 and CD.
Would of still been Sonic 2, maybe not CD though.
A nice video to watch on a Sat morning. This kind of thought experiment is fun - and I agree that some of these moves would have been sensible. Whether an add-on for the genesis / Mega drive could ever have been truly succesfull is debatable it would certainly have helped.
I must admit that as an Amiga fan I often consider what should have been done to make the Commodore CD32 a success. Admittedly this is all about software as the console just never got any killer-aps that might have sold it. But we can dream, right?
About the color palette issue... Every Sega CD game uses the Genesis hardware for video output, so for an increased color palette, the Sega CD would've needed its own video output - similar to the 32X - and probably also an additional VDP chip. I think the Genesis needed hardware sprite-scaling more than it needed an increased color palette. There are plenty of highly colorful games on the Genesis. Many of the arcade conversions have accurate colors as well. The Sega CD finally delivered sprite-scaling, but Sega's studios bafflingly failed to take advantage of it.
Removing all the extra hardware and adding more internal RAM and the ability to use expension cartridges is exactly how I would have redesigned the Mega CD.
I have to admit the scaling and rotation is what originally attracted me, but honestly what sold me on the Sega CD was the Japanese intro to Sol Feace - just some simple sprite animations. I was watching it in a local store that had imported a Japanese unit early and was so impressed I actually asked if that was a SNES. When they said no, I knew I wanted one. I actually ended up buying that very unit for $100, a ton of money for me then, after a renter damaged it. They had just bent the CD drive motor (somehow), and I was able to straighten it and loved the system... except Heavy Nova. ;) Batman Returns (driving) was the most impressive title I'd played in the home at the time. And I'm sure Sega felt they needed the scaling and rotation to fend off the SNES a little longer (though the software solution that came soon after seems to have been pretty adequate!) So I'm torn on your decision to pull the ASIC. But can't deny the software approach. It's sad today to know how much Sega competed with themselves when they had the market and could have done it all.
I love these “Let’s Save” videos! All of your observations are good examples of missed opportunities they had.
Some very great games and abysmal fmv efforts very interesting I now have an everdrive pro that runs sega cd and exploring the library has been cool.
It’s nice that you didn’t get greedy and want the CD ADD On to be a Super Scaling Monster because I, like you, love that feature. You are realistic and willing to leave your favorite feature out of the build, a hard pill to swallow indeed but a needed sacrifice for cost purposes. Really quick here back then I had seen a movie called Gung Ho, movie about Japanese auto making and their awesome work ethic and not being selfish and putting the company First. Doesn’t seem like Sega had that philosophy because it’s seems having some developers with overinflated egos went against their principles. Great video sir I will go to bed crying myself to sleep tonight thinking what could’ve been.
The whole FMV thing was hyped beyond belief. PCs suffered the same dithering and resolution issues as the TG-16 and the Genesis. There are exceptions, and talent and time we’re able to really use the feature FMV as a proper extension of their respective devices. Audio and storage capacity was what I was excited for.
I wished for the SEGA CD to have been what you envisioned here.
Honestly, even now I think you could give SEGA a proper direction over use of their resources and how to be more successful.
The price was certainly a obstacle. Every time I get out my old Sega visions magazine and read how sega promised "$29" games I get so disappointed. If only they would have stood by there word.
Ahh man, I remember when a friend of mine got the Genesis, the 32x, and the Sega CD like totally out of the blue. I was beyond jealous.
These are my favorite series of videos on your channel. They're really fun to watch.
I don't think an PC-Engine CD design would work that well because the PCE is a system with lots of untapped potential due to its limited card and ram sizes. The same can't be said about the MD, which could fully use its original hardware only with cartridges. Removing the video ASIC is logical, the thing was technically slower than a Super FX regarding transfer rates, it's something better reserved for a reengineered 32x. With that we cut the VRAM as well and go after the CPU. I don't think we should have no CPU at all, but rather a second Z80 managing the CD drive, sound chip and extra game tasks (such as decompression) with its own dual paged 128k of ram. I mentioned keeping the sound chip, and that's because sampled sounds is something the MD really needed expertise in programming to play correctly, plus it could give a much richer sound to cartridge games that supported it, and i believe it wouldn't raise the costs as dramatically as the Video ASIC and VRAM. Sound Ram would be gone and replaced with the same ram as the Z80 however. Lastly, i wouldn't move system RAM entirely to the cartridge port because of adressing limitations. The cartridge port can only adress 4MB without mappers, making the Sega CD share that adress space with carts is not an wise engineering decision IMO, specially when the expansion port has its own 4MB memory space that would be wasted with this design. Maybe making a card slot for future extra ram on the SCD would be a better move. Lastly, this design allows for regular cartridge games to be enhanced by the presence of an SCD in more way than just playing redbook audio. A little extra processing, more audio channels and specially a huge pool of ram is something that would completely transform some games.
I know this is a Sega centric channel, but I'd like a similar video called fixing the Nintendo 64, these videos are fun!
don't people love that console though?
@ManulTransmission yes, but it could have been so much better, for 1, nearly every game has frame drops and lags, about every game was planned to be so much more but tons of content had to be cut due to lack of space on the cartridges, and the controller, although I don't find it bad, a lot of people hate the controller.
@@PaperBanjo64 I didn't like that controller either lol. Had a couple friends with N64 growing up but haven't revisited it myself.
@ManulTransmission some games aged really bad, especially non Nintendo and RareWare created games, most Rare games are on XBOX with far better resolutions, framerates, and better controls
@@PaperBanjo64 I doubt every game had removed things, except for higher quality music and more FMV. Actual gameplay wise, apart from RPGs, they included similar or more to what CD games used.
@5:10
as far as your "new" hardware profile goes, I'm not fully onboard. I do like the idea of a pass-through system ram cart, especially to account for extra options...
But the additional audio hardware could have been PAIRED with the stock genesis audio to make a fantastic sound/music platform without having to solely rely on streaming redbook audio (and thus also leave the disc available for loading content/assets during gameplay to improve presentation and minimize obvious load times, as well as encourage creativity from composers).
The extra processor for sprite scaling was one of the main reasons I was impressed by the prospect of the Sega CD as a kid (I was like 8 when the system launched, and 9 or 10 when my friend's father bought the model 2 unit and i finally got to play some of the stuff I had seen in magazines). "real" video never impressed me as a kid because it only ever felt like a segue between/to actual gameplay segments. I wanted the extra hardware ability to be funneled into the actual gameplay at all times.
I never cared about FMV games, I always thought that was a weird angle for sega's marketing team when the add-on was really a powerful upgrade to the stock genesis that allowed much bigger and potentially more impressive games...
The RAM cart from this video combined with the SVP passthrough cart from the Saturn video would make a killer Tower of Power. I really wonder what it would've been like in this alternate universe - would it have been taller or shorter?
Probably shorter. The scaled back CD unit that Sega Lord X describes here would have looked more like the Model 2 CD peripheral, only with even less of an underbase than that unit had.
One thing you would have to watch out for is to resist the temptation to have the cartridge version and the CD version interact with each other and provide some extra benefit for buying both versions. You wouldn't want to make customers feel like they would need to shell out $30 for the CD and $60 for the cartridge to get the "full experience"
While the Core Designs games not being possible would suck, it would be better in the long run. If they had went with a game plan like this, we could have gotten games like Castlevania Rondo Of Blood, which Sega could have rubbed in Nintendo's face when Dracula X came out on Super Nintendo. Considering that the Sega CD got PC Engine/Turbografx CD titles like Sherlock Holmes and Lords Of Thunder, if the Sega CD had been more successful and better to do business with there is no reason why Konami wouldn't have ported it. We also could have gotten stuff like Turbografx CD versions of the Valis games and maybe even a translated version of Valis 4. So many missed opportunities that could have easily happened.
My top 10 future 'Let's Save' wishlist for you to cover in your future videos.
10) Let's Save the Master System(in North America and Japan)
9) Let's Save the Game Gear
8) Let's Save the Atari 5200
7) Let's Save the Atari 7800
6) Let's Save the Atari Jaguar + Jaguar CD
5) Let's Save the N64DD
4) Let's Save the Neo Geo + Neo GEO CD
3) Let's Save the Wii U
2) Let's Save the PS Vita
1) Let's Save the SNES CD add-on
The SNES add on was an attempt by Sony to infiltrate Nintendo via Ken Kutaragi.
Nintendo was right to thrash it.
I love your content so much! When I first found you 3 years ago, I was able to enjoy hours and hours of your old stuff. Now that I have a little love to spread, I'm a proud Patreon Supporter! (I wrote this imagining it being said in your great narrative voice my brother!)
Super interesting video dude!
Great to see you doing something totally original, and you obviously put a lot of thought, time and effort into it.
Cheers!
I'd focus the machine and the marketing around its CD player capabilities and superior audio quality. Make it an actual stereo-system with an amp and speaker outputs on the back, and an actual volume knob on the front (and have digital controls for treble, bass, etc.). That would've been pretty novel in 1991, and it might've appealed to a wider market (just like the PS2 did).
I think the one upgrade they should have included with the Sega CD was an increased the color palette with a massive increase of the number of colors available on screen on each frame. This was the Achilles heel of the Genesis as compared to the TG-16 and SNES. They could have had the video signal come out of the Sega CD unit instead and also allow for cartridge games to have enhanced graphics modes that use the Sega CD's color rendering hardware for better looking cartridge-based games, as well.
Paco Pastor (Sega Spain´s president) tried to convince the responsible in SEGA Japan to do that about the games... all Genesis games could be published on SEGA CD with some extras and lower prices and lot of cheap compilations so the users could conclude that they would recover easily the money with the games and feel that buying a SEGACD was a must deal and, at the same time, it would increase the attention of developers to use the addon.
I just have to say that your "let's save series" is one of the best and most creative video compilation ideas out here on the internet. It truly is like stepping into a time machine. Not to mention, your plans to save each console seem highly plausible. It takes a lot of technical and business knowledge and imagination.
I feel the problem with the 16 bit cd add ons were that game development tech wasn’t at the point where it could truly take advantage of cd roms. Most cd based games were pretty similar to what cartridge/ hu card games were offering except they had cutscenes and better music.
I think the sega cd/turbographx cd/etc. should have been new console models from the start instead of add ons and priced comparably to the base consoles. Cd games should also be marketed as supplements to the main experience in order to maintain trust with consumers who bought the genesis/tg 16. Basically the base console is for casuals and the updated model is for hardcores who could sell their old consoles if they wanted to buy a cd/cartridge combo machine.
As an addendum. The jaguar should have been a fully cd based console from the start with a disk drive that actually worked.
I agree that they made mistakes during the design phase, I disagree on the direction they should have taken. What you have described IS cheaper than what we ended up with, thus easier to sell in theory, but does little to really boost the Genesis. What they should have done IMHO is used a second Genesis board but with more RAM, higher clockspeeds (preferably double the Genesis rather than the roughly 50% faster we got), and MAYBE a slightly upgraded VDP supporting more colors in hardware. Even if you use the stock VDP, you still get more effective colors by the simultaneous use of two VDPs.
This gives you more colors (one way or another), more audio capability (including lots of FM channels), more/bigger/better animated sprites (plus potentially optional cart DMA for late-gen combo games), background layers, CD capability, more raw horsepower to do effects in software - even scaling or polys (look at the Genesis demo of Starfox, now triple the effective horsepower). One of the games you showed, Jaguar XJ220, actually used software sprite scaling. This is stuff that's immediately evident, allowing you to build games that compete even with SNES games with enhancement chips. Use the video output on the Sega CD, and if transfer rates from Genesis to Sega CD are too slow, go the video compositing route to combine graphics. The extra background layers could be used to insert the composited image anywhere the dev pleases. Depending on the dev, they might use both methods simultaneously. Discourage FMV games as much as possible, reduce the licensing fee for games that DON'T use FMVs extensively in gameplay.
By using the Genesis mainboard configuration (minus cart slot), the regular design improvements/shrinks can be carried over to the Sega CD. They also should have aggressively pushed cost-reductions and combo hardware as early as possible.
I may have missed it if you did one, but I need a what if episode about saving the 32X! Damn the Saturn, I need this console to be a success for weirdly personal reasons!
What a very interesting and thoughtful take, sir. Kudos!
Your design is interesting but I would include an expansion bay so they could add sprite scaling through a booster addon and the Sega CD should take over display so more colors can be added!
I usually agree with your vids on these, and your take on this is interesting, but I feel that it misses a fundamental point - the SNES/Mega Drive war was raging, and the SNES was doing things that the Mega Drive couldn't do. I think automatically at the time, a CD add-on seems like it would add new features, but this take on it seems to remove almost everything that would make an upgrade interesting; this version of the MEGA CD seems to warrant its existence less than the original unit did.
The similarity to the PC Engine CD is a great idea in theory, but it struggled to make any waves in the West, so I'm not sure that template is the way to go if SEGA wanted the unit to succeed around the world, even with the excellent Japanese support it had behind it. I personally think that keeping the scaling features and doubling down on those games would allow it to compete with the SNES. SEGA Arcade ports, more games with Mode 7-style effects, more CD versions of SEGA IP and a focus on securing more SNES/PC Engine-style RPGs would have helped the system to no end, at least in my mind. This approach would work hand in hand with a new, highly co-operative version of SEGA that thought globally. Hell, I think excising most of the FMV games and diverting all those resources to actual games would have done wonders on its own.
Great video though, and food for thought; you definitely got me thinking! Appreciate the effort, as always, SLX :)
I feel the core Genesis appeal was more than enough to compete with the SNES, and the best Sega CD games didn't use any of its extra abilities. They were simply great games. Sega CD's biggest issue was price and messaging. The scaling features didn't sell it then and keeping it was guaranteed failure in my view. Sega CD needed to morph into a value console with its own batch of big hit exclusives. My thinking, anyway.
@@SegaLordX ''Sonic CD'' was one of those best selling games on the system and it did use the scaling hardware in the game along with red-book audio. Had there been more games made like this the system would have done much better. I think the consumers needed to see more of this but the FMV stuff overshadowed it. (Just my opinion my Lord).
@@SegaLordX Fair points, and I understand your reasoning. Agree that the scaling stuff didn't sell it then back then either, but to be fair, there weren't any real heavy-hitters that used the scaling features either. It was relegated to bonus stages, or was showcased by IP that wasn't all that big to begin with. I think with ports of OutRun/OutRunners, a new scaling version of Super Monaco GP etc, it could have generated some real excitement. A proper Road Rash that used hardware scaling would have been neat too.
Also agree that the messaging was wrong. FMV was a neat bonus, but not the future. Pricing was OK, at least for the Mega CD 2 in Australia - I can't speak for the US, though. I mean, my parents were not well off, but I still managed to end up with one and a decent stack of games. I still have to wonder what would make people run out to buy one if the unit basically only just added more storage and CD soundtracks; that was a heavy criticism of the unit back in the day.
I think holding off release by a year, and having Sonic CD as a pack-in, along with some high-profile launch titles would have been a great idea. Software sells a system, and the Mega CD really lacked a killer launch line-up. This was the beginning of SEGA's nasty habit of not leveraging its strong IP to launch and keep a system afloat.
Everything SLX said in his redesign for the Sega CD system ...i wonder how much of that was actually implemented in the Genesis Mini 2 (it does have Sega CD games installed)
I would also like to add a video out on the sega cd and a greater color pallet. 61 simultaneous colors really hindered the genesis late in its life cycle.
I love your dream ideas. Many of them are ones that I too have wished for, the Genesis collections would have been amazing.
The Sega CD needed more RAM and VRAM; plus more colours.
It definetely needed color ram cache and a/v pass through cable to pull it off.
More colors would have meant a new graphics chip which means a higher price.
That was impossible because Sega left the pins on the VDP for extra VRAM and color pallet RAM on the Genesis PCB unconnected to save a few pennies. If they had brought those out to the expansion port they could have added a second 64K chunk of shared VRAM to transfer sprite data (instead of the cartridge type DMA it used) and it could have had up to sixteen color pallets. The reason the SNES had so many different expansion chips was because the cartridge port had a buss for that stuff, the Genesis didn't because Sega was short sighted.
More quality games is what it needed. The Switch is proof that it is all about games and not graphics.
@@kathleendelcourt8136It already had a new graphics chip though, remember the ASIC blitter? Expanding the contents of the die to include a CRAM unit wouldn't have been be as expensive as you think.
When you first said "Ditch the CPU and ASIC" I thought you were nuts! But when you presented your arguments and I thought about it, you are exactly right about this. The cost increase was terrible, and only a few games really used the power. Very good thought!
I get the logic behind some of these changes, but Sega still managed to launch the Sega CD 2/Mega CD 2 at a much more affordable price with the same hardware behind it - although I appreciate costs of chips would have come down by the time of its launch. Having an add-on system connected to the side with the pop up lid as opposed to the automatic retractable CD tray would have cut down on costs instantly. There were some unnecessary bells and whistles with the original physical product which the Sega CD 2/Mega CD 2 removed to reduce its costs.
In terms of its capabilities, I would have absolutely retained the sprite scaling hardware and ensured more games were programmed to take advantage of the super scalers out there - Sega themselves had the assets and completely ignored them! Doing so would have really ensured you got quality - not novelty like FMV - which stood the system apart from the Genesis/Mega Drive and gave people a compelling reason to own one.
The other thing I would have liked to have seen would have been an increased colour palette and ability to display far more colours on screen than the Genesis/Mega Drive. Again, this would have really upgraded the graphical presentation of games and created another compelling reason for gamers to choose to invest in the CD add on. Games like Mortal Kombat would not only have sounded better, but also looked a step above the Genesis/Mega Drive original.
I'd love to have seen games in the form of cartridges and CD-ROMs in one game case. You could buy the game as a Genesis/Mega Drive owner and play, say, an 8Mbit cart version of a game, and have a bonus CD soundtrack if you have a CD player. But if you have a Sega CD also, you get to put them together and also access cutscenes, more animation and voice samples, maybe extra stages, and smaller load times compared to having the CD-ROM alone.
With that, the need for extra RAM isn't quite so great. And I do agree that the hardware needed to be cheaper, preferably no more than the cost of the Genesis alone, especially if it only has an effective life of three years before the Saturn turns up.
The question is, was a cart and CD-ROM data combination ever technically possible? The cartridge Flux works with the Mega CD, and the new 32X Doom, but they're the only examples I can think of and they only use the 'redbook' audio aspect.
A Sonic level editor sounds cool, but the way the engine was built to sneakily recycle big chunks of scenery is complex and limiting, so I doubt that could have ever happened. However I don't think anything is stopping Sega from going ahead with a 'Sonic Maker' of their own for much later hardware. I'm sure there'd be lots of interest!
We often talk about many mistakes Sega did in 90s, but we forget that Sega CD was not unsuccessful and it could be more successful if Sega would not screw up with other stuff, I think among 32X, Saturn, Sega CD, and some other stuff Sega did in 90s, Sega CD is the one which Requires least changes and those changes relate to game library and not the console itself. Also i would definitely keep scaling.
These are all good idea. I agree that getting the base cost down and offering existing cartridge titles at a lower price could've helped it. The sprite scaling was cool but most games could've benefitted more from additional working memory. That said, I still probably wouldn't have purchased it at the time. I was off to college when it came out and while some people brought their game consoles with them, I decided to focus on my computer and get a CD-ROM drive for it. After a few years of heavy Genesis play time, gaming during my college years were almost entirely done on my computer.
Well, I would keep the scaling features. I would also like to make it so we could use a cartridge not only for back up ram but also to instal a partial amount of the CDROM game to cut down the load times a little.
A bold proposal, to eliminate sprite scaling... But you convinced me.
Another great video!
The Make Your Own Music Video ones were awesome at the time. My love for game design was expanded to want to make music and videography projects too. Jaguar XJ220 with the ability to make your own tracks was fun too. CD+G (graphics) CDs were awesome to enjoy on the Sega CD and to play CDs overall.
I definitely agree with a Sonic 3 and Knuckles special edition. To have Sonic 3 the way it was originally supposed to be released with and upgraded soundtrack would have been epic. Sega could have also tried to get Castlevania: Rondo of Blood on the Sega CD. That way, we could have had an American port available a lot sooner than we eventually did.
This was a unique and interesting take. Pretty cool SLX.
Castlevania Bloodlines with orchestral soundtrack on CD would have blown minds.
Good video! This is fun to think about. Yeah, I totally agree that the business mistrust between Sega of Japan and Sega of America really was a huge underlying issue. That behavior should never have been tolerated.
They should have just saved the sprite scaling for the Saturn and downplayed the FMV games. The FMV games aged like milk anyways. I like the idea of taking classic Genesis games and adding enhancements with extra content. Many of the Genesis ports to the Sega CD were my favorite Sega CD games. It reminds of me of the current MD+ hacks which takes many Genesis games and adds the ability to have a fully upgraded CD-quality soundtrack.
It didn't help that a PCB layout error with the address lines on the expansion port in the first batch of Megadrives meant that DMA transfers between the Sega CD and the Genesis were limited to 128 bytes at a time. Even though the error was fixed that first batch was still out there because Sega never issued a recall on those units and the software had to assume it might be running on one of them. Also the Genesis VDP had pins for extra 64k of VRAM and color pallets that were not brought out to the expansion port, if they had it could have been match more capable than it was. In particular the sprite scaling functions could have been made much easier to use if the VDP and Sega CD had shared 64k of VRAM to transfer data instead of having to download it through the 68000 into VRAM. (these pins *were* used in the System C/C2 and System 18 arcade boards)
Fantastic video! I love this "Relaunch" idea. You should do one like this on the 32x! It had potential too!
WOW awesome job Sega Lord X! You nailed it!!!
This add-on for sega made me lean it to gaming hard. Master systems-genesis- sega cd-playstation-ps2-xbox-360-ps3-ps4-
Ps5-series S. Thats my gaming history in ownership.
In my opinion the best Sega CD would've been no Sega CD. Sega's position in the market was always way more fragile than it seemed, and they needed to focus the power they had on what would be happening in five years, instead of trying to ride the wave of the "next big thing" as it came along over and over again.
If they were going to keep it, I'd have pushed out the release a few years so that the more advanced features you cut could be added more cheaply. The Genesis didn't need a refresh yet in 1991; if Sega had waited until Christmas 1992 or even mid-1993, they could've offered a more fully baked peripheral that had their advanced scaling, maybe even included the 3D chip from Virtua Racer, and gave devs enough time to learn how to use these new toys.
From a marketing standpoint of dialing back FMV and pushing compilations and real games I think you're spot on, and if this had released in 1991 I agree that scaling back to get prices down was a good approach. But honestly if I just bought my kid a Genesis for Christmas in 1990 and they were already whining about buying a $200 add-on for it the very next year I'd be kinda peeved. Waiting one more year to add more features for a lower price might been a better look.
29.99 Phantasy Star IV...I'd have been ALL OVER THAT. I waited forever to get that game on clearance. I think I might have already been playing 32 bit games.
Or forget the sega cd & 32x and just concentrate on the saturn!
i love cartrides so i prever 8-16 bit systems.
but the saturn is a cool system , for 2d Games.
For 3D it is crap
Also, developed cd based cd games earlier on superior computer hardware.
This is the best comment. Forget add ons, focus on the next generation
Yes! If only 90s developers would have used it for storage and the extra horsepower and not crappy FMV
Should have been mandatory use of scaling and rotation.
Lots of us love the FMV games. But yes, they needed to better use the power of the device. Still have my launch Sega CD, changed the belts and running great.
What I would do to save the Sega-CD:
- Remove the CD drive to reduce cost;
- Add audio/video IN/OUT connections like the 32X;
- Upgrade the number of colors used by the VDP to something, at least, similar to the SNES (the main feature highlighted as a disadvantage of the Mega Drive);
- Add a data compression chip in order to squeeze more game onto the MD cartridges.
I would let this new console run the main part of the games and the MD would do the secondary parts like backgraund and NPCs.
The same cartridge could have the game in the MD version and the expanded version, with more colors and graphic effects (for those games that didn't have many improvements).
so basically a 32X
@@MarkFrankJPN Yes but earlier. The only improvement MD ever needed was to have more colors.
Using my $1/hr babysitting job, I bought a Super Nintendo in 1991. I was a huge fan of the WWF Akklaim games. When WWF Rage in the Cage came out for the Sega CD, I was one classified ad away from selling my Super Nintendo and buying the Sega CD. Close call.
Agree 100%! And this is exactly what I wanted from my Sega CD.
Really like these "Let's Save" videos. Not only in terms of what we could've gotten for a library of games but also the console specs and overall game plan of how to sell this console successfully.