Sega 32X Story | Nostalgia Nerd
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ม.ค. 2018
- The Sega 32X, also known as the Genesis 32X, Mega Drive 32X and Super 32X is a plugin device for the Sega Mega Drive / Sega Genesis, which propelled the 1988 16 bit console to a lofty 32 bits of undeniable POWERRRR. It was released in 1994 to help compete both with the Super Nintendo and super consoles such as the Atari Jaguar, Amiga CD32 and 3DO. In this video we will follow its story from conception to demise, and find out just what went wrong and what went right for the Sega 32X Add-on.
Many thanks to Slope's Game Room for lending his voice; / djslopesroom
and Ashens for lending me his Sega 32X box & carts; / ashens
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♜Resources♜
Reference;
www.scribd.com/read/202728988...
archive.org/details/mean-mach...
segaretro.org/Sega_32X/Techni...
segaretro.org/Sega_Neptune
sega.wikia.com/wiki/Sega_32X
archive.org/details/bad-influ...
Super Nintendo Sales Figures: www.neogaf.com/threads/ninten...
Genesis Sales Figures (Total sold by 1994): segaretro.org/Press_release:_...
Videos;
archive.org/details/bad_influ... (UK 32X Release date)
Sonic 4 assets: • Video
RDPH Games: / @rdphgames8376
Sonic Mars demo: • Video
1994 Summer CES (DigitalNeoHuman): • 1994 Summer CES
1994 SCES (BiffsGamingVideos): • 1994 SCES: Parts 38-45...
Full Sega Summer 1994 Promo: • Sega Summer CES Promo ...
Sega 32X Tech Demo: • Sega 32X Tech Demo
Sega Neptune Recreation (In MegaDrive 32X Style) by PorlZilla: • Sega Neptune Replica / www.porlzilla.com/p/sega-neptu...
BG Music by Stefan Netsman, Daniel Gunnarsson, Emil Axelsson, Gunnar Johnsén, Anders Bothén & Raynie.
Final 2 tracks are from Mortal Komat (Mega Drive Edition) and Super After Burner (32X Edition).
If you believe I have forgotten to attribute anything in this video, please let me know, so I can add the source in. It takes time to make these videos and therefore it can be easy to forget things or make a mistake.
The idea of a "blood moon" serving as an omen of the coming of the end times comes from the Book of Joel, where it is written "the sun will turn into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible demise of Sega begins".
(and that folks, is how you create a back story for slapping a picture of the red moon, in place of Mars, after 6 coffees, at 3am)
I agree that the 32x did its job, and had the potential to have its own fully fledged legacy and longer lifespan if Sega had held onto it a little longer and not be stupid with how they handled the Saturn's release, but I have another thought:
I think Sega should've released the 32x as the Mars/Neptune from moment one, had it be compatible with the CD through the same connection, and lowered the price of the Genesis/MD model 2 as to offer it as the budget-minded alternative. This way, they could've pushed the 32x as a true upgrade from the 16-bit console, showing how it was fully backwards compatible with the games, controllers and addons, and still have people excited for the Saturn. I say this because this is exactly what Sega did with the release of the Mega Drive in Europe (and similarly in NA), offering the Power Base Converter for those who upgrade, and the then-roughly-two-years-old Master System as the budget alternative.
BLATANT LIE ... Billy Joel never said something like that. He just said that a bad moon would be rising over Nintendon't, referring to the prophecies of the ancient apostles of credence clearwater & revival. Seems you are either a heretic or worse one of those evil devious Mario-worshiping cultists, but not a true believer. All praise the Lord and Sonic his harbinger. Hallelujah and cheers.
BTW: great video, I really like your historic "Story" videos on consoles
Im scared of the sun
Been cheaper? The 32X only cost $19.99 a year after launch. How much cheaper do you think it should have sold for?
Gotta love a time when "VHS quality video" was a marketing point.
Honestly on a tube TV of the time, especially a small one, VHS looks great still. On a small set you can barely tell the difference from a live TV signal, and even on a bigger screen with much a Sony tube in it you can see the difference but without a side-by-side comparison you won’t really notice too much, and the VHS quality is more than good enough I think.
It’s only after 20 years of TVs with poor scaling chips that gave it a bad rap, modern screens need to scale the signal to match the output resolution which blurs it a bunch and creates some artefacts, and most scaler chips really mess up the colours of VHS, if you put VHS on even a small flatscreen it usually looks really bad. Luckily in recent years scalers have improved, especially improving the colours which makes it looks a lot less bad.
@@justanotheryoutubechannel The DVD's on my big flat TV look like mediocre at best. When i play them on my CRT they look super awesome.
@@justanotheryoutubechannelI have a nice 27' Emerson flat screen CRT and a Panasonic VCR, tapes look pretty good on this combo.
In hindsight it's crazy to imagine Sega being afraid of the Jaguar or 3DO haha
ChaosEmerald85 true but the possibility was there, the 3DO might have posed more of a threat if it was cheaper and the Atari also if any developers of any note had made games for it!
ChaosEmerald85
Why? I was there, in the industry, those machines were legitimate threats, on paper at least. What killed both those machines was poor tools, bad decisions. The hardware is more than capable.
I'm so tired of Millennial revisionist histories.
Gorilla jones You're a Millenarial
Gorilla Jones you know what hindsight means right?
The 3DO was a legitimate console contender with huge buzz and critical acclaim for a hot minute. And while it didn't end up translating it's promise into mass appeal, it still had a good run and developed a cult following.
The Jaguar, on the other hand, poor thing. I really wanted to root for it, but while the hardware was powerful, it was too wacky for programmers to invest the time to make decent games for it.
Being 59 years young now, I have spent allot of my life watching video games evolve. I love your nostalgic videos. They remind me of good times!
I had a genesis with the CD player hooked on to it. At the time, the 32x was just too little, would have taken up too much space (with the cd), and too expensive. As you pointed out, whole new systems loomed on the market so I just decided to wait.
I'm one of those faithful few 32X fans...... In fact, I purchased the Mega CD and 32X on launch day and don't remember ever meeting anyone else who had either of them for years after. Great job on your coverage of one of my favorite systems.
I knew there were some out there. I'm glad you appreciated it!
Any machine that lets me play Supreme Warrior with better quality video is a winner in my book.
Jenovi one of the faithful few that could actually afford those
I loved my 32X, though I got it for $50 with Star Wars Arcade. At that price point, it's hard to be dissatisfied.
I had both, too. I traded the Frankenstein monster for a 486 PC with 4MB of RAM and a Sound Blaster, good times! Still have the Doom 32x cartridge.
The Sega tech demo looks amazing for the time...such as shame what happened.
Seems like all of this could have been avoided if they made the Saturn backwards compatible with the Mega Drive / 32X. After all, the genesis was backwards compatible with the Master System.
No it wouldn't. Because the game DEVs should have to choose between the 2 systems to program, and they would choose to make for Saturn. And for the price of the games, it was a better deal to buy for Saturn.
Modifying your idea to work:
The Saturn games should play on 32X, and 32X + SegaCD being cheaper.
Because with this the 32X would have the same library as Saturn, and the people that couldn't afford a Saturn could still buy and play the games.
Of course for the Saturn be compatible with 32X: the SegaCD should be mandatory, the 32X be capable to output the same number of polygons, and the 32X be worse in resolution, colors, textures to save money from the video memory and processor.
Saturn and 32X should be build in mind (including the software to program) to be at sell at the same time.
This is a strategy to sell cheaper for some people, and expensive for others. Beating the playstation at price.
This is not the only away that I think it would work.
@@luisff7030 The idea is not so much that developers would continue to target the 32X, which I don't think they would have. However, it could have allowed Sega to save face by providing an off ramp for devs that invested in the 32x and didn't have anyone to sell their product to.
Yes!
@7MGTESupraTurboA The 32x was a far cheaper product. It shared the same CPU architecture, making forward compatability possible. And the Saturn had a 68k, which could have been repurposed for backwards compatibility to SMD.
@@ImHereFindMe thought the Saturn had a RISC processor?
I loved the 32X back in the day, and I remember getting mine when my local K-Mart here in the US had dropped the units down to $70.00 US around Oct./Nov. 95 I was able to talk my mother into getting me one, with the games having dropped down to around $20-$25 each,, and I got Doom, Virtual Fighter, Space Harrier, and Metal Head(never did like this one that much) with the system. She called it a late birthday gift, and early Christmas gift. but only a few years later in late 99 along with my Genesis I sold it all off to a Co work at the corner store I was working at like a total idiot, to fund a gaming PC I was building at the time. Now to get it all back the prices are just stupidly insane even here ins US. Man If only I had a time machine to go back, and kick my younger self in the ass, and say keep more of your old games, computers, and consoles!!!
Seriously? I didn't realize sega 32x, megadrive and their games were expensive.
Luckily, I've still kept hold of legend of dragoon an suikoden for the ps1.
I'm more of an incredibly lucky one, since I was able to find some good consoles for a low price secondhand. I once found a Sega Mega Drive Model 1 at a charity shop here in Australia. It came in a Nuby case, with two controllers, and I only had to pay $5AU for it. I also once found a Model 2 Atari Lynx at that same charity shop later on, and that came with two games and a nifty carrying case. It only cost $5AU as well! And I even found a Panasonic Laserdisc player at that very same charity shop. It was in working condition, and even though it cost $60AU, that was a good enough investment for me.
Similar story here. In 1996 an Aussie retailer put the 32X on special for around $20 AUD with Doom as a pack-in game. I camped out and bought two, then sold my entire MegaDrive collection in 1997 for a few hundred bucks to build a PC. Regrets!
Same here, it was actually pretty good for certain games.
I really miss Sega as a console maker.....the fights between sony and microsoft just don't hold a candle to the character and fun that Sega and Nintendo had.....
On one side, im glad... i just got a wiiU about a good year ago used and there are so many games on it i want to play - as well as on my ps4 pro i got as a blu ray player mostly... (sshhh im trying to see the bright side on my tough daily workload vs free time allowance) thus im actually glad that they dont release stuff so fast... But on the other hand im with you that.... some more competition at least in trying to best each other with their offerings.... right now it just looks like they arrived at a status quo so to say
I agree both on the main comment as well as Axonteers remark. 👍
Not exactly a surprise when both consoles are just repackaged x86 PCs running repackaged PC OSes.
@@davidpaskevic4276 replying to an old post but that rings ever so more now. PS5 and Xbox Series X are nearly identical minus some changes like a custom ssd module for PS5 and audio chip. Otherwise, both are AMD Ryzen processors and RDNA 2 GPU's.
Agree even now , I bought a PS5 and Xbox SX, I still miss SEGA...their attitude and games.
My brother had a nightmare with this system. Got it for christmas and it overheated after an hour of gameplay or so. We tried another unit but had the same problems so we got refunded. 9 months later he had a launch PS1 so it worked out well I suppose
I bought a 32x in 96 as a 12 year old. I could only afford the add-on, no game.
Bought the add-on, saved for weeks and weeks to get a game and by the time I had enough cash no games were in my local stores any more 😫
That's awful, I'm sorry to hear that if it was allowance, if you actually worked for it, I'm very sorry.
My memory of the 32X is tied to the Virtual Boy due to me finding them both at the same time on clearance for around $35 in a store that itself had no more than a few years of life left before being bought out by a competitor who would themselves fold shortly after. It's all a symphony of failure.
It only worked if you had the metal clips that were in the cartridge slot before you put the 32X in
A lot of people don’t know that
If Sega wanted to extend the life of the Mega Drive they should instead have supported developers to make awesome games, like Nintendo did with Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario Kart, Yoshi's Island, Starwing... This is coming from a Sega fan!
Without an add on device. There's no way the Mega Drive could rival games like them.
@@Mitjitsu Virtua Racing for the Mega Drive was way more impressive then anything the SuperFX chip was capable of, and that used their mostly forgotten "SVP" chip - no 32x needed. Sadly never really got much use other then that game, but they definitely could have extended the life of the system with enhancement chips like that rather then going mad with system addons. With it they probably could have produced a decently compelling port of Doom (better then the SNES version in any case) and perhaps a 4th Sonic game that could have pushed the system just as much as DKC and Yoshi's Island.
They also could have managed the Sega CD a whole lot better - less FMV games and more stuff like Sonic CD. I guess the problem with Sega was that without a decent long term plan, all this hardware was just sent out to die. In some alternate timeline if they had essentially combined the CD and the 32x (or at least something like an integrated SVP chip) into a single product that would have essentially been the "Mega Drive 1.5", they could have had a really compelling product that would have held up until the 5th gen consoles arrived. But that would have been far too forward thinking for them at the time.
@@Mitjitsu ummm have you seen the visuals in Vectorman? That game looks just as impressive of DKC.
@@camulodunon umm Vectorman is also on the Mega Drive.
@@gamingnubs7628 yeah, I am talking about the Genesis/MD.
In hindsight, Sega should’ve just held on with the Megadrive and concentrated on shit hot software for it. That way, they could focus more fully on getting the Saturn hardware on point. They should’ve also made sure the Saturn was backwards compatible with the Megadrive to ensure continuity for its user base.
Even created updated straight forward SDK so more developers can push the system to its limits during 94 along with the sega cd.
Yeah hindsight is 20/20 but it's interesting to speculate.
I'm guessing the craze about "bits" played a strong role here; "16 bits" was probably seen as old hat with the advent of 32-bit consoles (most of which ultimately failed) in the early '90s.
Your suggestion might have really been the wise choice, but the marketing dept would have strongly objected to _not_ going "32-bit" asap. My guess.
Totally agree, the Mega Drive was still fairly popular in some regions. I had and played mine until 1998 when we got an OG PlayStation, and a lot of families did the same to ensure they could afford them.
The Mega Drive was really starting to be pushed by developers at the end of its lifecycle, with games like Virtua Racing, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Toy Story, Kawasaki Superbikes, The Lost World: Jurassic Park and more, showing that the console could still do great 2p experiences, pseudo 3D graphics, and interesting gameplay at a much more affordable price (minus VR, which was £70 in release!).
Exactly, they had the SVP chip and could have kept working on that.
The 32X was a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing.
Tedmeister i was thinking the exact same thing.
Don't usually comment on videos but your system story's are absolutely top notch, informative and entertaining. So good to discover the background of the systems I grew up playing and loving. Seriously thank you so much for making these really appreciate your time and hard work!
SEGA had the craziest ads back then
Retro Game Players There was a fashion for surrealist / abstract ads at the time, a lot of cars got the same treatment
Retro Game Players SEGA still had the best gaming ads back then.
That’s because the 80s and 90s had some good drugs that’s how these are great adverts
Just wanted to let you know that I consider this channel the gold standard for retro computing information, and I really appreciate these videos. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for another top quality informative video 👍🏻
In hindsight the 32x looking like a nuclear mushroom cloud going of over the Genesis was pretty accurate to what Sega did to there Sega customers
LMAOOOOOOO
Fantastic episode. Always love hearing some positive talk about the 32X as opposed to pieces that pull it apart and spit on it. It is what it is, and the history behind it is pretty interesting.
“...codenamed Mars” (shows a red tinted picture of the Moon) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Well, you’re the Nostalgia Nerd, not the astronomy nerd I guess 😂
What is astronomy if not looking back into the past, with a sense of wonder?
Your videos are so well thought out and done. One of the best on TH-cam!!!!
Great video. I still have my 32x. I was a rabid Sega fanboy growing up, and had every Sega console, even the shunned 32x. I didnt care for it that much but it did have a few decent games . i still prefer its MKII version.
I very much enjoyed this!! Hardly any vids on 32X this detailed. Well done!!
I love the 32x, thats why i recently bought a second as a back up and it was only £90 with After Burner and Doom which i already had so sold it on for £25 making my purchase even sweeter! Ive been in many a debate about the 32X in the comment sections on youtube, so many people knock it and i just don't understand why, quite often they have never even owned or played on one! i always say that Sega would have been better off making some kind of SVP add on instead of the 32x, at a cost of around £40 and that would have been enough to keep the Megadrive competitive until the Saturn arrived or the second option was to hold back a year on the Saturn, see what the competition is like and possibly change hardware specs on the saturn to be superior than other machines on the market, 16bit hardware still outsold 32bit hardware for quite some time, there really was no rush! Anyway the 32x was what we got and it is an impressive bit of kit, games like Virtua Racing Deluxe, Virtua fighter, metal head and dark side really show how capable it was and given time we would have seen games even more impressive tham these!
Great video, I really enjoyed it. Thanks for making it, it's nice to have an unbiased overview of an often overlooked or mocked piece of hardware. Thanks.
I would like to see some original homebrew games for the machine. But it is just a dream.
I actually got one of these back in the day, plugged into my first generation Genesis with a Sega CD attached underneath it... A beast of a console at the time...
Fantastic video! You are always comprehensive and entertaining... many thanks
I almost forgot this video was out. I saw it on my subscribed list but we were getting ready to go on holiday. I'm now watching this in the hotel after it coming up on my recent upload list. Great video mate. Love your work
I didn't have a 32x growing up but a buddy of mine did. I was a Nintendo kid so naturally it was my duty to tell him how stupid it was for the 32X to even exist, specially with the Saturn looming around the corner. In truth, I was just mighty jealous. After owning one as an adult I think I can safely say that the system, much like the Sega/Mega CD, is unfairly criticized. Both have some absolute gems on them. By the way, how strange is it that video game commercials from the 90s are both horribly annoying, over the top, and yet extremely engrossing and interesting to watch? I thought I knew everything there was to know about the 32X & its development but I learned quite a bit from this video. Great job as usual man.
bullshit... i remember lots of people showing off the Japanese saturn early in the US... THAT was the real deal.
Sega CD made sense as an add on but Sega did a poor job releasing games that would get consumers excited for it. 32X seemed like a resource drain and burned good will with consumers.
LMAO! The SEGA 32X is not unfairly criticized. It's complete dog shit. All of the 'gems' on the system are also available on other hardware. There is simply no need to even acquire one.
Very nice.
You put a lot of work in your videos. Thank you Mr. N Nerd
Hey man I really enjoy your videos and have been watching many...thanks for the screen flash warning. I get so upset when media (movies, tv shows, whatever) has this effect that can be dangerous to so many people. I appreciate it.
I had a Genesis , Sega CD , and 32X and my god was it a royal pain in the ass to my mother who had to deal with all those wires lol. I really enjoyed the Sega stuff , but I think I played my 3DO almost as much at that time. The mid 1990's were a glorious time to be a gamer
you're doing great work on these retrospectives
This is the best review of the 32X I've seen on TH-cam. Rather than just saying it's a shit machine and then taking a complete dump on it, you've given some real history. Plus, the idea of what could have been. It's like the Kinect for the Xbox. It sounds good but the execution wasn't. If things were done better, one could imagine what could have come from it.
I'm a big fan of the 32x - it took me eons to finally find a PAL one for less than $200 AUD, found one fully boxed and in gorgeous condition in a second hand store for just shy of $80 back in 2005.
Now I have a Super 32X (JP model) for my JP MD1 as well that I scored on Yahoo Japan. Slowly but surely I'm trying to amass a complete game library, too. It was such an interesting kit to me, and I love a lot of unique additions it makes (such as its sound! Holy gods it's such a small tweak but some of the output it could do was so cool!)
I'll forever put up a fight for the cute little 'shroom.
I am forever sad though about Doom's soundtrack. Mostly because we know the Super 32X set up for it would've allowed for much better music, but the dev was so rushed they more or less whacked Bobby Prince's original midis through it without actually making architecture appropriate music.
Thanks for making this!! I’m excited to watch it. The 32x gets a lot of criticism, some of it deserved, but i have really fond memories of mine. I’m big on graphical perfection, and the improved Mortal Kombat and Virtua games, along with some of their other offerings were really great.
Made sure I watched all the intra-ads without skipping any, because this video is great. Good job Nerd!
Well that's mighty kind. Thanks :D
I picked up a 32X for $20 on clearance, and was quite happy with the titles. Wish I still had mine.
Great video. I really appreciated how you didn't "pile on" the 32x like most other TH-cam channels have. Most of which likely weren't even of gaming age (or even alive!) when the 32x was released. Good job.
Nothing but great content in this channel. Thanks a lot.
Another really interesting video that helped put things into perspective from my teenage memories. I can remember being busy chasing down Mega-CD games and not being too bothered about playing a 32X. I had already played Doom to death on the PC and I wasn't interested in playing Virtua Racing again. I was really into my sport games and my eye was on the Saturn, as everyone else probably was. But in fact it was the playstation that sold me the next 5 years of gaming with Ridge Racer. Thanks buddy, I really enjoyed taking another trip down memory lane.
I don't know about everyone but in my school it was the Saturn that was making the headlines before release. Sega had pretty much dominated the households of kids in my school with the Megadrive and they anticipated the Saturn to be the next great thing. I remember reading a magazine comparing Daytona with Ridge Racer and it convinced me to go down to Blockbuster Video to rent Sony's machine just after release. By the time Christmas had come around, all of the other kids had erased the Saturn from their wishlist and were nagging their parents for Playstations.
Great video. Always amazes me where you get all the old footage for these vids. I almost bought a 32X when they came out but I waited and bought the Saturn. Like you say, it was clever but also messy at the same time. A very odd console. Nice one mate.
Hi man, you just earned a suscriptor! great videos, with extense documentation and well narrated! : )
Dunno if anyone mentions this very often.. But these videos are professional as hell and even more than the thoughtful content the thoughtful production quality is what appeals to me.
Trust that your extra work to produce something of Professional production quality is noticed.
Lol. That fragment of Sega advertising.
There's no 32 bit Mega Drive/Genesis either. ;p
Though if you're talking hypotheticals, the last known revision of the SNES CD specs called for it to include a cartridge containing 4 megabits of ROM and a 6502 just for CD buffer handling, and then also an NEC-V810 processor with another 8 megabits of RAM to itself.
The NEC-V810 is a 32 bit processor that saw use in the PC-FX, and the Virtual boy. (Virtual boy had two of them.)
It's purpose in the SNES CD specs was to replace the SuperFX in an earlier revision with a chip that behaved in a more conventional way and would be easier for developers to understand and work with.
So... It was never made available, but a 32 bit SNES DID in fact exist on paper. ;p
And given the abysmal sales and support of the 32x, I can't imagine it really matters. XD
If the 32-bit snes cd was released back then. Sega would have had a panic attack.
Sega of Japan murdered the entire company. They threw out so many opportunities. (SGI, Sony, etc.)
Sam T Sega could have been a GREATER! Company up to this day... but unfortunately nope 😐
@referral madness Mr.Bernard (looks like a penis with eyes) Stolar actually contributed a lot to killing sega
Truer words were never spoken.
Very well done! I love my 32X. It could have been the home for perfect arcade ports of Sega 32 bit arcade games like Super Monaco GP and Rad Mobile. If even cleans up Genesis/ Mega Drive video. If any third party made new games for the system or completed unreleased games I know I would be on board with that. Again, job well done.
Great video! Very informative and entertaining
Incredible video, Pete! Never had the chance to play around with a 32X, so, thank you! ;)
Cheers!
It's a Pixel THING So are your videos as well, really enjoyed your latest spectrum +3 video 😀
Thank you so much! Appreciate it ;) Pete - aka Nostalgia Nerd - is such an inspiration! :)
I've only just found your channel, thanks to ashens. You know your stuff fella. 👍🏻
Thanks for another great video!
Great video. I still have my 32x and I still like it for what it was
Great rundown, very informative.
Your console videos are works of art, man.
Another awesome video, top stuff 👌👍👏
I watched your BBC Micro, Amstrad and Spectrum vids last night. Your voice calms me LOL
My schoolmates and I all had Megadrives and one got the 32X add-on and we were so jealous. It was like he was light years ahead.
I would’ve killed for one of these too in the 90s I expect if I was around back then, the super scaler ports were epic, I absolutely love Space Harrier and Afterburner II, and the 32x ports were the best you could get until the Saturn port much later. They ran at half the framerate of the arcade and Afterburner had some slowdown, but they looked incredible, nearly arcade perfect, and played really well still. I would’ve loved to get a 32x just for them. If Sega really pushed the sprite scaling capabilities and released Outrun and Galaxy Force and similar super scaler games it might’ve been a lot more impressive, considering how crap most Mega Drive ports of Super Scalers were. The whole 40 times the power thing was hard to see on most games due to the hardware’s design flaws, but the super scalers showed it off for sure.
These videos are great,, good job mate
When I was 12 my uncle gave me his old 32x along with Doom, Virtua Racing, and Star Wars Arcade. I have so many great memories with it. I still say it could have been something great if it was given more time or effort instead of a stopgap. Virtua Fighter shows what could have been. Great vid!
What excellent work! Better than most 32x reviews/mockumentaries! I owned one back in the day, and recently found another 😀
I know this video is 4 years old, but my memories of the launch year Christmas with Doom 32x and Star Wars Arcade are still some of the fondest memories of my childhood.
Why these videos would even get dislikes baffles me -- No comment indicates someone was unhappy either :/ you've got my thumbs up!
because he said the megadrive was the favorite console in 1994. nope. it was the super nintendo!. snes won the generation!.
It was. More households had Genesis consoles than Super Nintendos as 1994 rolled around.
are you sure?. maybe it depends on the country?. I'm in uruguay, the big names were atari2600 and then nintendo nes/famicom and snes, megadrive existed but it was like a second choice, cheaper, and "no mom, I don't want that one, I want the snes" hehehe.
fun fact: master system "started to exist" in the mid 90s! after megadrive, I think master system came out here AFTER megadrive!!. I remember tv ads and stores having it by 97 and 98!!!.
Of course it depends on country. That's why I said Genesis, to specify North America. In Europe the Mega Drive was even more popular than the SNES at that time. The SNES would however, level the playing field well before the decade was out. Obviously, if you look at Japan, the story was very different.
Excellent and informative video!
Good job Nostalgia Nerd. I am liking this show so much! Blesses Arek
Should have been its own console instead of a stop gap, this was Sega's answer to the Jaguar, which they were freaking out about....but those worries proved to be baseless as the Jaguar flopped too! Had the 32x never have happened who knows they might have had more in the financial tank to boost the Saturn hardware wise/price wise..
An excellent video, nice work!
I just realized....ive been watching your videos for ages....but was never subscribed......so....here you go....one more subscriber lol, love your stuff by the way....
This is the sort of content you should start doing again Peter it is a great source of History and information and you are very very good and presenting this sort of content
I think one aspect that isn't talked about enough, is how severely underpowered the 32X was. Yes, it had two fairly powerful (for its time) SH2, but the VDP was barely more than a framebuffer. Everything had to be done in software, which immensely hindered its performances. The same has to be said about audio : two pwm channels (for stereo). If you wanted to play more than two samples simultaneously, you had to mix them in software first. But the main problem is the GPU, or lack thereof.
Regarding 2D, there was just nothing there: no hardware scrolling, no hardware sprite support... and if you look at 2D games, apart maybe for Kolibri (which has no collision detection with the backgrounds, must have helped), most games were forced to use the Megadrive either for backgrounds or for sprites, with all its limitations (no sprite scaling if you used it for sprites, limited color palette for backgrounds...). Most games that tried to use the 32X for background had choppy scrolling, too. Which is why a game like Knuckles Chaotix isn't *that* impressive. I mean, all the backgrounds are handled by the Megadrive, because the 32X just couldn't. Limits the possibilities. In comparison, the Saturn had something like 8 hardware background layers with scrollings, transparency, priority and whatnot, and virtually unlimited hardware sprites with hardware scaling, rotations, deformations, whatever you wanted.
In the 3D region, well... it's not much better. No hardware acceleration and everything done in software meant that it could only do so much. It had very limited possibilities in terms of textured polygons, which were the new big thing. I mean... Sega started working on the 32X with Virtua Racing in mind, but by the time it was released, gamers were looking at Sega Rally or Ridge Racer, and Virtua Racer looked dated in comparison. And the 32X was not even powerful enough for an arcade-perfect conversion.
Add to this that even sound-wise, it only offered marginal improvement over the Megadrive and was a very far cry from new CD-based 32 bits systems, plus the limited storage space of the cartridge technology, and you get all the nails in the coffin.
All in all, the 32X was underpowered and already dated by the time it was released. For the Megadrive gamer, it was a nice gadget, but still a gadget - and a costly one at that - and it was clear from the beginning that it wouldn't live long. For the new 32-bits generation gamer, the Saturn and Playstation were very obviously were the future was, the 32X looked to be a console of the previous generation, offering SuperFX games on steroids basically. Why bother?
Liam3072 one must mention that 3D capabilities of Saturn really sucked, so if you needed something like UV mapping, env. mapping etc. - tough luck, software rendering only.
@@noop9k worst part you can only use warped quad sprites to create polygons. Also, the lack of triangle raterization or support. VDP-1 was bottleneck due to the limited 16-bit bandwidth and lack of 2D/3D special effects like the vdp2 along with the ps1/n64. Also, the CD sub section was a overkill having both the sh1 (for cd) and 68eck CPUs (for sound). They could have used one instead along with reducing the cd ram to 128 or 256 kb ram. No decompression feature or more ram for the sound chip. No unified ram for the main ram, vram and framebuffer for the systems. Dual CPU and dsp set-up was a nightmare to program. DSP was slow clockwise (compare to the ps1 and n64 CPU and coprocessors) and you can only program the dsp through advanced level assembly language. The Saturn hardware was broken from the start.
Hindsight being 20/20, it seems to me Sega would have been better off delaying the Saturn by a year, if they were determined to do the 32X. A concurrent release of the 32X as a standalone console for people new to Sega, and a cheaper Megadrive addon for those who already had sold a kidney for Sega's hardware. Another year to iron out the kinks with the Saturn, and (I'm fooling myself here) to listen to developers who were griping about how hard the Saturn was to code for, might have benefited it in the market, later. Sony crushed Sega because they came to market slightly later, and a lot better, and waiting to launch the Saturn might have flipped that on its head.
I think the only thing was to ax the 32x. I cant see having the saturn coming out one year later vs the playstation doing anything for the console.
I think, given some time to polish it, the Saturn could have been better. Also, just more time for developers to recognise its strengths. Most documentaries on the Saturn highlight that while its 3D performance looked poor by comparison to the Playstation, it was entirely unrivalled in 2D performance. Instead of a library of games that looked slightly worse than their later Playstation ports, Sega could have either invested more time in designing a better 3D capable system, or doubled down on 2D and taken sprite based graphics farther than anyone else (my guess would be the former).
Most of what made the Playstation seem better was how good it was in response to the Saturn. If you first take away the target to beat, in Sega, and then take away the market punching bag, Sony would have had to compete on the merit of the Playstation, and in fact may not have targeted 3D so heavily. What I'm saying is, if we reversed the order to market between Sony and Sega, then perhaps the results would have been reversed as well. It's entirely speculative, of course. Maybe a late Saturn would have meant no Dreamcast, but I think Sega suffered for trail blazing 3D polygonal games on the home console, and might have benefited from seeing Sony's (hypothetical, in a world without the Saturn to learn from) mistakes, fixing those, and being second to market.
Kefkahkefkah as far as the Saturn is concerned, Sega should have 100% waited till after the ps1 was released, Sega could then make alterations to the Saturn, maybe sold it at a more competitive price, make sure their launch is spot on and games aren't rushed for release like Daytona and Virtua fighter were. As i said in my other comment, Sega should have made an SVP adaptor and sell it for £29.99 and this woud have been a far better way to give the aging Megadrive a boost and keep up with Nintendo, Atari etc until the Saturn launch!
Michael Vaughan Managers who approved 32x to begin with were out of their minds. It was doomed and more time wouldn’t help.
If anything, SEGA should have scrapped the SEGA CD, and released the 32X in 1993. This would have focused resources into creating and releasing a more polished SEGA Saturn earlier, while giving the SEGA Mega Drive a boost in competition with the Super Nintendo.
Best version of Space Harrier was on the 32x. You need an Emulator or the Arcade machine to get it better.
I honestly think that Sega should have focused on the SVP for Christmas 1994 instead. SVP-powered Doom, Star Wars Arcade etc. would have done much better even if they were cut back.
Agreed. They could've released a handful of games using the SVP chip. Like you mentioned, Doom, Star Wars, maybe Virtua Fighter. Imagine if they made Streets of Rage 4 powered by the SVP chip. Or a Shinobi game.
@@78starman25 even sonic and knuckles and Knuckles Chaotix with team Sonic too.
Love these system specific retrospectives
Can you imagine Doom for the Sega 32X and CD? Redbook audio with hopefully everything on one CD! Yes, please!
I remember staring at my dad's copy of corse killer amongst his games back in 2009 haha. Nice box art, thankfully I couldn't find his 32x to play it
I think the major problem with the 32x was that they were competing with their own scheduled consoles. Making the upgrade work via genlocking was a interesting idea. If they had given the option of the 32x to existing Megadrive owners, and then released a complimentary, backwards compatible, upgradable and modular Sega system to carry the line forward, it might have worked. In theory, they could have clamped anything over the top of the Megadrive video signal, the actual device was always going to be a bit ugly.
Mmmmm vitalite (that's right). It's a shame we never got that Neptune, I know the Saturn is considered a great 2D machine but a mid generation cart based all in one could have hit a sweet spot if they got it out sooner, instead of add ons. Ah well. At least we still have Vitalite.
In 94, the Snes was way more popular in North America than the genesis. It was a pretty even race through most of he 90s, but Nintendo always seemed to maintain the upper hand.
Nice video m8 👍
Wow Afterburner. That was one of my favs back then. Drive past Sega UK every day in Brentwood London. With the big Sonic logo on the side of the building.
What are they up to these days ?. Still enough to run a big office clearly.
I think that it would be cool if someone made a game system the combined the Sega Genesis, 32x, and SegaCD into one console. However, I also understand that such an endeavor would probably take more effort than it it worth, since most people wouldn't want to pay for it at the price-point probably necessary to make a profit off such a device.
I'll say a mini trio console and fpga like console or cart.
Awesome video. I think it is so telling that your outlook on the system as a fellow UK Sega fan is so similar to my own. My reasons for not getting one (as a twelve year old) were exactly the same as yours- the price mainly, and I have always felt gutted by how Sega of japan treated us loyal Sega fans in the UK especially, but also in the US, where they could have maintained dominance if it weren't for the jealousy of Sega Japan. Still- I've enjoyed many of the 32X games I've wanted to now, thanks to emulation, so I don't feel I've missed out too badly other than a slightly garish missing console in my otherwise complete Sega collection...
Outstanding as always
this channel is pure gold, yeah.
Plain-shaded polys have aged so much better than 90's texture-mapped polys. What were we smoking? Imagine how much better something like Ocarina of Time could have run. N64 high-res mode and a proper framerate.
Also, anyone know the name of the actress from the 32x commercials? She looks familiar.
PS1 is a terrible system looking back graphics wise.
2D graphics will always age better than 3D.
Street Fighter 2 still looks amazing to this day, many PS1 games look ... oof. lol
As a sega fan, even I have to admit that the port of Doom was imperfect. I only ever used the 32X once and didn't have all the cables. I did have (no longer) Star wars 32X. If only PC makers could add a cart slot for SNES/Genesis titles
2:33 now THAT is the mother of all combovers.
i actually would love to own a fully functional magadrive 2 with Sega CD and 32X add on, and with 2 sixbutton controllers. likely won't play on it that much, but i just like the concept and technology that went into it.
Professor Mike AmericanuckRadio there's the collecting factor to me.
I highly recommend it. I own the whole set...actually I own complete Model 1 and 2 sets. Anyways they get around 5-10 hours of play time a week from me. No emulation beats authentic hardware especially when it comes to sound, and no repo controller feels like a real Genesis 6 button.
Burst Your Bubble you need that 32X to complete the Tower of Power.
I remember everyone talking about the 32X as bridging the gap before the new systems. None of the people I knew wanted a system adapter that was just a gap bridger.
Defiantly will be watching this when I get home from work having just got a 32x
I had this for Christmas! Not the one gone, I mean back in 94. I acquired an illustrious library of five whole games.
I absolutely love my 32x for one simple reason. It heavily cleans up the composite video of a stand-alone Genesis.
The stand-alone Genesis has extremely severe vertical banding, and the 32x completely cleans it up. It's the best way to output video from your Genesis without RGB.
I worked at Toys R Us in the late 90s and I remember us having these on clearance for like $32.99. No one was buying them. This was also around the time we got the top loading Nintendo in stock for $50. I still kick myself for not buying the top loader.
Haha! "Inter-rim" console. "Saturn".... I'll see myself out.
I was also amazed by the price people ask today for a 32x! I was like "Okay you can keep them". I mean if I am gonna buy it just for 3 games, I'd rather get the arcade board then.
The 32X would've been a great system if it wasn't caught in between the 16-bit and 32-bit wave. It really reminds me of the Cyrix 5x86: Not quite 486-class, not quite Pentium-class. Like the 5x86 which plugged into existing 486 boards for a bit of an upgrade, the 32X allowed you to use your existing Genesis while offering a glimpse of what's next.
History has proven this concept to be a recipe for failure but I wish I was able to pick up some of these interesting 'in-between' products. But I was young back then and just like everyone else my attention was on the products making the headlines, which meant that these in-betweens were often overlooked.
The 32x was interesting, at least from my perspective in North America. It definitely felt like an in-the-middle solution. The Saturn was a little ways out from release and coming in at a heftier price tag, I seem to recall the idea from SoA was to have something as a less expensive upgrade for those who would be hesitant to buy into the Saturn and actually saw some minor storefront advertising comparing it to the power of a x86 based PC. What ultimately curbed my interest in the 32x, was actually having bought and enjoyed the SegaCD, which drastically changed what features I would want to see in console games. CD audio tracks, proper PCM audio, richer use of colors and detail within the Genesis specs, and FMV. Going back to cartridge based games was pretty hard to do and the selection of enhanced 32x-CD titles didn't grab my attention. So, I delayed and waited for the Saturn to come out, since it felt like the culmination of all the devices, was CD-drive based, and it would have concentrated support as a flagship system.
All that said, I did have a friend who, through his connections, got a 32x and games into my hands, after its life cycle. It was nice, and I could see the potential. I thought it was neat in how it could overlay graphics over the Genesis VDP. I had hands-on comparison of my favorite FMV game, Supreme Warrior... and I would say that the video quality, through 90's eyes, was a definite improvement. Enough to see the wires that the actors used for a few of the acrobatic stunts.
Add on's just never worked back in the day. People saw the price on the 32x and said it was to much.