Yeah, or on the Sega CD, Saturn, Dreamcast, N64, Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS, Gamecube, Wii, Wii U, Switch PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4, PS5, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Series etc... Why was it only JUST released at home on the Astro City Mini 28 years later?!?
I agree, but in a different sense. Imagine the RPG that could be produced using both the Sega CD and 32X hardware combined? That's the sort of game that belongs on the combined system without question, not some bs FMV crap.
@@iciousvid Well not quite... I was thinking more in terms of how huge RPG's are in general. They take up a massive amount of space usually, thus someone could really create a great big proper RPG with the data on the actual CD, with the 32X handling some of the processing power. The game would likely need to be a 3D title if the 32X is to handle it, since it is clearly geared towards 3D and not so much for 2D. The CD could be used for all of the data really, while the 32X gives it the polygon crunching power it needs. It obviously wouldn't be the most gorgeous looking game, but it could be pretty legit if done correctly. It could use 3D for the environment and sprites for the characters and other objects. Could maybe do a 3D isometric view of sorts, something similar to like what Breath of Fire 3 did. It's 3D graphics are fairly simplistic while everything else is done in 2D sprites. Something like that could work on the 32X I think.
@@jonbourgoin182 no I traded all my sega CD games and consoles to get the Panasonic 3DO. I had a massive sega CD collection, totally regret today because it’s worth $$$ now lol
@@martinevans1206 I agree but at the time we’re a few excellent games like Lunar, Vay, snatcher, etc. Compared to what I was playing before it blew my mind, same when I got to try Mario 64 the first time.
I was just about to start recapping some sega gamegears when I noticed you uploaded a new video. Looks like I'll be starting repair work 23 minutes and 39 seconds later.
It seems to me that developers didn't really know what to do with all the extra space in the CDs or the extra processing power of the tower of power. There looks to be some potential for great games for the 32X if only a game developer wanted to pursue it. Seeing how the Saturn and Playstation were on the horizon, they didn't have much of an incentive.
That's just it at the end of the day it would have been better for everyone if they had just moved directly on from the Genesis straight to the Saturn. Both the CD and 32X we're ill-fated ways to keep the console relevant. They completely destroyed people's confidence or faith in Sega for an entire generation and pretty much single-handedly helped PlayStation dominate.
I know; Sega ended up competing with itself in the 32 bit market when they tried to make a quick buck before the Saturn. The success of the Genesis seemed to have given them the attitude that they couldn't possibly fail and guess what happened.
I think if Sega had decided to either go all-in on the 32X/Genesis hybrid (with Genesis backward compatibility) or the Saturn (also with Genesis backward compatibility) from the start as a stopgap system until the Dreamcast, it could've worked out for them. Obviously if they would've gone the hybrid route, load times would've been nonexistent but game space would be greatly reduced. As long as they could've made an least 64 megabit games (double what the Genesis could do well) they could've competed until '99. They could've taken the time to really improve on the Genesis sound chip for the hybrid system & it would've been a kind of mix between the 16 bit systems & the 32 bit CD systems, which would sound just fine. Word was they already had Konami working on either Rondo of Blood or what became Symphony of the Night for the 32X but that got scrapped when everything went to hell at Sega & it moved to Sony. If you think of how good Castlevania 4 & Bloodlines were, those were no more than 8-12 megs. With how good Konami was at getting everything out of a system, even just a 32 meg Castlevania game on the new system would've been huge & would've helped to sell systems. Add in better versions of Star Wars Arcade, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Racing, MK2 or MK3, Doom, maybe a Contra game & some sports games in addition to maybe beating Sony to market could've given them a good head start. I thought the hybrid system looked cool & was planning to buy it. Then it all blew up on Sega
@@bifftannen1598why does everyone think backwards compatibility was plausible? It’s totally different architecture, it’s not like the Master System-Genesis transition where all you needed was a special adapter cart to play MS games. In order to have backwards compatibility with the Genesis that Saturn would have to have an entire second console’s worth of guts to do so.
The combination of all three systems combined on paper was always something that had potential but much like the 32X on it's own no publishers were even interested in making games for it with new systems just about to release. I know if SOA had their way the combination of these three systems would have been Sega's flagship system over the Saturn for a few years. Looking at it from that point of view they would have had to combine the three into one system since the set up was impractical going forward anyway. Part of me is sad no software was ever really released to show what all three working together could have achieved but can't say I blame that no publishers were interested in releasing games on something that only a small fraction of the main systems user base had access to all three at once. It looked like a beast of a system when all combined but still overkill.
I'm pretty sure that's what the cancelled Neptune was meant to be. Essentially a Genesis, 32X and Sega CD in one sleek console package very similar to the Saturn.
@@JohnDoe-wq5eu wasn't the Neptune only supposed to be a cartridge based system? From what I have ever read it was never supposed to have any CD functionality at all
@@freddiejohnson6137 Yeah I think it was more a combination of the Genesis and the 32X and you could still hook up the Sega CD separately. Although was there one that combined the 32X and CD functionality together into an add-on I can't remember.
3 systems together is too complicated to bother developing for. And each additional piece of hardware was interior to the Mega Drive in certain areas, so it was compromised and difficult to make games for.
SOA was never, never going to make or thought of making the Genesis/CD/32x its flagship console. How the hell would that even work? The CD had been on the market 2 full years and sold about 2 million units. So the requirement of having a Sega CD would exclude about 28 million users. Not to mention needing a 32x. Let's not even go over software development the idea somehow becomes more asinine
@Benjamin Owuye Jagun Agree, we have to take account that many TVs of that time didn't have headphone jacks, Yuzo Koshiro's music sounded terrific with them.
It seems like the problem with the Genesis 32X though is that it would have given a lot of people the mistaken impression that it was Sega's next gen console rather than being just a current gen expansion of the Genesis .
Man, a lot of the Sega/Digital Pictures FMV "games" have not aged well. At all. I grew up in the 90s, and I still can't believe that gamers spent lots of money on stuff like that... 😑
It's incredible just how poorly and how quickly they aged. By the time the Saturn and especially the PlayStation came out they looked absolutely horrible in comparison. It's essentially all the bad parts of movies from the 80s and 90s with none of the good stuff.
@Benjamin Owuye Jagun That's the thing even the 32X versions that had a bigger viewable video area and better quality video quality couldn't make up for the facts that the actual products sucked. They were all gimmick and once they gimmick or off they were just pure garbage.
I can admit I NEVER fell for the sega cd fmv garbage. I did want it for Final Fight CD and Sonic CD, but I never saw a sega cd for a good price. The sega cd was a pioneering device, but man it was and still is expensive.
I absolutely loved watching this series. It felt like taking a stroll down memory lane with a friend. Ahh, the 16-bit days, when I was a young teen... Great memories. I always knew the 32X wasn't that much of an upgrade, but man, I didn't know some games were just straight up rips of their Genesis counterparts. In fact, several of the Genesis versions were actually better. Thank you for making this series of videos. I and many others enjoyed the heck out of it. Cheers and Happy New Year, SLX! 🎉
What's so amazing is how SEGA released all these add-ons with very little to no plan to deliver any quality titles. I guess they were of the mind set "if you build it, they will come", and this is why they failed(again, and again).
That’s a half truth. Genesis did excellent in the US. Saturn did well in Japan. Where they dropped the ball was with the 32x. The time and money they invested on this add on could have been spent on building a Saturn that was backwards compatible with both the Genesis and Sega CD.
For the money spent on the 32X, 40 games, 29 canceled games, and $10 million marketing campaign, SEGA could've released and marketed 40 titles for the Sega CD that actually use the powerful ASIC and 3D graphics, minting money all the way. A $50-60 one SH-2 addon with 128KB of RAM similar to to SVP in Virtua Racer would've sold like hotcakes. Releasing the Saturn on Black Friday, 1995, would've helped SEGA keep the budget Megadrive going for a few more years.
IMO The 32X was the beginning of the end for Sega. That continued with the Saturn and when they released their best console ever (Dreamcast), the damage to the brand was already too big.
Yup, the Sega CD was already powerful enough, could handle arcade perfect ports of everything up to about mid-1993, could support 256 colors out of 3,375 (in Shadow/Highlight Mode), support the 320x448i mode, and give us arcade quality music and sound effects. Worse, since a CD cost about $1 to make (version around $15 for a cartridge), SEGA could've moved their entire library over to the Sega CD, added better audio, cut scenes, and some minor VFX, sold the same games for $10 less, and still made more money off of each title.
@@MaxAbramson3the CD never got enough games that really took full advantage of the tech. It had a few that did, but that made the vast majority that didn’t even more obviously lacking.
@@Thor-Orion But imagine the $10 million in R&D for the 32X going into Metal Gear, GTA, jRPGs, Gran Turismo type games for the Sega CD, plus arcade perfect conversions and the same $10 million in marketing. SEGA would've owned the 90s.
My friends and family including myself all had so much fun playing these games. We all were dying to see the next cut scene and would spend literally days playing these taking turns. Mom included! Great video
So pleased you covered NBA Jam, CD version is the best. Also glad you covered other non FMV games, never cared for them on any platform. And without a doubt, After Burner 32x is the definitive console version, probably the platform’s best game. Nice job
It was such a strange situation when sega had a console with 2 add ons so there 4 combinations of hardware you could have, with games on genesis, some on sega cd, some on 32x and some requiring both eega cd and 32x. Then some games were released on 2, 3, or even 4 of the platforms made it so confusing and made it so hard to rationalize getting the add ons when many games were available without requiring them. You're right that the 32x should've just been the Neptune and not an add on at all.
One of my favorite memories of childhood was my friend up the street hyping up the Sega CD to the point I was absolutely convinced it was going to be a giant step forward. Come Christmas on the year of launch and he invites me over to experience the thrill of FMV gaming, needless to say my expectations immediately got squashed. At least he made up for it by getting Lunar and we had a hell of a time with it.
Rumour has it that Pippen was so desperate to get a game deal to stroke his ego after Jordan (Chaos in the Windy City) & Shaq (Fu) got game deals that he didn't bother to read the contract first. All three games were released within a month of each other, and only one was worth a damn.
Dude I love your series, it’s because of you I been collecting again for Sega. Every time I think of a topic, you cover it. Lol I put your videos to play when I am busy doing stuff around the house like I am watching Netflix but more entertaining, I just let the whole playlist play even if I’ve seen it before, you have become a rerun in my home and I look forward to new seasons and episodes lmao. Keep up the great work, big fan here.
Your comments at the end of your video are absolutely on the mark. Oddly, given I'm older than you, I came to every çoin-op, console and handheld as a fully formed adult. I've seen the entire gaming revolution/evolution and it's been brilliant lad. Of all the systems I've owned(too many and too old to remember now) I miss my Colecovision and my Sega Master System most I think. Thanks for letting me remember kid.
Again, look at the 2 add ons that were actually successful: the Famicom Disk System and the PC Engine CD. They had two things in common. 1) Both were Japanese. The Japanese market for add ons seem to have been bigger. 2) Both the Disk System and PC Engine CD came out fairly early in their base consoles' lives and aimed to largely replace the original ROM format. Super Mario Bros. was supported to be the last Famicim cart game, with all future games being Disk games. (That didn't happen because Nintendo had to improve their cartridge tech for the NES market that lacked a disk system. Improved cart storage and chips made the disks moot.) There were still Hu Card games for the PC Engine after the CD launch, but most good new games were on CD. The PC Engine had more CD games than Hu Card games. Both also eventually launched cheaper combined versions. There was the Sharp Twin Famicom and the PC Engine DUO. For the 32X to succeed, it needed an earlier launch, maybe 1992 or 1993 with the 3DO, it needed nearly all new Genesis games from that point to be 32X exclusives to encourage development time and money, and they needed to launch the Neptune shortly after. The 32X needed to compete with the SNES in its prime and with early 5th gen consoles. Then wait on the Saturn and launch it later and better than the PlayStation.
The thing was Sega fell behind Nintendo and NEC in Japan. They launched the Mega CD to compete with the PC Engine's CD Rom attachment, but that didn't really help them there. In the western markets though, the Genesis was doing just fine against the SNES. They were even doing some of the same things; Nintendo would often add chips to carts to give them a graphical boost ( DSP chip in Pilotwings, SuperFX chip in StarFox and Yoshi's Island) and Sega started to with the SVP chip in Virtua Racing. This helped lead to the 32X; the SVP enhanced Virtua Racing was a $100 game back then, it made sense (to them) that a one time add on purchase that would enhance future games for a bit more ($149), would be more attractive to consumers. The SVP chipped Virtua Racing and the 32X attachment were both released in 94 (Virtua Racing in March, the 32X in November), I don't know that Sega would've been able to release either in 92 at a decent price, that's when Virtua Racing came out in the arcade. I had fun with the games that came out on the 32X at the time, but looking back it wasn't Sega's finest moment, a simultaneous release of a Neptune would have been better, but ideally the best would have been just having the Saturn, The Genesis could have likely held out longer with the same strategy the SNES employed (SMW2 Yoshi's Island came out in 95), the threat from the Atari Jaguar (one of the primary reasons the 32X existed) never really surfaced,
@@lazarushernandez5827 For sure. I was just thinking how the 32X could have possibly succeeded. I agree, best would have been no add ons and just compete with great games and a lower price point.
I wish they would've made just one damn real game. I wonder how much total RAM the three could access at once. Could someone actually make something that used all 4 or 5 processors?
Would be tough to use all 3 systems in tandem to create an Ultimate 32XCD game. Its interesting to wonder how far they could go in terms of processing power of course nobody owned all 3 systems so the user base was never large enough to warrant the effort. Check out SOUL STAR on Sega CD its pretty dope
About 1.3MB in total, IIRC. The Sega CD already had a powerful ASIC-DSP capable of scaling, rotation, and warping of almost the entire screen at 20fps, while the Genesis overlayed prerendered graphics on top of that at 60fps.
Loved this series. As much as I enjoy my 32X I come to a similar conclusion, though I think the stop gap Neptune would have also been as disappointing and hurtful to Sega. All efforts should have been on the Saturn. Imagine the Saturn launching in 1995 with its usual lineup, but also the 32X games. Star Wars Arcade as well as Sega produced versions of Virtua Racing and Doom for the Saturn would have made the line up very special. You could probably throw Chaotix in that window too.
I agree. If they had used software enhancement chips in Genesis games to bridge the generation gap a little & just focused on getting the Saturn ready (except with a cartridge slot for backward compatibility of Genesis games) & had all those 32X games (now with CD quality sound) you mentioned ready for a Saturn launch, we just might still have Sega competing on the hardware level today, which would be cool. Heck, it's possible they would've got an MK3 port along with the Playstation, which really helped that system early on
I had the great fortune to not only own a Mega Drive, a 32X and a Mega CD, but I was also working at a video game store in time to see 32X versions of Night Trap and Corpse Killer. I didn't end up buying them but knowing that all three components were being used to display these games and the fact they did indeed look better than their 16-bit counterparts, I was pretty impressed.... for a moment and then went back to playing Snatcher =D
I remember trading in my games to get a swag CD and playing that Scottie Pippen game. That’s the first time as kid i felt like I had taken advantage of. That game was absolutely dumpster juice. I didn’t even see Scottie. Lol
We've all made some that trades in retrospect we really wish we hadn't. I'm just glad I was too poor as a kid to ever get the Sega CD or 32X. I pretty much went straight from 16-bit straight to N64 and PlayStation. I was definitely much more of a game boy,game gear portable handheld console kid.
Coming from an outside-in perspective, I've only played a handful of 32X games, and it's been a mixed bag, but I'm really appreciative of people covering this content in depth (namely you and Jenovi) because it's lead me to some really fun 32X games, such as that After Burner port, and Kolibri. I, myself, was a Super Nintendo kid (and then a PS1 kid) growing up, and always "preferred" it (see also: was ignorant) to Sega's machine, mostly because the only time I ever got to play the Genesis (that I can remember) was at a friend's house, and the only game I played on it was Sonic Spinball. I quite like that game now (in moderate doses), but the music made me wanna rip my ears off as a kid. I missed out on the Dreamcast even though I genuinely wanted one, and didn't get to experience one outside of demo units at Toys-R-Us back in the day until December 2018. I've got a modded Genesis Mini these days, and your videos are responsible for a number of the games I've put on it, so for that I say thank you!
Never got Supreme Warrior, despite having a Sega CD. But as a stuntman & former pro-wrestler, I respect the one-take nature of a lot of the fight scenes.
Despite the fmv being grainy, at the time it was a show stopper and something we never seen before on a video game console. Sega really had poor leadership thru its reign and it showed.
I'm sorry but I have to be "that guy". I think we should acknowledge the massive impact Doom had on both the computer gaming community and the console community. It pushed the change from 2D platformers to 3D shooters which eventually became the standard on both sides of the fence.
@@SegaLordX glad you asked. if you look closely you'll see a lot of CD and 32X titles were slowly moving away from the standard sprite 2D model of gaming to first person gaming. Spurred mostly by PC games taking more risks and experimenting more with different ideas.
But this isn't a video about the history of game development. It's a video about Sega CD games and how they compared to their 32X counterparts. Doom was never released on the Sega CD.
@@SegaLordX OK I think we are not communicating here. I was making a point about how Doom encouraged a shift in gaming style, which your own video shows. Heck, you even had Doom at the end of your third vid. The increase in processing power led it being used on more platforms.
I owned (and still own) the 32X, and I think it shouldn't have been released. From a marketing standpoint, I also think that the Sega CD shouldn't have been released, but that gave me Sonic CD, so I can't honestly wish it never came out. Also, the Sega CD at least offered CD sound and storage. The 32X just lowered expectations for 32-bit, and took the wind out of the Saturn launch (which took place less than 6 months later). A game that's made for the combo of all 3 systems / add-ons is like a game requiring you to own a PS4, PS5, and PS Vita to play it. Sure, some people have all of them, but the fraction of the gaming community is so small, that there's no reason to make a game for it, and if you port a game, it had better be done shoddily and without spending much effort or money, because there is almost no way that you'd get paid back for that extra effort and money. For its part, the Saturn should have been easy to program for, and should have launched with all of the old classic super-scalar games along with the Virtua games that were out at the time and a better version of Daytona USA...AND a totally new classic 2D Sonic game showing off the extra power of the Saturn's 2D graphics (like Capcom would end up doing). The lack of a 32X and a Saturn launch like what I explained would have given it a fighting chance against the PlayStation and Nintendo 64.
I chuckled when you said your daughter said she could see why the Sega CD failed. My friend showed me some of the FMV games of the Sega CD and I told him the same thing lol
The Neptune definitely should've been what the 32X was. Then again, SEGA would've juggled with too many systems by that point. As for CD-32X, games like Road Avenger and even Dragon's Lair would've been definitive ports. We would have seen a lot more cleaned up artifacts. Even shmups like Hyper Duel would've shined well as a CD-32X title.
For the curious, Night Trap and Corpse Killer have be re-released on Steam and modern consoles. These new version play much better than they did on the Genesis. Doesn’t make them good games or anything, but they can be fun in a “what were they thinking” way.
My Sega collection is nearly complete! I own a model 1 and 2 Genesis, Menacer, Dreamland, and hundreds of assorted carts and burnt games. I now need a 32x.🤣👊
Awesome video! This series is great. Any chance we could get the 32X and 32XCd Vs Saturn. There would be some cool comparisons there especially with Doom and MK2 but others as well.
I remember seeing pictures of the MegaDrive+32X+MegaCD setup.. and I thought (or maybe just hoped) it would turn the old MegaDrive into the NEX GEN Saturn.. Nope haha... Great video though! I hope you keep 'em coming in 2021! Greetings from NL!
32X was a major blunder on Sega's part. In my opinion, Sega should have taken the resources they used to develop 32X and invested them into developing the Saturn and made Saturn backwards compatible with Genesis.
That was never going to happen, the way those systems work is completely different, you’d have to have two console’s guts in one, it was be ridiculous. I agree they shouldn’t have made the 32x. Just continue to support the Genesis for a little while into the Saturn’s life. It’s not like anything made for the 32x is really any better than the Genesis releases of the same game.
I always wished that they made a 32x cd game that was not an FMV game. I had slam city and NIght trap on 32x cd when I was a kid and then I sold them in 2014 to a retro video game store. Every time I went to that store after that, I would see my old 32x cd games sitting on the shelf. They went out of business a couple of years later, and those 32x cd games stay on the shelf until they went closed
Compared to the Genesis, Dreamcast and Saturn both the CD and 32X were definitely the stepchildren of Sega. They never got loved the way they should and I feel like both the US and Japanese branches really screwed both of them over.
I still remember how disappointed I was when I looked up which games used both the Sega CD and the 32X. But I think in the end we are kind of lucky, because we did get the answer to most of the "what ifs" around the 32X in the form of the Saturn.
The Neptune with all the features of the CD, Genesis and 32X would have been an interesting product or at least much more compelling than the ridiculous hodgepodge they created having to stick all three together separately.
SLX thank you for these videos - I was around 10 when the FMV games started dropping and I thought they were garbage then and it's the same in 2021. Side note, it's disappointing how the 32X had such minor graphical improvements but offered reduced frame rates.
Oh man, Supreme Warrior... Used to play this on my 3DO all the time. Speaking of, it would be cool to see a video comparing versions of games that appeared on both the Sega CD and 3DO. I've seen some comparisons pop up in your other videos (Road Rash and this one come to mind, with Night Trap and Supreme Warrior). I'm not even sure how many games released on both systems.
I always try to like the video as soon as I open it so I don't forget. I already know I'm going to actually like/enjoy the video, and I don't want to forget when I (almost inevitably) click towards the next SLX video! lol This time I started typing the comment early, too! I really wanted to play Sega CD games as a kid. And then Saturn games. But I got to play 3DO games instead. And maybe it's my nostalgia speaking, but I think I got a pretty good deal there. Especially when my next two CD consoles were the Playstation and the Dreamcast!
It's literally Japan versus the US. Sega CD was Japan, 32X came from Sega of America. Sega was always going to prioritize the Saturn over anything else that might have been in the pipeline. The US Branch would have done well to just sit on their thumbs instead of trying to come up with some clever way to extend the then popular Genesis lifespan. It probably would have done them the most good as opposed to what did happen where Japan pulled the plug on the 32X and the Sega CD in favor of the Saturn guaranteeing anyone who bought both or either would feel burned.
@@JohnDoe-wq5eu Sega of America should have given the budget they had for the 32x and given it to developers to make games for the base Genesis. I can't help but feel that would have put them in a far better space going forward.
Agree with both of you. Throwing the budget into developing genesis games and focusing on the Saturn would have made more sense. Had the Sega CD been more affordable it would have flown off the shelves with a pack in game like Mk1 on Mortal Monday. Having the the entire series sounding arcade perfect with the titles being Sega CD exclusives would have been even better. All the system really used was the extra storage of the discs. Selling it as just a disc reader without the extra chips would have significantly lowered the price. Heck, they could have sold it with MK1 packed in for $125 and still turned some profit.
Crazy to see cartridges still hold up kinda like the switch Sega had so much to offer but messed up still love the sega game's new and old today thank u for the videos keep um coming
Love the videos exploring the 32x and cd because I only owned the genesis growing up but it's one of my favorite consoles of all time. I recently learned that indie studios have been creating physical cartridges with brand new games that work on the genesis in recent years. Are they any good? Which ones are worth checking out if any? Could be cool to add some 2020 genesis games to the collection haha
There has been quite a few new genesis games made that aren't bad. I believe SLX has even covered one or two of them. GameSack just did a review on the newest one that came out called Paprium. I've seen beat em up, rpgs, top down run and guns, and even a side scrolling puzzle game.
I always wished that Sega had made more "32X CD" titles for genres other than FMV. Allowing the Sega CD to give next-gen quality audio while the 32X provided "32-bit lite" graphics and beautiful, vibrant color could have resulted in arcade-perfect versions of many popular titles. I especially think fighters like the Mortal Kombat games, Super Street Fighter II Turbo, and SNK's 2D fighters would have looked and sounded great with that combo. I'm sure it just was never cost-effective, though, because such a small user base happened to own both add-ons at once... one of the many pitfalls of releasing the 32X as a separate add-on.
While the Neptune would have been cool to have, I don't think it would have done any better than the 32X. Especially with the PS1 and Saturn waiting in the wings. What WOULD have helped the 32X would have been to make it less expensive. $159 USD was just too outrageous of a price. Maybe go the route of the Aladdin Deck Enhancer and make it a cartridge with an SVP chip in it to cut costs? Anyway, the 32X is what I consider to be the "beginning of the end" for Sega. Had they avoided this monstrosity they might have been able to compete longer against Sony & Nintendo.
SVP with or withoutlock on chip would have fare better than the 32x along with the sega cd and genesis. Thus, adding more 32-bit software to the Saturn (Cart and CD)
I was a bit too young to understand the politics and failure of the 32X when it came out. But I very much enjoyed the console and have fond memories of it. Being able to play games like Virtua Fighter, Star Wars Arcade and of course DOOM was revolutionary for the time.
This video series has got me thinking about current analogues- and the only true apples to apples comparison would be the New 3DS, which came out as part of an aging platform, near the launch of the Switch, and only had a couple of “””real”” exclusives. I guess the family of Microsoft xboxes could be analogous as well, except that they occupy the same gaming ecosystem as PC and seem to me to be released in a similar way a PC gamer might upgrade their PC (although, to be fair, you’re getting a reliable machine that can play the latest games for no effort (beyond the price of entry)).
I just want you to know that your videos have helped me through my depression. Thank you so much.
Dude I have no idea how you pump out so much quality content so quickly, but I am not compaining. Outstanding work dude!
Golden Axe: Revenge of Death Adder would have been a banger on the 32X
Yeah, or on the Sega CD, Saturn, Dreamcast, N64, Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS, Gamecube, Wii, Wii U, Switch PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4, PS5, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Series etc... Why was it only JUST released at home on the Astro City Mini 28 years later?!?
On any system for Pete's sake! lol
@@FloridaEbikes That's one of the reasons why I'm not fond of it.
@@FloridaEbikes ...yes it can?
I feel the homebrew community is sleeping on the 32X.
Just imagine the impressive tech demos.
Actually, let's not stop there.
Imagine from-the-ground-up-ports of Saturn games with BOTH the CD and 32X like NiGHTS Into Dreams... and Sonic Jam.
@@denraimei32 you're saying to make ports of Nights Into Dreams and Sonic Jam that run on the 32x and also versions for the Sega CD?
I agree, but in a different sense. Imagine the RPG that could be produced using both the Sega CD and 32X hardware combined? That's the sort of game that belongs on the combined system without question, not some bs FMV crap.
@@skins4thewin like using the cd side to play music and certain sprites/fmvs, while the 32x side takes care of gameplay?
@@iciousvid Well not quite... I was thinking more in terms of how huge RPG's are in general. They take up a massive amount of space usually, thus someone could really create a great big proper RPG with the data on the actual CD, with the 32X handling some of the processing power.
The game would likely need to be a 3D title if the 32X is to handle it, since it is clearly geared towards 3D and not so much for 2D. The CD could be used for all of the data really, while the 32X gives it the polygon crunching power it needs. It obviously wouldn't be the most gorgeous looking game, but it could be pretty legit if done correctly.
It could use 3D for the environment and sprites for the characters and other objects. Could maybe do a 3D isometric view of sorts, something similar to like what Breath of Fire 3 did. It's 3D graphics are fairly simplistic while everything else is done in 2D sprites. Something like that could work on the 32X I think.
Lol those FMV games were so far ahead for the time, blew my mind at the time, was so impressed with my sega cd and 3DO way back!!
Sorry man, but as a teenage gamer back then, these games were dogshit and still are.
Hold up, you had $700 to spend on a 3D0 back then?
@@jonbourgoin182 no I traded all my sega CD games and consoles to get the Panasonic 3DO. I had a massive sega CD collection, totally regret today because it’s worth $$$ now lol
@@martinevans1206 I agree but at the time we’re a few excellent games like Lunar, Vay, snatcher, etc. Compared to what I was playing before it blew my mind, same when I got to try Mario 64 the first time.
@@wavy-mcgrady5191those aren’t fmv games though. There are only a few actually good FMV games. They’re like QTE’s making up the entire game.
Great series! We need 32X vs Saturn versions next.
the 32X versions of most of these games do look considerably better IMO
Big time
Yea.. too bad FMV games suck
FMV games were gonna suck regardless of video quality
@@lkjs-si2srat least nighttrap had some nice 80’s/early-90’s babes in it.
I love this series like how Amy Rose loves Sonic at the start of Sonic CD
I was just about to start recapping some sega gamegears when I noticed you uploaded a new video. Looks like I'll be starting repair work 23 minutes and 39 seconds later.
...Now you must do "Genesis + Sega CD + 32X vs Saturn" 👍😬
NBA Jam is probably my most played Mega CD game. I loved that it backed up my winning streak - I haven’t lost in over two decades
You paying off the refs?!
It seems to me that developers didn't really know what to do with all the extra space in the CDs or the extra processing power of the tower of power. There looks to be some potential for great games for the 32X if only a game developer wanted to pursue it. Seeing how the Saturn and Playstation were on the horizon, they didn't have much of an incentive.
That's just it at the end of the day it would have been better for everyone if they had just moved directly on from the Genesis straight to the Saturn. Both the CD and 32X we're ill-fated ways to keep the console relevant. They completely destroyed people's confidence or faith in Sega for an entire generation and pretty much single-handedly helped PlayStation dominate.
The pc engine cd/ turbografx CD used the extra space well. Redbook audio and animated cut scenes. It added niceties to the 16bit experience.
I know; Sega ended up competing with itself in the 32 bit market when they tried to make a quick buck before the Saturn. The success of the Genesis seemed to have given them the attitude that they couldn't possibly fail and guess what happened.
I think if Sega had decided to either go all-in on the 32X/Genesis hybrid (with Genesis backward compatibility) or the Saturn (also with Genesis backward compatibility) from the start as a stopgap system until the Dreamcast, it could've worked out for them. Obviously if they would've gone the hybrid route, load times would've been nonexistent but game space would be greatly reduced. As long as they could've made an least 64 megabit games (double what the Genesis could do well) they could've competed until '99. They could've taken the time to really improve on the Genesis sound chip for the hybrid system & it would've been a kind of mix between the 16 bit systems & the 32 bit CD systems, which would sound just fine. Word was they already had Konami working on either Rondo of Blood or what became Symphony of the Night for the 32X but that got scrapped when everything went to hell at Sega & it moved to Sony. If you think of how good Castlevania 4 & Bloodlines were, those were no more than 8-12 megs. With how good Konami was at getting everything out of a system, even just a 32 meg Castlevania game on the new system would've been huge & would've helped to sell systems. Add in better versions of Star Wars Arcade, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Racing, MK2 or MK3, Doom, maybe a Contra game & some sports games in addition to maybe beating Sony to market could've given them a good head start. I thought the hybrid system looked cool & was planning to buy it. Then it all blew up on Sega
@@bifftannen1598why does everyone think backwards compatibility was plausible? It’s totally different architecture, it’s not like the Master System-Genesis transition where all you needed was a special adapter cart to play MS games. In order to have backwards compatibility with the Genesis that Saturn would have to have an entire second console’s worth of guts to do so.
The combination of all three systems combined on paper was always something that had potential but much like the 32X on it's own no publishers were even interested in making games for it with new systems just about to release. I know if SOA had their way the combination of these three systems would have been Sega's flagship system over the Saturn for a few years. Looking at it from that point of view they would have had to combine the three into one system since the set up was impractical going forward anyway. Part of me is sad no software was ever really released to show what all three working together could have achieved but can't say I blame that no publishers were interested in releasing games on something that only a small fraction of the main systems user base had access to all three at once. It looked like a beast of a system when all combined but still overkill.
I'm pretty sure that's what the cancelled Neptune was meant to be.
Essentially a Genesis, 32X and Sega CD in one sleek console package very similar to the Saturn.
@@JohnDoe-wq5eu wasn't the Neptune only supposed to be a cartridge based system? From what I have ever read it was never supposed to have any CD functionality at all
@@freddiejohnson6137
Yeah I think it was more a combination of the Genesis and the 32X and you could still hook up the Sega CD separately. Although was there one that combined the 32X and CD functionality together into an add-on I can't remember.
3 systems together is too complicated to bother developing for. And each additional piece of hardware was interior to the Mega Drive in certain areas, so it was compromised and difficult to make games for.
SOA was never, never going to make or thought of making the Genesis/CD/32x its flagship console. How the hell would that even work? The CD had been on the market 2 full years and sold about 2 million units. So the requirement of having a Sega CD would exclude about 28 million users. Not to mention needing a 32x.
Let's not even go over software development the idea somehow becomes more asinine
Supreme warrior needs a wu tang soundtrack
Facts
UP FROM THE 36 CHAMBERS
"I'm gonna chop off your arm!"
Hello from Brazil, Lord! Thanks for making us some great videos such as this one. :)
Yay! Loving this series.
_Don't worry about me Ace, I've got a ride_ 💀💀💀
@@JimboJones99makes me sick to my stomach
I never knew about 32x games for the CD. Thank you for all the amazing content you put out
It’s not 32x games for the CD, they’re games that require both add ons, aka the Tower of Power.
Go go Sega Lord X, this is the year for the 100k subs, keep on the excellent work, love your videos!
Man, you are the hardest working guy in show business. Definitely deserve a sub.
I still think the Mega Drive 2 is the best looking console ever made.
Too bad the sound on it is awful
Yh its between the MD2 and the Dreamcast
@Benjamin Owuye Jagun Agree, we have to take account that many TVs of that time didn't have headphone jacks, Yuzo Koshiro's music sounded terrific with them.
That last part you said is so true...I catch myself playing 8, 16 & 32 bit almost all the time nowadays...
Some of the best games ever made came from those systems.
It seems like the problem with the Genesis 32X though is that it would have given a lot of people the mistaken impression that it was Sega's next gen console rather than being just a current gen expansion of the Genesis .
Man, a lot of the Sega/Digital Pictures FMV "games" have not aged well. At all. I grew up in the 90s, and I still can't believe that gamers spent lots of money on stuff like that... 😑
It's incredible just how poorly and how quickly they aged. By the time the Saturn and especially the PlayStation came out they looked absolutely horrible in comparison.
It's essentially all the bad parts of movies from the 80s and 90s with none of the good stuff.
@@JohnDoe-wq5eu I was just thinking, I'd would watch that martial arts game but wouldn't play it.
@Benjamin Owuye Jagun
That's the thing even the 32X versions that had a bigger viewable video area and better quality video quality couldn't make up for the facts that the actual products sucked. They were all gimmick and once they gimmick or off they were just pure garbage.
I can admit I NEVER fell for the sega cd fmv garbage. I did want it for Final Fight CD and Sonic CD, but I never saw a sega cd for a good price. The sega cd was a pioneering device, but man it was and still is expensive.
@Benjamin Owuye Jagun Completely agree with you Ben, excellent comment.
I absolutely loved watching this series. It felt like taking a stroll down memory lane with a friend. Ahh, the 16-bit days, when I was a young teen... Great memories. I always knew the 32X wasn't that much of an upgrade, but man, I didn't know some games were just straight up rips of their Genesis counterparts. In fact, several of the Genesis versions were actually better. Thank you for making this series of videos. I and many others enjoyed the heck out of it. Cheers and Happy New Year, SLX! 🎉
What's so amazing is how SEGA released all these add-ons with very little to no plan to deliver any quality titles. I guess they were of the mind set "if you build it, they will come", and this is why they failed(again, and again).
That’s a half truth. Genesis did excellent in the US. Saturn did well in Japan. Where they dropped the ball was with the 32x. The time and money they invested on this add on could have been spent on building a Saturn that was backwards compatible with both the Genesis and Sega CD.
For the money spent on the 32X, 40 games, 29 canceled games, and $10 million marketing campaign, SEGA could've released and marketed 40 titles for the Sega CD that actually use the powerful ASIC and 3D graphics, minting money all the way. A $50-60 one SH-2 addon with 128KB of RAM similar to to SVP in Virtua Racer would've sold like hotcakes. Releasing the Saturn on Black Friday, 1995, would've helped SEGA keep the budget Megadrive going for a few more years.
Sega should had created something like the fx chip or N64 expansion pack instead of the s ga cd and 32x. Especially, if there were duplicate titles
The 32X/CD can cripple a citys power grid with its 3 huge power adaptors
@@charlieparks2015the CD was good, the 32x was a mistake.
I like that the standard of quality for the Sega CD is being able to see the graphics.
What does that even mean?
IMO The 32X was the beginning of the end for Sega. That continued with the Saturn and when they released their best console ever (Dreamcast), the damage to the brand was already too big.
Yup, the Sega CD was already powerful enough, could handle arcade perfect ports of everything up to about mid-1993, could support 256 colors out of 3,375 (in Shadow/Highlight Mode), support the 320x448i mode, and give us arcade quality music and sound effects. Worse, since a CD cost about $1 to make (version around $15 for a cartridge), SEGA could've moved their entire library over to the Sega CD, added better audio, cut scenes, and some minor VFX, sold the same games for $10 less, and still made more money off of each title.
@@MaxAbramson3the CD never got enough games that really took full advantage of the tech. It had a few that did, but that made the vast majority that didn’t even more obviously lacking.
@@Thor-Orion But imagine the $10 million in R&D for the 32X going into Metal Gear, GTA, jRPGs, Gran Turismo type games for the Sega CD, plus arcade perfect conversions and the same $10 million in marketing. SEGA would've owned the 90s.
Hmmmm. I still can't look the 32X in the face plate and say you weren't a disappointment.
I love my 32X but damn is that so true.
Great video man! I appreciate this series of videos because I've started collecting for the 32X and CD.
My friends and family including myself all had so much fun playing these games. We all were dying to see the next cut scene and would spend literally days playing these taking turns. Mom included! Great video
Awesome video as usual. You have been pumping out some seriously great content. Hands down my favorite gaming channel. Thank you, SLX.
So pleased you covered NBA Jam, CD version is the best. Also glad you covered other non FMV games, never cared for them on any platform. And without a doubt, After Burner 32x is the definitive console version, probably the platform’s best game. Nice job
Great job on this 3 part series. Thank you for all the excellent work you do for the TH-cam gaming community. Love the show.
I loved corpse killer as a kid. You got the zombie poison in ya brah!
It was such a strange situation when sega had a console with 2 add ons so there 4 combinations of hardware you could have, with games on genesis, some on sega cd, some on 32x and some requiring both eega cd and 32x. Then some games were released on 2, 3, or even 4 of the platforms made it so confusing and made it so hard to rationalize getting the add ons when many games were available without requiring them. You're right that the 32x should've just been the Neptune and not an add on at all.
At the end of every Sega Lord X video I’m always scared that He will catch me next time 😰
7:12 could’ve sworn he was gonna say, “All I wanna do is zoom-a-zoom-zoom-zoom”
Lmao
"All I wanna do is run my zoom zoom zoom in da boom boom! Just shake da room!"
Knuckles Chaotix and Cosmic...Carnage. That was the 32X for me.
From my minimal interactions with the 32X yeah it's the only game that I really went oh cool. It does seem like I was mostly right.
One of my favorite memories of childhood was my friend up the street hyping up the Sega CD to the point I was absolutely convinced it was going to be a giant step forward. Come Christmas on the year of launch and he invites me over to experience the thrill of FMV gaming, needless to say my expectations immediately got squashed. At least he made up for it by getting Lunar and we had a hell of a time with it.
Rumour has it that Pippen was so desperate to get a game deal to stroke his ego after Jordan (Chaos in the Windy City) & Shaq (Fu) got game deals that he didn't bother to read the contract first. All three games were released within a month of each other, and only one was worth a damn.
Dude I love your series, it’s because of you I been collecting again for Sega. Every time I think of a topic, you cover it. Lol I put your videos to play when I am busy doing stuff around the house like I am watching Netflix but more entertaining, I just let the whole playlist play even if I’ve seen it before, you have become a rerun in my home and I look forward to new seasons and episodes lmao. Keep up the great work, big fan here.
Awesome! Can't get enough of retro gaming! 👍
"Time to shake and bake"...who else would play an FMV game starring Ricky Bobby?
No FMV.
Super scaler racing game.
Your comments at the end of your video are absolutely on the mark. Oddly, given I'm older than you, I came to every çoin-op, console and handheld as a fully formed adult. I've seen the entire gaming revolution/evolution and it's been brilliant lad. Of all the systems I've owned(too many and too old to remember now) I miss my Colecovision and my Sega Master System most I think. Thanks for letting me remember kid.
I've really enjoyed the 32x vs Genesis comparison series, thank you Sega Lord X, you're too cool :)
Thanks for the great series! 💪🏾 💪🏾 💪🏾
that intro song brings me back to the good old days of AVGN, I think he used it as his outro to part 1
Again, look at the 2 add ons that were actually successful: the Famicom Disk System and the PC Engine CD. They had two things in common.
1) Both were Japanese. The Japanese market for add ons seem to have been bigger.
2) Both the Disk System and PC Engine CD came out fairly early in their base consoles' lives and aimed to largely replace the original ROM format.
Super Mario Bros. was supported to be the last Famicim cart game, with all future games being Disk games. (That didn't happen because Nintendo had to improve their cartridge tech for the NES market that lacked a disk system. Improved cart storage and chips made the disks moot.)
There were still Hu Card games for the PC Engine after the CD launch, but most good new games were on CD. The PC Engine had more CD games than Hu Card games.
Both also eventually launched cheaper combined versions. There was the Sharp Twin Famicom and the PC Engine DUO.
For the 32X to succeed, it needed an earlier launch, maybe 1992 or 1993 with the 3DO, it needed nearly all new Genesis games from that point to be 32X exclusives to encourage development time and money, and they needed to launch the Neptune shortly after. The 32X needed to compete with the SNES in its prime and with early 5th gen consoles. Then wait on the Saturn and launch it later and better than the PlayStation.
The thing was Sega fell behind Nintendo and NEC in Japan. They launched the Mega CD to compete with the PC Engine's CD Rom attachment, but that didn't really help them there.
In the western markets though, the Genesis was doing just fine against the SNES. They were even doing some of the same things; Nintendo would often add chips to carts to give them a graphical boost ( DSP chip in Pilotwings, SuperFX chip in StarFox and Yoshi's Island) and Sega started to with the SVP chip in Virtua Racing.
This helped lead to the 32X; the SVP enhanced Virtua Racing was a $100 game back then, it made sense (to them) that a one time add on purchase that would enhance future games for a bit more ($149), would be more attractive to consumers.
The SVP chipped Virtua Racing and the 32X attachment were both released in 94 (Virtua Racing in March, the 32X in November), I don't know that Sega would've been able to release either in 92 at a decent price, that's when Virtua Racing came out in the arcade.
I had fun with the games that came out on the 32X at the time, but looking back it wasn't Sega's finest moment, a simultaneous release of a Neptune would have been better, but ideally the best would have been just having the Saturn, The Genesis could have likely held out longer with the same strategy the SNES employed (SMW2 Yoshi's Island came out in 95), the threat from the Atari Jaguar (one of the primary reasons the 32X existed) never really surfaced,
@@lazarushernandez5827 For sure. I was just thinking how the 32X could have possibly succeeded. I agree, best would have been no add ons and just compete with great games and a lower price point.
I wish they would've made just one damn real game. I wonder how much total RAM the three could access at once. Could someone actually make something that used all 4 or 5 processors?
Would be tough to use all 3 systems in tandem to create an Ultimate 32XCD game. Its interesting to wonder how far they could go in terms of processing power
of course nobody owned all 3 systems so the user base was never large enough to warrant the effort. Check out SOUL STAR on Sega CD its pretty dope
About 1.3MB in total, IIRC. The Sega CD already had a powerful ASIC-DSP capable of scaling, rotation, and warping of almost the entire screen at 20fps, while the Genesis overlayed prerendered graphics on top of that at 60fps.
Loved this series.
As much as I enjoy my 32X I come to a similar conclusion, though I think the stop gap Neptune would have also been as disappointing and hurtful to Sega.
All efforts should have been on the Saturn. Imagine the Saturn launching in 1995 with its usual lineup, but also the 32X games. Star Wars Arcade as well as Sega produced versions of Virtua Racing and Doom for the Saturn would have made the line up very special. You could probably throw Chaotix in that window too.
I agree. If they had used software enhancement chips in Genesis games to bridge the generation gap a little & just focused on getting the Saturn ready (except with a cartridge slot for backward compatibility of Genesis games) & had all those 32X games (now with CD quality sound) you mentioned ready for a Saturn launch, we just might still have Sega competing on the hardware level today, which would be cool. Heck, it's possible they would've got an MK3 port along with the Playstation, which really helped that system early on
I had the great fortune to not only own a Mega Drive, a 32X and a Mega CD, but I was also working at a video game store in time to see 32X versions of Night Trap and Corpse Killer. I didn't end up buying them but knowing that all three components were being used to display these games and the fact they did indeed look better than their 16-bit counterparts, I was pretty impressed.... for a moment and then went back to playing Snatcher =D
I remember trading in my games to get a swag CD and playing that Scottie Pippen game. That’s the first time as kid i felt like I had taken advantage of. That game was absolutely dumpster juice. I didn’t even see Scottie. Lol
We've all made some that trades in retrospect we really wish we hadn't.
I'm just glad I was too poor as a kid to ever get the Sega CD or 32X.
I pretty much went straight from 16-bit straight to N64 and PlayStation. I was definitely much more of a game boy,game gear portable handheld console kid.
Slam City!
We now know how Scotty was treated by the Bulls, for various reasons, so understandable why he would allow himself to be featured in a crappy game.
swag CD would have been a pretty cool name for Sega's add-on.
I love Ricardo comment. I was a Nintendo fanboy back then. Several of my friends got the Sega CD and 32x only to complain about games like Slam City.
I had big hopes for the 32XCD combo when I owned it back in the 90's. 😢
Your last sentiment captured the meaning entirely. Those games we adored as children take us to a place of wonder and fun. SEGA Forever 😎
The closing argument was gold! 🔝💪
Its impossible to exaggerate how great speech and music sounded in the days that sega cd came out.
Coming from an outside-in perspective, I've only played a handful of 32X games, and it's been a mixed bag, but I'm really appreciative of people covering this content in depth (namely you and Jenovi) because it's lead me to some really fun 32X games, such as that After Burner port, and Kolibri.
I, myself, was a Super Nintendo kid (and then a PS1 kid) growing up, and always "preferred" it (see also: was ignorant) to Sega's machine, mostly because the only time I ever got to play the Genesis (that I can remember) was at a friend's house, and the only game I played on it was Sonic Spinball. I quite like that game now (in moderate doses), but the music made me wanna rip my ears off as a kid. I missed out on the Dreamcast even though I genuinely wanted one, and didn't get to experience one outside of demo units at Toys-R-Us back in the day until December 2018.
I've got a modded Genesis Mini these days, and your videos are responsible for a number of the games I've put on it, so for that I say thank you!
Never got Supreme Warrior, despite having a Sega CD. But as a stuntman & former pro-wrestler, I respect the one-take nature of a lot of the fight scenes.
It's a Shaw Bros production, too! Makers of Flying Guillotine, 36th Chamber, & Crippled Avengers. Greatest kung-fu movie makers EVER 👍.
I've got almost every console from the 1970s onwards but I love my 32x and sega cd the most.
Loving this series! Would love to see more comparisons in the future, maybe even against its Nintendo counterpart
Great video as usual. You deserve 200k subs at least. Hope you can get your SegaCD working again
Despite the fmv being grainy, at the time it was a show stopper and something we never seen before on a video game console. Sega really had poor leadership thru its reign and it showed.
I'm sorry but I have to be "that guy".
I think we should acknowledge the massive impact Doom had on both the computer gaming community and the console community.
It pushed the change from 2D platformers to 3D shooters which eventually became the standard on both sides of the fence.
Why would we talk about Doom in a comparison video about the Sega CD?
@@SegaLordX glad you asked. if you look closely you'll see a lot of CD and 32X titles were slowly moving away from the standard sprite 2D model of gaming to first person gaming. Spurred mostly by PC games taking more risks and experimenting more with different ideas.
But this isn't a video about the history of game development. It's a video about Sega CD games and how they compared to their 32X counterparts. Doom was never released on the Sega CD.
@@SegaLordX OK I think we are not communicating here. I was making a point about how Doom encouraged a shift in gaming style, which your own video shows.
Heck, you even had Doom at the end of your third vid. The increase in processing power led it being used on more platforms.
Name something more iconic than Sega Lord ending his sentence with "as hell"
Hey SLX love the show been watching for the longest, superior series this is.
I owned (and still own) the 32X, and I think it shouldn't have been released. From a marketing standpoint, I also think that the Sega CD shouldn't have been released, but that gave me Sonic CD, so I can't honestly wish it never came out. Also, the Sega CD at least offered CD sound and storage. The 32X just lowered expectations for 32-bit, and took the wind out of the Saturn launch (which took place less than 6 months later). A game that's made for the combo of all 3 systems / add-ons is like a game requiring you to own a PS4, PS5, and PS Vita to play it. Sure, some people have all of them, but the fraction of the gaming community is so small, that there's no reason to make a game for it, and if you port a game, it had better be done shoddily and without spending much effort or money, because there is almost no way that you'd get paid back for that extra effort and money. For its part, the Saturn should have been easy to program for, and should have launched with all of the old classic super-scalar games along with the Virtua games that were out at the time and a better version of Daytona USA...AND a totally new classic 2D Sonic game showing off the extra power of the Saturn's 2D graphics (like Capcom would end up doing). The lack of a 32X and a Saturn launch like what I explained would have given it a fighting chance against the PlayStation and Nintendo 64.
The Night Trap improvements are incredible.
I chuckled when you said your daughter said she could see why the Sega CD failed. My friend showed me some of the FMV games of the Sega CD and I told him the same thing lol
I wish 32x support would come to FPGA solutions but I think the tiny library is holding it back.
some day it will be there =)
Almost certainly. The market for such a thing would be tiny.
With Sega stuff I think it's pretty much arcade first, Saturn and Dreamcast second atomiswave third. And then everything else.
The Neptune definitely should've been what the 32X was. Then again, SEGA would've juggled with too many systems by that point.
As for CD-32X, games like Road Avenger and even Dragon's Lair would've been definitive ports. We would have seen a lot more cleaned up artifacts. Even shmups like Hyper Duel would've shined well as a CD-32X title.
Really enjoyed this series! Great job!
For the curious, Night Trap and Corpse Killer have be re-released on Steam and modern consoles. These new version play much better than they did on the Genesis. Doesn’t make them good games or anything, but they can be fun in a “what were they thinking” way.
My Sega collection is nearly complete! I own a model 1 and 2 Genesis, Menacer, Dreamland, and hundreds of assorted carts and burnt games. I now need a 32x.🤣👊
DreamCast I meant. New dumb phone..
@A Spirit
A light gun peripheral for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive.
Sega CD version of NBA Jam rules, that soundtrack is INCREDIBLE. IMO that's the best Jam game until the Wii reboot.
Awesome video! This series is great. Any chance we could get the 32X and 32XCd Vs Saturn. There would be some cool comparisons there especially with Doom and MK2 but others as well.
I remember seeing pictures of the MegaDrive+32X+MegaCD setup..
and I thought (or maybe just hoped) it would turn the old MegaDrive into the NEX GEN Saturn..
Nope haha...
Great video though! I hope you keep 'em coming in 2021!
Greetings from NL!
32X was a major blunder on Sega's part. In my opinion, Sega should have taken the resources they used to develop 32X and invested them into developing the Saturn and made Saturn backwards compatible with Genesis.
That was never going to happen, the way those systems work is completely different, you’d have to have two console’s guts in one, it was be ridiculous. I agree they shouldn’t have made the 32x. Just continue to support the Genesis for a little while into the Saturn’s life. It’s not like anything made for the 32x is really any better than the Genesis releases of the same game.
I always wished that they made a 32x cd game that was not an FMV game. I had slam city and NIght trap on 32x cd when I was a kid and then I sold them in 2014 to a retro video game store. Every time I went to that store after that, I would see my old 32x cd games sitting on the shelf. They went out of business a couple of years later, and those 32x cd games stay on the shelf until they went closed
Compared to the Genesis, Dreamcast and Saturn both the CD and 32X were definitely the stepchildren of Sega. They never got loved the way they should and I feel like both the US and Japanese branches really screwed both of them over.
I still remember how disappointed I was when I looked up which games used both the Sega CD and the 32X. But I think in the end we are kind of lucky, because we did get the answer to most of the "what ifs" around the 32X in the form of the Saturn.
The Neptune with all the features of the CD, Genesis and 32X would have been an interesting product or at least much more compelling than the ridiculous hodgepodge they created having to stick all three together separately.
This has been a great series, thanks!
My real question is how people then managed to plug in all three AC adapters at once!
great content as usual. I'm getting days worth of viewing out of your back-library.
i loved Knuckles Chaotix and Shadow Squadron. My buddy and I played those for hours and hours.
Really enjoying this series 🙏🏻👍🏻
I'm still in the belief that the 32x was sort of the first step in Sega's downfall
Nice vid bro I more impressed with these 2 consoles than what they are doing with the ps4 and 5 using real life people with these old school games
SLX thank you for these videos - I was around 10 when the FMV games started dropping and I thought they were garbage then and it's the same in 2021. Side note, it's disappointing how the 32X had such minor graphical improvements but offered reduced frame rates.
Sega CD+Genesis+32x+Game Genie+Sonic and Knuckles+Sonic 3. Do it.
Oh man, Supreme Warrior... Used to play this on my 3DO all the time. Speaking of, it would be cool to see a video comparing versions of games that appeared on both the Sega CD and 3DO. I've seen some comparisons pop up in your other videos (Road Rash and this one come to mind, with Night Trap and Supreme Warrior). I'm not even sure how many games released on both systems.
I always try to like the video as soon as I open it so I don't forget. I already know I'm going to actually like/enjoy the video, and I don't want to forget when I (almost inevitably) click towards the next SLX video! lol
This time I started typing the comment early, too!
I really wanted to play Sega CD games as a kid. And then Saturn games. But I got to play 3DO games instead. And maybe it's my nostalgia speaking, but I think I got a pretty good deal there. Especially when my next two CD consoles were the Playstation and the Dreamcast!
Sega CD yes. 32x ? Nah. Had they skipped that system they’d probably still be making hardware right now.
It's literally Japan versus the US.
Sega CD was Japan, 32X came from Sega of America. Sega was always going to prioritize the Saturn over anything else that might have been in the pipeline. The US Branch would have done well to just sit on their thumbs instead of trying to come up with some clever way to extend the then popular Genesis lifespan. It probably would have done them the most good as opposed to what did happen where Japan pulled the plug on the 32X and the Sega CD in favor of the Saturn guaranteeing anyone who bought both or either would feel burned.
@@JohnDoe-wq5eu Sega of America should have given the budget they had for the 32x and given it to developers to make games for the base Genesis. I can't help but feel that would have put them in a far better space going forward.
Agree with both of you. Throwing the budget into developing genesis games and focusing on the Saturn would have made more sense. Had the Sega CD been more affordable it would have flown off the shelves with a pack in game like Mk1 on Mortal Monday. Having the the entire series sounding arcade perfect with the titles being Sega CD exclusives would have been even better. All the system really used was the extra storage of the discs. Selling it as just a disc reader without the extra chips would have significantly lowered the price. Heck, they could have sold it with MK1 packed in for $125 and still turned some profit.
@@voteDC even they could use some of the budget for the SVP games and scaler/2.5D games for the sega cd.
Crazy to see cartridges still hold up kinda like the switch Sega had so much to offer but messed up still love the sega game's new and old today thank u for the videos keep um coming
Virtua Fighter 32X
vs
Virtua Fighter 2 Genesis.
Interesting times indeed.
Your writing is brilliant
Love the videos exploring the 32x and cd because I only owned the genesis growing up but it's one of my favorite consoles of all time. I recently learned that indie studios have been creating physical cartridges with brand new games that work on the genesis in recent years. Are they any good? Which ones are worth checking out if any? Could be cool to add some 2020 genesis games to the collection haha
There has been quite a few new genesis games made that aren't bad. I believe SLX has even covered one or two of them. GameSack just did a review on the newest one that came out called Paprium. I've seen beat em up, rpgs, top down run and guns, and even a side scrolling puzzle game.
I always wished that Sega had made more "32X CD" titles for genres other than FMV. Allowing the Sega CD to give next-gen quality audio while the 32X provided "32-bit lite" graphics and beautiful, vibrant color could have resulted in arcade-perfect versions of many popular titles. I especially think fighters like the Mortal Kombat games, Super Street Fighter II Turbo, and SNK's 2D fighters would have looked and sounded great with that combo. I'm sure it just was never cost-effective, though, because such a small user base happened to own both add-ons at once... one of the many pitfalls of releasing the 32X as a separate add-on.
While the Neptune would have been cool to have, I don't think it would have done any better than the 32X. Especially with the PS1 and Saturn waiting in the wings. What WOULD have helped the 32X would have been to make it less expensive. $159 USD was just too outrageous of a price. Maybe go the route of the Aladdin Deck Enhancer and make it a cartridge with an SVP chip in it to cut costs? Anyway, the 32X is what I consider to be the "beginning of the end" for Sega. Had they avoided this monstrosity they might have been able to compete longer against Sony & Nintendo.
SVP with or withoutlock on chip would have fare better than the 32x along with the sega cd and genesis. Thus, adding more 32-bit software to the Saturn (Cart and CD)
I was a bit too young to understand the politics and failure of the 32X when it came out. But I very much enjoyed the console and have fond memories of it. Being able to play games like Virtua Fighter, Star Wars Arcade and of course DOOM was revolutionary for the time.
Great series SLX and I agree. If you enjoyed it, than that's all that matters. 😎
This video series has got me thinking about current analogues- and the only true apples to apples comparison would be the New 3DS, which came out as part of an aging platform, near the launch of the Switch, and only had a couple of “””real”” exclusives. I guess the family of Microsoft xboxes could be analogous as well, except that they occupy the same gaming ecosystem as PC and seem to me to be released in a similar way a PC gamer might upgrade their PC (although, to be fair, you’re getting a reliable machine that can play the latest games for no effort (beyond the price of entry)).