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原帖由 gloria 于 2008-5-15 09:42 发表 谣传而已,两个机器肯定有相连设计的.两个机器的内部结构都是相似的,都是2个SH2做主CPU. 应该是SS先设计完毕,然后再简化成32X.
In 1993, the Sega Genesis finally uncrowned the Nintendo EntertainmentSystem (NES) as the number one videogame console in the highlyprofitable North American marketplace. They had been gaining on thevideogame giant for some time, and the dethroning of their rival was asweet taste long remembered ...while it lasted, that is.
It was also the year that Sega saw the handwriting on the wall.
Nintendohad not been thrown off by the release of the MegaDrive to the Japanesemarket in late 1989. They had continued to develop their own 16-bitvideogame console at a leisurely pace, content that the Famicom (NES)would continue its worldwide domination of the home console market.They already had a strong worldwide market established for theirproducts, and decided to take their time in coming up with a consolethat would meet their marketing needs. Also, the existing Nintendodistribution pipeline could be used for the new console, so there wasno hurry. Thus it was that Nintendo's 16-bit videogame console did nothit the Japanese market until 1990. It was universally derided bycritics as overhyped and underpowered, but as expected took theNintendo-dominated Japanese market by storm.
The Super Famicom (SFC) had arrived.
Ina surprising move, Nintendo did not immediately move to bring the SFCto Western shores. NES sales were still strong overseas, and itappeared that the Genesis (the Western MegaDrive) and Hudson's TurboGraph/X (the Western PC Engine) were floundering against their oldercompetition. All of that changed the following year, however, when YujiNaka's Sonic the Hedgehog hit the Genesis gaming scene. Becauseof this one game, this one fantastic and legendary platformer whichfinally gave Sega the corporate mascot they so sorely needed, Segaeventually seized control of the much-coveted North American market. Itwas a hard-fought prize that they would not willingly relinquish.Nintendo would resort to every trick in the book (and then some) to getit back, but the one that eventually worked was the only one that couldhave worked. Nintendo decided to rush the SFC to the North Americanmarket. This meant that it couldn't build up and hype the console aswell as they did the NES, but Nintendo was a paitent company. Theirname had become synonymous with home videogames (i.e. "Let's go playNintendo", and they were confident that their new system wouldeventually help them regain their market dominance. They had a virtualstranglehold on third-party development of videogames, and potentialusers could rest assured that "the good stuff" would most likely beexclusive to them or make it to their console first. Besides, theupstart Sega had it coming to them - how dare they steal the spotlightso brashly! The Super Famicom finally saw its North American debut on 9September 1991, and its debut title was none other than Super Mario World.
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (aka Super NES, SNES) had arrived. Sega's market superiority in the Americas was now doomed.
It is easy to see why Sega was so concerned about the Super Nintendo.While it may have lacked the sheer processing power of the Genesis, itsaudiovisual capabilities were far superior. It could do graphic tricksthat a stock Genesis could not, such as sprite scaling and rotation. Ithad better and richer FM synthesized stereo sound. Moreover, almostfrom the get-go, Nintendo and its developers started designing customchips into certain cartridges that would provide the extra "oomph" thatthe stock console lacked. Oh, and let's not forget the worldwidepopularity of the Mario and Zelda franchises, either. Super Mario World was an instant hit. Shooters such as Gradius III, Super Metroid, and the legendary Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie(which never saw an American release) showed that the SNES could beevery bit the arcade plaformer that the Genesis was for those who knewhow to work around its weaknesses. In addition, RPGs such as The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Final Fantasy IIImade the SNES the plaform of choice for fans of that genre. It hadtaken Sega just over three years to wrest the number one spot away fromNintendo. Sega had to act, and soon, otherwise Nintendo would reclaimthe throne.
A varietyof approaches were considered by Sega's development teams, ranging fromthe practical to the esoteric. Sega already had plans for a number ofnew consoles on the drawing boards, and one or more of these seemed themost likely approach. There was also the idea of adding support viacustom chips inside the carts, just as Nintendo and its licensees weredoing, and a development team was soon tasked to look into thatpossibility. There was also the lessons to be learned with the relativefailure of the Sega CD, that while both innovative and comparable to astock SNES suffered from low sales due to a poor program base. The sadreality is that Sega CD was a console ahead of its time, as the marketwas not quite ready for CD-based videogames. Neither was thetechnology, for that matter, and gamers never really warmed to the ideaof interactive movies, either. As a result, the Sega CD failedmiserably, and Nintendo continued to gain on Sega's lead. The SNES wasplaying a good job at catch-up in the console wars, and it seemedinevitable that it would pass the Genesis in the North American marketas soon as it possibly could. Something had to be done, and quickly.
This is where Project Mars enters the picture.
Segaactually had several different projects going simultaneously aimed atdeveloping new versions or incarnations of its videogame consolehardware for home use. Some of these were significant variations of thetried and true Genesis, some were based on arcade hardware, and somewere entirely new animals altogether. These are known as the "planet"series, because each was supposedly code-named for the differentplanets of the Solar System. While this picture is not very accurate,nevertheless it serves as a good reference point for the average gameror consumer. I'm sure that most of you are by now familiar with ProjectSaturn - the CD-ROM console that started out as the Sega GigaDrive andthen evolved into its own. Let's move inward across the Solar System aswe look at this and two other such projects.
Quitesimply, Nakayama-san had directed the company to design and produce acartridge-based 32-bit platform and bring it to market before theChristmas selling season of 1994. This was a lengthy, somewhat heatedmeeting - but in the end there was no question that Sega of Japan (inthe form of a classic Nakayama mandate) had determined that this waswhat we were going to do. It was [now] up to the senior team to figureout and go execute. The difference, this time, was that Sega of Japanwas actually inviting Sega of America into the process - instead ofcreating new platforms in a vacuum and throwing them over the ocean atus when it was too late to have meaningful input ....Sega of Japan wascompletely committed and was [ready to] mobilize whatever internalresources were require to finish the design and produce it in quantityfor Christmas.
ProjectMars was actually conceived in parallel to another scheme, one thatallowed a stock Genesis to play games utilizing special features notfound on the console by use of custom chipsets inside the cart itself.It seemed a natural enough approach, as Nintendo was already doing thisfor the SNES with their Super FX processor and Capcom was doing thesame with their C4 chip. The Super Virtual Play (SVP) concept was thus born, and all three of Sega's current 32-bit AM2 arcade wonders - Daytona USA, Virtua Fighter, and Virtua Racing- were considered to test the idea. These are the only confirmed SVPcarts, although there are a few reports that SVP treatments of both Virtua Fighting and Star Wars Arcade were also briefly considered. Virtua Racing wasthe title that was finally chosen to test the technology, and it alsowound up as the only SVP cart ever released. It proved too expensivefor Sega to continue developing, and thus the SVP concept died apremature death. Project Mars would prove to be the superior approachto such sophisticated arcade conversions on Genesis hardware.
Ithas been intimated over the passing years that Project Mars sharedsimilarities in design with the system that would later be publicizedas Project Jupiter, the abandoned nextgen 32-bit cart-onlyconsole supposedly conceived by Sega of Japan alone and carefully keptunder wraps from Sega of America until it was eventually abandoned.This would have meant that carts designed for use with Mars would havealso worked in a Jupiter console, and there was also talk about aJupiter-inspired cart adaptor for Sega's other 32-bit console, whichwas even then already in development. Back-compatability with currentlyowned games is the dream of many home videogame players, and severalreports about Project Jupiter were somehow leaked to the public. WhileSega did hint at times that a 16-bit path to its up-and-coming 32-bittechnology was possible, they never actually committed themselves tothis idea except for the 32X. As it turned out, what was reported bymany gaming magazines at the time as Project Jupiter was nothing morethan the original conception for Project Mars - a dedicated 32-bitcartridge console based on Genesis technology.. Also, as we now know,Sega of Japan had by this point already decided to make a total breakfrom carts and was doing so with Project Saturn - the directresult of its experimentation with Sega CD. The cart adapter for theSaturn that would have permitted the use of Genesis and 32X games neverexisted, except as wistful thinking on the part of many a Sega fan.Such a device would have been an expensive and unnecessary oddity forwhat was now a CD-ROM based console. In retrospect, it might not havebeen a bad idea, but Sega of Japan had other plans.
While Sega of Japan kept its 32-bit ace up its sleeve for as long as itcould, Hideki Sato and his senior engineering staff continued to assistJoe Miller and his team over at Sega of America in shaping Project Marsinto a workable product. Their avowed goal was to come up with a meansof assisting a standard Genesis console in playing 32-bit videogames. The ideal system would be a low-cost, high-performance upgrade paththat would give the Genesis superior performance versions of themuch-lauded "missing" features found in the SNES. In addition, it wouldalso have to both support and enhance the Sega CD, as the existence andavailability of the Genesis CD-ROM accessory would permit larger andmore sophisticated titles than could be achieved by cartridge alone.The end result would be a powerful, low-cost add-on that would pluginto the catridge port of a stock Genesis and turn it into a 32-bitmachine. At least three initial design concepts were proposed for theMars production unit, according to Miller's recollections. The firstwould have resulted in a Genesis hybrid akin to some of Sega's customarcade cabinets from the late 1980s, such as Space Harrier and After Burner 2,which would have sported twin Motorola MC68000 CPUs and an additionalVDP. Nobody was really happy with this one, since it was not that muchof an improvement over the Genesis itself. The second appears to havebeen something of an interim design adding another VDP and a singleHitachi SH-1 RISC CPU instead of the extra MC68000, not all thatdifferent from an SVP-equipped Genesis, but this too was eventuallyscrapped due to cost and production issues. The third was a morepowerful design suggested by Sega of Japan engineers that sported twinHitachi SH-2 RISC CPUs and a more powerful VDP than its two earlierincarnations. It was a complex approach, to be sure, but there was areason for it. Sega of Japan's next console, details of which they wereslowly beginning to unveil to their American colleagues, would havesimilar processing architecture. If Sega's third parties becameaccustomed to working with the parallel RISC design now, they argued,then the third parties would be ready for Sega's next system. All threeMars concepts made it into the alpha prototype stage, but it was Segaof Japan's twin SH-2 design that eventually wound up gaining finalapproval by Sato, Miller, and their associates. This was quite anachivement, considering the restricted amount of time in which they hadto work (mere months) and the limitations of the console upon which itwas based (the aging 16-bit Genesis). A little bit of modificationhere, some plastic trim there, and a rather odd-looking and top-heavydevice began to take shape.
Onefinal topic to be addressed by the 32X design team was modem play.Since the Mars technology was essentially an extra layer on top ofstandard Genesis hardware, modem support proved to be a surprisingsmall hurdle. Included in Sega's goals for the 32X was the plan to addSega Channel support in November 1995 for Japanese subscribers, andsupport in September 1996 (at the latest) for North Americansubscribers. In addition, Catapult's X-Band Network indicated that theywould also provide 32X support on their system.
The eventual end result of Project Mars was the now-familiar "Segamushroom," as Sega developers and licensees had by now nicknamed it.Call it what you will - Genesis 32X (United States), Mega 32X (Europe),or Super 32X (Japan) - the resultant device was a 32-bit upgradeaccessory for a stock Genesis that was desgined to enhance its baseconsole in several significant ways. Here are the specs for the systemthat Sega of America conceived:
[size=-1]- 32X boot rom (Genesis/32X detection, SH2 policing) [size=-1]- Twin 23 MHz Hitachi SH2 32-bit RISC CPUs [size=-1]- 32X VDP (overlay Genesis video, polygonal graphics) [size=-1]- Additional PCM (mixes with Genesis audio)
[size=-1]- 512K on-board (in addition to stock Genesis memory)
[size=-1]- A/V overlay cable (Genesis 2 mini-DIN pinout) [size=-1]- Twin RF shields (for use with older Genesis 1 consoles) [size=-1]- Unit spacers (for use with Genesis 2 or CD-X consoles)
Theadditional features that Project Mars added to a stock Genesis wereimpressive - two additional digital sound channels, 32,768 simultaneouscolors on-screen, full 3D graphics support pumping up to 25,000polygons a second, and true scaling and rotation of sprites. The factthat it overlaid its capabilities on top of a stock Genesis meant thatstandard Genesis carts could be used with the device - the older codewas merely "passed through" the unit without tripping the 32X boot ROM.Stock Genesis cartridge housing could be used to deliver new 32-bitgames, too, although 32X production cartridges were actually enlarged abit in order to distingush them physically from older 16-bit titles.The device was designed to work with all standard Genesis consoles pastand present, including the new CD-X, and could be installed in a mannerof minutes with little hassle. It seemed the perfect upgrade, and Segaof America wasted no time in seeking production approval from companyexecutives.
So what was the major obstacle in the way of the 32X? Sega itself.
Segaof America was all for the machine, of course, but most of the insidersat Sega of Japan was still betting on their baby, the CD-ROM basedProject Saturn. They had little use for a "mere Genesis upgrade," andwould rather that Sega's customer base start over with a whole newgeneration of videogame hardware and software. Not only could Segadeliver the Saturn to fulfill this anticipated need, but it could couldalso prove more profitable for the company in the long run. All-newhardware plus all-new software equals all-new profits, and Sega ofJapan was betting that most of Sega's customers would gladly (andquickly) ditch their older systems for the Saturn. In the end, though,Nakayama liked what Miller, Sato, and the rest of the 32X design teamhad wrought and gave it his blessing. It was Nakayama's consideredopinion that the 32X was in a perfect position to fill the gap betweenthe aging Genesis and the up-and-coming Saturn, and it seemed to himthat it could be a saleable product during this crucial phase. Itwould be Sega's first 32-bit videogame console to hit the markets, andit would give Sega's less affluent customer base something upon whichto whet their appetites while they scrimped and saved for the pleasuresthat only Saturn would offer once it arrived.
Muchto their chagrin, Sega of Japan was drafted to provide the productionfacilities for the 32X. The reason was obvious - Sega of America simplydid not have the means to mass-produce the unit themselves. This theydid with typical Oriental calm, but behind their resigned masks was theconviction that that their time and resources were better usedelsewhere - like on Project Saturn, perhaps. Sega of Japan never reallyaccepted the 32X as a real system and remained supremely confident thatthe Saturn would eventually reveal itself as the true heir to theGenesis legacy. Sega's internal rift over the anticipated rise anddirection of the 32-bit videogame market would prove to have majorimplications not only for the 32X and Saturn, but also for thefinancial future of Sega itself.
The videogame community got its first heads-up on Sega's plans at the1994 Summer CES in Chicago, Illinois. A complete prototype 32X CDsystem (as Sega termed it at that time) was on display at Sega's booth,with only minor differences in color scheme and styling from the finalproduction model. Also on hand were working betas or CinePak demos ofseveral titles planned for the new system. Among these were Bullet Fighters (a 3D polygonal space shooter), Ultimate Fighting (a 2D zoom-and-pan fighter), and Ecco the Dolphin (a32-bit enhanced version of the original). Also announced at that showwas another title, one for which Sega fans had been clammoring eversince rumors of a new Sega system had started during the previous year.
"So, where's the Sonic game? Every new Sega platform's got to have a Sonic game, right?"
Sonic the Hedgehog CDhad unwittingly set a trend for Sega. Sonic and friends were now a truefranchise, as Sega fans had come to expect a new Sonic game with everynew Sega platform - much as Mario fans expected a new Mario game withevery new Nintendo platform. The word-of-mouth was strong on this one,and it was fueled by a series of pictures leaked to the game zines ofthe day. Sonic the Hedgehog 4 was to be a true 3D game,featuring polygonal rendered characters moving about in a real 3Denvironment. The pictures looked absolutely fantastic and far beyondanything the pokey SNES could deliver, even with the most powerfulcustom chip that Nintendo or its licensees could shoehorn inside thecart casing. Sega fans were beside themselves as they impaitentlywaited for the 32X to be released.
Inlate September of 1994, Sega of America staged a special Gamer's Day tounveil Project Mars to the American market. The name given for the newsystem was the Genesis 32X, as in "32 times the power." It waspitched as a low-cost 32-bit upgrade path for the 13 million Genesisowners nationwide. The projected price was expected to be no more thanUS$170 or so, depending on the foreign currency exchange rates -remember, Sega of Japan were the ones actually mass-producing retailunits. "American gamers want arcade gameplay, and they want it now,"said Sega 32X project manager Haven Duburl, "but they don't want to paya lot for it, and they don't want to abandon their 16-bit library." 12games were promised for the system's official launch in November, withmore on the way. Here are the twelve originally proposed 32X launchtitles: Doom, Fahrenheit (CD 32X), Star Wars Arcade, Super Afterburner, Super Motocross, and Virtua Racing.
In addition, Sega openly talked about more 32X titles that it hoped to deliver by the end of 1995. Among these were Ecco the Dolphin, Tomcat Alley Deluxe, College Basketball's National Championship, Metal Head, and Wire Head(CD 32X) - making for an actual total of 18 titles ready, impending, orunder development. Some 25 companies were listed as being on the 32Xdevelopment bandwagon at the Gamer's Day press briefings: Acclaim,Accolade, Activision, American Softworks, Altus, Capcom, CapitolMultimedia, Core Design, Crystal Dynamics, Domark, Fox Interactive,GameTek, Hi-Tech Entertainment, Interplay, JVC, Konami, PlaymatesInteractive, Rocket Science Games, Software Toolworks, Sunsoft, Takara,Technos, Time Warner Interactive, Vic Tokai, and Virgin.
Justa few days later on 29 September, Sega of Japan officially beganmass-producing 32X units. Sega of America's avowed goal was one millionunits manufactured and distributed to retailers by Christmas. Segacorporate openly admitted that they might fall short of their goal, asactual production somehow started behind schedule. The inside scoop hadit that Sega would not be able to move all of its planned inventory of32X consoles until January of 1995.
Thenationwide ad campaign to promote the 32X was pure Sega, and anybodyfamiliar with their trademark sense of sly humor will smile in knowingunderstanding. In the first ad, a shocked boy watches as a 32X adapterslides up and down in the cartridge slot of the new Genesis Mark 2console, redesigned in the same streamline style as its newestaccessory. "Mommy, what are those two Sega machines doing?" he wails."They're making an arcade system, dear," comes the hushed reply. Aparade of system specs followed, worded in the same vein, followed bythe tag line, "Bringing the 32-bit gaming experience home. 'X' isnext." The second one was an even more risque reply to the first. "OhYES ... more, MORE, faster, FASTER, Faster!" followed by thenow-familiar picture of a 32X sliding up and down inside a Genesis Mark2 console's cartridge port. "What did you think we were talking about,you little degenerate?" the ad copy continues. "Get your mind out ofthe gutter and back where it belongs. Once you get the 32X-perience,you won't want anything else (except that, you animal!) 'X' is next... oh baby, oh baby ...."
Bynow, Sega of America had over US $10 million invested in their 32Xrollout. Their public statements, along with the intensive ad campaign(on both print and on TV media) was consistently insistent that the 32Xwas a viable upgrade for Genesis owners and not a mere throwawayproduct as some industry wags were already claiming. The 32X wasgetting a lot of good press in the trades and zines, giving Sega moreconfidence in its hope that 32X sales would translate into excellentprofit margins. At the least, it might prove to be an indicationwhether or not the gaming public was truly ready for a pure 32-bitvideogame system, such as the CD-ROM based system that Sega of Japanhad quietly finished overseas.With Nintendo breathing down its neck, Sega did not want to wind up producing "yet another Sega CD."
Inthe meantime, Nintendo remained unconcerned about the threat of 32Xsales against the SNES. They continued to maintain this attitude evenas the impending holiday shopping season grew closer and closer - thetime of the year when the industry almost always made its biggestprofits. They had a little surprise up their sleeve aimed directly atSega. If it just so happened to catch those other upstarts, the AtariJaguar and the Panasonic 3DO, then that was just fine, too. "[This]will be the biggest title of the season for any platform," saidNintendo of America vice-president George Harrison. "We want to giveour customers every reason not to trade up to other systems." The newtitle was slated to appear in November, the same month that the 32Xmade its official debut, and Nintendo gave its customers a taste ofwhat expect at the 1994 Shoshinkai (Space World) gaming expo in Japan.Customer response, fueled by word-of-mouth and glowing reports from thetrades, resulted in over 2.2 million orders placed by October - farmore that the 2 million carts Nintendo had on hand. So what was thegame that Nintendo had positioned as its "32X killer" - the game thatwas supposed to prove that 32-bit consoles weren't really necessaryjust yet?
Donkey Kong Country.
Sega'sreaction to this news was understandable. While at the Sega Gamer's Dayshow that unveiled the 32X, Sega of America president Tom Kalinske gavean extensive interview at Disney's Epcot Center to Game Players magazine. Concerning Nintendo's concurrent release of Donkey Kong Countryvs. the 32X rollout, he said, "The 16-bit business and the subsequentupgrade to it is going to be very, very strong for at least another twoto three years. We think our titles are much stronger than Donkey Kong Country; however, I congratulate Nintendo on having one good title this year."
Kalinske would eventually have to eat his words.
Despite the obvious threat from Nintendo, Sega of America released the32X on time and schedule to North America in mid-November of 1994. Itwas released in a low-key manner to Japanese customers the followingmonth, and by January 1995 had also become available in Europe andAustralia. 32-bit power was now in the hands of American homevideogamers everywhere, and Sega was the first to make it so.
Whenit made its debut in November of 1994, the 32X had an advertised retailprice of US $150. This was about US$20 less than first projected, butit was a welcome announcement. Nothing had really changed as far asfinancing went, except that the Japanese yen had dropped against theAmerican dollar. This news was well received by potential buyers, as US$170 had seemed a tad hefty for a mere upgrade. Even so, everybody knewthat US $150 would have been about half the cost a full-blown,standalone 32-bit console. Six 32X games were available from the start,with more to follow, at an average price of US $60 to US $70 a pop.This was comparable to the price of Nintendo's newest titles at thetime, including that worrisome one just over the horizon, but thepromised sophistication of 32X titles was hoped to overcome the doubtsof the cash-conscious.
The six titles that were announced to retail outlets along with the 32X were as follows: Cosmic Carnage, DOOM, Metal Head, Star Wars Arcade, Virtua Fighter, and Virtua Racing Deluxe.This represented a bit of a shakeup in Sega's original plans for systemlaunch titles, and almost all of it had to do with production problems.The anticpated "real version" of Afterburner was not ready in time, which forced Sega to replace it with another arcade conversion, Space Harrier.There were delays in converting the older Sega CD titles to the new CD32X format. In fact, only three of the six announced launch titles madeit to store shelves on time. DOOM was rushed out the door, a victim of its own popularity, and this resulted in a playable yet buggy game that still sold well. Star Wars Arcade fared better than DOOM, fortunately, and the word-of-mouth on it combined with the immense popularity of the Star Wars franchise made it the most welcomed title of the fledgling 32X lineup. Not far behind was Virtua Racing Deluxe,which many gamers argued (and rightly so) that this was the excellentconversion of the popular coin-op that Sega should have released theprevious year. As a result, Game Players magazine rated the 32Xas the #4 most wanted "hardware hit" for the 1994 holiday system.Everybody who was anybody was bragging about what Sega had to offer interms of its new 32-bit Genesis upgrade. Unfortunately, at least oneof the announced launch titles continued to be plagued by productiontitles, and Metal Head would not make it to store shelves until February of 1995.
It was a portent of things to come.
Ifthere was one game that had to be singled out as the 32X's biggest hitduring the holidays (and thereafter), it had to be a certain well-knownspace shooter. Star Wars Arcade has been called "the game that saved Sega in 1995." As expected, Nintendo's Donkey Kong Countrysales were nothing short of astronomical. It turned out to be themarket crusher that Sega feared it would be, and it dominated thevideogame market throughout the 1994-1995 holiday shopping season.Sega's move to make Star Wars Arcade a launch title proved to be a wise one, because the ingrained acceptance of the Star Warsfranchise coupled with the overall excellence of the game made it oneof Sega's best-selling titles of the season. While it did not comeanywhere near to matching the astronomical sales figures of Nintendo'smonster hit, it proved strong enough to actually boost 32X systemsales. As former Sega developer Eric Quakenbush noted, "Star Wars [Arcade] really saved their bacon that Christmas."
Most of the focus on the 1995 Winter CES was on the planned U.S. launchof the Saturn later that year. Even so, Sega of America was quick topush the 32X. Attendees at the show were treated to Sega spokespersonspitching the 32X as an ideal bargain solution for teens and otheryoungers gamers. The Saturn would be expensive once it arrived, so itwould pretty much be limited to the adult crowd (and those kids whoseparents were affluent enough to afford one - ed.). It would alsojustfiy owning a Sega CD, as the long-announced CD 32X releases wereset to start rolling off the production lines.
Unfortunately, Sega's 32X presentation fell rather flat with the industry wags. "It lacked oomph," as Game Zero'sMichael Lambert put it, and fellow writer Marty Chinn was even lessimpressed. "You had to have an appointement to get in[to their booth],"he noted in his writeup. "Bad move." Game Zero also probablyput it best when they said, "Sega had a general plethora of new Genesisand 32X games, although there was no one single game that they weretrying to push as [its own] market crusher."
Reportsof Sega's perceived arrogance did not sit well with their coreaudience, which just happened to be what the 32X was aimed towards -young gamers, both older kids and teens alike. These were the peoplewho were actually playing Sega's games, and they were the ones activelyconvincing their parents as to what to buy them in the days ahead. Whileeverybody concerned was wowed by what the 32X could do, and weresuitably impressed with the software at hand, many gamers voiced theopinion that they'd rather wait for the Saturn or PlayStation instead.There was also a small but highly vocal crowd who claimed it was onlyas a stopgap measure - a little taste of 32-bit power to tide themarket over until the Saturn and Playstation came along, or perhapssomething even better. "Everybody knows that 32X is a Band-Aid. It'snot a next generation system," said Trip Hawkins, president ofElectronic Arts. The gaming magazines of the day had their own opinionson the matter. "Some people claim that this is only a stopgap measure,"commented Game Players on the issue, "while [we're] waiting forthe 64-bit machines, but it's really cool!" Stop-gap ...Band-Aid...waiting for the new systems ...a common theme was being voiced bythe videogame industry, and it was one that boded ill for Sega'smushroom.
It was nowonder, what with the small size of the 32X software base and all that"stopgap" hype, that gamers chose not to invest heavily in the system -save for the few hardcore Sega loyalists who bought 32X unit itself andthe two or three "good" titles that they felt justified its price, suchas DOOM and Star Wars Arcade. As a result, sales of both32X consoles and games quickly tapered off after the holidays. Theywere slow, almost apathetic, as 1995 clicked by month after month, eventhough new titles were now coming out on a regular basis. Some gamers,such as Michael Brimson of Orlando, Florida, chose to skip the 32Xaltogether. "What's going on?" he wailed in a letter to Game Players. "Sega's making me mad. Why is it coming out with stuff like 32X,Saturn, and CD-X? [CD-X was a portable Sega CD - ed.] Come on, I ain'trich. I have a Genesis and Sega CD, and already I don't have enoughgames. Now they expect me to buy a 32X?" A lot of other cost-consciousSega gamers were asking themselves similar questions. Was there anygood reason to upgrade to 32X now, when the real 32-bitconsoles were going to be on sale by the end of the year? Best to saveup what little money one could scrimp together until then. Besides,Saturn was looking mighty promising ...but PlayStation looked evenbetter. Sega's tragic positioning of the 32X so close to the impendingarrival of the real 32-bit consoles, coupled with its own tragicmiscalculation of its potential fan base, had made the 32X a marketanomaly almost from the get-go. It was a system condemned to impendingfailure before it could ever turn a profit, and that is exactly whathappened.
Afaint glimmer of hope for what few beleagured 32X fans there were camealong in late spring of 1995, when Sega confirmed its intentions torelease Project Neptune as a commercial product. It was Sega ofAmerica's answer to Sega of Japan's original Project Mars concept - theall-in one 32-bit upgraded Genesis console. The Neptune console(US$400) was designed to be a direct replacement for the aging SegaGenesis, incorporating both Genesis and 32X hardware within the samehousing. The working prototype unit pictured at the press briefing (andlater reprinted in the trades) was almost identical to the Genesis Mark2 console in both size and design. This was good news to buyers of theSega CD Model 2, which had been designed to mate with the Genesis Mark2. Even so, the steep price tag (twice the original price of theGenesis) caused many of those same users to gag in disbelief. Word fromJapan about the Sega Saturn and Sony Playstation was by now quitewidespread, so many users were leaning strongly towards purchasing thenew 32-bit CD-ROM systems with their impressive array of launchtitles. Still, for those with large Genesis and 32X cart libraries,the Neptune remained an attractive upgrade possibility - especiallyafter the announced price was later reduced to a more reasonable US$200. It was also a pleasant prospect for those few licensees stillcommitted to coding for the 32X, and Frontier Developments (creators ofthe legendary sci-fi strategy game Elite) quietly began work on a 3D polygonal shooter for the new system. DarXidewas to be the very first game for the Neptune, and it promised to bejust as slick-looking and smooth-playing as the best Saturn shooterscurrently available over in Japan.
It would also be one of the last 32X titles ever released.
"So what happened to Sonic the Hedgehog 4?"
You know, that's a good question. It is a sad fact that nowhere in the 32X software library does Sonic do so much as even a silent cameo. The so-called "Sonic game" that was released didn't even have Sonic in it. In fact, while Knuckles Chaotixwas a definite improvement on the tried and true Sonic run-and-jumpformula, and threw in some unique innovations of its own (spritescaling and the infamous "bungee mode", it didn't look and playanything like the preview pics that had so wowed the Sega scene back atthe end of 1994. In fact, and this was not known until afterwards, itwas based on a 2D Sonic prototype game for Genesis that Sega had beenkicking around its software development division for just over twoyears. As for those tantalizing screenshots? They were actually takenfrom an in-house video Sega had produced for an amusement parkattraction, although this little item of information would not bediscovered until years later.
Public reaction to Knuckles Chaotixwas mixed. A few magazines praised it. Others gave it only grudgingpraise. Almost everybody complained about the much-publicized "bungeemode," which tended to hamper rather then enhance gameplay. Sonic fansaired much vitriol over the fact that it was still a 2D game and notthe 3D riot that had been widely anticipated. They felt cheated by Knuckles Chaotix,and they let it be known that as far as they were concerned, Sega wasnow in the doghouse. It is rather ironic to note, in retrospect, that a"real" Sonic game (at least in the eyes of his many fans) would not be released by Sega until Sonic Adventure for Dreamcast in December 1998 - almost four years after Chaotix first hit store shelves.
The second quarter of 1995 marks a defining moment in the brief historyof the 32X. This is the time during which the bulk of Sega's 32Xlicensees decided to officially abandon the system and concentrate allof their efforts on the Saturn instead. They had never boughtSega's early press about maintaining the 32X along with the Saturn, andthe perception that the 32X was a mere stopgap product remained strong.Sega's announcement that the Saturn was coming to North America in thefall of 1995 meant that time had now run out for the old technology.The Genesis was about to go bye-bye and would take the 32X along withit, so these companies needed to shift gears immediately and port overexisting and planned projects if they were going to be ready to supportthe new Saturn videogame market. Besides, it was an unnecessaryduplication of effort to code for a soon-to-be-dead system when thesame piece of code could be released for a new system that would remainon the market for several years, thus increasing potential revenue andbetter offsetting development costs. To quote former Sega developerEric Quakenbush, "Developers didn't want to invest time and resourcesin creating games for a platform that was going to be overshadowed bysomething as big as [the] Saturn." The time had come to choose betweenthe two systems, and almost everybody went with the Saturn.
Theeffect was almost immediate, and the trades of the day quickly pickedup on the move as the word began to spread. One after another,unconfirmed reports "leaked from reliable sources" appeared that majordevelopers were bailing on the 32X. Capcom appears to have been thefirst to leave the fold (32X ports of Street Fighter 2 and Dark Stalkerswere widely anticipated but never released), and their move seemed tospark an avalanche of sorts. Interplay ...EA Sports ...Readysoft...Acclaim ...one after another, the major developers starting bailingon their 32X commitments. In truth, many of these had never been happywith Sega's plans for the 32X, and Capcom's departure was just theexcuse they needed to also jump ship. "And just where was everybodygoing?" you might ask. "To the Sega Saturn or the Sony PlayStation,"was the undeniable answer. Even Sega itself seemed to be ignoring itsown public statements regarding the future of the 32X, hurredly rushingthe release of several titles and cancelling outright several others inorder to make way for the Saturn rollout. Sega was worried about Sony'sPlayStation, and rightly so, because it looked as if it would be aworthy competitor. As a result, Sega CEO Hayao Nakayama decided to putall of its eggs in one basket and push the Saturn for all it was worth.In October of 1995, Nakayama ordered all Sega consoles save the Saturncancelled so the company could better focus its limited resources onthe next console war, which in point of fact had already begun. Nakayama's choice came at the worst possible moment for Sega's entire product line, right during a period of market transition, and the 32X suffered the most as a result of his decision.
Ifnews of the impending death of the 32X had been mere speculation up tothis point, then Sega's sudden move towards the Saturn made it a swiftreality. By the end of the third quarter of 1995, the time that theSaturn and PlayStation were set to debut, tales of the impending demiseof the 32X had become so persistent that coverage of the console hadall but stopped. The only vendors still developing for the 32X wereoverseas, such as Core and Frontier, and they were more concerned withfinishing their existing projects than preparing any new ones. By andlarge the industry was ignoring it, and it received practically nocoverage at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) trade show laterthat month.
The 32X was now doomed.
The remainder of 1995 saw a handful of additional titles released forthe 32X. This brought the total count of released titles up to somewhatless than three dozen - a far cry from the one hundred titles or sothat had been anticipated or announced by 32X fans. A few more wereannounced, such as ports of Hosenose and Booger and Sega's own Garfield in TV Land,but they were subsequently cancelled. In addition, Sega also cancelledplans for the Neptune in the wake of the Saturn rollout, much to theirritation of both potential customers and developers alike, and thisfurther hastened the decline of the 32X. "Overall, the lack of qualitysoftware is the 32X's crucial flaw," noted Game Players in their December 1995 issue. "Finding new 32X games in 1996 is going to be even harder than it was in 1995."
Amongthe casulties left behind in the wake of Sega's move was an almostlegendary yet unreleased title that once again had been shoved to theback of the line. Word of mouth was strong on Shadow of Atlantis,an interactive RPG first conceived for the Sega CD and then rescheduledfor a CD 32X release. It was an ambitious project, inspired by JulesVerne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, in which Captain Nemo and the crew of the Nautilus wereto embark on a search for the legendary lost continent of Atlantis. TheCD 32X system was the first Sega console that promised to deliverauthor Eric Quakenbush's grand plans as he intended, but the death ofthe 32X changed all that. Once again, Shadow of Atlantis wasput on the back burner, and it was tentatively rescheduled for a Saturnrelease - much to the growing irritation of its developers.
ByNovember of 1995, just one year after its launch, the handwriting wason the wall for the 32X. The price of the 32X was now a mere US $100,and for US $40 more you buy it with a pack-in game (usually Doom).Almost all of the scant handful of developers who still had titles indevelopment handed them off to Sega for finish-up work. They simplydidn't want to mess with it anymore, as the Saturn was by now the Segadevelopment platform of choice. This meant that there would be preciousfew new 32X titles for 1996 - the year in which the system was supposedto have been hitting its stride with the videogame market - and therewould be no more once this small supply had been exhausted. Game Players putit this way, saying, "The launch of the Saturn and lack of third-partysupport have doomed the 32X to an even shorter life than Sega CD."
The name Sega was now beginning to acquire a rather bad taste in themouths of home console owners, which was not surprising given thecompany's apparently growing aloofness towards its customers. In fact,many a dedicated Sega gamer began to seriously consider jumping shipaltogether. It was a feeling that they shared in common with a steadilygrowing number of Nintendo fans, who were also upset at their preferredvendor's strident insistence that the 16-bit SNES was still aneconomically viable platform despite the arrival of the 32-bitnewcomers. So, which one to choose? Obviously not the 32X, as it wasdying the death of a thousand cuts right before everybody's eyes. Whatabout the Saturn? It was public knowledge that the Saturn never hadand never would have the 3D punch of the new Sony PlayStation, and thismade Sony's new box quite attractive to disgruntled videogame fans fromall corners of the globe. Saturn was a decent machine, alright, but itwas designed during the heydey of 2D systems. It was now a 3Dvideogaming world, and were hardcore videogamers willing to risk Sega"biting them in the butt" again on a new system, just like they haddone with the 32X - especially with the rumors of the new 64-bit SegaEclipse already beginning to surface? Many decided not to wait aroundand find out, and PlayStation sales began to soar against the Saturn.
By this time, however, the 32X was dead and gone - unmourned and all-but-forgotten. Frontier's DarXide was quietly released to European 32X owners in January of 1996, never seeing its intended American release. Spiderman: Web of Firehit American retail shelves about the same time. Together, they holdthe notable distinction of being the last two 32X titles ever deliveredto retail markets, and with that ends the sad tale of Project Mars. Ofthe 500,000 consoles shipped to retailers by Sega, only two-thirds orso (using the most objective figures) wound up in users' homes. Therest of them sat on store shelves despite massive discounts, save whendiscovered by Genesis owners looking to augment their aging systems onthe cheap. Within two years, 32X titles were sitting in the bottom ofthe bargain bins, some marked down to as little as US $2 each, and the32X mushroom itself could be had brand new in the box for as little asUS $20. Few people missed the 32X, and even fewer bemoaned its passing.The 32X may have been the first 32-bit gaming system to hit the market, but it also wound up being its first 32-bit casualty.
It is said that hindsight is almost always an exact science - "If this,then that," and so on. It is also said that once history has been made,then it cannot be remade, but only repeated at a later time. Let ustake a moment to analyze the demise of the 32X. Perhaps if we canunderstand why it failed, and how Sega's experience with it resulted intheir bad reputation for several years, then maybe we can appreciatehow hard Sega worked not to repeat the same mistakes with the Dreamcastrollout in 1999.
The first thing to do is to address the one nagging issue that hasplaged the 32X in almost every single write-up that you will findnowdays. This is usually expressed in one of two forms: "It was athrowaway product meant to maintain sales until the Saturn came out,"or "It was a cheap stopgap that Sega never really supported."
It can be demonstrated from the record that the 32X was never intended as a throwaway product.In fact, quite the contrary. The trades of the time are full of reportsof Sega's avowed public support for the 32X. Even so Sega-cynical amagazine as Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) was quoted assaying, "As far as we know, Sega has no intention of dropping supportfor the 32X even after the Saturn hits US shores. It's a pretty safebet that if sales of the 32X continue to be brisk, your investment issafe." While a case can certainly be made that it was in fact astopgap measure, designed to hold off Sega's competition for two orthree years until Saturn sales picked up, no such case can be made thatit was destined for the discard bin from day one. Sega of America sankUS $10 million into the 32X rollout, financing an advertising campaignthat included both print and visual media, as well as some memorable TVcommercials. If that figure seems small by today's standards, considerthat US $10 million also happens to be the approximate amount that Segaof America spent on the Genesis rollout back in late 1989. It mighthave been considerably more had not their counterparts over in Sega ofJapan been drafted into actually producing the system and its games,with the latter practically kicking and screaming the whole way. Onemust also weigh Sega executive Tom Kalinske's comment that he foresawthe 16-bit market remaining viable for another two or three years.American console videogamers have traditionally desired to take as manyof their existing games with them when upgrading to a new system inorder to save costs. The 32X was perfect for this due to its uniquedesign, and was thus poised to take full advantage of the existing16-bit market. Since it was essentially a 32-bit enhancer for anexisting 16-bit console, it could have conceivably accounted well foritself had it been allowed to survive and thrive. This was exactly asSega of America had planned. Unfortunately, neither Sega of Japan northe rest of the industry were listening.
The internal rivalry that was taking place within Sega during 1991 to 1995, the period in which Sega was prepping its 32-bit technology for eventual release, is perhaps the key internal issue at the heart of the 32X demise."Joe [Miller] may have been the father of the 32X," recalls former Segaexecutive Michael Latham, "but he had to choose between bad choicenumber one and bad choice number two. I think he made the better choiceand made a valiant effort to make the best of an impossible situation."Remember, Project Mars wound up being the darling of Sega of America,whereas Project Saturn was the virtual holy grail of Sega of Japan.Sega's two main branches were on two different paths to theiranticipated 32-bit delights. Sega of America foresaw a gradual upgradeto a fast, cheap 32-bit system that maintained cartridges as thepreferred delivery system, whereas Sega of Japan had in mind a cleanbreak from its past with a brand-new system utilizing CD-ROM storage.The Genesis had been a resounding success in America, whereas it was amediocre performer in Japan. In contrast, the Sega CD had done poorlyin America, but had fared better than expected in Japan. Sega of Japanremained firm in its conviction that CD-ROM games would be the wave ofthe future, and the record shows that they fought Sega of Americaalmost every step of the way in developing, releasing, supporting, andpromoting the 32X. They all but refused to assist with the system, andonly a scant handful of 32X titles ever came from the land of theRising Sun. There's an old adage that says, "If you shout long enoughand loud enough, then people will eventually listen to you." That isexactly what Sega of Japan did, and their tactics paid off in time. They eventually got their way, but the public flip-flop that Segacorporate eventually had to perform over the 32X vs. Saturn affairresulted in a mess that left a bad taste in the mouth of many an Segacustomer and developer. It is one that is still remembered to this day.Sega of Japan may have been right in the long run, but the way in whichSega corporate mismanaged its internal dispute ultimately hurt theirpublic image in the short run.
Sega'sinternal rivalry no doubt helped fuel the confusion in the minds of thecompanies that had originally agreed to back the 32X. They knew thatSega had at least four 32-bit videogame systems in the developmentpipeline, and more than one expressed a desire for Sega to make up itsmind to pick one and go with it. When Sega of America confirmed theimpending release of the 32X (and subsequently its more sophisticatedcousin, Neptune), then many were willing to commit to the new system.Their initial confidence was shaken, however, when Sega continued tocommit itself to multiple 32-bit systems. "There are too manyplanets. It's a confused strategy," complained Edward Brogan ofJardine Fleming. Which one of these console concepts would Segaultimately choose as the successor to the Genesis? Lets see, you hadyour choice of a 32-bit Genesis upgrade (32X), press releases of a32-bit upgraded Genesis console (Neptune), rumors about a pure 32-bitcartridge-based console (Jupiter). and growing reports from Japan aboutSega's new 32-bit CD console (Saturn) - all within the space of acouple of years. That doesn't leave a lot of time to develop much ofanything substantial, according to the developers, and many chose toidle along on ports while Sega's future designs settled into somethingmore comprehensible. As the Saturn began to loom larger and largerin Sega's vision of the future, it didn't take much for the developersto see what was coming. They began to bail as fast as they could in order to ramp up for Saturn support. Capcom and Konami'ssimultaneous departure from the 32X fold was just the excuse that mostof the ones already developing needed to bail, while others had by thattime chosen not to follow through with their announced commitments.This meant that whatever games were being produced for the 32X duringall of 1995 were for the most part ports of existing products handledby second-string or even third-string development teams, with originaltitles being few and far between. That is exactly what happened, as aquick glance at the 32X release list will show. For example, the onlyEA Sports title for the 32X, FIFA Soccer 96, had been intendedfor simultaneous American and European releases and promoted as such.Once EA sensed the impending change of direction at Sega, FIFA 96 was scrubbed from their American release schedule. The game itself,representing a late-beta 32-bit enhanced port of the original Genesisgame, was then quietly released to the European market, where a soccergame for a soon-to-be-discontinued system might be expected to sellmore successfully. Another example is Koei's Gekijoban Sangokushi IV, which we know here in the West by the title Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire.Koei produced both 32X and Saturn versions of the game, but only theSaturn version was released outside of Japan. The impending demise ofthe 32X ensured that an English-language export version was neverreleased, let alone attempted.
Finally,one has to consider the rapid development of the 32-bit videogamemarket. Sega of America officially previewed the 32X and its games tothe public in September of 1994, two months ahead of its scheduledrelease date in November. The trades and zines for the next two monthswere full of glowing praise for the planned 32X launch titles and thesystem itself, as well as growing reports about Sega and Sony'sCD-based systems in Japan. Sega of Japan released the Sega Saturn inNovember 1994, the same month as Sega of America released the 32X, inorder to get the jump on the Sony PlayStation. Once the system specs,screen snaps, and early reviews of the Saturn and PlayStation startedcoming in, then it was pretty much curtains for the 32X. Even theSaturn, admittedly the lesser of the two systems, had at least threetimes the horsepower of the 32X on paper, and anybody who has dabbledin the videogame market for long knows that gamers are always wantingthe most sophisticated platform they can get for their money. Formerlyfavorable press for the 32X quickly turned to sly asides about theSaturn's underpowered little brother. The rapid market shift from16-bit to 32-bit videogaming more than anything else is probably whatgenerated the notion that the 32X was a throwaway product, as thatwas how the new and growing community of 32-bit videogamers viewed it.Sega of America had never intended it to be so, but advancingtechnology and market desire forced the issue for them - not to mentionthe bailing of almost all of its developers starting at mid-year.Remember the EGM assertion that Sega would only continue tosupport the 32X so long as the market demanded it? By the end of 1995the trades were awash in Saturn and PlayStation hype, and Sega had nochoice but to pull the plug on the 32X. There simply wasn't a marketfor it anymore.
The first place one should go when discussing the demise of the 32X isto the developers. Sega does not like to discuss the 32X for obviousreasons, and current company spokespersons do little but parrot whatthey read in press statements or see printed in the trades. Let ustalk to three different reputable developers who each produced gamesfor the 32X and see what they have to say about its demise:
Eric Quakenbush spent many years in-house with Sega and was associate producer of the 32X port of Virtua Fighter, widely regarded as superior to the original Saturn release (until Virtua Fighter 2 and Virtua Fighter Remix came along, that is). He is better known to Sega fans for his two unreleased 32X titles, Virtua Hamster and Shadow of Atlantis. He describes the 32X for what it was - a filler product(and not a throwaway one) intended to bridge the gap between theGenesis and whatever full-blown 32-bit system came down the line. Thedistinction is a subtle, yet important one. "There was a dip in Genesissales because customers were anticipating the next system," herecalls. "They wanted to get through Christmas mostly, but if Saturn had been late, [then] it would have probably saved the company....There weren't a lot of titles and Saturn was right on time, so Ithink [that the] 32X just went away - kind of a slap in the face to thehardcore gamers that bought it, I thought. I had hoped that Sega wouldgive the 32X buyers a Saturn rebate or something, but I guess thatwasn't feasable, [since] hardware is sold with almost no profitmargin." It seems that at least one developer wasn't too crazy aboutthe way Sega treated its customers over the 32X. Steve Snake, longtime videogame developer, whose hit title NBA Jam still influences arcade-style trends in Midway sporting games, personally oversaw the porting of NBA Jam TEfor the 32X. While he is quite fond of the system and the way in whichit handled the near-perfect arcade port of his most famous title, he isnot afraid to point out its problems. "The 32X games that were released failed to give the impression of a next-generation machine.We were told to expect an arcade system at home, and instead we weretreated to half-assed Genesis ports that maybe added some more colorsand samples, i.e. Mortal Kombat 2, NBA Jam TE, etc. The release games failed to impress ...and there lies the problem. Believe it or not, both Mortal Kombat 2 and NBA Jam TE(I should know, I wrote the damn game) were seriously pushing themachine. But people were not impressed because they were expecting fartoo much from it. Over-hyping by magazines is a bad thing." The Snake'spoint is a telling one, and was shared by Acclaim's floor reps at the1995 Winter CES. "[It] doesn't really handle sprites all that well, andthat's why they disappear [in MK2]," one was quoted by Game Zero'sMarty Chinn as saying. "It is not arcade perfect, nor is it close ...infact, [the 32X port] just draws it closer to the SNES version." Inretrospect, almost all of the games released by third parties for the32X were merely faster, slicker-looking (but not always better)versions of their existing 2D games. Yes, polygon-based titles such as Virtua Fighter and Shadow Squadronshowed what the machine could do with the proper programming expertise,but they were few and far between. Developing for the unique vagraciesof the 32X required time, and that was something of which the doomedconsole had precious little during its short but notable lifespan. Why?Steve Snake remind us of the obvious. "Developers received 32Xdevelopment kits at the same time as Saturn development kits,so everyone decided to go with the Saturn." It was an obviousno-brainer, according to Steve Snake, and most tend to agree with hisobservation. DavidBraben of Frontier Devleopments is on the record excoriating Sega forthe abandoment of the never-released Neptune console. Remember, thatwas the all-in-one Genesis/32X combo unit supposedly slated to replacethe aging Genesis and bring it into the new 32-bit world. He commentsabout this on the web site of his software company in his discussionover Frontier's lone 32X title, DarXide, which was originallyslated as a Neptune launch title. "We did this game largely because wehad faith in Sega's Neptune project. We had expected the Neptune toreplace the MegaDrive for the same price, and stay as the Saturn'slittle brother. We had thought the 32X add-on to simply be atransitional backward compatibility measure, but Sega cancelled theNeptune, which in turn doomed the 32X to failure." You see, therewas still a lot of interest among developers of the day in continuingprojects based on Genesis architecture, and Neptune would have been arather convienent path to 32-bit games in their eyes. The same could besaid for those gamers who knew about Sega's announced plans for theNeptune and were eagerly awaiting it, but alas - it was not meant tobe. As for DarXide, its rather limited release (Europe only) stands as a testament to Frontier's aborted intentions.
Eric Quakenbush spent many years in-house with Sega and was associate producer of the 32X port of Virtua Fighter, widely regarded as superior to the original Saturn release (until Virtua Fighter 2 and Virtua Fighter Remix came along, that is). He is better known to Sega fans for his two unreleased 32X titles, Virtua Hamster and Shadow of Atlantis. He describes the 32X for what it was - a filler product(and not a throwaway one) intended to bridge the gap between theGenesis and whatever full-blown 32-bit system came down the line. Thedistinction is a subtle, yet important one. "There was a dip in Genesissales because customers were anticipating the next system," herecalls. "They wanted to get through Christmas mostly, but if Saturn had been late, [then] it would have probably saved the company....There weren't a lot of titles and Saturn was right on time, so Ithink [that the] 32X just went away - kind of a slap in the face to thehardcore gamers that bought it, I thought. I had hoped that Sega wouldgive the 32X buyers a Saturn rebate or something, but I guess thatwasn't feasable, [since] hardware is sold with almost no profitmargin." It seems that at least one developer wasn't too crazy aboutthe way Sega treated its customers over the 32X.
Steve Snake, longtime videogame developer, whose hit title NBA Jam still influences arcade-style trends in Midway sporting games, personally oversaw the porting of NBA Jam TEfor the 32X. While he is quite fond of the system and the way in whichit handled the near-perfect arcade port of his most famous title, he isnot afraid to point out its problems. "The 32X games that were released failed to give the impression of a next-generation machine.We were told to expect an arcade system at home, and instead we weretreated to half-assed Genesis ports that maybe added some more colorsand samples, i.e. Mortal Kombat 2, NBA Jam TE, etc. The release games failed to impress ...and there lies the problem. Believe it or not, both Mortal Kombat 2 and NBA Jam TE(I should know, I wrote the damn game) were seriously pushing themachine. But people were not impressed because they were expecting fartoo much from it. Over-hyping by magazines is a bad thing." The Snake'spoint is a telling one, and was shared by Acclaim's floor reps at the1995 Winter CES. "[It] doesn't really handle sprites all that well, andthat's why they disappear [in MK2]," one was quoted by Game Zero'sMarty Chinn as saying. "It is not arcade perfect, nor is it close ...infact, [the 32X port] just draws it closer to the SNES version." Inretrospect, almost all of the games released by third parties for the32X were merely faster, slicker-looking (but not always better)versions of their existing 2D games. Yes, polygon-based titles such as Virtua Fighter and Shadow Squadronshowed what the machine could do with the proper programming expertise,but they were few and far between. Developing for the unique vagraciesof the 32X required time, and that was something of which the doomedconsole had precious little during its short but notable lifespan. Why?Steve Snake remind us of the obvious. "Developers received 32Xdevelopment kits at the same time as Saturn development kits,so everyone decided to go with the Saturn." It was an obviousno-brainer, according to Steve Snake, and most tend to agree with hisobservation.
DavidBraben of Frontier Devleopments is on the record excoriating Sega forthe abandoment of the never-released Neptune console. Remember, thatwas the all-in-one Genesis/32X combo unit supposedly slated to replacethe aging Genesis and bring it into the new 32-bit world. He commentsabout this on the web site of his software company in his discussionover Frontier's lone 32X title, DarXide, which was originallyslated as a Neptune launch title. "We did this game largely because wehad faith in Sega's Neptune project. We had expected the Neptune toreplace the MegaDrive for the same price, and stay as the Saturn'slittle brother. We had thought the 32X add-on to simply be atransitional backward compatibility measure, but Sega cancelled theNeptune, which in turn doomed the 32X to failure." You see, therewas still a lot of interest among developers of the day in continuingprojects based on Genesis architecture, and Neptune would have been arather convienent path to 32-bit games in their eyes. The same could besaid for those gamers who knew about Sega's announced plans for theNeptune and were eagerly awaiting it, but alas - it was not meant tobe. As for DarXide, its rather limited release (Europe only) stands as a testament to Frontier's aborted intentions.
These three developers typify the reaction that they and their fellowshad for Sega's first 32-bit system. It is a sad fact that few videogamecompanies really accepted the 32X. The developers could sense the market shift to 32-bit better than anyone, as they were the one producing the software for both current and next-generation platforms, and they didn't want to develop for a platform that many perceived as a mere stopgap measure.The more conservative ones either didn't mess with it at all or onlygave it lip service. Longtime Sega licensees grudgingly gave the 32Xlimited support, but rarely would they give it their best programmers.It simply wasn't worth the effort when there were more powerful 32-bitconsoles available. Game Players sums it up well in their December 1995 issue. "The32X has never gained full software support from any third parties. EvenSega's games mostly seem to come from the "C team" of developers. The"A team" is working on Saturn games. We'll never know what kind ofpotential the 32X possesses because of its short life. It falls soremarkably short of the Saturn and PlayStation as a 32-bit machinethat, even at US $200 cheaper, it's no bargain."
Thenext place one should go when examining the demise for the 32X is Segaof America. A lot of heat has been directed at Sega proper in theensuing years over the decision to release Project Mars as an add-onunit for the Genesis instead of the standalone console that Sega ofJapan originally intended. I have had the pleasure of discussing thetopic with none other than Joe Miller himself, who was in charge of 32Xdevelopment at Sega of America. Miller, the "midwife" of the 32X (as heputs it), cited four specific reasons why Sega chose to follow theadd-on route with the 32X:
Sega fans of the day have their own explanations as to why the 32Xfailed, and it is worth our while to examine their observations, too.Daniel Mazurowski, in his 1997 article "The Hall of Shame," lists threereasons why he feels the 32X was such a "shameful" console: it didn'thave a pack-in game, it required extra parts for use with older Genesisconsoles, and it was killed by the arrival of real 32-bit consoles suchas the Saturn. Let us look at each in turn and explore the reasoningbehind them.
No pack-in game- By 1994, gamers had come to expect that each new system would includeone or more games in the package. "Pack-ins," as they had come to beknown, allowed new system purchasers to immediatly enjoy a game thatwas specifically coded to deliver an experience that only their newlyacquired hardware could deliver. The 32X was Sega's first new systemnot to include the expected pack-in game, and this immediately hiked upthe price for any Genesis gamer looking to upgrade to the 32X. Take the32X console itself at US$150 or so, add another US $65 for DOOM or Star Wars Arcade,figure in the tax, and all of a sudden one would be spending about US$220 for a mere upgrade - almost the same amount of money that could bespent on a different system that came with pack-in games. What was thepoint in buying a 32X when you couldn't afford to buy a game for it,too? This issue pretty much negated the oft-advertised inexpensivenessin the minds of many budget-conscious Sega fans, so they decided itmight be better to wait until the cost of both system and games camedown.
Extra hardware required- Owners of older model Genesis and MegaDrive model 1 consoles, whichby far comprised the vast bulk of the 20-odd million or so then on themarket, soon discovered that many of the 32X retail units would notwork with their aging systems right out of the box. The 32X had beendesigned with the styling of the new Genesis model 2 in mind, and itssmaller A/V port was incompatible with the older Commodore-style A/Vport of the Genesis 1. It required a special adapter cable to connectthe smaller A/V ports of the 32X to the larger port of the olderGenesis 1. As it turned out, many of the 32X units shipped to retailerscame with the Genesis 2 A/V adapter cables; therefore, 32X units withthe Genesis 1 A/V cable were in fairly short supply.. Some merchantseven went so far as stock only the ones with the Genesis 2 cables, thushopefully forcing potential customers to buy a new Genesis 2 as well.This meant that if you owned an older Genesis 1 and your localmerchants didn't carry any 32X units with the Genesis 1 cable, then youwere pretty much screwed. Of course Sega had extra adapter cables thatyou could order from them, but you had to pay another US$25 or so toget them. This jacked the projected upgrade cost for these poorunfortunates up to US$245. Such a high price for what was supposed tobe a cheap 32-bit upgrade, and a lot of trouble to boot. Hmmm ...all ofa sudden the SNES was beginning to look awfully good, and Donkey Kong Country was obviously one helluva game for something that was supposedly only 16-bit code. Hmmm .... Real 32-bit consoles- The growing hype over the Saturn's impending release during the firsthalf of 1995 also loomed large in the minds of Sega's American andEuropean fans - especially those who had decided to wait for the priceof the 32X and its games to go down. The Saturn would supposedly costaround US$400 or so, but it would have pack-in games and its on-boardhardware was superior by far to anything the 32X could deliver. Why payaround US $250 for a mere upgrade when the Saturn was what Sega hadapparently intended all along? If you were going to spend that muchmoney on a 32-bit system, then why not spend a little more and get thereal thing? It was only US $150 more, and one wouldn't be wasting moneyon what gamers were by now calling "a throwaway product." Sure, the 32Xpumped up the Genesis, but where were all the cool games? They weregoing to the Saturn and the new console in town, the Sony PlayStation.32X? Why bother? Why not buy a real 32-bit console, and either sell theGenesis or give it to one's younger siblings? The decision was prettymuch a no-brainer for most gamers ready to jump on the 32-bitbandwagon, and 32X sales suffered as a result.
Extra hardware required- Owners of older model Genesis and MegaDrive model 1 consoles, whichby far comprised the vast bulk of the 20-odd million or so then on themarket, soon discovered that many of the 32X retail units would notwork with their aging systems right out of the box. The 32X had beendesigned with the styling of the new Genesis model 2 in mind, and itssmaller A/V port was incompatible with the older Commodore-style A/Vport of the Genesis 1. It required a special adapter cable to connectthe smaller A/V ports of the 32X to the larger port of the olderGenesis 1. As it turned out, many of the 32X units shipped to retailerscame with the Genesis 2 A/V adapter cables; therefore, 32X units withthe Genesis 1 A/V cable were in fairly short supply.. Some merchantseven went so far as stock only the ones with the Genesis 2 cables, thushopefully forcing potential customers to buy a new Genesis 2 as well.This meant that if you owned an older Genesis 1 and your localmerchants didn't carry any 32X units with the Genesis 1 cable, then youwere pretty much screwed. Of course Sega had extra adapter cables thatyou could order from them, but you had to pay another US$25 or so toget them. This jacked the projected upgrade cost for these poorunfortunates up to US$245. Such a high price for what was supposed tobe a cheap 32-bit upgrade, and a lot of trouble to boot. Hmmm ...all ofa sudden the SNES was beginning to look awfully good, and Donkey Kong Country was obviously one helluva game for something that was supposedly only 16-bit code. Hmmm ....
Real 32-bit consoles- The growing hype over the Saturn's impending release during the firsthalf of 1995 also loomed large in the minds of Sega's American andEuropean fans - especially those who had decided to wait for the priceof the 32X and its games to go down. The Saturn would supposedly costaround US$400 or so, but it would have pack-in games and its on-boardhardware was superior by far to anything the 32X could deliver. Why payaround US $250 for a mere upgrade when the Saturn was what Sega hadapparently intended all along? If you were going to spend that muchmoney on a 32-bit system, then why not spend a little more and get thereal thing? It was only US $150 more, and one wouldn't be wasting moneyon what gamers were by now calling "a throwaway product." Sure, the 32Xpumped up the Genesis, but where were all the cool games? They weregoing to the Saturn and the new console in town, the Sony PlayStation.32X? Why bother? Why not buy a real 32-bit console, and either sell theGenesis or give it to one's younger siblings? The decision was prettymuch a no-brainer for most gamers ready to jump on the 32-bitbandwagon, and 32X sales suffered as a result.
So what is the final verdict on the 32X? In my opinion, based on myresearch and collating the observations of those who actually worked onit and experienced it during its brief lifespan, the 32X was the wrong console at the wrong time.This wasn't the same case as the Sega CD, when the market was not quiteready for a CD-ROM based console; indeed it is quite the opposite.There was a definite market for a 32-bit platform, but it wanted a lotmore than just retreads of past titles. Add to that observation thetiming of the 32X debut, coming as it did almost exactly at the sametime as the Saturn and PlayStation launches in Japan. The 32X was boundto fail for this reason - who wanted to develop for or spend the moneyon a mere 32-bit upgrade when true 32-bit consoles were also availableat practically the same time for anybody who wanted them? Thedevelopers ultimately rejected it as not being powerful enough. Thefans ultimately rejected it beause it didn't offer enough, neither incost savings nor in software. Unfortunately, there wasn't much thatSega corporate could do about the situation - due to productionproblems, lack of decisiveness over its future aims, and the growingfeud between Sega of America and Sega of Japan over the path to thenext 32-bit Sega videogame system. Their mismanagement of thesequandaries put them in a rather bad situation once it came time forthem to deal with the rise of the PlayStation.
Whenyou take everything that was involved and measure it all out, onecannot blame neither changing markets nor indifferent customers for thedeath of the 32X. The fault for the 32X debacle lies squarely at Sega's doorstep.Nakayama's behavior toward the one Sega system for which he can becredited as both creator and executioner reminds this author of an oldparenting cliche - "I brought you into this world, and I'll take youout." Sega gave birth to the industry's first 32-bit home videogameconsole, but the confused manner of its birth along with its troubledchildhood ensured its swift death within a rapidly changing market.Sega was already making many of the same mistakes with the highlytouted Saturn, and most videogame fans agree that Sega soon got what itdeserved. They would not begin to fully comprehend the error of theirways until they had been all but knocked out of the market by the swiftrise of the Sony PlayStation. In contrast, Sony did everything right -a solid 32-bit platform, excellent develper rapport, competitivepricing, and an ever-growing and varied library of good 32-bit titlesthat weren't all mere souped-up 16-bit ports. Who can blame Sony fortaking advantage of the situation? One year later, Sega was sittingnear the bottom of the home videogame market, a victim of its ownmistakes. By mid-1997, they had started coming to terms with theirtragic blunders, and they swore not to repeat them as the new 128-bitKatana project began its initial design and development phases.
Did Sega learn its lessons from the 32X affair? You tell me.
原帖由 youngwilly 于 2008-5-18 12:12 发表 代表作是啥???
