32x and what was Sega thinking?

[BoneSnapDeez]

32x games aren't bad, but yeah it was a totally unnecessary piece of hardware. Kind of amusing for collectors though. I have one, but it rarely gets used. Think I'll pick up that hummingbird shooter game sometime.

[MrPopo]

Think I'll pick up that hummingbird shooter game sometime.

It's the best hummingbird shmup on the 32x.

[ice445]

They were thinking "money". It's easy to bash them in hindsight but let's face it, the gaming industry was incredibly volatile back then. The pace of technology progression was pretty quick and it came down to a series of "what ifs" and gambles on what the consumer actually wanted. It's not like Sega was the only one making addons for their systems. It was a craze nearly everyone was doing (Yes, even Nintendo, although that addon screwed them big time for obvious reasons), because after all why wouldn't the consumer want a cheap upgrade for what they already had?

Well it turns out almost nobody wanted that. Everyone just wanted the next big tech leap. Thus, the Saturn failed because it was the poorest out of the fifth gen systems when it came to 3D (as it was primarily designed for 2d since Sega didn't expect 2d to be dropped like a deuce nearly instantly). They figured out the market too late with the Dreamcast, but then everyone was used to them abandoning their stuff so they waited for the PS2, and thus the failure continued.

[AppleQueso]

Well it turns out almost nobody wanted that. Everyone just wanted the next big tech leap. Thus, the Saturn failed because it was the poorest out of the fifth gen systems when it came to 3D (as it was primarily designed for 2d since Sega didn't expect 2d to be dropped like a deuce nearly instantly). They figured out the market too late with the Dreamcast, but then everyone was used to them abandoning their stuff so they waited for the PS2, and thus the failure continued.

There's a lot of reasons the Saturn failed, but I don't think the tech really had a whole lot to do with it.

[ice445]

Well it turns out almost nobody wanted that. Everyone just wanted the next big tech leap. Thus, the Saturn failed because it was the poorest out of the fifth gen systems when it came to 3D (as it was primarily designed for 2d since Sega didn't expect 2d to be dropped like a deuce nearly instantly). They figured out the market too late with the Dreamcast, but then everyone was used to them abandoning their stuff so they waited for the PS2, and thus the failure continued.

There's a lot of reasons the Saturn failed, but I don't think the tech really had a whole lot to do with it.

It was a significant factor. The way the CPU was unlike anything most developers had ever worked with, and the way the unit rendered polygons (as squares iirc) make it just an ass pain to program for. Thus the 3d graphics of the Saturn were mostly terrible.

[AppleQueso]

Well it turns out almost nobody wanted that. Everyone just wanted the next big tech leap. Thus, the Saturn failed because it was the poorest out of the fifth gen systems when it came to 3D (as it was primarily designed for 2d since Sega didn't expect 2d to be dropped like a deuce nearly instantly). They figured out the market too late with the Dreamcast, but then everyone was used to them abandoning their stuff so they waited for the PS2, and thus the failure continued.

There's a lot of reasons the Saturn failed, but I don't think the tech really had a whole lot to do with it.

It was a significant factor. The way the CPU was unlike anything most developers had ever worked with, and the way the unit rendered polygons (as squares iirc) make it just an ass pain to program for. Thus the 3d graphics of the Saturn were mostly terrible.

Being less powerful than the competition didn't seem to hurt the Atari 2600, NES, Ps1, Ps2, or Wii, so I don't think power was much of any factor at all. Not to mention the fact that Saturn wasn't THAT incapable at 3D anyway. Most of the 3D multiplatform games were pretty comparable to their Playstation counterparts.

[BoringSupreez]

There's a lot of reasons the Saturn failed, but I don't think the tech really had a whole lot to do with it.

It was a significant factor. The way the CPU was unlike anything most developers had ever worked with, and the way the unit rendered polygons (as squares iirc) make it just an ass pain to program for. Thus the 3d graphics of the Saturn were mostly terrible.

Being less powerful than the competition didn't seem to hurt the Atari 2600, NES, Ps1, Ps2, or Wii, so I don't think power was much of any factor at all. Not to mention the fact that Saturn wasn't THAT incapable at 3D anyway. Most of the 3D multiplatform games were pretty comparable to their Playstation counterparts.

Graphical power, specifically 3D graphical power, was arguably more important in the 32-bit gen than in any other. Launching a console in that era with poor 3D performance would be akin to launching a console today with very limited or no online capabilities. Even if it had great games, it would still end up failing financially.

[pierrot]

Think I'll pick up that hummingbird shooter game sometime.

It's the best hummingbird shmup on the 32x.

I just read someone say the exact same thing about Kolibri on a youtube video the other day. Did that happen to be you, or is the internet just getting WAY too small?

[AppleQueso]

Being less powerful than the competition didn't seem to hurt the Atari 2600, NES, Ps1, Ps2, or Wii, so I don't think power was much of any factor at all. Not to mention the fact that Saturn wasn't THAT incapable at 3D anyway. Most of the 3D multiplatform games were pretty comparable to their Playstation counterparts.

Graphical power, specifically 3D graphical power, was arguably more important in the 32-bit gen than in any other. Launching a console in that era with poor 3D performance would be akin to launching a console today with very limited or no online capabilities. Even if it had great games, it would still end up failing financially.

You guys act like the Saturn had the 3D capability of the Super FX chip or something. It's 3D performance clearly wasn't that poor. It could hold its own against the Ps1, that's all it really needed.

Sega of America's abysmal handling of the console in the US is what caused it to fail. It could've completely annihilated the Ps1 in terms of power and been a dream to program for, but it still would've failed with how SoA handled things.

[mas]

I had a few in my time. I got mine for 20.00 at caldor back in the day. Went to funcoland and bought a bunch of games. I thought that the arcade ports are great. Afterburner, star wars, wwf wrestlemania, mk2, primal rage, space harrier, virtua fighter, virtua racing was as close as you can get to the arcades. There are crappy games out there for it but if your a fan of arcade titles then the 32x was a good add on.
I think sega was pushing it with the sega cd, genesis, pico, gamegear, and I believe it was still making master system games before the saturn came out. That's alot of sega for the market. I see why they were not making money. Then they made the saturn mistake at e3 in 95. That's another story. But for me it was a cool add on just too many adapters.