32x and what was Sega thinking?

[RCBH928]

What the hell is this? is this a joke?

[RCBH928]

Actually the 32X was pretty powerful if you knew what you were doing with it. See this demo and think about if Star Fox 2 had actually been released about the same time with flat shaded choppy animation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOWZbydnlZE

The 3D0 was released a year earlier, but it was also released at $700. That's more than a Genesis and 32X together. The problem was that it was another expensive add on if you had already bought a Sega CD and then the Saturn came out in the US another 6 months later.

I call BS on this, thats almost N64!

[AppleQueso]

It's a joke about all the crap that you could plug into the genesis's cart slot. I doubt that thing would work if you actually tried to turn it on.

Actually the 32X was pretty powerful if you knew what you were doing with it. See this demo and think about if Star Fox 2 had actually been released about the same time with flat shaded choppy animation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOWZbydnlZE

The 3D0 was released a year earlier, but it was also released at $700. That's more than a Genesis and 32X together. The problem was that it was another expensive add on if you had already bought a Sega CD and then the Saturn came out in the US another 6 months later.

I call BS on this, thats almost N64!

N64 came out a little more than a year later. I don't know why it's so hard to believe.

[isiolia]

The thing is , is it $150 console add-on better or they are just defined as better with like 1 more frame per second?

Depends on what you compare it to. Relative to the Genesis (particularly), it's a lot more capable. Extends audio capability, 32k colors on-screen instead of the Genesis's 64 (out of 512) or the SNES's 256, and so on.
The hardware was decidedly lesser than what the next generation of consoles wound up being, but it's also clearly better than the 16-bit consoles. Had it come out a couple years earlier and been given time to thrive it'd probably be an essential add-on.

[AppliCotton]

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.

I find it funny that before, people would rag on the Saturn for being made of "off the shelf parts" as in bits and bolts just lying around from the arcade division. Today, if you're buying an arcade stick, it's the ones made of off the shelf parts that you want to splurge for, with the proprietary stuff considered cheap and undependable.

No wonder the Saturn is only now coming into its own. As RB noted, he can't believe how quickly prices are going up. And retro media from Japan to the UK are all over it.

[noiseredux]

No wonder the Saturn is only now coming into its own. As RB noted, he can't believe how quickly prices are going up. And retro media from Japan to the UK are all over it.

this past month my Sega CD and Saturn have gotten the most play of any of my consoles. This is somewhat on-topic, as like I mentioned I did have a Sega CD growing up and was a big fan. However, I still have very little interest in the 32X. Shrug.

And a bit off-topic but, is it just me or is the Saturn the quietest disc-based console?

[Erik_Twice]

And a bit off-topic but, is it just me or is the Saturn the quietest disc-based console?

Given that its competition is known from chocking on their own breath, that's not an achivement

[Gunstar Green]

It's a joke about all the crap that you could plug into the genesis's cart slot. I doubt that thing would work if you actually tried to turn it on.

Actually the 32X was pretty powerful if you knew what you were doing with it. See this demo and think about if Star Fox 2 had actually been released about the same time with flat shaded choppy animation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOWZbydnlZE

The 3D0 was released a year earlier, but it was also released at $700. That's more than a Genesis and 32X together. The problem was that it was another expensive add on if you had already bought a Sega CD and then the Saturn came out in the US another 6 months later.

I call BS on this, thats almost N64!

N64 came out a little more than a year later. I don't know why it's so hard to believe.

Keep in mind while it looks impressive that's a pre-programmed tech demo with no actual gameplay and no concerns about memory or frame rate. The 32X couldn't handle putting out nearly those kind of graphics in an actual game.

It is kind of cool what they could do with it though. It makes it even sadder that the 32X was such a bad idea in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[BoringSupreez]

And a bit off-topic but, is it just me or is the Saturn the quietest disc-based console?

I don't know if it's the quietest, as the PSone was pretty silent too. But it's funny how Sega went from one of the quietest consoles to the Dreamcast, aka The Screecher.

[AppliCotton]

No wonder the Saturn is only now coming into its own. As RB noted, he can't believe how quickly prices are going up. And retro media from Japan to the UK are all over it.

this past month my Sega CD and Saturn have gotten the most play of any of my consoles. This is somewhat on-topic, as like I mentioned I did have a Sega CD growing up and was a big fan. However, I still have very little interest in the 32X. Shrug.

And a bit off-topic but, is it just me or is the Saturn the quietest disc-based console?

Huh... now that you mention it, yes, it is pretty darn quiet! And although I recently bought a 360, I too find myself playing the Saturn more than anything else. HD is nice, but sprites the way they're meant to be done are equally if not more satisfying, IMHO.