It's 30 Years and you STILL Don't Have a Sega CD?

[Alyce: Old Media Enthusiast]

The Sega CD was launched in the states in 1992. More of a mocked peripheral now, it still had some strong games deep within including Snatcher, the Lunar games, Silpheed and Sonic CD

[zrowsdower]

I'm kind of afraid to buy one at this point. Both the games and the system look like they wouldn't run very well.

[hassanchop]

What would Segata Sanchiro and son say?

[FinalGwen]

Never had a Sega CD as a kid, but I do now have a Victor Wondermega, given to us by a neighbour.

[DragonMasterP]

I still remember seeing the Sonic CD intro on G4 back in the day, and it blew my friggin' mind.

[WoodStoner1]

I guess since Nintendo isn't making one, I'll have to wait for another company to do their own CD-based system, but how likely is that?

[hassanchop]

Oct 15, 2022 14:33:12 GMT -5 WoodStoner1 said:

I guess since Nintendo isn't making one, I'll have to wait for another company to do their own CD-based system, but how likely is that?

They can

[bob]

I never had one as a youngster, no real desire to purchase one now

[J is Justice]

[The Dark Order Inferno]

It wasn't bad hardware, it was everything it needed to be for the time but Sega went in entirely the wrong direction with it. Sega had a plethora of hot arcade games that used sprite scaling and rotation, the Mega CD added that functionality and they did very little with it, seeming to focus on Digital Pictures FMV crap ported from the Hasbro NEMO and ports of already released games with CD audio tracks. Stuff like definitive home ports of Space Harrier, Outrun or it's sequels should have been ready from day one to be system sellers, to demonstrate to consumers and developers what it can do, things that eventually made it out on the 32x, long after their star had faded.

[Zaq "That Guy" Buzzkill]

Clever marketing gimmick. Sega is a copyrighted name so it would have been impossible for Nintendo to make a Sega CD without getting sued.

[Dr. T is an alien]

Never had one and we were 1 of the 23 families who bought the 32X. I had no interest in the Sega CD (especially after the 32X).

[Triangle Lancer]

Oct 17, 2022 9:56:22 GMT -5 Dr. T is an alien said:

Never had one and we were 1 of the 23 families who bought the 32X. I had no interest in the Sega CD (especially after the 32X).

I bought the Sega CD AND 32x at a Toys R US clearance sale for about $100...might have been 2003ish.
What gets me are all the plugs.

[fg]

Oct 15, 2022 16:45:53 GMT -5 J is Justice said:

I love the AVGN video of this one where he mocks the original first half of the ad by portraying the guy watching the TV to be a gullable idiot. Almost like a yokel.

Also in the ad:

AVGN: “Full motion video as opposed to video that isn’t full motion.”

All I can say is this. CD-ROM tech has come a LOOOOONG way.

[Dr. T is an alien]

Oct 18, 2022 17:17:10 GMT -5 Triangle Lancer said:

Oct 17, 2022 9:56:22 GMT -5 Dr. T is an alien said:

Never had one and we were 1 of the 23 families who bought the 32X. I had no interest in the Sega CD (especially after the 32X).

I bought the Sega CD AND 32x at a Toys R US clearance sale for about $100...might have been 2003ish.
What gets me are all the plugs.

Yeah, and because Sega didn’t put the protection boxes separate from the plug you more or less needed two separate power strips if you had all three hooked up. Also, since the rig made use of all of the separate processors to handle different tasks (for instance, with Primal Rage the Genesis handled the graphics of the background and audio while the processor in the 32X handled the graphics for all game sprites) the separate units needed to be connected in multiple ways to truly play the games.

Honestly, if the 32X had been introduced earlier it would have been much more interesting. Game developers would have been more invested in the technology as well as gotten better at developing for it. Instead, most simply skipped it and prepared for the release of the Saturn.

[fg]

Oct 18, 2022 20:03:42 GMT -5 Dr. T is an alien said:

Oct 18, 2022 17:17:10 GMT -5 Triangle Lancer said:

I bought the Sega CD AND 32x at a Toys R US clearance sale for about $100...might have been 2003ish.
What gets me are all the plugs.

Yeah, and because Sega didn’t put the protection boxes separate from the plug you more or less needed two separate power strips if you had all three hooked up. Also, since the rig made use of all of the separate processors to handle different tasks (for instance, with Primal Rage the Genesis handled the graphics of the background and audio while the processor in the 32X handled the graphics for all game sprites) the separate units needed to be connected in multiple ways to truly play the games.

Honestly, if the 32X had been introduced earlier it would have been much more interesting. Game developers would have been more invested in the technology as well as gotten better at developing for it. Instead, most simply skipped it and prepared for the release of the Saturn.

To be fair, Sega did come out with a power strip that was designed in such a way that you didn’t need another one

www.ebay.com/itm/125561877123?hash=item1d3c123283:g:1ikAAOSwMJpjSNac&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAAoG0ytYwwyvn6h0ffd3yN4r0ZGgrT%2BqwBmnhg2nWayQbkyBgOXomWkzp2AGBZEZtZ0TxBSYKW%2BQelqLaFccpHOt%2FnApLS1ZDWc7l%2FBAv30ESFsV0Ji2aLJE7hagC8CCRW0ZuIuC8WVGxcaWda8Pk%2FKyqxuJKXshq7jmnhaJAy%2FFuGN9AShX5DXaP8wu%2B5Ekigekx4SZwvsZtZWPYt%2BkUHFjI%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR-bTguD9YA

But, I will say this. They should have put the ac adaptor part of those plugs IN THE MIDDLE of the wire and not at the prong part to make it easier for people to plug in. Check out AVGNs video on the 32x and you know what I mean. I guess they did it because they figured they would make more $$$$ selling accessories.

[Big BosskMan]

Oct 18, 2022 17:17:10 GMT -5 Triangle Lancer said:

Oct 17, 2022 9:56:22 GMT -5 Dr. T is an alien said:

Never had one and we were 1 of the 23 families who bought the 32X. I had no interest in the Sega CD (especially after the 32X).

I bought the Sega CD AND 32x at a Toys R US clearance sale for about $100...might have been 2003ish.
What gets me are all the plugs.

Also a 32x purchaser, primarily for Doom and Virtua Fighter.

[Deleted]

Also was a 32x owner as a kid too. My aunt and uncle give me their 32x with Toughman boxing, BC Racing and Virtua Racing for the games. Later on, I end up getting Virtua Fighter, Knuckles Chaotix, Tempo and a complete in box copy of MK2 for it as well.

[Allie Kitsune]

I think in the end, PC-Engine CD ends up being the better add-on from the era.

Sega CD has enough games that it would have been enough to have without too much regret, but from a retro standpoint (especially putting a premium on STGs), the PCE CD looks more enticing nowadays.

Oct 18, 2022 20:03:42 GMT -5 Dr. T is an alien said:

Yeah, and because Sega didn’t put the protection boxes separate from the plug you more or less needed two separate power strips if you had all three hooked up. Also, since the rig made use of all of the separate processors to handle different tasks (for instance, with Primal Rage the Genesis handled the graphics of the background and audio while the processor in the 32X handled the graphics for all game sprites) the separate units needed to be connected in multiple ways to truly play the games.

Honestly, if the 32X had been introduced earlier it would have been much more interesting. Game developers would have been more invested in the technology as well as gotten better at developing for it. Instead, most simply skipped it and prepared for the release of the Saturn.

The biggest problem with the 32X was that the architecture was done in such a way that games could only run at a max of 30 FPS, which is kind of a kiss of death for 2D games.

It's a big reason why a lot of "upgraded" 32X versions of Genesis games weren't _that_ big a leap, because they still had to offload the background generation to the Genesis to keep speeds reasonable.

[Dr. T is an alien]

Oct 19, 2022 9:15:59 GMT -5 Allie Kitsune said:

I think in the end, PC-Engine CD ends up being the better add-on from the era.

Sega CD has enough games that it would have been enough to have without too much regret, but from a retro standpoint (especially putting a premium on STGs), the PCE CD looks more enticing nowadays.

Oct 18, 2022 20:03:42 GMT -5 Dr. T is an alien said:

Yeah, and because Sega didn’t put the protection boxes separate from the plug you more or less needed two separate power strips if you had all three hooked up. Also, since the rig made use of all of the separate processors to handle different tasks (for instance, with Primal Rage the Genesis handled the graphics of the background and audio while the processor in the 32X handled the graphics for all game sprites) the separate units needed to be connected in multiple ways to truly play the games.

Honestly, if the 32X had been introduced earlier it would have been much more interesting. Game developers would have been more invested in the technology as well as gotten better at developing for it. Instead, most simply skipped it and prepared for the release of the Saturn.

The biggest problem with the 32X was that the architecture was done in such a way that games could only run at a max of 30 FPS, which is kind of a kiss of death for 2D games.

It's a big reason why a lot of "upgraded" 32X versions of Genesis games weren't _that_ big a leap, because they still had to offload the background generation to the Genesis to keep speeds reasonable.

Oh, I know. It still could have been an interesting upgrade had it come earlier in the Genesis lifespan, maybe around the time the SNES came out. However, at the time it did come out was simply a ridiculous time. Everyone knew the Saturn was coming out. Had the 32X been simply sold for a minimal amount and had a larger launch library, that would have been something at least. As it was, it was destined to fail even if it was an incredible device.