Historicnerd: Sega's SVP Chip, The Story of the Sega Virtua Processor 

And at 7:15, it's coin-op, not coin-up.

joekenorer That is actually how it was written on Sega-16.net, I left it that way because I couldn't verify if Miller actually said it that way or not. But most likely a typo on the site.

16 colours per second? You probably meant in a frame, because there's nothing in particular happening in the console at second granularity, nor are VPU writes that much of a performance constraint; however that turns out not even to be strictly true - at half the horizontal resolution, full 512 colour output is possible, however CPU is halted during the active frame area, which normally limits the usefulness of this trick in a game; however, a cartridge co-processor wouldn't be halted, making this perfect for cartridge expansions. This is a synchronisation trick that carefully times an extra long DMA burst into background colour register of palette memory - as difficult as it was in software, again dedicated hardware in the cartridge could have helped. I don't know whether it was widely known or considered at the time - Jon Burton (Traveller's Tales) recently revealed that he was working on something like that back then, but never quite got it working in software - he did get the image output, but the routine needed to be hand tuned for every console and wasn't entirely reliable. Sigflup and Titan however did accomplish a robust implementation that works every single time a few years ago.

Ahh, interesting factoid then. Leave it.

There are 4 bits in a byte.

Thanks for dropping by to comment! You're most likely right about the patent. I just thought it was a fun theory to share at the end. I found the filing date of the patent suspect, because of its proximity to Sega's SVP modular cartridge discussion with a number of game magazines. I developed this theory because Sega tried to sue a few others companies based of of their patent of "changing camera location" in the Virtua Racing Arcade cabinet. I had wondered what would have caused Sega to pull out of the SVP project even after announcing it, so it was just a fun item to explore.

Larry Bundy Jr larry, i love ya, but you don't understand the corrupt us courts

I suspect that the reason they pulled out of the project was because the 32x achieved more than what the SVP delivered. realistically we have on the one hand a stand alone plug in adaptor that bypasses some of the Genesis/MD's hardware to provide even better gfx with stand alone titles that would be plugged into said adaptor, while on the other hand we have a stand alone plug in adaptor that bypasses some of the G/MD's hardware to provide better gfx with stand alone titles that would be plugged into said adaptor or via the CD attachment... The 32x really made this redundant.

Steven Benson price point of 50 bucks and shorter time to market would be a big advantage. And 32x was a really half-assed design, with worse cost/performance ratio.

Larry Bundy Jr Guru Larry! I agree with you as well! The way SoA president Tom Kalinske so their partners, I think they would have jumped on board with Codemasters. They way he spoke about teaming up with Sony for the Saturn development, how it would allow splitting costs and risk, by working together on the hardware, and also how he so strongly felt that it was far too early to drop Genesis support, this would have fit in perfectly. Without the need for the 32X to boot. Those games could have been downscaled to SVP or upscaled to Saturn standards instead. SoJ was always the issue in the 4th to 5th gen transition.

Hindsight is 20/20..smh.

Sega wasn't known to do sensible things back then. Would have been a game changer

There was discussion of a stand alone cart at one point. I think it came down to it would cannibalize their 32x sales if they had two different upgrades that went in the cartridge slot. Edit: he covered that in the vid. lol

@@glenwaldrop8166 I thought the stand-alone cart was canceled because of patent disputes.

@@AmaroqStarwind This vid is the first I've heard of that. I was teenager back then, followed it closely. The rumor going around at the time was Sega didn't want to canibalize sales. The patent dispute would have been the nail in the coffin for sure. At the time they had the Genesis, the Sega CD, the all in one CD console that never saw the states, the 32x and Saturn on the way, the Game Gear... Frankly the 32x could have been affected by that patent, so not sure if it really mattered or not.

SonofSethoitae totally :)

Yeah I liked that too.

@@HistoricNerd Where can I find the chiptune song you have used in the video? Thanks in advance! :)

Fo sho

You're probably right about that. Sega had way too many systems to really support this thing and their company vision for the future was even more divided among them. I just love that Sega had this idea and even told people they were doing it and then cut their losses and moved on to the next thing. I think its a great what if kind of thing.

Tom worked hard to get Sega into stores like Walmart and KB Toys. Then the rushed launch of the Saturn made stores angry at Sega and they refused to sell their products. Tom gave up and left.

@@SgtSega sega of Japan is so braindead, why?

​@@doom5895 Miscommunication, weird business culture and lack of hindsight. From Sega, Capcom, Square, at some point they made a similar mistake over the years that really didn't benefit them in the end.

$50 + $50 16bit game is, 100. $150+ $50 32bit game,is 200. I think most would choose 32 bit. More colors, 16 more bits.

$49.95. SEGA had developed Daytona USA, Star Wars Arcade, Daytona USA, Virtua Racing, and Virtua Fighter. More important, it was already ready for Spring of 1994.

Golden Grenadier I'd totally buy one of those games.

HistoricNerd If there were some method of reproducing the SVP chip then repros could be made with it. Unfortunately to make an SVP homebrew game play on real hardware a virtua racing cart would have to be destroyed and its ROM chip replaced with an EPROM programmed with said homebrew code.

Then we're gonna need some reverse engineering!

@@GoldenGrenadier No need for destroying original Virtua Racing cartridges, it's possible to recreate the SVP chip on an FPGA.

@@GoldenGrenadier If you're still around, the MiSTER Genesis FPGA core now has support for the SVP. I'd love to see a standalone SVP core that could potentially work on a $20 FPGA or even cheaper.

Right there with you.

One reality I've always though about is one where the production of new consoles had become illigal due to not flooding the market or something like that, so companies would have to make their 8 or 16 bit console evolve in another way like they did with these co-prossesor chips, but imagine were they would be if they had kept on working with that. Eventually the console itself would most likely be little more than a shell for the games that would carry it's own more powerful console inside. I think that's what the guy who made the Wolfenstein 3DS GBC cartridge did too.

I had wondered why since in Brazil the master system and genesis lasted so long why they hadn't taken the hardware to a new level. But that's where my thought process goes.

Yeah. I've been thinking the same, but I suppose it has more to do with the Genesis and it's games just filling a gap a placeholder instead of a leading fronteer The MSU1 chip for example is one really impressive little people of technology that blows the Sega CD out of the water when it comes to FMV. Of course the technology wouldn't have been afforable in any way shape or fashion back then but it is an interesting look into what the SNES can achieve and it had it been feasable during it's hay day, I would have loved to see what developers could have done with it.

If Sega had made a 3D game for the Saturn that used the 4mb ram expansion it would have looked amazing, probably better than an N64 title and at higher resolution.

Tony Ortiz The Nintendo part came true! 😉

OR: 1988: Knowing that the PC Engine was designed with expandability in mind, Sato-san connects all the pins on the 68K and the VDP to the expansion bus, allowing for palette expansion and more colors in the future, and eliminating the need for a second 68K CPU to control a CD drive. 1991: the Sega CD launches $100 cheaper because it doesn't need the second CPU anymore or the convoluted bridge RAM, and it increases the palette to 32,768 colors with 128 colors onscreen - allowing cross-platform devs to use the same exact color palette between Sega and Nintendo games. This cleaner, simpler architecture also makes it a breeze to release enhanced ports with CD soundtracks, so it takes little effort for just about every Genesis game to have a CD counterpart. 1993: Sega continues to support the Sega CD with Knuckles Chaotix, enhanced Genesis ports, Phantasy Star IV, etc. The success and simplicity of the Sega CD allows them to continue cutting the price of the unit periodically as a higher volume of systems are sold, until the unit is roughly the cost of a CD player. Of course, Sega takes a loss on the unit and makes their money back in licensing. Sega also releases the SVP standalone cart as well, launching with Virtua Racing, Virtua Fighter, Wing War, and Star Wars Arcade. 1994: Namco supports the SVP with ports of Polygonizer games like Cyber Sled. Sega releases Daytona USA for the combined Sega CD/SVP, using the Sega CD for textured and scaled backgrounds and the SVP for detailed polygonal cars. Atari and Microprose also support the new SVP cart with games like BMX Heat, Battle of the Solar System, Strike Eagle, and Super Tank Attack. Sega releases a combined Genesis/CD/SVP console for $300. Virtually all the sales that would have gone to the Atari Jaguar and 3DO have gone to the new unit, and then some. 1995: Sega cuts the Genesis/CD/SVP all-in-one to $200 and launches the Saturn worldwide, with a single 66 MHz PowerPC 602 CPU OR a custom 68040/060 and a custom DSP-based geometry transform engine for polygon calculations and a texture mapping chip designed by Yu Suzuki (who designed the texture chip on the Model 2). The simplicity of this design allows them to charge $300 for the console, matching the PlayStation while the Genesis/CD/SVP undercuts the PlayStation with pseudo-3D games and CD audio on a lower budget. However, the new Saturn uses software 68K emulation (like Mac OS and Amiga OS do) for backward compatibility of Genesis and Master System games, and its DSP-based geometry transformation engine emulates the SVP, offering a clear upgrade path to American, European, and Brazilian gamers. If Sega opts with a custom '040/060 from Motorola, its similarity to the Genesis allows the easy conversion of many late Genesis games to the new Saturn, such as Comix Zone, Ristar, etc. 1996: Not only does the Sega Saturn get a true 3D Sonic platformer, but so does the Genesis/CD/SVP, using the same programming tricks they used with Daytona USA to place fully polygonal characters, badniks, and obstacles over the Sega CD's scaled and rotated sprites and backgrounds. Likewise, games like Panzer Dragoon and Nights into Dreams are also ported to the Genesis/CD/SVP. These parallel games allow consumers to compare Sega IPs across 2 generations, much like Master System and Genesis games before them. Consumers can clearly see how superior the Saturn is to the Genesis/CD/VDP, so many will opt to pay the extra $100 for the Saturn. However, budget-conscious consumers still have an option in the Genesis/CD/SVP, so many will opt for that. Either way, Sega is gaining customers. 1997: Sega is competitive with Sony, leaving Nintendo a distant third. The Sega-Bandai merger goes through, making Sega-Bandai an industry giant of toys and electronics. Bandai franchises are now Sega-exclusive, and Sega uses their success worldwide to bring Bandai IPs to new heights. 1998: Because of the global success of the Saturn, Sega-Bandai is in no rush to release a successor. Instead, they release the WonderSwan (Color) designed by Gunpei Yokoi. Backward compatible with the Game Gear, and supported worldwide by Sega, it's a modest success despite the popularity of Pokemon, further cementing Sega's place in the handheld market. 2000: The Sega Saturn 2 goes head-to-head with the PlayStation 2. While the PS2 looks more impressive on paper, the Saturn 2 is no slouch with a 350 MHz PowerPC 603q CPU and a 175 MHz PowerVR GPU. With 32 MB RAM and 16 MB VRAM, its textures are 4X better than the PS2 despite the lower bandwidth. The proof is in the games, and the Saturn 2's new 3D Sonic launch title, enhanced port of Soul Calibur, and Phantasy Star Online absolutely smoke anything on the PlayStation 2. Sega and Sony are so competitive that Microsoft decides not to create the Xbox, instead partnering with Sega to include Windows CE and DirectX support with the Saturn 2. 2001: While Sony stakes its future on DVD technology, SEGA and PACE partner in the UK to create DVRs with built-in Saturn 2s. 2002: The Saturn 2 becomes a global game standard, as more DVRs across the globe integrate Sega Saturn 2s inside them. Sega releases a new, powerful, 3D handheld based on the StrongARM processor and a PowerVR GPU. It is roughly as powerful as the Dreamcast in our timeline. The handheld leapfrogs the Gameboy Advance and has a head-start on the PSP and Nintendo DS. Unlike Sony's PSP, this handheld Dreamcast uses industry standard SD cards to store game saves, and industry standard, 8 cm DVD-ROMs as its game medium. 2005: Sega releases the Saturn 3, powered by two dual-core PowerPC 970 derivatives and the same ATI GPU found in the Xbox 360. Sega doesn't pick sides between HD-DVD and Blu Ray, but they do use Quad-Layer DVD technology to support game discs up to 20 GB. Sony make the same mis-steps with the PlayStation 3 as they did in our timeline, just to shoe-horn blu ray and cell into the console. This is the generation that Sega beats Sony decisively. New Sega consoles launch in 2010, 2015, and 2020 - every 5 years, on schedule. New handhelds also launch on a five-year cycle in 2007, 2012, and 2017. The 2007 handheld uses 8 cm Quad-Layer DVDs, but beginning with the 2012 handheld, games are stored on very high-capacity ROM cards. Of course, this would all depend on Nakayama not being hell-bent on beating every other company (NEC, Atari, 3DO, Sony) to market or having an answer for every piece of hardware another company releases (ex: PC Engine CD-ROM vs Sega CD, Jaguar vs 32X, 3DO/PlayStation vs the rushed and overcomplicated Saturn). He also would have to listen to SOA when they asked for the new console to have a familiar architecture, instead of making a hasty deal with his golf buddies at Hitachi. Likewise, it would depend on Sega of Japan's middle management not being so solipsistic and self-sabotaging. In other words, SOJ would have to be happy for their success in America and Europe like Sony and Nintendo of Japan were, instead of resenting their own success.

the xbox was not mend as a gaming system, but as microsofts multimedia center in the living room. Microsoft does not want to make a gaming system, they want to take over the living room. So the xbox had and has strategy value beyond and above - but that design by commite attitude also destroys the focus. Sony as a multimedia cooperation build a gaming system - that also happended to be able to play music CDs (PS1), then DVD (PS2), then blurays. It also happens to play streaming.

@@madhatter8508 1997:Sega launches Final Fantasy VII before the holidays.

2001: Halo releases on the Sega Dreamcast

The shouldn't had done either. Sega killed itself with add-ons.

Each one had it's own ac adapter as well so a Sega 32x cd console would have 3 heavy, awkward, plugs. Basically needing it's own strip. Then look at the games. Besides NBA Jam, NHL 94, and Lufia, they were all terrible.

Yup, I had the 32X and CD, so many heavy awkward plugs. I didn't ever own any games which required both the 32X and CD to run though. There weren't many of those.

If Sega of Japan and Sega of America worked together instead of fighting each other and wasting money on launching interal competing platforms, we would probably be playing a sega console today.

If they had just connected the pixel output buss on the VDP to the cartridge port that cable would not have been necessary. The Megadrive/Genesis VDP has address lines for an extra 64K of VRAM and a pixel buss that were unconnected on the board apparently because Sega at the time didn't see a use for them and it saved them a few pennies to just leave them unconnected. Had they been all of the bottleneck problems with the Sega CD scaling hardware and the SVP chip would not have existed. The Sega CD could also have added external CRAM for an additional 4 color pallets and a larger overall selection of colors. The VDP supports up to 32,000 colors and eight 16 color pallets with external CRAM but it couldn't be used because Sega didn't connect the pins to anything.

That’s woud have saved sega . No extra wires , no extra big old plastic , no big extra price But no for vr being in the cart !Virtua racing needed to be stand alone . Just for the price point alone . $100 game was a no no, people was saving for cd based systems , $100 was a lot back then. If they had stuck to the original plan . It would been wonderful . Imagine svp carts of doom, umk3, virtua fighter, super street fighter 2 turbo, alien vs predator , street fighter alpha .

Imagine vr not stand alone come with the svp adaptor for 100$ in the same box, boum!

Sega was anything, but predictable.

@@HistoricNerd They were stupid

It was internal fighting that ruined them too. SOA vs SOJ, and STI was having infighting on top of that!

+firehazard51 Yeah the main draw back of the 32x was cost and really poor release timing. I honestly think the SVP could have been a low cost option that kept the genesis viable for longer instead of the costly sink hole the 32x was. There was a ton of possibilities with the Svp but Sega had way different ideas.

Would it have been enough to save the Saturn though, doubtful. I've heard people like Sam Pettus say that one of the major reasons the Saturn failed was Sega's inability to create a good parallel programming environment prior to bringing the Saturn to market. Do you have any videos on the Saturn @HistoricNerd?

ActionX not yet but I have projects in the pipe line for it. I tend to support Sam's theory on that.

@@pupthelovemonkey "Would it have been enough to save the Saturn though, doubtful." Why would the Genesis SVP have been expected to save the Saturn?

It would not have saved the Saturn. What killed the Saturn was the lack of games carrying over from popular Genesis/Master System IPs, not the hardware. It had no 3D mainline Sonic game, no Mickey Mouse or other Disney games when the blueprint was there with Clockwork Knight, no new Phantasy Star when RPGs exploded in popularity, no follow-up to Eternal Champions because Sega didn't want two fighting game IPs in the early-mid 90s, no Comix Zone for Saturn, no Ristar, no Toejam & Earl, etc. Imagine if Nintendo released the N64 without Mario 64, and never made a Wave Race, Star Fox, Zelda, etc. game during the entire life of the system, instead creating all new IPs that were unfamiliar to the gaming public. That's what Sega did with the Saturn.

The 32X itself should have been a cheaper add on, no hassle. Those dang plugs required a special adaptor for crying out loud. lol

LIL D 916 I guess you could say they are very attached to them. Badum cheesh.

coming out with dreamcast attachment called nightmare

and they say apple is in the forefront

neoknux009 You are probably right. I just thought the timing of the patent was a bit suspect. Sega was already supporting a bunch of platforms and I'm not surprised the SVP didn't make the cut. I found that patent and I feel it adds a little more to understanding Segas thought process at the time.

neoknux009 Sega had a great opportunity to solve the color issue with the Sega CD in a 32x manner with its own video output and scrapping the idea of adding the scaling+rotation and the Motorolla 68k cpu, which reduces the launch price of the Add-on. Thus, utilizing enhancement chips in place of the Genesis, CD for scaling and rotation and other purposes especially for data storage and compression to use for the cartridge or expansion slot included in the Sega CD. All or some of the enhancements can be integrated into later models of the Sega CD and cheaper Duo console in 93 or the mid-90s. Also, utilizing CD expansion cart games for the Genesis users and vice versa for the CD with Ram Carts. Or they can wait another year have the scaling and rotation chip clocking as fast as the new cpu such as the Motorolla 68ECk. Or better yet, use the Motorolla 68EC020 or SH1 from Hitachi with a 32x like framebuffer into the transition to 32-bit era as a alternative to the 32x.

neoknux009 ...Or just an SVP in the cartridge slot and the 3D games coming on CD, if that was technically possible? Maroon23 And some RAM, good idea indeed... Maybe allowing more colors on screen!

Are you talking about svp chip inside a cart or inside the Genesis Hardware? That will great to see the Sega CD Ram carts utilizing the SVP lock on carts with a stereo version of the PWM chip or stereo PCM chip from Sega CD with a ADPCM channel as well iif feasible. Also, add some more video ram at least 512 kb for the revision models for the Sega CD and Duo models. Meaning the already 256kb Video and the dual 256 Video Ram framebuffer of the 32x with a 32x VDP like bitmap display inside a Video Display Controller or Video Coprocessor with a video connector so the Genesis can utilize it like the 32x. Probably beef up the audio ram to 128 kb or 192 kb if possible. Also, they should have released a cheaper stock Duo system in 93 and hopefully a trio-system of the SVP and other minor enhanced chips to add with it if possible.

Yes I meant inside a cartridge like the Saturn had for RAM extensions. I'm no expert, but since there were CD 32X games, I don't see why that wouldn't have been possible. That would have been cheaper and simpler than adding a 32X in the cartridge slot.

I forgot to mention that in the video! I actually had notes about that but didnt include it >.

I heard sega wanted to rush sonic 3 out to market for somev reason (xmas?), so they split the game in two and later released the modular sonic & knuckles cartridge that contained the other half of the sonic 3 's development content.

They knew even Sonic 3 alone would miss the christmas deadline. Thats why Sega decided to make Sonic spinball.

This whole video is a perfect microcosm of the biggest problem Sega ever and will ever have faced: tone-deaf executives shouting "WHAT IN THE FUCK IS A SONIC?" whilst snorting small mountains of cocaine. Genesis model 1, 2, 3, 32X, Sega CD, Sega CD/32X games, Gamegear, Sega Channel, Nomad, SVP chip, millions of officially licensed and officially retarded peripherals, towers of consoles that could be 7-layers high and require over a dozen cords, and countless other stupid bullshit hardware gimmicks that caused their game designers to never truly have a clue what in the fuck the hardware limitations were for any given game at any point in time. I cannot imagine being forced to work customer service for those coked up assholes and dealing with the biggest mess ever in the video game industry. By the time they finally learned their lesson and focused exclusively on making Dreamcast a good system it was far too late. Every intelligent person on planet Earth who also wasn't blinded by nostalgia said a giant collective FUCK YOU to Sega forever. I've heard legends saying to this very day some people are still so delusional that they think Sega could still possibly make a return to the console market with Dreamcast 2. The only sadder souls than theirs are living down in hell...

+djhenyo You mock the idea of Sega making a return to the console market yet Atari of all the fucking companies on Earth literally just did that. Friendly reminder this is the same company that's been off the radar for like 30+ years and were so desperate for money they gave an Atari branding license to some crappy kickstarter watch that has absolutely nothing to do with Atari or gaming. Literally *anything* is possible at this point.

Mega CD actually got a lot of games. SVP had one great game and 32X sure was underused. They should have continued making games for it even though Saturn was out.

Michał Pawlak that would have been nuts if virtua racing was expandable. I think my younger self's brain would have melted if I had seen that.

HistoricNerd I bought VR for the Genesis dirt cheap a few years ago and the idea of turning it into an expansion cart was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw it. What blew my mind was that this was a true 3d accelerator that didn't require any additional hardware to function on a 16 bit console. SEGA had geniuses in their R&D, it's a real shame there were so much yes-men and numbskulls in management and marketing.

I've always thought Sega's issue was that they had very talented people and not a clear vision for what path to take to the next generation of systems so they ended up spreading themselves too thin. They had a lot of innovative ideas but lacked the ability to fully support any of them. I can only hope the emulator community for VR comes up with a way to repurpose a chip I would love to see that.

Yeah, the problem is that if they were going to make it expandable they should have done it from the beginning. But they kind of kept making the same mistake over and over... Charging the consumer extra for a large add on and then not having it be compatible with future ones. Either way you look at it you would have been out an extra $100 for just one game.

Michał Pawlak is similar to the the MPEG slot of the Saturn or Superboy cart?

Oh So Jiggly Thanks man. I hope to do more like this.

But Sega was also not doing as well as Nintendo and did make more marketing mistakes. That is also another big difference. Sega just couldn't keep up to other companies, and then Sony entered the console market and dominated it, so the weakest which was Sega died off due to not being able to compete anymore. Mind you another reason the dreamcast died was no anti piracy measures, so it hurt game sales on the Dreamcast and helped kill the system. Nintendo did make some mistakes, but none as damaging as what Sega did.

Console makers in general tend to support legacy systems for longer than you might think; the 14-year life of the PS2 is a pretty good example from recent years. The difference is that Sega was actively trying to extend the lifespan of the Genesis through a fuckton of add-ons, and failed with all of them, whereas companies like Sony and Nintendo simply supported their older systems for as long as they did because there was still a market for them, albeit a niche one; it's only when these markets become too small to be practical that the consoles are officially discontinued. This is why a system as successful as the Atari or the PS1 could be supported for what feels like a ridiculous amount of time, while a failure as big as the Wii U was thrown away less than two months before is successor released. The only outlier I can think of is the Neo-Geo, which was supported for just over 19 years despite not being too big of a success. Fun fact: the video game system with the longest lifespan in terms of support from its company is the Famicom. Lasting from 1983 to 2003, it had a life of 20 years, two months, and ten days.

Hell the Nintendo Power tip line was still up even when Nintendo already had new consoles out. Even the FDS had rewrite Kiosks in Japan still going many years after the FDS was discontinued, just because. Its crazy how long the Famicom and NES was being supported for.

I think they continued doing without consideration what had worked for them in the past. They iterated quickly multiple designs in the 8-bit era, so the Master System, one of the most advanced consoles of its generation, and pretty popular in Europe and Japan, was their second or third 8-bit console, depending how you count. They beat Nintendo to market with a 16-bit console, and that's pretty much the reason they could compete at all, else they would have gone unnoticed in most of the world. Saturn and Dreamcast are similarly very early entries of their given generation.

Kevster012 I agree to a sort. If they could have just kept releasing quality titles people would still buy those systems. More marketing wouldnt have hurt either. They just pulled the plug on software for those systems too fast. Yeah they werent selling but there werent any key titles being released either.

falsehero2001 it would have been a better raute how ever Sega thought damm we have to sell games at 100 dollars now, and gamers back in my days were mainly us kids who didn't have jobs. Sega should of made the 32x a console but didn't because the Saturn was around the corner Sega was just out dated always one step behind Nintendo.

TheBlindingwhite I got my copy back when Sega ran a buy 1 get 1 promotion through kaybee toys so it ended up being a good deal I can't remember the other game I picked out though.

TheBlindingwhite I bought an import copy on launch day from ncx in Manhattan. Total cost 130 bucks. Still have it. Things could have been so different for my beloved SEGA had they listened to Tom.

I still have mine too. Matter of fact I still have all my games and system back to my 2600. I don't have a super large collection by any means but it's a decent little one.

+Junkball Media Thank you! coming from you that means a lot to me. The great stuff you put out has influenced my want for better quality.

That would be a fun video actually

fireaza I think it honestly would have been a pretty innovative idea had Sega followed through.

They didn't seem to have a problem selling any Star Fox or Yoshi's Island carts.

The Nintendo FX carts weren't any more expensive than regular carts, but then the SVP was much more powerful than the FX chip. I do agree though, that a mini cart attachment would have made a lot more sense for Sega!

It's due to the ROM size in the cart. I wish they add data and storage decompression like SA1 in the SVP chip to reduce the size).

Rom size of the cart? But I have Virtua racing in box and on the back it says 16megs+SVP chip on the back.16 megabits is only 2 megabytes, which the same amount of rom data that Streets of Rage 2 used back in 92. Idk, I think it's because of how powerful the hardware inside the chip was.

You are right, just checked as well.

Retro Soul another things that made it expensive is the ram, also the pin count inside the SVP and from licensing fee from samsumg since Sega bought the chip from them.

In the video he said that they had certain games that were hits that had to work. They could not make it weaker.

P2000Camaro Haha. I picked the music while buzzed on beer so I hope that kept your buz in a good place.

If sega would have released the 32X about around 1992 it would have did well.But this a what if scenario,around the time Nintendo released Starfox,I think some history would have been made.

Ok

Those things exist rent free in my brain.

Or randy can use nec v810 or armv3 cpu chip inside snes cart with enough time to port it.

+Travis Iliades miss spoke. This is why you try to get someone picky to watch before posting. >

Travis Iliades word...

Star fox 2 should have been released after they postponed the n64 the following year.

Yeah, its a shame. Sega had mostly awesome hardware but sucked when it came to marketing.

It would $50 and more cheaper than the 32x and its games.

Funny fact: I'm a huge Neptune fan (despite never seeing a 32x in person and never even owning a MegaDrive/Genesis!) So this is not a alternate history that I would like to see... However, it would be way better a strategy for SEGA

Even better Geometry and rendering ASIC or CoP.

Very true. I think it was the wording I found in both patents, of a "graphics co processor". But it was just a fun theory that very well might have had little impact on the SVP

Sega did not know what they're doing with the 32x. Better yet, sega was better releasing the hardware as a handheld console later on than another add-on.

Thanks! I've been really enjoying your videos as well.

+dubiouscubanx Yes it was. Not sure why I dropped the super when I was recording audio. An error on my part.

It is sometimes called "The FX Chip" for short, or even "The Mario Chip".

Hence the part of my comment where I stated - "assuming they still didn't botch the Saturn design and launch like they did"

Definitely can but not as good as the CD and 32x due to them having more ram in them. However, since it's connecting to genesis cart slot. It is easier to develop scaling games on it than the Sega CD.

I'd love to see it as well. Sadly since Joe Miller passed away I think a lot of that information has been lost. But I'm hoping one day it'll turn up.

@@HistoricNerd Wilder things have happened.

@@TAGMedia7 You know whats even wilder? That "demo" had an extremely limited full release in a cart with an SVP chip. It has been confusing me for a while now why everyone keeps saying Virtua Racing was the only SVP game when it really wasn't. Hell I didn't even know Virtua Fighter had a 32x version because the original copy of Virtua Fighter I owned for the genesis was in 3d and in a cart the same shape as Virtua Racing. I remember being extremely disappointed getting Virtua Fighter 2 on genesis because it was in 2d when the previous game was in 3d. I have never owned a 32x, they were too expensive in pawn shops in the early 00s for a middle schooler. Someone needs to get on this and find those carts. I live in New York if that helps matters any, could have been a limited test release for this region or something.

I talk about history on this channel as well.....and honestly the why Historic"Nerd" thing is a question id have to ask myself 5 years ago when i made then channel. I think it was the only Website name i liked that wasn't taken.

Instead of the 32x

The Saturn version of Daytona was junk because the Saturn was hard to program.

That, and it was a rushed release.

Man that'd be awesome

I can't wait when that happens.

@@maroon9273 If...

That's actually taken directly from the Sega 16 article. I thought it was odd myself but I kept because I cant say for certain if Joe Miller said coin-op or coin-up.

Sean Ryan Very true. I only wish Sega had been crazy enough to release one more add on so I could own it. I'm a big fan boy so I had to share my discovery

Thanks!

That's something I'd love to see as well.

It probably wouldn't have been much better than the snes port, but I'm sure you could do it.

Thank you! let me know what you find out in that magazine id love to know.