As a Sega Saturn owner in Japan, I wish Sega of America didn't bring out the 32X and managed the Saturn promotions better in the US. PS1 was still king here but the Saturn was the second most popular (or at least tied with the N64), and it was the first Sega console to be very highly regarded here, much more so than the Mega Drive. Japan had a ton of great Saturn games that would have been appreciated in the US and elsewhere had the Saturn had better sales there.
I agree but I don't think that's a small thing. I had to actually think about something small I wanted Sega to change and I came up with a better Batman returns tie in.
Well.. blame Sega of Japan with that one.. they basically screwed Sega of America by forcing them to make the 32x while Japan was keeping the Development of the Saturn from America. It doesnt make any sense..
That all Sega of Japan's fault. They didn't want to make the 32X. They also didn't want to release the Saturn when they did, they wanted to wait several months, but Sega of Japan forced them to release it on E3. If Saturn in the US had followed its original release date then there would have been several more launch games. They could have better stocked the Saturn and not screw over any stores; because Sega screwed over various stores those stores refused to do business with Sega. The price tag also didn't help.
My Uncle's both bought GAME GEAR for the TV TUNER. They were MTA workers in token booths late at night and they'd play some games, but mostly used the Game Gear as a portable color TV. Game Gear absolutely was ahead of its time.
The NEC TurboExpress had a TV tuner add-on too. It came out slightly earlier. It’s screen was smaller, but higher resolution. It could use the same games as the TurboGrafx-16. The TG-16 flopped in the USA, but was a big hit in Japan (named the “PC Engine” there).
Backwards compatibility on the Saturn to play sega cd games would’ve helped some I think, along with being able to play Genesis, 32X and master system games using the memory card slot.
@@jabarijones9588 The Genesis was made to combat the NES, not the SNES. It was released over a year before the SNES was even out, so it's understandable why its hardware is worse.
@@RegalPixelKingReally? I was always under the impression that the competition was as follows: - Master System vs NES - Genesis vs SNES - Game Gear vs Game Boy
@@ultraspinalki11 Eventually it became Genesis vs SNES, yes, but that's not how it started. It started as Genesis vs NES because those were the two newest consoles released by Nintendo and Sega in 1988. Then the SNES, or rather the Super Famicom released in late 1990 and the Genesis had new competition.
Unfortunately, it's a double-edged sword because you're probably going to purchase Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles for a bundled price. But the execution was warranted for the cartridge lock technology. (The only game utilize this)
And millions of people were excited about the upcoming SVP Lock On cartridge for the Genesis... or better yet, the Sega CD. The SVP cart was slated to cost just $49.95, was due out around March of 1994, and already had Star Wars Arcade, Virtua Racing, Virtua Fighter, and Daytona USA developed for it. Better yet, just use the SH2 and downsized Saturn VDP1, and you'd have a $79 half-32X out almost immediately with perhaps 100 titles out by the time the Saturn was released. And those games could've run just fine on the Saturn. SEGA made one pigheaded mistake after another, ignoring developers and SoA, micromanaging their way to failure and near bankruptcy!
Backwards compatibility would have been great. That really went into why I got a PS2. For people who could only afford a new Saturn game every once in awhile, having other games on hand in the meantime would have won some people over.
@@manoftherainshorts9075I don’t know how possible this actually was. Even with the 68000 it’s possible there were other technical hurdles not being considered
@@opaljk4835 Yeah, the 68000 CPU is only a small part of the Genesis/Mega Drive hardware. Look at the Atari ST to see what sort of graphics the 68000 can push all by itself. The Saturn hardware was already excessively complex and costly to produce as it was. The insides are a nightmare from a cost reduction perspective.
@@opaljk4835 And they would have likely literally had to shove both the master system and genesis hardware in there with the saturn hardware. I don't see how that would work.
Had Sega made the Saturn backwards compatible with the MD, I may have considered a Saturn, because at the time I still very much was into Sega 16, bit workhorse, but at the same time I did want to join the 32-bit revolution.
Don't forget the Japanese system start-up screen to go with that logo. I am totally with you on them going with the normal jewel cases. As much as I loved my Saturn, I always thought Sony's game packaging was better once they switched to standard jewel cases shortly after the NA launch.
Yeah, but I think mid 90's US consumers would've looked right past them on the shelf all the same. The authentic aesthetic that retrogamers appreciate today was not what it was perceived consumers wanted back then.
@@BasementBrothers nah. I get the 90’s Americanized demographic culture thing but some of us actually preferred what Japan had in terms of logo, color, style, artwork etc.
It literally hurts my hands because it's way too cramped on the back yet I can't comfortably press two face buttons at once reliably because they spaced those too far apart...
That 1 I definitely agree , i love the Dreamcast but never cared for the controller and would've loved a few *AKI/THQ Wrestling games WCW Vs nWo revenge* the 1 that was on the N64 too had been ported too the Dreamcast..
@@joeyjo-joshabadu9636 A western release on Saturn was considered but cancelled due to technical problems. I think they should've pivoted to PS1 personally (at the end of the day, Japan was the only country where Saturn was successful.)
I wish Sega hadn't rush released Daytona USA on the Saturn for its launch. I reckon if they'd just taken the time to get the frame rate up to 30fps from 20, tried to get the graphics looking a little better with less pop-up, it would've made such a better impression when you saw it running in game shops. I genuinely believe it might've helped dissuade some of those early PS1 adopters that were moving on from the Megdrive/Genesis to Sony (based on the Ridge Racer port). If Sega had added a 2 player split-screen mode (and made sure the game was PAL optimized for us in the UK/EU) it could've been the thing to swing that early tide in Sega's favour.
From what I remember reading it was originally going to be for the Sega CD. They were going to bring back the 1st person dungeons from PS1, full anime cutscenes with voice acting, among other things. But as development continued it was decided to do a cartridge version for the Mega Drive/Genesis instead. Probably the higher chance of retail sales.
I wanted a remake of Phantasy Star on the Sega CD. I was surprised to see that, other than Lunar series, there were almost no jRPGs brought over for a platform that seemed designed for it. Worse, there were only 12 (out of over 200) Sega CD titles that showed off its 3D graphics capabilities (Soulstar, Batman Returns, Cliffhanger, etc), and exactly ZERO TV ads showing off this criminally underused $300 addon!
@@droneadventures4147 phantasy star IV holds up surprisingly well. It’s a very fast paced JRPG and the manga style story scenes really help it feel modern from a presentation standpoint. Phantasy Star III and Phantasy Star II have aged like old milk in the sun. PS3 because of how slow everything is. PSII because it’s a GRIND FEST. Like worse than Dragon Quest II grind fest.
The Sega CD was such an awesome and successful accessory, and yet still underused and underappreciated. I fully understand why FMV seemed like the right choice to double down at the time (and e.g., Anime Visual Novels were pretty successful on the Japanese PC Engine CD-ROM, and Dragon's Lair/Space Ace were still impressive experiences), but all the best titles either didn't use FMV, or weren't built around it (e.g., Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective is legit good). We needed more Snatcher and less Make my Video, more Mortal Kombat and less Sewer Shark. On a related note: We could really have used a Sonic CD 2. The original Sonic CD's implementation of the different eras was a bit clumsy, and S3+K set the bar extremely high, so I would've loved to see what they could've done with the experience they gained, the additional processing and scaler hardware in the Sega CD, the extra capacity on the medium, and of course, Red Book CD Audio.
I had a sega CD growing up and i'm collecting for it now. It was definitely a missed opportunity for sega. So much more could have been done with it. But there were definitely some gems in there like Monkey Island, Jurassic park, Rise of the Dragon, and Snatcher.
As someone who isn't huge into audio in video games, the Sega CD just didn't do it for me. And I had one! Knowing now that the only thing it really offered above the Genesis was 1) Hardware scaling and 2) Larger capacity (thus better audio, longer games I guess, etc)... it just seems like another massive misstep. I think putting a chip in there that could boost the color capabilities of the Genesis up to SNES level would have been a HUGE win... but they didn't. I know Sega Lord X loves the Sega CD, but for me it was mostly a bust. EDIT: Yeah, it also does boost the CPU megahertz of the 68k, but in the end that didn't really matter a whole lot. Again, more colors (256 on-screen) would have been the obvious thing to improve, to my mind. Fourth generation consoles, as per Wikipedia: Turbografx16/PC Engine - 482 on-screen colors Genesis/Megadrive - 61 on-screen colors Neo Geo - 4096 on-screen colors SNES/Super Famicom - 256 on-screen colors SegaCD - 61 on-screen colors Even as a huge Sega fanboy at the time, it was obvious many Genesis games were hampered by the lackluster amount of on-screen colors. Some Genesis games did a REALLY good job of utilizing the color palette, but when depicting certain types of scenes, like darker ones where more shades of different colors could have been used for shadow, etc... the SNES trumped it. And that list above is in chronological order by release date... sure, the Genesis came out rather early in the generation, but by the time Sega CD came out, they damn well knew that every single competitor was supporting more colors, and I can't be the only person to have noticed the huge difference. People always wave me off when I bring this up, but I don't think people really understand how more colors creates a more visually pleasing display.
My wishlist: I wish the Sega CD had an upgrade in sprites and color palette. Slightly better than the SNES. Then there would probably have been no reason for a 32X. Could have gotten some near perfect arcade translations with that. After Burner, Outrun, Golden Axe: Revenge of Death Adder to name a few and maybe even Michael Jackson's Moonwalker. I wish Golden Axe 2 was a 16 Meg or more cartridge. That way there would have been an upgrade in the same way Streets Of Rage 2 was to Streets Of Rage.
I will have to agree that the Dreamcast controller was a bad idea, with how few people "get it", but I liked it! I thought the directional pad was worse than the Mega Drive one, but a lot better than the Playstation one. The VMUs that slotted in there were silly, but fun, and I didn't really care about there only being one stick (I would care today though). Even the cable placement made perfect sense to me - it let the cord hang straight down easily between my legs and down to the floor instead of going "up" and bending like other controller's do. I had friends to play Dreamcast with though, so I know that's not how most people saw it. :)
Dreamcast is my alltime favorite controller. Just feels so good in my hand and I thought less was more there. Now I wish there was a second stick but back then I didn't care
Yeah but it would have probably been expensive and created incredibly poor optimization. Running a ROM cartridge through architecture meant for CDs and 3D would have probably created bottlenecks.
Sega should have made a commitment to keep support of the 32x for at least 3 yrs and release the Saturn in 96 to have more time for things you mentioned (like Genesis and/or 32x compatibility). It would’ve given Sega a couple more years to compete while the Saturn was in development and given Genesis/32x owners an incentive to buy the Saturn since they already had games it could play.
They should have never released the 32X and put that effort into making the Saturn design less complex so it would be cheaper to make & easier to program for. They eventually consolidated parts inside it and had good programming tools, but they were too far behind by then. The PlayStation won mainly because it was $100 less & easier to make games for.
@@jeremyf9124 I agree to an extent. The Saturn definitely needed more time in the "incubator" that could've made it easier to program and potentially reduce the price of the console. They also could've launched with a Sonic title. I think the 32x is not really the issue though. It could've still flopped, but what really made developers and publishers angry was the lack of console support. Hindsight is 20/20, but at the time Sega was trying something new and innovative. Just like Nintendo did with the Wii and WiiU. Dropping support of the 32x, surprising everyone with the Saturn launch, just alienated third party support and I don't think Sega ever really recovered from it.
I guess there are people who legitimately hate the design of the Dreamcast controller, even if I may not have thought much of it when collecting Sega's older hardware. The one thing I do think was cool about it was how you could get these unique little LCD animations for certain games in the controller window for the VMU screen, but I can get people never liking the feel of the controller in general. Controller aside, I would always want to see more of Sega Lord X's opinions on the games for Sega's final console, the Dreamcast.
Only reason why I never got a GameGear was because it always felt like it had inferior versions of games I had on the Genesis. The Nomad, I didn't mind the battery issue since whenever I went outside, it was to do outside things, and just played it at home plugged into the wall. I loved the Nomad because I no longer had to use the TV to play games, and my mom loved that too. Plus, being able to sneak in some gameplay in bed when I was supposed to be asleep, was a real bonus.
Amen, when the main consoles were SO different from each other, kept that magic of going over to your friends house alive to experience different games.
Yeah I definitely think they should have did a bit more with the handheld thing because I remember nomad being one of those things that people like but at the same time nobody knew about it. It was very frustrating seeing that neogeo in my area took off when it's barely remembered online now
When I saw the cartridge slot on the saturn, I had assumed it was for MD games, but of course I was mistaken. I agree that feature could’ve helped people consolidate their library with the more powerful system. Maybe there would’ve been noticeable runtime updates to MD games just from that fact of them playing on a more powerful system
It probably would have been the opposite. Running ROM data through the Saturn architecture probably would have created bottlenecks. The system was built around its new graphics unit. You would have probably seen delayed inputs and some weird frame buffer issues. The Saturn didn't draw directly to the screen unlike the Genesis. I would imagine they'd need a peripheral or extra converter that would reduce the bandwidth.
@@opaljk4835 I wonder if they would have been better off selling the 32x integrated into a console as 'the upgraded Genesis, look for the 32x logo to find exclusives' instead of offering it as an add-on.
Interesting to think about the little things. I’ll do a more recent thing Sega did that I wish they did differently. Sega has been handling Yakuza incredibly well, even remaking 1 and 2. However, I wish they kept on going and did a Yakuza 3 remake. It’s a game that could benefit from a tight Dragon Engine upgrade especially since it’s much more rough than the other PS3 era Yakuza games. I’m glad it got a HD remaster but a remake would fix so much of Yakuza 3’s problems
Sega should have released a Power Base II or an upgraded model that included a slot for Game Gear games to be able to play them on the TV. I had always dreamed of that as a kid and expected Sega to do the same when the Super Gameboy came out but disappointingly they never did. Also, I think the 32X could have gotten more mileage had they invested porting more of Sega's Arcade titles like Golden Axe, Fantasy Zone, Alien Syndrome, and Shinobi. They also should have been doing multi-plat releases at the same time as Saturn like Sim City 2000, Theme Park, Gex, Clockwork Knight, Shinobi Legions, and Darius Gaiden for example.
I think giving the Sega CD a separate video out would have been better than having to channel it all through the Genesis. This limited all Sega CD games to the 64 color limitation. Sega CD should have had its own video processor so really make the CD games pop, which would thereby have given more interest into the add-on
Sega should hire you. Not sure about that FM idea I dont think I fully understand it but I think I would rather keep what I have although I do respect your opinion :)
On the topic of the YM2413 chip, not having it as an option for the Master System outside of Japan was a huge missed opportunity. With the system being discontinued in 1989 there, it meant there was never any chance that the wealth of Europe/Brazil exclusive games which really show what the hardware can do got a proper FM soundtrack that they deserved...
Sega should have just used that FM chip instead of that awful, shrill PSG chip that Sega used for the Master System, it would have given the Master System a bigger advantage over the NES but instead the NES destroyed the MS in sound.
@@Adamtendo_player_1 I get why they used the PSG chip, since it was needed for backwards compatibility with SG-1000 games, but yeah having both chips as standard would've been awesome (albeit making the system more expensive at launch)
@@LouisTheSEGANerd they should have moved on from the SG 1000 and gone for the FM chip instead because the SN76489 is a horrible sound chip that Yuzo Koshiro worked miracles with with the MS ports of Sonic and Streets of Rage, plus GG Shinobi was also awesome but other than those and maybe the Illusion series I’d rather mute the volume playing MS or Game Gear games.
A few games made in that transition period actually have FM music, they just were never released in Japan. But yeah, that was a missed opportunity for games made after that.
There's so much that I wanted to see on the Sega CD, but didn't happen. One thing Sega should have explored is 16-bit games that come with a supplemental CD-ROM for adding extras like a better soundtrack, animations etc. If you didn't have a Sega CD yet, you could still play the game and maybe listen to the music on another CD player. If you did have a Sega CD, the cartridge could reduce loading times. A big advantage to this strategy is not having duplicates of the same titles competing for shelf space in stores. Most places would have a wall of carts and then just one shelf or less for CDs, which would mostly be older titles as there wouldn't be space for newer ones. While I still love sprite scaling games even today, if developers, including Sega, weren't going to use the Sega CD's extra chips, and it was apparent sooner that the best results would only run at 20fps and not fullscreen anyway, maybe the Sega CD should have been a simpler and cheaper unit.
One thing I never understood: why sega never did a hardware revision of the game gear? They could have revised it for using 4 batteries instead of 6 and/or improved the usage of the batteries. About the nomad it would be nicer if it used the same cartridge port as the game gear (so to make it backwards compatible with it) and marginally improve the genesis technology (with a bigger color palette, more colors on screen, more sound channels, scaling etc) Some other things I think about: sega shouldn't have killed the saturn on the west saying things like it wasn't their future. They could have planned secretly the dreamcast, accept the saturn's failure and, while the dreamcast wasn't on the market, treat it like a niche console, like nec accepted the turbografx was by 1992 or snk accepted the neo geo was from the very beginning and continue to bring its arcade ports and bring west all games that weren't available on the ps1 and n64, like 2d games and sega's own properties (shining force, streets of rage, sonic and so on)
Or made the $120 in Dreamcast chips (16MB VRAM, PowerVR, two SH4s, etc) a $99 addon for the Saturn. SEGA had considered several such projects as early as 1996 with costs as low as $35. Since the two SH2s and DSP could theoretically render 800,000 flat shaded polygons/sec, SEGA could've added a rendering chip similar to the SGI RCP that they'd turned down or even a VooDoo 1 from 3dfx (which they'd also turned down for DC), using the chip to texture, phong/Gouraud shade, mip map, trilinear filter, AA, etc, those 800k polygons on top of the beautiful backgrounds that Saturn could draw. This would've given people a solid reason to buy the Saturn: more 3D power than a 3DO M2, N64, or even high end gaming PCs of the day. We could've gotten 60fps of 702x480p, better graphics than those arcade machines playing Daytona USA with the CD-ROM used to load stages into the 2MB of RAM, then play those great soundtracks.
Economically, this would've attracted a lot of devs who'd passed on the PS1 and N64, sold off inventories of Saturns at regular price, rewarded SEGA's solid fanbase, kept backward compatibility with existing games, and brought in tens of millions in free press. First the criticism and the easy "32X Part II" references, followed by tech demos that made everything else look like a baby's toy.
@@MaxAbramson3I don‘t think that another add on would be a good idea. Doing so Sega would incur on a mistake even bigger than the 32x because the Saturn was never so popular as the Genesis. The 32x was supported for a little more than a year, has about 40 games and sold 600 k units. Sega sure did a lot better launching the dreamcast, but they could have supported the saturn in the west till at least the dreamcast launch.
@@goralski21 Worldwide, Saturn sold 9 million, the same as the DreamCast. Had DC used the CD-ROM, controllers, RAM, DSP sound, and hookups of the Saturn, the $123 chipset could've sold for $99, moving millions of Saturn consoles that were just sitting in warehouses and store shelves. So.eone without a Saturn could still get the DC for $249 that would also play over 1,000 Saturm titles, many of which were terrific and could've netted hundreds of millions in licensing fees for SEGA.
A YM2413 option for the Game Gear would've been very interesting, but it lacked one thing the PSG supported - stereo output. It's probably a minor feature given the YM2413's extra sound channels and instruments, but a second audio processor could've added an extra $20-$30 to the bill of materials, which wouldn't gone down well, so perhaps it could've worked as an adaptor cart rather than inflating the launch price. The SVP reportedly had two extra PWM channels, but even if it was released as an adaptor cart as rumoured, I can't imagine it'd have changed much - the small colour palette still held the Mega Drive back, anything generated by the SVP was in 16 colours, and the 32X would still have been released.
Absolutely dead on with this video, bravo. I think the Genesis using expansion chipsets in their carts would have been a fantastic idea. Like with your rerelease with Genesis+CD carts, I think that could have taken things to new heights as well. More memory for caching CD data for levels and the like or even animated cutscenes that made better use of the systems hardware instead of being limited by what the CD drive could muster, might have taken things to a whole new level. 32X was a baffling solution unto it's self. I appreciate what they were trying to do, but their other chips and the things the SNES had been accomplishing not just with Super FX, but with 3rd party contributions from the likes of capcom really made the Genesis look like it was standing still and providing addon's that many didn't understand. Those saturn ad's dead on about those too in the US. I'd almost have taken Sega-san shiro (sorry for butchering the name, japanese marketing campaign) would have been a better fit even for that era in american pop culture. Dreamcast controller, you sir are not alone. Though I've never had strong fondness for sega controllers, the Dreamcast has one of the worst from top to bottom. Nothing about its design makes a damn bit of sense. The analog sticks were always a head scratcher, I'm right there with you about adding an extra set of shoulder buttons. 6 button layout I guess works (especially if you're into fighters, though I tend to go with arcade sticks these days, it would have made more sense for me back then), probably would have brought more gamers onto the platform. Funny how they replicated the one aspect of Sony and Nintendo controllers that made the least bit of sense for them, but then ignored the one thing that would have made the most sense to take. But hey... at least we have VMU's.... cause you know PocketStation was a success.... Lastly I think I'd add one thing here and that is a better form factor for the Nomad, everything about it was trying to be early 90's which I guess makes sense, I'm not sure if you felt the same, but i hated holding that thing. Everything about it was cool, just not that and the batteries.
@@SegaLordX I'd love to see that episode. However, SEGA's handling of third party developers--especially small ones who made the PS1 such a big deal--seems an insurmountable problem--almost as bad as NINTENDO.
I think I understand the Game Gear sound complaint, but at the same time the sound may be the most memorable thing about the Game Gear to me. I actually really, really like it.
Yeah I don't think that is a very good idea tbh. Like he said, it would have broken compatibility with a lot of master system games, and cheaply porting master system games was one of the prime strategies of sega for the game gear.
I agree about the advertising of the Saturn in the US, although being a UK Sega fan, I really liked the advertising in the UK, especially the Daytona ad 'Reality always hurts' 👍. That's probably part of the reason the Saturn sold reasonably well, relatively speaking in the UK, along with the official Sega Saturn mag being awesome😃.
The Saturn didn’t even sell reasonably well in the UK, it got destroyed by PlayStation too, Saturn Doom was the final straw for me to get a PlayStation and i have no regrets but had we got most of the Japanese library of games then I’d definitely have considered the Saturn back then, i definitely want a Saturn now for the Sega exclusives but that’s it as Saturn games are expensive compared to PlayStation games.
@Adam_player_1_ I agree, the Saturn (and N64 by all accounts) did get destroyed by the PlayStation, but people forget that in the early days of the consoles life it was much closer than we think I.e. xmas 95 PS1 sold 35k vs. 25k for the Saturn (in the UK), Sega Rally, when released, was the fastest selling cd game ever. Obviously, that record didn't last long, but it does show that Sega had a chance and ultimately threw it away. Such a shame that they didn't bring over more games from Japan. May not have changed the narrative, but it would have been a better fight. I wonder what would have happened if the Saturn was Sonys console and the PS1 was Sega's console?! For me, I still think Sony would have won much the same way with the might of their marketing 🤔. I'd like to see someone do a video on this question sometime 😃 (totally pointless question, of course, lol).
I'm here for the Sega love! Celebrated the birthday of the Dreamcast yesterday! Also be sure to support the new Sega labor union. I'm proud of their progress!
The Saturn DEFINITELY should have been able to play Genesis games. I was very disappointed when I discovered we couldn't. Shoot, it was even the same shape!! More people should have listened to Trip Hawkins about DVD. Can you imagine if the Dreamcast had DVD?? The Sega CDX should have been the ONLY upgrade to the Genesis as well. The Nomad was a great idea, but again, too late and a serious battery eater. Sega is STILL my favorite game company to this day, they have the best games IMO, but for some reason, they refuse to release the goods on modern systems.
FYI, Vampire Savior (Darkstalkers 3) can be played in English after you beat the game with any character on any difficulty setting, and the file that's auto-saved in your Saturn's internal memory will keep that option available until you delete it. You still need a region workaround (I used the Action Replay Plus, which provides region unlock and extra RAM simultaneously), but it was better than nothing. That game definitely should've been released worldwide though. Definitely worth a download if you've never played it.
Here's my 2 cents: If the Saturn could play Sega CD games they could of Included Sonic CD as a Pack in Game so every Saturn owner would of at least one Starter game kinda like how every Wii came with Wii Sports included
I wish the Sega Genesis had a lot more options available that weren't sports games. I do realize there were games that werent but super Nintendo is more rounded out. That my opinion I respect and welcome everyone elses
I had phantasy star 4 and sonic 1, but as a kid with a hand down genisus it wasn't always easy finding good Sega games. Most that were being sold were sports games or Disney games which also weren't for me. I just falsely associated the system with those types of games at the time. Overall in n America they were playing that angle which I believe is what made the genisus a hit here, but I would have been more interested (and I know others would have been too) if I was more aware of the the more nich games at the time.
Agreed with the video. I would also add that Sega's divisiveness between its American and Japanese divisions is what helped kill its console market even quicker. Releasing the 32X in the same month as the Saturn back in 94 didnt help matters at all.
#2 literally was thinking that when the video started lol. I remember during those days when the Saturn was new everyone at school thought that WAS what the cartridge slot was for. I totally agree they could have easily made a simple converter add on and if they packed it in the box (which at first they definitely would want to charge you for it lol) it definitely could have helped in America. From a Japanese perspective I suppose I can see why they didn’t put resources into, since the Megadrive wasn’t as popular over there.
About the 68000 in the Saturn, it's a 68EC000 which is not completely compatible with the one in the Genesis. Your point remains though, a backwards compatible Saturn would have been a massively appealing prospect for the system, especially in North America and Europe. As for the Dreamcast controller, I was always disappointed in how it had only four face buttons instead of six like the Saturn, however I disagree about the second analog stick. It's taken for granted now but at the time of the Dreamcast controller's design (1997-1998) most developers and consumers didn't know what to do with the right stick on the PS1, and the idea of using it for camera control didn't really solidify until 2000 or so. And of course, the Nintendo 64 controller seemed to be making due just fine with its single stick. With that, I still maintain the reduced face buttons as the controller's biggest sin.
I just did a quick check of what the difference was. The Wikipedia page for 68000 says that the EC is only lacking the Move-from-SR instruction in User mode. IIRC, that's basically what the 68010 does, and haven't people put a 68010 into the Gen/MD from time to time? (The EC is also missing the 6800-compatible bus mode.) Two options: don't use User mode (not much need for it on a console), or add trap support for it to your Supervisor mode code. Maybe you're confused with the Dragonball core? It basically removed any instruction that was more than 3 words long. (no move absolute-to to absolute-long, etc.) That's a lot more work to add emulation support for.
I swear, you kept bringing up the exact points I was thinking about as I was typing. Strong agree on the Genesis to CD ports, Dreamcast controller losing the great Saturn d-pad, and Nomad/Game Gear needing rechargables. One thing I would have liked to see would have been an 8-bit compilation for Genesis or Sega CD. The Genesis had the hardware to run Master System and SG-1000 games without adjustments. I also think the Game Gear could have used a revision, even ignoring the battery issue. It could have been slimmed down, and the screen backlight could have had an on/off switch, like the Game Boy Advance SP.
@@lordhave4420 i thought so too. but it didn't seem to have any direction. I want sure of it's purpose at the time tho i was excited about it potential. Sega seemed to be all over the place. SegaCD, talk of new systems... very confusing.
The 32X was Sega's biggest mistake imo. During the time of the 32X, Sega was really caught off by Nintendo, titles like Donkey Kong Country and Mortal Kombat 2 were probably the decisve games. Many people thought to themselves, why should you buy an expensive add on when you can play such current games on the 16bit SNES that most people already had? Without the 32X, we would have great games like Fatal Fury Special f.e., and also several SVP supported titles on the standard Genesis.
These were all good points. I especially loathed the Dreamcast controller. As much as I loved the Dreamcast system and games, the controller was just not comfortable to use. One thing Sega rarely did that Nintendo still does to this day, is have a constant stream of established franchises. Yes, Sega had Sonic, but more often than not, Sega would just plain forget about some of their IPs once they started on their next console. It would have been awesome to see like a Golden Axe sequel on the Saturn with sprite scaling, a new Panzer Dragoon on Dreamcast that took advantage of the console's power, a new Vectorman on Saturn that took advantage of the system's 2D prowess, a new Streets of Rage on either Saturn or Dreamcast...the list goes on. Sega franchises quickly came and went with each console. They never had the consistency and a lot of their games were just one-off ideas that could have been expanded upon with each new generation of consoles.
I wonder at times if the whole "SEGA leaving their old franchises in the dust" thing, is due to a lot of their franchises being stuff that's like... "of their time"? What I mean is that RPG's, platformers, racibg and to a certain extent fighting games are games that have survived across generations as they grow and evolve. But stuff like rail shooters, beat-em-ups, stuff that's mostly based on SEGA's arcade roots, that stuff didn't really age well when they got on consoles. Golden Axe and Streets of Rage and Panzer Dragoon just got outrun by the times... though I suppose Vectorman could've become something and maybe they just got caught up in the Sega America vs Sega Japan war.
I think Sega actually did a moderately good job of this back when they were in the hardware business... one thing it's easy to forget about Sega is just how many IPs they actually had/have! Nintendo's IPs can all comfortably fit in a Smash Bros. game each generation -- there are probably only around a dozen actual Nintendo "franchises" -- whereas if you really start looking at the expanded Segaverse, it's kind of crazy how large it is. What I do find sad is how few of them have gotten revisited by software-only-era Sega in recent years, or if they did, it was by some third party who did Sega's job for them (ex. Streets of Rage).
A super gameboy-style adapter for game gear to genesis could have been great honestly... and they pretty much already have the tech with the powerbase adapter. It could have been a cool way of encouraging buying both products and keep buying games for both, just like the gameboy and the snes did. The master system was dead, but the game gear was not, so it makes sense to try to keep it alive and cross promote their products.
The Dreamcast not having a second analog stick in 1998 should have been an obvious flaw. I remember thinking it was weird when I was eight years old. It is a step backwards after experiencing two sticks on the PS1. But actually the more baffling decision is to go from 8 action buttons on the Saturn down to 6 on the Dreamcast. The six face buttons were Sega's thing. They should have kept the six face buttons.
I think they should've added hardware sprite scaling to the Genesis video chipset. A lot of the early super scaler ports would've benefitted from it, and it probably wouldn't have increased the price that much.
The Genesis architecture was actually upgradable, could've run the 16.67MHz 68010 (more than 3x faster on tight loops), up to 2MB of RAM (256KB realistically), 128KB of VRAM, an 8MHz Z80 with more audio RAM, and added a video mode showing thousands of colors. Existing games would run more smoothly and with less slowdown. The consumer-grade audio laser and 1x CD-ROM from the Sega CD cost almost nothing to add to the system but would've saved billions on game cart ROMs. And they could've put that out there at about the same time as the original Megadrive for about $60-80 more, marketed at the same time.
The problem was that Sega intended for the Genesis to be backwards compatible with the Master System during it's design phase. Believe it or not the Genesis VDP supports the same video modes as the Master System and is structured with similar layout along with integrated PSG sound chip. The difference is that the Genesis VDP has larger video memory, two background layers, a window/HUD layer, and two video resolutions of 320x240 and 256x240. But yeah the lack of sprite scaling and weak video encoder really held the system back tremendously. In hindsight I'm impressed developers created so many pseudo 3D effects like Batman & Robin despite it's shortcomings.
@@thedrunkmonkshow Right, but I'm saying that a Genesis 68010 could've had the original 128KB of VRAM, but added another mode with 256 out of 32,768 (like the 32X) to the VDP with hardware support for scaling/rotation and could've put up 3-5,000 textured polygons/sec, enough to do a downmake of Daytona USA.
I wish Sega had pushed Sega Channel harder. Saw it once at a friend's house and it was freaking amazing. Even the biggest games downloaded in seriously a minute or two. Would've been impossible for 32bit machines bc of storage and 90s internet speeds.
1992 -Release the model 2 Genesis -Release a dual Sega CD/Genesis console -Release a revised Game Gear board with power optimization -Push CD games and Game Gear portability, acquire action/scifi movie licenses -Longer games on CD, arcade style for Game Gear We're gonna phase out the Genesis completely by late 93
Ego was a big killer for Sega, they had everything to be the best, Dreamcast was a PS one killer, but they had one to many screw ups starting after the 32x and the fights between regions just did it for them. I really love my Genesis, but once they come out with the 32x I went on for new consoles. Really wanted the Dreamcast to live up to Genesis conquers.
By the way I'm from Brazil and TecToy handled all Sega products here, they had a crazy marketing even for Saturn and Dreamcast, but what ever goes on in America will severely harm us, not saying it was SOA's fault, but there was no ego between Tectoy and SOJ, they used to sit down and try to peacefully convince Japan of launch of region products, heck they even got that shit show Street Fighter for Master system, Tectoy sold me a brand new Genesis in 2017, they had great marketing and strategies, wish SOA and SOJ could have agreed starting at the Dreamcast...
@@dsarquezI feel the same way about Sega in Europe. Different marketing, different catalogue, had a higher market share compared to Nintendo than SoA managed with both the Master System and the Mega Drive. Plus the home computer market remained huge for gaming and increased awareness of the Sega brand through the arcade ports. But we had to sit on the sidelines and watch SoA make terrible decisions while Japan just ignored us.
@@Banderpop exactly, I believe you are from Europe, we share the same point of view, I went from a Master system directly to the Genesis, didn't even care about Nintendo, but after the 32x I started seeing a struggle from Sega to make up their minds. I left Sega and got a N64 back in the 90s. I guess Europe and South America had a better understanding of Sega than SOA and SOJ.
1. Saturn being backwards compatible with MD/CD/32X. 2. Dreamcast being backwards compatible with Saturn, Sega CD. 3. Dreamcast having a memory expansion slot to upgrade memory from 16 MB main ram 8 MB video ram to 24 or 32 MB main and 12 or 16 MB video ram making Naomi games and games like GTA more easily portable to the Dreamcast. 3. Dreamcast optional first party controllers. 6 button layout pads and dual analog controllers. 4. Optional Dreamcast external storage. (Not the Zip drive). 5. Ethernet adapter shipped with Dreamcast once it became affordable enough. 6. Dreamcast that accepted VMU larger than 128kB 7. Dreamcast with Component output capability.
I think Nights on the Saturn should have been a Sonic game. Swap out the jester for Super Sonic, and the balls with rings. Make it a little bit faster, and we have a good candidate for a Saturn Sonic game.
Cannot disagree with you enough on the Dreamcast controller. I love that thing to death. Feels really comfortable in my hands. While the lack of the second analogue stick sucks, it's really the only gripe I have with it.
There were a few places where they went wrong, in my opinion 1. The Sega CD. I know some people in the comments will rag on me for this, but I don't think the world was ready for CD based gaming just yet. For some of us, it was a struggle for our parents to get us a Genesis! There was no way they were going to pay for this extra piece of equipment 2. The 32X shouldn't have been a thing. With the Sega Saturn already on deck, money and marketing should have gone into making the Sega Saturn launch great instead of creating an unnecessary holdover 3. Sega Saturn should have had more Sega IPs. What is one thing we notice about Nintendo with each console? Their IPs tend to get a new game along with it. While the Saturn did give us a new Shinobi title. There should have been focus on a brand new Sonic Game, a new Alex Kidd, maybe? A new Altered Beast title? How about a Streets of Rage 4 or a port of Golden Axe: Revenge of Death Adder on the Saturn? Or even a Space Harrier 3? There should have also been a 32-Bit Comix Zone title for the Saturn available!
Had the Saturn been backwards compatible with the Genesis, I would have bought it without question. The four-buttom face buttons to replace the six-button pads was such a terrible decision. Great video.
They should've released Sega CD games on Saturn. Stuff like Snatcher, Popful Mail, and Sonic CD. Most people didn't own a Sega CD so these games would've been a new experience for many. Plus the Saturn would actually have a proper Sonic game at launch.
@2:21 whoa - i had no idea the PS IV cart was 100 bucks! I think I’m still sticker shocked by when the original phantasy star (on the SMS!) was like 70 or 80 bucks at Toys R Us! (i’m pretty sure it was this game - I just remember games climbing to a territory way beyond my lawnmower budget lol)
Great points. Backward compatibility was one topic of interest when I decided to move on from Super Nintendo in 1995. I debated whether to purchase a Saturn or Playstation. I never owned Sega CD, but there was a handful of games that I really wanted, so I asked a Best Buy salesperson if the Saturn was backwards compatible with those games. Since it wasn't, I went with Playstation.
You definitely have a point with the Saturn advertising. Also i remember the commercial for Nights, they made it look real edgy. I loved the game but was like “this is nothing like how they made it look”.
More robust use of 16-bit enhancement chips would've been awesome & backwards compatibility for Genesis & 32X carts on the Saturn I think would've really helped make up for their mistakes & many fans probably would've stuck around. Great video
In regards to the Saturn being able to play Genesis cartridges; you reminded me of the lost Sega Jupiter. It was basically meant to be a Sega Saturn that relied on cartridges instead of CDs. I imagine they choose not to go with backwards compatibility on the Saturn due to potential complexity. The cartridge slot already has to be able to work with RAM expansion.
It still blows my mind how Saturn's cartridge slot was not compatible with Genesis games. It's right frickin' there! It was a slap in the face to those who invested so much money into the Genesis ecosystem with the Sega CD/32X
As far as my knowledge goes, the thing about enhancement chips was made by design on behalf of Nintendo. They had had success with it on the NES, so they essentially designed the SNES' architecture to be easier to work with extra chips on cartridges, something SEGA probably never thought they'd need in the first place 'cause the hardware was already somewhat potent for 1988. On that regard, apparently it's actually kinda hard to develop for the Mega Drive with the addition of extra chips. Not a wonder only Virtua Racing toyed with it back in the day and only Paprium have done so afterwards. But in hindsight, it's actually interesting to see that while it could've been something interesting for the Mega Drive in the past, it's working the other way around for both these consoles nowadays. Devs say it's really hard to actually do new stuff for the SNES, while the Mega Drive has been getting newer development kits - and more new games because of it - as we speak. I've heard people say that, despite being more modern, the SNES ended up being actually the worse overall machine in terms of what it could do on its own, and that's got a lot to do with the over-reliance on enhancement chips. I can't help but think if recent games like Demons Of Asteborg or Astebros would ever run on a SNES without any extra chip. Heck, even Xeno Crisis is now getting ported to the system _with_ the aid of an extra chip - something no other port of the game, including the Mega Drive one, had to do. *_TLDR: the Mega Drive wasn't designed for enhancement chips to be used with it, while the SNES was actually designed to be reliant on them._* Long explanation aside, the Saturn being retrocompatible with the MD _and_ the MCD would be wonderful, especially if the other idea of porting extra titles to the MCD were a thing.
As a Game Gear owner, you kept me hanging, not mentioning the atrocious battery life until the very end of the video. With the obscene price of batteries in the US at the time, I relegated to wall-wart, and thus making my portable not so much. Given the life of the system and breakneck tech improvements, I'm surprised me that they never issued a hardware revision to the GG.
I completely agree with you about the Dreamcast's controller. Another issue I have with it is that the trigger buttons are situated too low (at least for me) and have too much travel. I feel that many people like to gloss over the controller's flaws because of the VMU functionality and how it made the controller cool and unique. One thing I'll say though is that the Dreamcast controller has a pretty decent build quality. It feels quite solid and durable.
Thinking back to the SG-1000 and SC-3000 era, there was a mix of official Sega cartridge game releases that co-existed with a bunch of homebrew games sold on cassette tape by indie and bedroom coders. I wonder how different things would have gone if Sega had continued with their home computer aspirations and released the keyboard and floppy disk attachments for the Mega Drive, perhaps alongside a worldwide release of the Tera Drive. Would we have seen some amazing indie games released on floppy disk? A thriving demo scene like on the Amiga? Music artists releasing FM Synth compilations? It could have been a strange new world.
Sega of America either should have never bothered trying to redesign the Saturn gamepad or if they were going to be insistent on that, then have the shoulder buttons be more like they are on the Mark 2 controller and retain the Japanese styled rocker d-pad. I also feel they should have come up with the 3D controller sooner; that way more games could have taken advantage of it.
Lock-On Technology (S3+S&K) was something else that Sega only used just once. They could have also use "enhanced audio" CDs for Genesis games if you had a Sega CD with arcade perfect audio for arcade ports. An example of this was done for the game Pier Solar by Watermelon.
Btw, a japanese youtuber named maro suzuki made a rendition for the arcade Detana Twinbee OST into a XGM Driver for the Mega Drive. (This is probably the closest thing were getting for arcade perfect audio. Let's hope for the best.)
In seriousness, instead of the 32x, I wish they had sold a "Sega CD, CDless dongle". That way you could buy the add on cpu and get graphic scaling and rotation on normal cart games if you had the dongle. Every Saturn game should have had a cart + cd. Then it would be copy protection + fast access for key game code and files.
This straddles the line between a big change and a little change, but its a thought I've had a lot: I wish they made the Saturn compatible with 32X cartridges right off the bat. Now before you kill me let me explain. The Saturn technically has all or most of the guts of the 32X inside it already, and even though some Genesis guts would still probably be required, that 68000 on the board (which I just learned about, fun fact) would definitely help. And hey this also would bring Genesis compatibility to the table. My main thinking with this is that Sega would at least no longer have two completely different 32-bit systems to support at the same time; with some cross-compatibilty, owners of one or the other would have access to both libraries and be able to smoothly transistion over whenever they wanted by at least trading in their 32X for a discounted Saturn and still keeping their games. It could have vastly changed the outlook on what games the 32X got, getting far more titles with more depth and quality. And special modes could be programmed into the games to have Saturn enhancements! With all of that combined, it could have actually fulfilled the mission statement of the 32X, that being "a 32-bit system for those on a budget"! Taking this even further would be having Saturn games actually playable on the 32X, albiet running worse, but further joining the two libraries and actually giving consumers a real option on what 32-bit system they wanted. Since the 32X doesn't have a dedicated 3D chip but the Saturn does, maybe playing on 32X vs Saturn could have been like software rendering vs hardware acceleration on PC games of the time. Which might have worked and not be so bad for developers to implement. Though this is now leaning into a big change and would also require actual coordination between SoJ and SoA. Now, the 32X was still an bad idea from the get-go, and this still would have split Sega's market to some degree, and consumed more reasources than necessary, but if the 32X was going to happen, HAD to happen, this might have made it sting a lot less and make a little more sense. Even if the carts needed that $50 Genesis compatibility adapter that Sega Lord X talked about here, being able to plug a 32X cart in that with no other accessories would be really nice. Anyway, that's just a thought. A long thought.
Giving the Saturn the ability to play genesis games would have been genius. In fact I think they would've pulled it off without any adapter at all since they already combined almost everything into a single chip by the time the Saturn came out. They probably could've used their custom chip from the model 2 and just slap it on the board after shifting some chips around.
Megadrive was designed to be expandable. In fact, an early iteration (pre-Sega CD launch) would've given it a 68EC020 (like SoA wanted) more RAM, and the same VDP but with a high color mode. That would've played all of the existing Genesis games and been a much better option as a 32-bit standalone CD-based system than the Sega CD.
What I think Sega should've done (though my opinions may vary overtime): 1. Backwards compatibility with Genesis and Sega CD games on Saturn with an adapter. 2. Backwards compatibility with Saturn games on Dreamcast. 3. A Game Gear adapter for the Genesis so as to play GG games on TV (I'd call it the Mega Game Gear). 4. Port big-selling Genesis games to Sega CD 5. Less complex architecture for the Saturn. 6. Either release the 32X as a standalone console instead of as an add-on, or just forget the 32X completely. Just a few examples. Oh, and I made a video on a few things I wished Nintendo had done differently, taking inspiration from this video. I plan on doing one for Atari.
In USA have SMS games in a Genesis cart, so some of the gems could be played. To make a different version of a game when making a SMS games of a Genesis games, then have them in a Genesis cart also. To make the Game Gear just a portable SMS, then all games could be played on the Genesis. To have some old ports of great older games to the SMS. Activision,, KC Munchkin. Then they still could be played on the Genesis.
Until this video I never realized Sony had released the Dual Shock that much ahead of Sega releasing the Dreamcast. I would LOVE to hear an explanation from former Sega people about hiw that decision ended up coming to pass. While I was initially wowed by the Dreamcast controller as a teenager, I can absolutely see how something as simple as the lack of dual analog stick could have steered an sizeable amount of people towards the PlayStation instead of the Dreamcast, especially if they weren't "gamers" who had more information than just "Which one has more sticks?"...
Something semi-major, I will go to my grave wishing Sega had followed Namco's lead and added 1P content to home ports of Virtua Fighter....not all of us had friends who liked fighting games. Something very minor that could easily be fixed, in VF it always bothered me that the opponent never makes a noise when they get hit. It's super minor, but it adds to the immersion, even if it's just a KO sound. It's always made the end of the round kind of anticlimactic for me, throw someone and you just hear "thud, KO".
11:22 Yeah, I play a lot of Dead or Alive 2, Fighting Vipers 2, Daytona USA 2001, and just Dreamcast emulation in general using the modern Xbox Controllers. Forgot how awkward the real DC pads were, lol.
One thing I wish say good deal for early Genesis Westport more of their arcade backlog. Having shinobi and space hairier would’ve been awesome. And I mean as far as the ladder goes sure that’s fixed now but I personally believe having them then what made it even better
