The idea of a "blood moon" serving as an omen of the coming of the end times comes from the Book of Joel, where it is written "the sun will turn into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible demise of Sega begins". (and that folks, is how you create a back story for slapping a picture of the red moon, in place of Mars, after 6 coffees, at 3am)
I agree that the 32x did its job, and had the potential to have its own fully fledged legacy and longer lifespan if Sega had held onto it a little longer and not be stupid with how they handled the Saturn's release, but I have another thought: I think Sega should've released the 32x as the Mars/Neptune from moment one, had it be compatible with the CD through the same connection, and lowered the price of the Genesis/MD model 2 as to offer it as the budget-minded alternative. This way, they could've pushed the 32x as a true upgrade from the 16-bit console, showing how it was fully backwards compatible with the games, controllers and addons, and still have people excited for the Saturn. I say this because this is exactly what Sega did with the release of the Mega Drive in Europe (and similarly in NA), offering the Power Base Converter for those who upgrade, and the then-roughly-two-years-old Master System as the budget alternative.
BLATANT LIE ... Billy Joel never said something like that. He just said that a bad moon would be rising over Nintendon't, referring to the prophecies of the ancient apostles of credence clearwater & revival. Seems you are either a heretic or worse one of those evil devious Mario-worshiping cultists, but not a true believer. All praise the Lord and Sonic his harbinger. Hallelujah and cheers.
Honestly on a tube TV of the time, especially a small one, VHS looks great still. On a small set you can barely tell the difference from a live TV signal, and even on a bigger screen with much a Sony tube in it you can see the difference but without a side-by-side comparison you won’t really notice too much, and the VHS quality is more than good enough I think. It’s only after 20 years of TVs with poor scaling chips that gave it a bad rap, modern screens need to scale the signal to match the output resolution which blurs it a bunch and creates some artefacts, and most scaler chips really mess up the colours of VHS, if you put VHS on even a small flatscreen it usually looks really bad. Luckily in recent years scalers have improved, especially improving the colours which makes it looks a lot less bad.
Being 59 years young now, I have spent allot of my life watching video games evolve. I love your nostalgic videos. They remind me of good times! I had a genesis with the CD player hooked on to it. At the time, the 32x was just too little, would have taken up too much space (with the cd), and too expensive. As you pointed out, whole new systems loomed on the market so I just decided to wait.
I'm one of those faithful few 32X fans...... In fact, I purchased the Mega CD and 32X on launch day and don't remember ever meeting anyone else who had either of them for years after. Great job on your coverage of one of my favorite systems.
ChaosEmerald85 true but the possibility was there, the 3DO might have posed more of a threat if it was cheaper and the Atari also if any developers of any note had made games for it!
ChaosEmerald85 Why? I was there, in the industry, those machines were legitimate threats, on paper at least. What killed both those machines was poor tools, bad decisions. The hardware is more than capable. I'm so tired of Millennial revisionist histories.
The 3DO was a legitimate console contender with huge buzz and critical acclaim for a hot minute. And while it didn't end up translating it's promise into mass appeal, it still had a good run and developed a cult following. The Jaguar, on the other hand, poor thing. I really wanted to root for it, but while the hardware was powerful, it was too wacky for programmers to invest the time to make decent games for it.
Don't usually comment on videos but your system story's are absolutely top notch, informative and entertaining. So good to discover the background of the systems I grew up playing and loving. Seriously thank you so much for making these really appreciate your time and hard work!
Just wanted to let you know that I consider this channel the gold standard for retro computing information, and I really appreciate these videos. Keep up the good work!
I loved the 32X back in the day, and I remember getting mine when my local K-Mart here in the US had dropped the units down to $70.00 US around Oct./Nov. 95 I was able to talk my mother into getting me one, with the games having dropped down to around $20-$25 each,, and I got Doom, Virtual Fighter, Space Harrier, and Metal Head(never did like this one that much) with the system. She called it a late birthday gift, and early Christmas gift. but only a few years later in late 99 along with my Genesis I sold it all off to a Co work at the corner store I was working at like a total idiot, to fund a gaming PC I was building at the time. Now to get it all back the prices are just stupidly insane even here ins US. Man If only I had a time machine to go back, and kick my younger self in the ass, and say keep more of your old games, computers, and consoles!!!
I'm more of an incredibly lucky one, since I was able to find some good consoles for a low price secondhand. I once found a Sega Mega Drive Model 1 at a charity shop here in Australia. It came in a Nuby case, with two controllers, and I only had to pay $5AU for it. I also once found a Model 2 Atari Lynx at that same charity shop later on, and that came with two games and a nifty carrying case. It only cost $5AU as well! And I even found a Panasonic Laserdisc player at that very same charity shop. It was in working condition, and even though it cost $60AU, that was a good enough investment for me.
Similar story here. In 1996 an Aussie retailer put the 32X on special for around $20 AUD with Doom as a pack-in game. I camped out and bought two, then sold my entire MegaDrive collection in 1997 for a few hundred bucks to build a PC. Regrets!
Great video. I really appreciated how you didn't "pile on" the 32x like most other RUclips channels have. Most of which likely weren't even of gaming age (or even alive!) when the 32x was released. Good job.
Fantastic episode. Always love hearing some positive talk about the 32X as opposed to pieces that pull it apart and spit on it. It is what it is, and the history behind it is pretty interesting.
Seems like all of this could have been avoided if they made the Saturn backwards compatible with the Mega Drive / 32X. After all, the genesis was backwards compatible with the Master System.
No it wouldn't. Because the game DEVs should have to choose between the 2 systems to program, and they would choose to make for Saturn. And for the price of the games, it was a better deal to buy for Saturn. Modifying your idea to work: The Saturn games should play on 32X, and 32X + SegaCD being cheaper. Because with this the 32X would have the same library as Saturn, and the people that couldn't afford a Saturn could still buy and play the games. Of course for the Saturn be compatible with 32X: the SegaCD should be mandatory, the 32X be capable to output the same number of polygons, and the 32X be worse in resolution, colors, textures to save money from the video memory and processor. Saturn and 32X should be build in mind (including the software to program) to be at sell at the same time. This is a strategy to sell cheaper for some people, and expensive for others. Beating the playstation at price. This is not the only away that I think it would work.
@@luisff7030 The idea is not so much that developers would continue to target the 32X, which I don't think they would have. However, it could have allowed Sega to save face by providing an off ramp for devs that invested in the 32x and didn't have anyone to sell their product to.
@7MGTESupraTurboA The 32x was a far cheaper product. It shared the same CPU architecture, making forward compatability possible. And the Saturn had a 68k, which could have been repurposed for backwards compatibility to SMD.
I really miss Sega as a console maker.....the fights between sony and microsoft just don't hold a candle to the character and fun that Sega and Nintendo had.....
On one side, im glad... i just got a wiiU about a good year ago used and there are so many games on it i want to play - as well as on my ps4 pro i got as a blu ray player mostly... (sshhh im trying to see the bright side on my tough daily workload vs free time allowance) thus im actually glad that they dont release stuff so fast... But on the other hand im with you that.... some more competition at least in trying to best each other with their offerings.... right now it just looks like they arrived at a status quo so to say
@@davidpaskevic4276 replying to an old post but that rings ever so more now. PS5 and Xbox Series X are nearly identical minus some changes like a custom ssd module for PS5 and audio chip. Otherwise, both are AMD Ryzen processors and RDNA 2 GPU's.
I actually got one of these back in the day, plugged into my first generation Genesis with a Sega CD attached underneath it... A beast of a console at the time...
If Sega wanted to extend the life of the Mega Drive they should instead have supported developers to make awesome games, like Nintendo did with Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario Kart, Yoshi's Island, Starwing... This is coming from a Sega fan!
@@Mitjitsu Virtua Racing for the Mega Drive was way more impressive then anything the SuperFX chip was capable of, and that used their mostly forgotten "SVP" chip - no 32x needed. Sadly never really got much use other then that game, but they definitely could have extended the life of the system with enhancement chips like that rather then going mad with system addons. With it they probably could have produced a decently compelling port of Doom (better then the SNES version in any case) and perhaps a 4th Sonic game that could have pushed the system just as much as DKC and Yoshi's Island. They also could have managed the Sega CD a whole lot better - less FMV games and more stuff like Sonic CD. I guess the problem with Sega was that without a decent long term plan, all this hardware was just sent out to die. In some alternate timeline if they had essentially combined the CD and the 32x (or at least something like an integrated SVP chip) into a single product that would have essentially been the "Mega Drive 1.5", they could have had a really compelling product that would have held up until the 5th gen consoles arrived. But that would have been far too forward thinking for them at the time.
My brother had a nightmare with this system. Got it for christmas and it overheated after an hour of gameplay or so. We tried another unit but had the same problems so we got refunded. 9 months later he had a launch PS1 so it worked out well I suppose
I didn't have a 32x growing up but a buddy of mine did. I was a Nintendo kid so naturally it was my duty to tell him how stupid it was for the 32X to even exist, specially with the Saturn looming around the corner. In truth, I was just mighty jealous. After owning one as an adult I think I can safely say that the system, much like the Sega/Mega CD, is unfairly criticized. Both have some absolute gems on them. By the way, how strange is it that video game commercials from the 90s are both horribly annoying, over the top, and yet extremely engrossing and interesting to watch? I thought I knew everything there was to know about the 32X & its development but I learned quite a bit from this video. Great job as usual man.
Sega CD made sense as an add on but Sega did a poor job releasing games that would get consumers excited for it. 32X seemed like a resource drain and burned good will with consumers.
LMAO! The SEGA 32X is not unfairly criticized. It's complete dog shit. All of the 'gems' on the system are also available on other hardware. There is simply no need to even acquire one.
Great video, I really enjoyed it. Thanks for making it, it's nice to have an unbiased overview of an often overlooked or mocked piece of hardware. Thanks.
Great video. I still have my 32x. I was a rabid Sega fanboy growing up, and had every Sega console, even the shunned 32x. I didnt care for it that much but it did have a few decent games . i still prefer its MKII version.
Very well done! I love my 32X. It could have been the home for perfect arcade ports of Sega 32 bit arcade games like Super Monaco GP and Rad Mobile. If even cleans up Genesis/ Mega Drive video. If any third party made new games for the system or completed unreleased games I know I would be on board with that. Again, job well done.
I almost forgot this video was out. I saw it on my subscribed list but we were getting ready to go on holiday. I'm now watching this in the hotel after it coming up on my recent upload list. Great video mate. Love your work
In hindsight, Sega should’ve just held on with the Megadrive and concentrated on shit hot software for it. That way, they could focus more fully on getting the Saturn hardware on point. They should’ve also made sure the Saturn was backwards compatible with the Megadrive to ensure continuity for its user base.
Yeah hindsight is 20/20 but it's interesting to speculate. I'm guessing the craze about "bits" played a strong role here; "16 bits" was probably seen as old hat with the advent of 32-bit consoles (most of which ultimately failed) in the early '90s. Your suggestion might have really been the wise choice, but the marketing dept would have strongly objected to _not_ going "32-bit" asap. My guess.
Totally agree, the Mega Drive was still fairly popular in some regions. I had and played mine until 1998 when we got an OG PlayStation, and a lot of families did the same to ensure they could afford them. The Mega Drive was really starting to be pushed by developers at the end of its lifecycle, with games like Virtua Racing, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Toy Story, Kawasaki Superbikes, The Lost World: Jurassic Park and more, showing that the console could still do great 2p experiences, pseudo 3D graphics, and interesting gameplay at a much more affordable price (minus VR, which was £70 in release!).
I bought a 32x in 96 as a 12 year old. I could only afford the add-on, no game. Bought the add-on, saved for weeks and weeks to get a game and by the time I had enough cash no games were in my local stores any more 😫
My memory of the 32X is tied to the Virtual Boy due to me finding them both at the same time on clearance for around $35 in a store that itself had no more than a few years of life left before being bought out by a competitor who would themselves fold shortly after. It's all a symphony of failure.
Another really interesting video that helped put things into perspective from my teenage memories. I can remember being busy chasing down Mega-CD games and not being too bothered about playing a 32X. I had already played Doom to death on the PC and I wasn't interested in playing Virtua Racing again. I was really into my sport games and my eye was on the Saturn, as everyone else probably was. But in fact it was the playstation that sold me the next 5 years of gaming with Ridge Racer. Thanks buddy, I really enjoyed taking another trip down memory lane.
I don't know about everyone but in my school it was the Saturn that was making the headlines before release. Sega had pretty much dominated the households of kids in my school with the Megadrive and they anticipated the Saturn to be the next great thing. I remember reading a magazine comparing Daytona with Ridge Racer and it convinced me to go down to Blockbuster Video to rent Sony's machine just after release. By the time Christmas had come around, all of the other kids had erased the Saturn from their wishlist and were nagging their parents for Playstations.
I'm a big fan of the 32x - it took me eons to finally find a PAL one for less than $200 AUD, found one fully boxed and in gorgeous condition in a second hand store for just shy of $80 back in 2005. Now I have a Super 32X (JP model) for my JP MD1 as well that I scored on Yahoo Japan. Slowly but surely I'm trying to amass a complete game library, too. It was such an interesting kit to me, and I love a lot of unique additions it makes (such as its sound! Holy gods it's such a small tweak but some of the output it could do was so cool!) I'll forever put up a fight for the cute little 'shroom. I am forever sad though about Doom's soundtrack. Mostly because we know the Super 32X set up for it would've allowed for much better music, but the dev was so rushed they more or less whacked Bobby Prince's original midis through it without actually making architecture appropriate music.
Dunno if anyone mentions this very often.. But these videos are professional as hell and even more than the thoughtful content the thoughtful production quality is what appeals to me. Trust that your extra work to produce something of Professional production quality is noticed.
Hey man I really enjoy your videos and have been watching many...thanks for the screen flash warning. I get so upset when media (movies, tv shows, whatever) has this effect that can be dangerous to so many people. I appreciate it.
Thanks for making this!! I’m excited to watch it. The 32x gets a lot of criticism, some of it deserved, but i have really fond memories of mine. I’m big on graphical perfection, and the improved Mortal Kombat and Virtua games, along with some of their other offerings were really great.
I love the 32x, thats why i recently bought a second as a back up and it was only £90 with After Burner and Doom which i already had so sold it on for £25 making my purchase even sweeter! Ive been in many a debate about the 32X in the comment sections on youtube, so many people knock it and i just don't understand why, quite often they have never even owned or played on one! i always say that Sega would have been better off making some kind of SVP add on instead of the 32x, at a cost of around £40 and that would have been enough to keep the Megadrive competitive until the Saturn arrived or the second option was to hold back a year on the Saturn, see what the competition is like and possibly change hardware specs on the saturn to be superior than other machines on the market, 16bit hardware still outsold 32bit hardware for quite some time, there really was no rush! Anyway the 32x was what we got and it is an impressive bit of kit, games like Virtua Racing Deluxe, Virtua fighter, metal head and dark side really show how capable it was and given time we would have seen games even more impressive tham these!
When I was 12 my uncle gave me his old 32x along with Doom, Virtua Racing, and Star Wars Arcade. I have so many great memories with it. I still say it could have been something great if it was given more time or effort instead of a stopgap. Virtua Fighter shows what could have been. Great vid!
Great video. Always amazes me where you get all the old footage for these vids. I almost bought a 32X when they came out but I waited and bought the Saturn. Like you say, it was clever but also messy at the same time. A very odd console. Nice one mate.
This is the sort of content you should start doing again Peter it is a great source of History and information and you are very very good and presenting this sort of content
I would’ve killed for one of these too in the 90s I expect if I was around back then, the super scaler ports were epic, I absolutely love Space Harrier and Afterburner II, and the 32x ports were the best you could get until the Saturn port much later. They ran at half the framerate of the arcade and Afterburner had some slowdown, but they looked incredible, nearly arcade perfect, and played really well still. I would’ve loved to get a 32x just for them. If Sega really pushed the sprite scaling capabilities and released Outrun and Galaxy Force and similar super scaler games it might’ve been a lot more impressive, considering how crap most Mega Drive ports of Super Scalers were. The whole 40 times the power thing was hard to see on most games due to the hardware’s design flaws, but the super scalers showed it off for sure.
This is the best review of the 32X I've seen on RUclips. Rather than just saying it's a shit machine and then taking a complete dump on it, you've given some real history. Plus, the idea of what could have been. It's like the Kinect for the Xbox. It sounds good but the execution wasn't. If things were done better, one could imagine what could have come from it.
I had a Genesis , Sega CD , and 32X and my god was it a royal pain in the ass to my mother who had to deal with all those wires lol. I really enjoyed the Sega stuff , but I think I played my 3DO almost as much at that time. The mid 1990's were a glorious time to be a gamer
Mmmmm vitalite (that's right). It's a shame we never got that Neptune, I know the Saturn is considered a great 2D machine but a mid generation cart based all in one could have hit a sweet spot if they got it out sooner, instead of add ons. Ah well. At least we still have Vitalite.
I just realized....ive been watching your videos for ages....but was never subscribed......so....here you go....one more subscriber lol, love your stuff by the way....
I know this video is 4 years old, but my memories of the launch year Christmas with Doom 32x and Star Wars Arcade are still some of the fondest memories of my childhood.
11:00 It's not bizarre at all. Remember that today's adult gamers were kids back then, relying on their parents to buy them these systems. I know my parents were very concerned about backwards compatibility because they didn't want a bunch of plastic junk (cartridges) taking up space in the house if we couldn't use them anymore. If you look back far enough you'll even find adapters for ColecoVision that allow you to use Atari VCS cartridges. Imagine an adapter that allowed you to play PlayStation games on your Xbox. It was a real thing back then.
Awesome video. I think it is so telling that your outlook on the system as a fellow UK Sega fan is so similar to my own. My reasons for not getting one (as a twelve year old) were exactly the same as yours- the price mainly, and I have always felt gutted by how Sega of japan treated us loyal Sega fans in the UK especially, but also in the US, where they could have maintained dominance if it weren't for the jealousy of Sega Japan. Still- I've enjoyed many of the 32X games I've wanted to now, thanks to emulation, so I don't feel I've missed out too badly other than a slightly garish missing console in my otherwise complete Sega collection...
I absolutely love my 32x for one simple reason. It heavily cleans up the composite video of a stand-alone Genesis. The stand-alone Genesis has extremely severe vertical banding, and the 32x completely cleans it up. It's the best way to output video from your Genesis without RGB.
Indeed, 90 was an exciting time to live videogames.... Starting with nes graphics n finish it Dreamcast (n ps2?) Every 2 or 3 years we got something new to WOW...
Great episode. I remember seeing the 32x for around 30 bucks in the store once after the Saturn launch. My older brother tried to convince me to use our allowance to split it, but I said I wanted to instead wait and see if my parents were gonna buy me Nintendo's new console for my birthday. . . The virtual boy. Bad decision. I passed on a failed add-on for a failed. . . Whatever the virtual boy was.
The 32x was interesting, at least from my perspective in North America. It definitely felt like an in-the-middle solution. The Saturn was a little ways out from release and coming in at a heftier price tag, I seem to recall the idea from SoA was to have something as a less expensive upgrade for those who would be hesitant to buy into the Saturn and actually saw some minor storefront advertising comparing it to the power of a x86 based PC. What ultimately curbed my interest in the 32x, was actually having bought and enjoyed the SegaCD, which drastically changed what features I would want to see in console games. CD audio tracks, proper PCM audio, richer use of colors and detail within the Genesis specs, and FMV. Going back to cartridge based games was pretty hard to do and the selection of enhanced 32x-CD titles didn't grab my attention. So, I delayed and waited for the Saturn to come out, since it felt like the culmination of all the devices, was CD-drive based, and it would have concentrated support as a flagship system. All that said, I did have a friend who, through his connections, got a 32x and games into my hands, after its life cycle. It was nice, and I could see the potential. I thought it was neat in how it could overlay graphics over the Genesis VDP. I had hands-on comparison of my favorite FMV game, Supreme Warrior... and I would say that the video quality, through 90's eyes, was a definite improvement. Enough to see the wires that the actors used for a few of the acrobatic stunts.
Another awesome video, sir! I got my 32X for Christmas in 94. And you know what? I still love it. Ah, just imagine a world where the 32X was the bridge that skipped the Saturn and led to the Dreamcast? That would have been a nice world. Maybe we'd have modern SEGA consoles, and not just random crap for every other console...
Wow Afterburner. That was one of my favs back then. Drive past Sega UK every day in Brentwood London. With the big Sonic logo on the side of the building. What are they up to these days ?. Still enough to run a big office clearly.
I still remember when this came out, feels like yesterday. I also remember Dixon’s selling them off at £35 with 3 Games, even then you struggled to sell them
I remember wanting one of these so badly. I got the MD in 1990 and I used to buy all the sega magazines as a kid. I bought the hype and was dying to play Doom and Star Wars Arcade. I never did get it and I don't know anyone who did. It wasn't until years later that I got the inside scoop that the Saturn was hot on its heels which I think made the 32X pretty much hated then and probably now. This video brought me right back to being 11 though, salivating over Star Wars Stills in mags.
13:22 I understand the criticism of "Star Wars Arcade". It doesn't look better than "Super Star Wars" on the much less powerful SNES. I don't know about polygon counts but subjectively "Super Star Wars" looks better at least for the Death Star Trench scene (which is the only thing I compared). Also it resembles the movies better because "Star Wars Arcade" has a very strange rendering of the Death Star's trench.
I remember everyone talking about the 32X as bridging the gap before the new systems. None of the people I knew wanted a system adapter that was just a gap bridger.
As a sega fan, even I have to admit that the port of Doom was imperfect. I only ever used the 32X once and didn't have all the cables. I did have (no longer) Star wars 32X. If only PC makers could add a cart slot for SNES/Genesis titles
Is this BGM music from a Sega 32x game or is it a synth track from one of the artists listed in the description? I really like the sound of this music track!
Lol. That fragment of Sega advertising. There's no 32 bit Mega Drive/Genesis either. ;p Though if you're talking hypotheticals, the last known revision of the SNES CD specs called for it to include a cartridge containing 4 megabits of ROM and a 6502 just for CD buffer handling, and then also an NEC-V810 processor with another 8 megabits of RAM to itself. The NEC-V810 is a 32 bit processor that saw use in the PC-FX, and the Virtual boy. (Virtual boy had two of them.) It's purpose in the SNES CD specs was to replace the SuperFX in an earlier revision with a chip that behaved in a more conventional way and would be easier for developers to understand and work with. So... It was never made available, but a 32 bit SNES DID in fact exist on paper. ;p And given the abysmal sales and support of the 32x, I can't imagine it really matters. XD
The 32X would've been a great system if it wasn't caught in between the 16-bit and 32-bit wave. It really reminds me of the Cyrix 5x86: Not quite 486-class, not quite Pentium-class. Like the 5x86 which plugged into existing 486 boards for a bit of an upgrade, the 32X allowed you to use your existing Genesis while offering a glimpse of what's next. History has proven this concept to be a recipe for failure but I wish I was able to pick up some of these interesting 'in-between' products. But I was young back then and just like everyone else my attention was on the products making the headlines, which meant that these in-betweens were often overlooked.
One thing I don't hear being talked about, is how the Saturn's cartridge slot is for expanded memory and bypassing regional lockout, but not for Genesis/32X cartridges. Is it because adding said compatibility would have further bumped up the price tag of the Saturn... or would have made the console bulky... or they simply didn't consider that new Sega customers (those who didn't previously own a Genesis/MD) might be interested in backwards compatibility?
The Saturn's cartridge slot was never intended for region bypass, that was just something the grey market found they could take advantage of. Nor was it limited to expanded memory, although that was its most common use. There was also a MPEG decoder cartridge (which the Lunar games made use of) and a modem/keyboard add-on so you could dial into the internet and use a laughably useless browser. So why wasn't the cartridge slot pin-compatible to an already ancient 16-bit design spec? The question answers itself.
*CplEthane:* That was a lot about nothing. The question was... if Sega was planning on putting a cartridge slot in the Saturn, then why not backwards compatible, like the Neptune that didn't happen? Why not just incorporate it into the architecture? Was it too costly/difficult to do so? Were they trying to squeeze out a few more Genesis/MD customers before discontinuing their dated console? And yet, I am already familiar with the VCD cartridge that goes into the battery compartment. We're not discussing VCDs.
I worked at Toys R Us in the late 90s and I remember us having these on clearance for like $32.99. No one was buying them. This was also around the time we got the top loading Nintendo in stock for $50. I still kick myself for not buying the top loader.
I really feel like Sega made a bad choice here, I’m glad the 32x happened as I find it and the games fascinating, but it was definitely a mistake. Before they chose the 32x they considered going further with the SVP, they were going to release an SVP-cart with lock-on technology so you could plug future SVP-releases into the top without needing to include an SVP chip in each cartridge, which would mean they could sell SVP games at normal retail price unlike Virtua Racing which was a lot more expensive, but unfortunately this was all dropped in favour of 32x. If Sega had communicated better and Sega of America knew when the Saturn would be ready they would’ve realised that the 32x would be immediately replaced less than 6 months out of release, and in that case releasing further SVP games would’ve been a better choice, similar to the Super FX chip for the SNES. At one point they had prototypes of Virtua Fighter, Star Wars Arcade, and Daytona USA running on the SVP. Had they gone down that route, you would’ve had a roughly $30 SVP cart and then future SVP games could be released at a normal price, this smaller investment would’ve been less difficult to justify and could’ve easily filled the 1-2 year gap until Saturn without requiring a new addon. The only issue would be colours, Virtua Racing is limited to 16 colours. But I feel like they could’ve found a solution to that by splitting up the polygon rendering between multiple layers, as the 3D data was blasted into a background layer and that’s why it was limited to 16 colours.
The idea of a "blood moon" serving as an omen of the coming of the end times comes from the Book of Joel, where it is written "the sun will turn into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible demise of Sega begins".
(and that folks, is how you create a back story for slapping a picture of the red moon, in place of Mars, after 6 coffees, at 3am)
I agree that the 32x did its job, and had the potential to have its own fully fledged legacy and longer lifespan if Sega had held onto it a little longer and not be stupid with how they handled the Saturn's release, but I have another thought:
I think Sega should've released the 32x as the Mars/Neptune from moment one, had it be compatible with the CD through the same connection, and lowered the price of the Genesis/MD model 2 as to offer it as the budget-minded alternative. This way, they could've pushed the 32x as a true upgrade from the 16-bit console, showing how it was fully backwards compatible with the games, controllers and addons, and still have people excited for the Saturn. I say this because this is exactly what Sega did with the release of the Mega Drive in Europe (and similarly in NA), offering the Power Base Converter for those who upgrade, and the then-roughly-two-years-old Master System as the budget alternative.
BLATANT LIE ... Billy Joel never said something like that. He just said that a bad moon would be rising over Nintendon't, referring to the prophecies of the ancient apostles of credence clearwater & revival. Seems you are either a heretic or worse one of those evil devious Mario-worshiping cultists, but not a true believer. All praise the Lord and Sonic his harbinger. Hallelujah and cheers.
BTW: great video, I really like your historic "Story" videos on consoles
Im scared of the sun
Been cheaper? The 32X only cost $19.99 a year after launch. How much cheaper do you think it should have sold for?
Gotta love a time when "VHS quality video" was a marketing point.
Honestly on a tube TV of the time, especially a small one, VHS looks great still. On a small set you can barely tell the difference from a live TV signal, and even on a bigger screen with much a Sony tube in it you can see the difference but without a side-by-side comparison you won’t really notice too much, and the VHS quality is more than good enough I think.
It’s only after 20 years of TVs with poor scaling chips that gave it a bad rap, modern screens need to scale the signal to match the output resolution which blurs it a bunch and creates some artefacts, and most scaler chips really mess up the colours of VHS, if you put VHS on even a small flatscreen it usually looks really bad. Luckily in recent years scalers have improved, especially improving the colours which makes it looks a lot less bad.
@@justanotheryoutubechannel The DVD's on my big flat TV look like mediocre at best. When i play them on my CRT they look super awesome.
@@justanotheryoutubechannelI have a nice 27' Emerson flat screen CRT and a Panasonic VCR, tapes look pretty good on this combo.
Being 59 years young now, I have spent allot of my life watching video games evolve. I love your nostalgic videos. They remind me of good times!
I had a genesis with the CD player hooked on to it. At the time, the 32x was just too little, would have taken up too much space (with the cd), and too expensive. As you pointed out, whole new systems loomed on the market so I just decided to wait.
I'm one of those faithful few 32X fans...... In fact, I purchased the Mega CD and 32X on launch day and don't remember ever meeting anyone else who had either of them for years after. Great job on your coverage of one of my favorite systems.
I knew there were some out there. I'm glad you appreciated it!
Any machine that lets me play Supreme Warrior with better quality video is a winner in my book.
Jenovi one of the faithful few that could actually afford those
I loved my 32X, though I got it for $50 with Star Wars Arcade. At that price point, it's hard to be dissatisfied.
I had both, too. I traded the Frankenstein monster for a 486 PC with 4MB of RAM and a Sound Blaster, good times! Still have the Doom 32x cartridge.
In hindsight it's crazy to imagine Sega being afraid of the Jaguar or 3DO haha
ChaosEmerald85 true but the possibility was there, the 3DO might have posed more of a threat if it was cheaper and the Atari also if any developers of any note had made games for it!
ChaosEmerald85
Why? I was there, in the industry, those machines were legitimate threats, on paper at least. What killed both those machines was poor tools, bad decisions. The hardware is more than capable.
I'm so tired of Millennial revisionist histories.
Gorilla jones You're a Millenarial
Gorilla Jones you know what hindsight means right?
The 3DO was a legitimate console contender with huge buzz and critical acclaim for a hot minute. And while it didn't end up translating it's promise into mass appeal, it still had a good run and developed a cult following.
The Jaguar, on the other hand, poor thing. I really wanted to root for it, but while the hardware was powerful, it was too wacky for programmers to invest the time to make decent games for it.
Don't usually comment on videos but your system story's are absolutely top notch, informative and entertaining. So good to discover the background of the systems I grew up playing and loving. Seriously thank you so much for making these really appreciate your time and hard work!
Just wanted to let you know that I consider this channel the gold standard for retro computing information, and I really appreciate these videos. Keep up the good work!
I loved the 32X back in the day, and I remember getting mine when my local K-Mart here in the US had dropped the units down to $70.00 US around Oct./Nov. 95 I was able to talk my mother into getting me one, with the games having dropped down to around $20-$25 each,, and I got Doom, Virtual Fighter, Space Harrier, and Metal Head(never did like this one that much) with the system. She called it a late birthday gift, and early Christmas gift. but only a few years later in late 99 along with my Genesis I sold it all off to a Co work at the corner store I was working at like a total idiot, to fund a gaming PC I was building at the time. Now to get it all back the prices are just stupidly insane even here ins US. Man If only I had a time machine to go back, and kick my younger self in the ass, and say keep more of your old games, computers, and consoles!!!
Seriously? I didn't realize sega 32x, megadrive and their games were expensive.
Luckily, I've still kept hold of legend of dragoon an suikoden for the ps1.
I'm more of an incredibly lucky one, since I was able to find some good consoles for a low price secondhand. I once found a Sega Mega Drive Model 1 at a charity shop here in Australia. It came in a Nuby case, with two controllers, and I only had to pay $5AU for it. I also once found a Model 2 Atari Lynx at that same charity shop later on, and that came with two games and a nifty carrying case. It only cost $5AU as well! And I even found a Panasonic Laserdisc player at that very same charity shop. It was in working condition, and even though it cost $60AU, that was a good enough investment for me.
Similar story here. In 1996 an Aussie retailer put the 32X on special for around $20 AUD with Doom as a pack-in game. I camped out and bought two, then sold my entire MegaDrive collection in 1997 for a few hundred bucks to build a PC. Regrets!
Same here, it was actually pretty good for certain games.
Great video. I really appreciated how you didn't "pile on" the 32x like most other RUclips channels have. Most of which likely weren't even of gaming age (or even alive!) when the 32x was released. Good job.
Thanks for another top quality informative video 👍🏻
Fantastic episode. Always love hearing some positive talk about the 32X as opposed to pieces that pull it apart and spit on it. It is what it is, and the history behind it is pretty interesting.
Seems like all of this could have been avoided if they made the Saturn backwards compatible with the Mega Drive / 32X. After all, the genesis was backwards compatible with the Master System.
No it wouldn't. Because the game DEVs should have to choose between the 2 systems to program, and they would choose to make for Saturn. And for the price of the games, it was a better deal to buy for Saturn.
Modifying your idea to work:
The Saturn games should play on 32X, and 32X + SegaCD being cheaper.
Because with this the 32X would have the same library as Saturn, and the people that couldn't afford a Saturn could still buy and play the games.
Of course for the Saturn be compatible with 32X: the SegaCD should be mandatory, the 32X be capable to output the same number of polygons, and the 32X be worse in resolution, colors, textures to save money from the video memory and processor.
Saturn and 32X should be build in mind (including the software to program) to be at sell at the same time.
This is a strategy to sell cheaper for some people, and expensive for others. Beating the playstation at price.
This is not the only away that I think it would work.
@@luisff7030 The idea is not so much that developers would continue to target the 32X, which I don't think they would have. However, it could have allowed Sega to save face by providing an off ramp for devs that invested in the 32x and didn't have anyone to sell their product to.
Yes!
@7MGTESupraTurboA The 32x was a far cheaper product. It shared the same CPU architecture, making forward compatability possible. And the Saturn had a 68k, which could have been repurposed for backwards compatibility to SMD.
@@ImHereFindMe thought the Saturn had a RISC processor?
I really miss Sega as a console maker.....the fights between sony and microsoft just don't hold a candle to the character and fun that Sega and Nintendo had.....
On one side, im glad... i just got a wiiU about a good year ago used and there are so many games on it i want to play - as well as on my ps4 pro i got as a blu ray player mostly... (sshhh im trying to see the bright side on my tough daily workload vs free time allowance) thus im actually glad that they dont release stuff so fast... But on the other hand im with you that.... some more competition at least in trying to best each other with their offerings.... right now it just looks like they arrived at a status quo so to say
I agree both on the main comment as well as Axonteers remark. 👍
Not exactly a surprise when both consoles are just repackaged x86 PCs running repackaged PC OSes.
@@davidpaskevic4276 replying to an old post but that rings ever so more now. PS5 and Xbox Series X are nearly identical minus some changes like a custom ssd module for PS5 and audio chip. Otherwise, both are AMD Ryzen processors and RDNA 2 GPU's.
Agree even now , I bought a PS5 and Xbox SX, I still miss SEGA...their attitude and games.
I actually got one of these back in the day, plugged into my first generation Genesis with a Sega CD attached underneath it... A beast of a console at the time...
Your videos are so well thought out and done. One of the best on RUclips!!!!
The Sega tech demo looks amazing for the time...such as shame what happened.
I very much enjoyed this!! Hardly any vids on 32X this detailed. Well done!!
If Sega wanted to extend the life of the Mega Drive they should instead have supported developers to make awesome games, like Nintendo did with Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario Kart, Yoshi's Island, Starwing... This is coming from a Sega fan!
Without an add on device. There's no way the Mega Drive could rival games like them.
@@Mitjitsu Virtua Racing for the Mega Drive was way more impressive then anything the SuperFX chip was capable of, and that used their mostly forgotten "SVP" chip - no 32x needed. Sadly never really got much use other then that game, but they definitely could have extended the life of the system with enhancement chips like that rather then going mad with system addons. With it they probably could have produced a decently compelling port of Doom (better then the SNES version in any case) and perhaps a 4th Sonic game that could have pushed the system just as much as DKC and Yoshi's Island.
They also could have managed the Sega CD a whole lot better - less FMV games and more stuff like Sonic CD. I guess the problem with Sega was that without a decent long term plan, all this hardware was just sent out to die. In some alternate timeline if they had essentially combined the CD and the 32x (or at least something like an integrated SVP chip) into a single product that would have essentially been the "Mega Drive 1.5", they could have had a really compelling product that would have held up until the 5th gen consoles arrived. But that would have been far too forward thinking for them at the time.
@@Mitjitsu ummm have you seen the visuals in Vectorman? That game looks just as impressive of DKC.
@@camulodunon umm Vectorman is also on the Mega Drive.
@@gamingnubs7628 yeah, I am talking about the Genesis/MD.
My brother had a nightmare with this system. Got it for christmas and it overheated after an hour of gameplay or so. We tried another unit but had the same problems so we got refunded. 9 months later he had a launch PS1 so it worked out well I suppose
I didn't have a 32x growing up but a buddy of mine did. I was a Nintendo kid so naturally it was my duty to tell him how stupid it was for the 32X to even exist, specially with the Saturn looming around the corner. In truth, I was just mighty jealous. After owning one as an adult I think I can safely say that the system, much like the Sega/Mega CD, is unfairly criticized. Both have some absolute gems on them. By the way, how strange is it that video game commercials from the 90s are both horribly annoying, over the top, and yet extremely engrossing and interesting to watch? I thought I knew everything there was to know about the 32X & its development but I learned quite a bit from this video. Great job as usual man.
bullshit... i remember lots of people showing off the Japanese saturn early in the US... THAT was the real deal.
Sega CD made sense as an add on but Sega did a poor job releasing games that would get consumers excited for it. 32X seemed like a resource drain and burned good will with consumers.
LMAO! The SEGA 32X is not unfairly criticized. It's complete dog shit. All of the 'gems' on the system are also available on other hardware. There is simply no need to even acquire one.
Great video, I really enjoyed it. Thanks for making it, it's nice to have an unbiased overview of an often overlooked or mocked piece of hardware. Thanks.
Great video. I still have my 32x. I was a rabid Sega fanboy growing up, and had every Sega console, even the shunned 32x. I didnt care for it that much but it did have a few decent games . i still prefer its MKII version.
Very well done! I love my 32X. It could have been the home for perfect arcade ports of Sega 32 bit arcade games like Super Monaco GP and Rad Mobile. If even cleans up Genesis/ Mega Drive video. If any third party made new games for the system or completed unreleased games I know I would be on board with that. Again, job well done.
I almost forgot this video was out. I saw it on my subscribed list but we were getting ready to go on holiday. I'm now watching this in the hotel after it coming up on my recent upload list. Great video mate. Love your work
Made sure I watched all the intra-ads without skipping any, because this video is great. Good job Nerd!
Well that's mighty kind. Thanks :D
In hindsight, Sega should’ve just held on with the Megadrive and concentrated on shit hot software for it. That way, they could focus more fully on getting the Saturn hardware on point. They should’ve also made sure the Saturn was backwards compatible with the Megadrive to ensure continuity for its user base.
Even created updated straight forward SDK so more developers can push the system to its limits during 94 along with the sega cd.
Yeah hindsight is 20/20 but it's interesting to speculate.
I'm guessing the craze about "bits" played a strong role here; "16 bits" was probably seen as old hat with the advent of 32-bit consoles (most of which ultimately failed) in the early '90s.
Your suggestion might have really been the wise choice, but the marketing dept would have strongly objected to _not_ going "32-bit" asap. My guess.
Totally agree, the Mega Drive was still fairly popular in some regions. I had and played mine until 1998 when we got an OG PlayStation, and a lot of families did the same to ensure they could afford them.
The Mega Drive was really starting to be pushed by developers at the end of its lifecycle, with games like Virtua Racing, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Toy Story, Kawasaki Superbikes, The Lost World: Jurassic Park and more, showing that the console could still do great 2p experiences, pseudo 3D graphics, and interesting gameplay at a much more affordable price (minus VR, which was £70 in release!).
Exactly, they had the SVP chip and could have kept working on that.
I bought a 32x in 96 as a 12 year old. I could only afford the add-on, no game.
Bought the add-on, saved for weeks and weeks to get a game and by the time I had enough cash no games were in my local stores any more 😫
That's awful, I'm sorry to hear that if it was allowance, if you actually worked for it, I'm very sorry.
My memory of the 32X is tied to the Virtual Boy due to me finding them both at the same time on clearance for around $35 in a store that itself had no more than a few years of life left before being bought out by a competitor who would themselves fold shortly after. It's all a symphony of failure.
It only worked if you had the metal clips that were in the cartridge slot before you put the 32X in
A lot of people don’t know that
Another really interesting video that helped put things into perspective from my teenage memories. I can remember being busy chasing down Mega-CD games and not being too bothered about playing a 32X. I had already played Doom to death on the PC and I wasn't interested in playing Virtua Racing again. I was really into my sport games and my eye was on the Saturn, as everyone else probably was. But in fact it was the playstation that sold me the next 5 years of gaming with Ridge Racer. Thanks buddy, I really enjoyed taking another trip down memory lane.
I don't know about everyone but in my school it was the Saturn that was making the headlines before release. Sega had pretty much dominated the households of kids in my school with the Megadrive and they anticipated the Saturn to be the next great thing. I remember reading a magazine comparing Daytona with Ridge Racer and it convinced me to go down to Blockbuster Video to rent Sony's machine just after release. By the time Christmas had come around, all of the other kids had erased the Saturn from their wishlist and were nagging their parents for Playstations.
I'm a big fan of the 32x - it took me eons to finally find a PAL one for less than $200 AUD, found one fully boxed and in gorgeous condition in a second hand store for just shy of $80 back in 2005.
Now I have a Super 32X (JP model) for my JP MD1 as well that I scored on Yahoo Japan. Slowly but surely I'm trying to amass a complete game library, too. It was such an interesting kit to me, and I love a lot of unique additions it makes (such as its sound! Holy gods it's such a small tweak but some of the output it could do was so cool!)
I'll forever put up a fight for the cute little 'shroom.
I am forever sad though about Doom's soundtrack. Mostly because we know the Super 32X set up for it would've allowed for much better music, but the dev was so rushed they more or less whacked Bobby Prince's original midis through it without actually making architecture appropriate music.
SEGA had the craziest ads back then
Retro Game Players There was a fashion for surrealist / abstract ads at the time, a lot of cars got the same treatment
Retro Game Players SEGA still had the best gaming ads back then.
That’s because the 80s and 90s had some good drugs that’s how these are great adverts
Dunno if anyone mentions this very often.. But these videos are professional as hell and even more than the thoughtful content the thoughtful production quality is what appeals to me.
Trust that your extra work to produce something of Professional production quality is noticed.
Hey man I really enjoy your videos and have been watching many...thanks for the screen flash warning. I get so upset when media (movies, tv shows, whatever) has this effect that can be dangerous to so many people. I appreciate it.
The 32X was a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing.
Tedmeister i was thinking the exact same thing.
Thanks for making this!! I’m excited to watch it. The 32x gets a lot of criticism, some of it deserved, but i have really fond memories of mine. I’m big on graphical perfection, and the improved Mortal Kombat and Virtua games, along with some of their other offerings were really great.
Very nice.
You put a lot of work in your videos. Thank you Mr. N Nerd
I love the 32x, thats why i recently bought a second as a back up and it was only £90 with After Burner and Doom which i already had so sold it on for £25 making my purchase even sweeter! Ive been in many a debate about the 32X in the comment sections on youtube, so many people knock it and i just don't understand why, quite often they have never even owned or played on one! i always say that Sega would have been better off making some kind of SVP add on instead of the 32x, at a cost of around £40 and that would have been enough to keep the Megadrive competitive until the Saturn arrived or the second option was to hold back a year on the Saturn, see what the competition is like and possibly change hardware specs on the saturn to be superior than other machines on the market, 16bit hardware still outsold 32bit hardware for quite some time, there really was no rush! Anyway the 32x was what we got and it is an impressive bit of kit, games like Virtua Racing Deluxe, Virtua fighter, metal head and dark side really show how capable it was and given time we would have seen games even more impressive tham these!
Incredible video, Pete! Never had the chance to play around with a 32X, so, thank you! ;)
Cheers!
It's a Pixel THING So are your videos as well, really enjoyed your latest spectrum +3 video 😀
Thank you so much! Appreciate it ;) Pete - aka Nostalgia Nerd - is such an inspiration! :)
When I was 12 my uncle gave me his old 32x along with Doom, Virtua Racing, and Star Wars Arcade. I have so many great memories with it. I still say it could have been something great if it was given more time or effort instead of a stopgap. Virtua Fighter shows what could have been. Great vid!
My schoolmates and I all had Megadrives and one got the 32X add-on and we were so jealous. It was like he was light years ahead.
Great video. Always amazes me where you get all the old footage for these vids. I almost bought a 32X when they came out but I waited and bought the Saturn. Like you say, it was clever but also messy at the same time. A very odd console. Nice one mate.
What excellent work! Better than most 32x reviews/mockumentaries! I owned one back in the day, and recently found another 😀
Hi man, you just earned a suscriptor! great videos, with extense documentation and well narrated! : )
Great video. I still have my 32x and I still like it for what it was
This is the sort of content you should start doing again Peter it is a great source of History and information and you are very very good and presenting this sort of content
Fantastic video! You are always comprehensive and entertaining... many thanks
I watched your BBC Micro, Amstrad and Spectrum vids last night. Your voice calms me LOL
Your console videos are works of art, man.
you're doing great work on these retrospectives
I would’ve killed for one of these too in the 90s I expect if I was around back then, the super scaler ports were epic, I absolutely love Space Harrier and Afterburner II, and the 32x ports were the best you could get until the Saturn port much later. They ran at half the framerate of the arcade and Afterburner had some slowdown, but they looked incredible, nearly arcade perfect, and played really well still. I would’ve loved to get a 32x just for them. If Sega really pushed the sprite scaling capabilities and released Outrun and Galaxy Force and similar super scaler games it might’ve been a lot more impressive, considering how crap most Mega Drive ports of Super Scalers were. The whole 40 times the power thing was hard to see on most games due to the hardware’s design flaws, but the super scalers showed it off for sure.
This is the best review of the 32X I've seen on RUclips. Rather than just saying it's a shit machine and then taking a complete dump on it, you've given some real history. Plus, the idea of what could have been. It's like the Kinect for the Xbox. It sounds good but the execution wasn't. If things were done better, one could imagine what could have come from it.
I've only just found your channel, thanks to ashens. You know your stuff fella. 👍🏻
I had a Genesis , Sega CD , and 32X and my god was it a royal pain in the ass to my mother who had to deal with all those wires lol. I really enjoyed the Sega stuff , but I think I played my 3DO almost as much at that time. The mid 1990's were a glorious time to be a gamer
Mmmmm vitalite (that's right). It's a shame we never got that Neptune, I know the Saturn is considered a great 2D machine but a mid generation cart based all in one could have hit a sweet spot if they got it out sooner, instead of add ons. Ah well. At least we still have Vitalite.
In hindsight the 32x looking like a nuclear mushroom cloud going of over the Genesis was pretty accurate to what Sega did to there Sega customers
LMAOOOOOOO
I picked up a 32X for $20 on clearance, and was quite happy with the titles. Wish I still had mine.
I just realized....ive been watching your videos for ages....but was never subscribed......so....here you go....one more subscriber lol, love your stuff by the way....
I would like to see some original homebrew games for the machine. But it is just a dream.
I know this video is 4 years old, but my memories of the launch year Christmas with Doom 32x and Star Wars Arcade are still some of the fondest memories of my childhood.
Another awesome video, top stuff 👌👍👏
11:00 It's not bizarre at all. Remember that today's adult gamers were kids back then, relying on their parents to buy them these systems. I know my parents were very concerned about backwards compatibility because they didn't want a bunch of plastic junk (cartridges) taking up space in the house if we couldn't use them anymore.
If you look back far enough you'll even find adapters for ColecoVision that allow you to use Atari VCS cartridges. Imagine an adapter that allowed you to play PlayStation games on your Xbox. It was a real thing back then.
Nothing but great content in this channel. Thanks a lot.
Awesome video. I think it is so telling that your outlook on the system as a fellow UK Sega fan is so similar to my own. My reasons for not getting one (as a twelve year old) were exactly the same as yours- the price mainly, and I have always felt gutted by how Sega of japan treated us loyal Sega fans in the UK especially, but also in the US, where they could have maintained dominance if it weren't for the jealousy of Sega Japan. Still- I've enjoyed many of the 32X games I've wanted to now, thanks to emulation, so I don't feel I've missed out too badly other than a slightly garish missing console in my otherwise complete Sega collection...
Add on's just never worked back in the day. People saw the price on the 32x and said it was to much.
22:01 from which tv show was taken this clip?
Sega of Japan murdered the entire company. They threw out so many opportunities. (SGI, Sony, etc.)
Sam T Sega could have been a GREATER! Company up to this day... but unfortunately nope 😐
@referral madness Mr.Bernard (looks like a penis with eyes) Stolar actually contributed a lot to killing sega
Truer words were never spoken.
I absolutely love my 32x for one simple reason. It heavily cleans up the composite video of a stand-alone Genesis.
The stand-alone Genesis has extremely severe vertical banding, and the 32x completely cleans it up. It's the best way to output video from your Genesis without RGB.
Indeed, 90 was an exciting time to live videogames....
Starting with nes graphics n finish it Dreamcast (n ps2?)
Every 2 or 3 years we got something new to WOW...
Good job Nostalgia Nerd. I am liking this show so much! Blesses Arek
Thanks for another great video!
“...codenamed Mars” (shows a red tinted picture of the Moon) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Well, you’re the Nostalgia Nerd, not the astronomy nerd I guess 😂
What is astronomy if not looking back into the past, with a sense of wonder?
Great episode. I remember seeing the 32x for around 30 bucks in the store once after the Saturn launch. My older brother tried to convince me to use our allowance to split it, but I said I wanted to instead wait and see if my parents were gonna buy me Nintendo's new console for my birthday. . . The virtual boy.
Bad decision. I passed on a failed add-on for a failed. . . Whatever the virtual boy was.
The 32x was interesting, at least from my perspective in North America. It definitely felt like an in-the-middle solution. The Saturn was a little ways out from release and coming in at a heftier price tag, I seem to recall the idea from SoA was to have something as a less expensive upgrade for those who would be hesitant to buy into the Saturn and actually saw some minor storefront advertising comparing it to the power of a x86 based PC. What ultimately curbed my interest in the 32x, was actually having bought and enjoyed the SegaCD, which drastically changed what features I would want to see in console games. CD audio tracks, proper PCM audio, richer use of colors and detail within the Genesis specs, and FMV. Going back to cartridge based games was pretty hard to do and the selection of enhanced 32x-CD titles didn't grab my attention. So, I delayed and waited for the Saturn to come out, since it felt like the culmination of all the devices, was CD-drive based, and it would have concentrated support as a flagship system.
All that said, I did have a friend who, through his connections, got a 32x and games into my hands, after its life cycle. It was nice, and I could see the potential. I thought it was neat in how it could overlay graphics over the Genesis VDP. I had hands-on comparison of my favorite FMV game, Supreme Warrior... and I would say that the video quality, through 90's eyes, was a definite improvement. Enough to see the wires that the actors used for a few of the acrobatic stunts.
Another awesome video, sir! I got my 32X for Christmas in 94. And you know what? I still love it.
Ah, just imagine a world where the 32X was the bridge that skipped the Saturn and led to the Dreamcast? That would have been a nice world. Maybe we'd have modern SEGA consoles, and not just random crap for every other console...
Spelling stickler warning:
22:30 "Sega Saturn Launch Commerical"
Not trying to give you a hard time bro. Your vids are amongst my all-time favs!
I remember staring at my dad's copy of corse killer amongst his games back in 2009 haha. Nice box art, thankfully I couldn't find his 32x to play it
Wow Afterburner. That was one of my favs back then. Drive past Sega UK every day in Brentwood London. With the big Sonic logo on the side of the building.
What are they up to these days ?. Still enough to run a big office clearly.
I still remember when this came out, feels like yesterday. I also remember Dixon’s selling them off at £35 with 3 Games, even then you struggled to sell them
What is that 3DO game at 7:29 in the bottom left corner?
An excellent video, nice work!
I remember wanting one of these so badly. I got the MD in 1990 and I used to buy all the sega magazines as a kid. I bought the hype and was dying to play Doom and Star Wars Arcade. I never did get it and I don't know anyone who did. It wasn't until years later that I got the inside scoop that the Saturn was hot on its heels which I think made the 32X pretty much hated then and probably now. This video brought me right back to being 11 though, salivating over Star Wars Stills in mags.
Great video! Very informative and entertaining
Defiantly will be watching this when I get home from work having just got a 32x
13:22 I understand the criticism of "Star Wars Arcade". It doesn't look better than "Super Star Wars" on the much less powerful SNES. I don't know about polygon counts but subjectively "Super Star Wars" looks better at least for the Death Star Trench scene (which is the only thing I compared). Also it resembles the movies better because "Star Wars Arcade" has a very strange rendering of the Death Star's trench.
I remember everyone talking about the 32X as bridging the gap before the new systems. None of the people I knew wanted a system adapter that was just a gap bridger.
I had this for Christmas! Not the one gone, I mean back in 94. I acquired an illustrious library of five whole games.
As a sega fan, even I have to admit that the port of Doom was imperfect. I only ever used the 32X once and didn't have all the cables. I did have (no longer) Star wars 32X. If only PC makers could add a cart slot for SNES/Genesis titles
What is the BGM track that plays from 6:30 - 8:32?
Is this BGM music from a Sega 32x game or is it a synth track from one of the artists listed in the description?
I really like the sound of this music track!
Found it! It is titled "Pirate TV" by Rasure
These videos are great,, good job mate
All of these peripherals is partly why Sega inevitably lost the 16bit era console war.
Lol. That fragment of Sega advertising.
There's no 32 bit Mega Drive/Genesis either. ;p
Though if you're talking hypotheticals, the last known revision of the SNES CD specs called for it to include a cartridge containing 4 megabits of ROM and a 6502 just for CD buffer handling, and then also an NEC-V810 processor with another 8 megabits of RAM to itself.
The NEC-V810 is a 32 bit processor that saw use in the PC-FX, and the Virtual boy. (Virtual boy had two of them.)
It's purpose in the SNES CD specs was to replace the SuperFX in an earlier revision with a chip that behaved in a more conventional way and would be easier for developers to understand and work with.
So... It was never made available, but a 32 bit SNES DID in fact exist on paper. ;p
And given the abysmal sales and support of the 32x, I can't imagine it really matters. XD
If the 32-bit snes cd was released back then. Sega would have had a panic attack.
Love these system specific retrospectives
The 32X would've been a great system if it wasn't caught in between the 16-bit and 32-bit wave. It really reminds me of the Cyrix 5x86: Not quite 486-class, not quite Pentium-class. Like the 5x86 which plugged into existing 486 boards for a bit of an upgrade, the 32X allowed you to use your existing Genesis while offering a glimpse of what's next.
History has proven this concept to be a recipe for failure but I wish I was able to pick up some of these interesting 'in-between' products. But I was young back then and just like everyone else my attention was on the products making the headlines, which meant that these in-betweens were often overlooked.
Excellent and informative video!
3:00 That's the Moon with a red filter.
One thing I don't hear being talked about, is how the Saturn's cartridge slot is for expanded memory and bypassing regional lockout, but not for Genesis/32X cartridges.
Is it because adding said compatibility would have further bumped up the price tag of the Saturn... or would have made the console bulky... or they simply didn't consider that new Sega customers (those who didn't previously own a Genesis/MD) might be interested in backwards compatibility?
The Saturn's cartridge slot was never intended for region bypass, that was just something the grey market found they could take advantage of.
Nor was it limited to expanded memory, although that was its most common use. There was also a MPEG decoder cartridge (which the Lunar games made use of) and a modem/keyboard add-on so you could dial into the internet and use a laughably useless browser.
So why wasn't the cartridge slot pin-compatible to an already ancient 16-bit design spec? The question answers itself.
*CplEthane:* That was a lot about nothing.
The question was... if Sega was planning on putting a cartridge slot in the Saturn, then why not backwards compatible, like the Neptune that didn't happen? Why not just incorporate it into the architecture?
Was it too costly/difficult to do so? Were they trying to squeeze out a few more Genesis/MD customers before discontinuing their dated console?
And yet, I am already familiar with the VCD cartridge that goes into the battery compartment. We're not discussing VCDs.
I always enjoy these videos, me and my bro had a megadrive, mega cd and 32x... all very disappointing :( but I loved it at the time!
What game is being shown at 22:45?
Nice video m8 👍
I worked at Toys R Us in the late 90s and I remember us having these on clearance for like $32.99. No one was buying them. This was also around the time we got the top loading Nintendo in stock for $50. I still kick myself for not buying the top loader.
I really feel like Sega made a bad choice here, I’m glad the 32x happened as I find it and the games fascinating, but it was definitely a mistake. Before they chose the 32x they considered going further with the SVP, they were going to release an SVP-cart with lock-on technology so you could plug future SVP-releases into the top without needing to include an SVP chip in each cartridge, which would mean they could sell SVP games at normal retail price unlike Virtua Racing which was a lot more expensive, but unfortunately this was all dropped in favour of 32x. If Sega had communicated better and Sega of America knew when the Saturn would be ready they would’ve realised that the 32x would be immediately replaced less than 6 months out of release, and in that case releasing further SVP games would’ve been a better choice, similar to the Super FX chip for the SNES.
At one point they had prototypes of Virtua Fighter, Star Wars Arcade, and Daytona USA running on the SVP. Had they gone down that route, you would’ve had a roughly $30 SVP cart and then future SVP games could be released at a normal price, this smaller investment would’ve been less difficult to justify and could’ve easily filled the 1-2 year gap until Saturn without requiring a new addon. The only issue would be colours, Virtua Racing is limited to 16 colours. But I feel like they could’ve found a solution to that by splitting up the polygon rendering between multiple layers, as the 3D data was blasted into a background layer and that’s why it was limited to 16 colours.