32X Month: What is your criteria for a "bad video game console"?

[crackdude]

In all truth, ever since AVGN did his 32X skit, it gets a massive amount of undeserved bad rap.

Yes, it was a failed add-on. But so was the Famicom Disk, the N64DD, the Kinect, and other mechanisms made to prolong a console's lifespan.

In the end did it matter? Well..a bit, not as much as people on the internet make it. "SEGA killed themselves with the add-ons". No! Sega commited suicide the moment they jump started the Saturn with no games and an expensive price point. Was mortally wounded when the PS1 came out with dev-friendly codding tools. And finished off when EA abandoned Sega (this was in 99 mind you. Not when the 32X came out) and Sony announced the PS2.


So overall, the 32X allowed some cool games to come to life, but was pretty expensive and sold poorly. That's it.

[Geno]

In my opinion, the 32X simply came out too late to have the impact it was meant to. If it had been even one year earlier, the improvements it offered over the current 16 bit generation would have been so much more impressive. And while I don't agree that the 32X is as terrible as many people have made it out to be, it's quite evident that it was not a good console. There aren't any "must play" titles that offer gamers an experience they can't get anywhere else. Even the Sega CD had some excellent 2D shooters, Snatcher, and Lunar that alone were enough to make the console worth owning. Had the 32X been around longer, maybe it would have had some similarly great titles.

Ultimately, to answer the titular question of this thread, I think a bad console is one which the developers themselves do not support or have confidence in. Sega is infamous for this unfortunately: changing, delaying, or cancelling projects seemingly at a whim. If 3rd party support were the only reason, then we wouldn't have seen the N64 be as successful as it was after Nintendo lost so many developers to Sony. After the Genesis, Sega was simply too desperate and, at the same time, not confident enough to stick with their decisions.

[CrazyT]

 

In all truth, ever since AVGN did his 32X skit, it gets a massive amount of undeserved bad rap.

Yes, it was a failed add-on. But so was the Famicom Disk, the N64DD, the Kinect, and other mechanisms made to prolong a console's lifespan.

In the end did it matter? Well..a bit, not as much as people on the internet make it. "SEGA killed themselves with the add-ons". No! Sega commited suicide the moment they jump started the Saturn with no games and an expensive price point. Was mortally wounded when the PS1 came out with dev-friendly codding tools. And finished off when EA abandoned Sega (this was in 99 mind you. Not when the 32X came out) and Sony announced the PS2.


So overall, the 32X allowed some cool games to come to life, but was pretty expensive and sold poorly. That's it.

The saturn had no possible way of succeeding. Or actually im not sure. It seems they rushed the console when sony anounced itself into the console business. When you think about it, SEGA was really cornered by sony. Sony got their playstation brand so right from the get go. Merciless taking marketshare from everyone and dominating like no other. They pretty much killed SEGA.

On topic. SEGA made some really bad hardware but they're games were always great. In hindsight you could say they should have skipped that gen and go straight to dreamcast. A lot of wasted resources were put into 32x, cd and saturn. Imagine if all the shining games came on dreamcast. Imagine the panzer dragoon games including saga all in higher res. But Then again that one got screwed by piracy as well. What a disaster it all was

[Geno]

On topic. SEGA made some really bad hardware but they're games were always great. In hindsight you could say they should have skipped that gen and go straight to dreamcast. A lot of wasted resources were put into 32x, cd and saturn. Imagine if all the shining games came on dreamcast. Imagine the panzer dragoon games including saga all in higher res. But Then again that one got screwed by piracy as well. What a disaster it all was

I wouldn't say wasted resources. The games you mentioned - Panzer Dragoon series, Shining Force III - were some of the most optimized titles on the Saturn. And believe it or not, the Saturn had many ports that were far superior to PS1 equivalents; 2D fighters being the most obvious example. What killed off the Saturn had nothing to do with how they designed the hardware, it was largely a flaw in marketing decisions. The huge discrepancy between its performance in Japan and in the west is enough evidence of that.

[CrazyT]

I wouldn't say wasted resources. The games you mentioned - Panzer Dragoon series, Shining Force III - were some of the most optimized titles on the Saturn. And believe it or not, the Saturn had many ports that were far superior to PS1 equivalents; 2D fighters being the most obvious example. What killed off the Saturn had nothing to do with how they designed the hardware, it was largely a flaw in marketing decisions. The huge discrepancy between its performance in Japan and in the west is enough evidence of that.

I think the Saturn could output great things. When I say wasted resource I mean the whole picture. Saturn didnt do well and at the same time it is said(not too sure about this one) that it was difficult to develop for. For such amazing developers at the time I think theyd be more satisfied if they got something more fulfilling to work with. Sony was already gonna take the generation. It was either rushing it or having it come out late. I really think the saturn was rushed because of the unexpected release date. Maybe im wrong in this though. In this scenarion i would have rather had them decide to go straight to dreamcast. Basically like they did with shenmue. But yeah hindsight and all. It makes sense that no one would have thought about that in their position at the time.

[TruthEnigma]

That for me was Sega in general and SOJ in particular at the height of their stupidity.

With the Mega Drive still selling respectably on many parts of the world, a 32 bit plugin to extend the life for another 3 years or so is quite logical. However SOJ's decision to develop both the 32X and Saturn simultaneously was a mistake, as was their decision to push the launch of the Saturn forward, to drop the 32x a year after it's launch, the price of both, along with the marketing and how they handled third party publishers.

In hindsight, the smart move would be to launch the 32X worldwide for a cheap price ($100 or so) along with releasing the Neptune for $200 and the Mega CD 2 you could skip the Saturn and build the cash reserves for a Dreamcast launch.

Edit: The smartest move though would be for SOJ to stop screwing with Tom Kalinske, but they were never going to do that.

[Team Andromeda]

With the Mega Drive still selling respectably on many parts of the world, a 32 bit plugin to extend the life for another 3 years or so is quite logical.

You leave the 3rd parties take up the slack , just like SONY and MS are doing did with the 360 and PS3 and

However SOJ's decision to develop both the 32X and Saturn simultaneously was a mistake, as was their decision to push the launch of the Saturn forward, to drop the 32x a year after it's launch, the price of both, along with the marketing and how they handled third party publishers.

SOJ had no real interest at all in the 32X - They wanted to drop the Mega Drive as soon as they could . SEGA America pushed for the 32X hard . When it was clear the Jag and 3DO was no threat and the Saturn was coming to Japan in 1994 was the time the 32X should have been dropped

The smartest move though would be for SOJ to stop screwing with Tom Kalinske, but they were never going to do that

No they listen to Tom: that was the mistake,  as was no real Sonic game ready early in for the Saturn.

[Centrale]

I think part of Sega's reasoning, at least SOA, was that they wanted to develop a multi-tiered system based on different consumer's budgets. They wanted an ecosystem with low budget offerings (SMS and Game Gear), medium budget options (Genesis, plus optional Sega CD and 32X upgrades) and a high budget option (Saturn). In hindsight, we can see they spread themselves too thin and that it's probably not a business plan that the market can support. But at the time I can see how it seemed like it could be a viable strategy.

If I was to point out a 'mistake' made by Sega, I personally think it was the insistence on trying to remain #1 continuously. It's really not necessary to always have the top selling console, as long as you can maintain a decent slice of the pie. I think the desire to be #1 caused a certain degree of decisions being made too quickly. They could have settled for second place against the PS1 and taken more time to develop a more cohesive and conservative strategy. But I think most of long-term Sega fans are not really fans of conservatism in game design and business management. We admire the craziness and risk-taking and exalt in the highs that that approach can create. But with the highs come lows as well.

[Team Andromeda]

I think part of Sega's reasoning, at least SOA, was that they wanted to develop a multi-tiered system based on different consumer's budgets. They wanted an ecosystem with low budget offerings (SMS and Game Gear), medium budget options (Genesis, plus optional Sega CD and 32X upgrades) and a high budget option (Saturn).

But you then split the user base and retail and development support . It was a nice idea but it came out at the wrong time

[Tempest]

The 32X is a bad console because it's what signalled the end for SEGA. Consumers would have forgiven them the Mega CD because that system actually had some good games for it, but the 32X was the first major nail in SEGA's coffin because it suggested that SEGA had no respect for their consumers.  The 32X had nothing worth playing and it divided consumers after they saw new console after new console from SEGA within months of each other. The 32X killed the Saturn, which was the superior console, because it took SEGA's internal resources away from that system, which was only developed as a stop gap system anyway, and damaged the company's reputation. Although the 32X was a cool idea and good from a technical perspective for what it did to the Mega Drive, it ultimately was a poor business decision and killed SEGA.

[crackdude]

The 32X is a bad console because it's what signalled the end for SEGA. Consumers would have forgiven them the Mega CD because that system actually had some good games for it, but the 32X was the first major nail in SEGA's coffin because it suggested that SEGA had no respect for their consumers.  The 32X had nothing worth playing and it divided consumers after they saw new console after new console from SEGA within months of each other. The 32X killed the Saturn, which was the superior console, because it took SEGA's internal resources away from that system, which was only developed as a stop gap system anyway, and damaged the company's reputation. Although the 32X was a cool idea and good from a technical perspective for what it did to the Mega Drive, it ultimately was a poor business decision and killed SEGA.

Welcome to the forums!

I don't agree with you. But do have fun!

[pirovash88]

He's got SOME valid points, but to suggest that the 32X killed Sega, is a bit of a stretch.

[crackdude]

The 32X has been labled one of the causes Sega went bankrupt RETROACTIVELY.

When the Dreamcast came out was anyone worried about what happaned to the 32X? No.
So in reality, it did some damage at the time, but by the time Sega came out with the Dreamcast it was completely dissipated.

[George]

SEGA shouldn't have done the 32X, continued selling Genesis/Mega Drives and also should have supported Saturn the correct way. Sure, it would have been hard to sell the issue is that SOA didn't even try. They literally made the console worse by holding back games, not advertising right and making sloppy decisions that in the end cost the company more money.

Its funny, its the one console of SEGA's that actually sold well in Japan. I know people will point and say "Developers didn't like it due to programming", but honestly if SEGA Japan and America actually reached out to developers, tried to make frameworks that would have made coding for the console easier and supported some with advertising money (aka: You make this exclusive to a SEGA console and we will run ads for the game with the 'only on Sega Saturn' at the end).

I guess we can always point in hindsight, but this is one of the many times that SEGA has hurt itself because it was so busy fighting itself.

[Team Andromeda]

SEGA shouldn't have done the 32X, continued selling Genesis/Mega Drives and also should have supported Saturn the correct way. Sure, it would have been hard to sell the issue is that SOA didn't even try. They literally made the console worse by holding back games, not advertising right and making sloppy decisions that in the end cost the company more money.

That would have been the best way .

Its funny, its the one console of SEGA's that actually sold well in Japan. I know people will point and say "Developers didn't like it due to programming", but honestly if SEGA Japan and America actually reached out to developers, tried to make frameworks that would have made coding for the console easier and supported some with advertising money (aka: You make this exclusive to a SEGA console and we will run ads for the game with the 'only on Sega Saturn' at the end)

The Saturn being hard to program for was just a cop out used by developers for its lack of marketshare (that was the real reason for poor support) . Its not like the PS2, N64 or PS3 had any better or easier development environment in fact Treasure even said the N64 was harder to developer for than the Saturn . That said the 1st tools should have been better and SEGA should have made the Saturn to be able to handle 3D alpha/transaperent effects

The 32X has been labled one of the causes Sega went bankrupt RETROACTIVEL

You see people need to think , that's rubbish . The 32X and Saturn was developed in 1992 to 1994 and in those years SEGA weren't posting losses or anywhere near . It true to say that both the Saturn and 32X cost SEGA marketshare - that really hurt SEGA and selling the DC at a huge lost for each unit almost made SEGA go to the wall

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