Seems like it could have likely been an issue of cost. I remember that the Virtua Racing cart debuted at $99 in the US. And that had the benefit of being a huge arcade hit with a lot of name recognition.
It's an interesting topic, though... It seems many consoles had at least one or two such unusual cartridges, with extra chips of some sort built in to them. I know the Atari 2600 had a couple of them -- Pitfall II was one.
Yeah, the chips did cost a lot to manufacture, but if Codemasters can create their own cartridges with controller ports in them (I don't think Codemasters made much money compared to the likes of Square or Capcom), I am sure they could create a mini chip that could enhance the Mega Drives cartridges by at least a third of what it could do without one.
It's quite sad that SEGA abandoned the Mega Drive/Genesis by late 1994 in favour of the 32x/Saturn, but I think if they offered EA/Codemasters to manufacture the cartridges for any post-1995 games to other devs with their own little enhancement chips and whatnot, then I could see that the Mega Drive/Genesis last a few years longer then the SNES and still have a great line up til '97.
I mean, in the UK, the Mega Drive was still selling by 2000. I could see that if they supported it with more games from developers who were up and coming, then it would have benefited SEGA a little bit more (not by much, but it'd be something).
Sorry for the rant, lol.
The 2600 I think had many games with enhancement chips very late into it's life, but yeah. Pitfall II is an interesting example.
