Been watching your channel for a few months now. I started gaming on the 2600 in the 80s and it's great to see someone enthusiastic about retro gaming. I really like how little stock footage you use and how often you use contemporary footage from the time period you are covering. Great channel.

The SEGA CD was more like an attempt to compete with the PCE CD in Japan, where Sega was getting destroyed.

The 32X really wasn't an attempt at beating Nintendo. It was an attempt at extending the lifecycle of the Genesis while new machines were looming, like the 3DO and the Atari Jaguar. Sega of America, especially, thought that it made little sense to launch the Saturn when the Genesis was still very popular in North America, and suggested Sega focused its efforts on supporting the Genesis via add-ons, with the intent of also thwarting Atari's efforts with the Jaguar. While the Sega CD is arguably more about keeping an edge against Nintendo, CD was also regarded as the future of gaming at that time and everybody wanted in. Nintendo had a similar project and the PC-Engine, which was very popular in Japan, had the CD-ROM² extension (making the PC-Engine the first CD-compatible video games system) which was also a commercial success, which Sega hoped to emulate. Not everything is about Nintendo.

Love the dedication you're putting into this channel! Keep up the good work!

32x was very exciting when it came out. Star wars arcade and Doom on a console for under 250 (for the Genesis and 32x together). I was sold on that alone and it was worth it. I literally jumped into the Sega ecosystem from super Nintendo at that moment so it wasn't like I already had a Genesis and upgraded. Flink and robo aleste and android assault on the Sega CD were worth it for that add on as well. Yes I was disappointed that they didn't reach their potential but they were impressive. Even now the mods to make doom even better on the 32x show just how awesome this hardware could have been given more time and developer attention

Congrats on the 10k! Really happy for you.

"there was no spindash in sonic cd". The he proceeds to show us spindash in sonic cd at 9:34

9:13 what you’re showing is the spindash not the super peel. The super peel out is when you hold up on the deep pad and push the button and sonic starts to run in place

I totally disagree about Sonic CD. The past and future mechanics are a fun twist on the gameplay. Not embracing that ruins the entire point of that game.

You are an awesome YT video creator. Narration and included footage makes your videos top tier! Great work!

I would also say from a company's point of view Nintendo lost significantly more ground to Sega by the end of that gen in contrast to the NES which dominated nearly every region, contrast this with Nintendo barely holding on to the US region by the end and Sega dominating the European region, the only region to stay strongly Nintendo was japan. This gen was financialy very successful for Sega and Nintendo both, but Nintendo were disapointed with the SNES figures considering the NES domination of the 80s. It's all about perspectives.

The problem at sega wasnt one marketing strategy it was that there was two, with two different ideas on how they should advance in the market, Sega of America wanted the 32X while Japan wanted their own Saturn which they created. SoAs ideal was to keep their existing consumer base by just ploping the mushroom on top, where Japan wanted a powerful new system from the ground up. At the same time it was japan that wanted the CD addon. The Genesis/Mega Drive did great outside of Japan but was awful in Japan. Oddly the Saturn was reversed, but this was also due to Japan not only telling SoA they had to release their new system, but release it early because they were scared of Sony, further destroying brand loyalty and angering companies along with customers that invested in the 32X and/or Sega CD.

I felt burned after I bought my 32X. They sold it at a heavy discount right after Christmas and then abandoned it by the summer. I never bought another SEGA console after that.

The graphics of Virtua Fighter on 32X do not look bad. Do you know what the game is supposed to look like? Do your eyes work?

Lot of people said sega lost their touch with the Saturn. Nah it happened before that

pojr. Thank you for putting out these great vids 😉

I wonder if a proper Sega MegaDrive/Genesis with both the CD and 32X attachments would be technically feasible to mod into a single chipset. Also, Master System and Game Gear compatibility would be nice.

I loved that SEGA was trying new things during that time period. CDs in the early 90s were cutting edge tech and the Sega CD felt like the future of gaming. It's failure had more to due with its price of entry more than anything else. I bought mine around the time when they first started to discount them. I think I paid around $200 new for mine back around '94 or '95. As for the 32X, it would have been fine had SEGA just picked a lane from the start instead of developing two competing 32bit platforms and then abandoning 32X so quickly after launch. Games like Star Wars Arcade, Virtua Racing Deluxe and Mortal Kombat II proved that the 32X was a more than capable 32bit platform. Had SEGA abandoned Saturn in favor of 32X, we would have gotten the infamous Neptune system that would have combined 32X and Genesis into one console and would have been a great solution for those looking to migrate from SNES to SEGA. It would have given new users access to the large library of Genesis games + the new 32X library - backwards compatibility is something the Saturn would never have been able to offer.

I'm one who believes Sega had great systems. The add-ons were mainly expensive at the time, but I managed to get them cheaply second hand. They still work well when I play them, and am a huge fan of the tower of power. I mean, I started with a Sega Mega Drive Model I which I got for $5AU at a local Charity Shop, and the rest I got online. Lucky!

Hi! Hey what is the name of the song(or track) you use in your conclusion section?

The whole Sega vs Nintendo war was a wild time.As a Super Nintendo owner, I liked a lot of Sega games but I never liked the way most music sounded. I remember playing Might and Magic 2 on Sega and loving it so much I temporarily traded my Snes for a Genesis for a month. For some reason I never saw Might and Magic in stores for the Snes.

very good retrospective pojr, another fine video!

I was around for this period of gaming. Problem was, everyone knew the playstation was right around the corner, so no one was buying anything. Once the playstation came out, Sega was doomed.

A big problem with the 32X is it had weak sound. Unlike the Sega CD which drastically improved the sound. This made some customers angry since 32X came after and worsened the sound.

One important thing to remember about Sega is that the American division was usually right and and the Japanese branch was usually wrong and they both quarreled about how move past the Genesis. The American branch shouldn’t have done the 32X, but the Japanese branch pooped the bed with both the Sega CD and the Saturn (outside of Japan). Sega of Japan’s stubbornness is ultimately what sunk them, even though Sega of America was not blameless…

SOA and SOJ were both trying to make hardware that would succeed in their markets. The fact that Mega Drive/Genesis was doing very well outside Japan didn't convince SOJ to work with SOA to successfully extend the life of the MD. I got a Genesis when the console hit its peak but even I could see that SEGA CD and 32X would be flops, especially the 32X. I would have been fine with SEGA just focusing on great Genesis games up until the release of Saturn. Or dropping the price of the CD system and focusing on enhanced versions of Genesis games and arcade ports instead of all those crappy FMV games.

That 32x was just weird. A friend had it and it did not impress me at all at the time. I also remember the playstation coming out and it blew away sega and nintendo. After that I didn't buy another console ever since. I'm happy I got experience nes and sega during the mid-late 80's.

The 32X/CD add-ons were honestly weird, bulky, and unnecessary, but now if you want to get good games for it you can, just look up Sega Lord X videos about those two add-ons (can't call them consoles because they're not, unless you want to get technical about the obscure revisions that were made). Also, I once had a Sega CD, but the thing only booted up once and then it never worked again. What a PoS lol, yet I still kept it as it felt a collectible... Only later to sell it off. Great review again, Pojr!

Best Genesis add on = Power Base Converter.

The 32x should have just been more ram and a enhancement chip to fix issues on games like sonic when he got hit and all the rings would bring the game to a crawl. Why was Doom not released as a CD32x title? Only one game was released like that during the console's lifespan.

I think the SEGA CD was an amazing add on, i just wish like they did over in SOJ, SOA would have freaking scraped their hard on for FMVs & focused more on just actual games. The 32x though was a failed idea from beginning to end.

You missed a great opportunity to discuss the 5 rarest genesis games the Sega 32X-CD hybrid FMV games

When you know that Sega Japan forced Sega of America to put out the 32x even if the Saturn was about to come out, it is easy to believe that Sega of Japan was just jalous of SoA with their success of the Genesis, success that SoJ didn't had at all, and that they just put that scheme out to break down SoA.

You might want to redo your research on this. The SegaCD was created as a response to the PCEngine CD in Japan. The Sega 32X was done as a response to the Jaguar in the United States.

Sonic cd did have a spin dash just not as good because in the original version you can't button mash to speed up you have to wait, and sonic cd was originally going to be a enhanced port of sonic 1 and the sonic 1 code was used for cd as well

Anyone here have a Sega CDX? I do. It’s a compact Sega Genesis and Sega CD in one. It only uses one power supply, and it’s compatible with the Power Base Converter, though it’s not ascetically pleasing to the eye when connected. lol

The 32X and Sega CD had their fair share of games that made little sense and some just would've made more sense being on the Genesis. Cosmic Carnage, for example, I don't think has any reason to be on 32X as it did almost nothing to differentiate itself from the stock Genesis. (Great music, though! If anyone reading this didn't know, a track from its OST serves as the background music for the conclusion of pojr's videos.)

I’d say compared to the Sega CD, the 32X is the most pointless add on for the Genesis.

"There is no Nintendo CD" Thank fucking god.

FINALLY a video where the person doesn't exalt the MHz of the Motorola 68k, claiming it's FASTER than a completely different processor, just by looking at "clock speed". Some processors are just more efficient and can run at lower speeds. The proof is that even at 3.56 MHz, the SNES was capable of 1.5 MIPs (millions of instructions per second), while the Genesis was capable of 1.3 MIPs... Nintendo should have created the "BLAST CYCLES" slogan... the only difference, would be that they could actually PROVE what they were saying!

There was a time I went to a Hills in 1996 (summer I think) and I worked at the time. They has 32x and virtual boy on clearance 19.99 and 29.99 respectively. I didnt have a genesis, bit had the snes. But best friend across the street had a genesis tho. Should of grabbed them at those price points at the time. But I was worried about my rock cd collection lol😂😂😂😂

Keep going with this content!

Nintendo is king of using whatever hardware to create great games and tightly control their ip to maximize synergy between all the arms of the company if that makes sense I’m bad at explaining 😅

Fantastic video as usual...i m a proud owner of a sega 32x usa and a japanese mega cd 2 btw ^^

You know how "Family Matters" started getting really weird at the end in a desperate attempt to keep an audience? That's the Sega Genesis.

For what it's worth at least the Star Wars Arcade port was pretty rad

TIME BONUS!

The same thing applies with Atari with the Atari Jaguar.

The video keeps referring to the 32X as a console. It wasn't a console as it could not be used stand alone. It's an add on. To be considered a console it would need to be fully useable on its own but it's not.

Thanks

I remember all the hype from Sega CD owners about Sonic CD. I only had the Genesis as a kid and didn't get to play SEGA CD until I was an adult. When I finally played Sonic CD I was like really? This is what is so ground breaking? Sonic 2 is a way better game, so I think it's fair to say those of us whom didn't' have a SEGA CD didn't miss out on much.

Sega talked a lot of smack, and was able to back very little of it up.

I would say, instead, that Sega suffered from _"specialist's snowblindness"._ The company was run (in this period) by tech-savy Japanese millionaires who sincerely thought, "Yeah, why not spend $300 on a console expansion? Most of my friends just did that with the PC Engine… we do it all the time!" And they had a point: the Sega CD / Mega CD _was much better value for money_ than what the PCE had managed to produce… but you have to realize that there's a tiny fraction of the population who could appreciate that. Many, many industries suffer from this kind of snowblindness: architects think everyone is willing to pay the same building costs they're willing to pay, etc. etc.

I loved my snes and beyond sonic struggle with saga.

SEGA didn't take a back seat when the SNES was released, it wasn't until SEGA discontinued the Genesis that the SNES beat it in sales and I don't count that. You don't win a race by taking extra laps after the race is over. you're thinking of the Japanese Mega Drive Vs the Super Famicom. Also note the SEGA CD was actually demanded by Genesis fans. the 32X on the other hand was not. the 32X was a foolish mistake but the early release of the saturn was their biggest blunder.

Nah, the Sega CD was to compete with NEC's PC Engine CD (as was Nintendo's aborted CD add-on), and the 32X was merely to prolong the lifespan of the Genesis until the Saturn came out, against hardware like the 3DO and Jaguar; Hayao Nakayama was reportedly very concerned about those two. Neither was really an attempt to beat Nintendo. Edit: "the Super Nintendo outclassed the Sega Genesis in most aspects" This isn't true? They had very different architecture, but the Genesis' processor was a 32/16 bit hybrid processor clocked at twice the speed of the SNES' processor. Additionally, while many developers underutilized it, the Genesis' Yamaha YM 2612 FM synth chip was a highly capable piece of tech. The problem wasn't that it was underpowered, but that it was harder to use than a sample based chip because you had to make all the sounds yourself.

The GameCube was more powerful than the Dreamcast so it wasn’t the first time Nintendo beat Sega in hardware technologically.

Most of the time it's a case of quantity over quality although to be fair the SNES was full of both a great library of games being a large quantity and great quality in their games. The Master System had the quality in the games but had no third party support so no large quantity compared to the NES, the Mega Drive/Genesis on it's own had both much like the SNES but somewhere around 1994 onwards i'd say the Mega Drive/Genesis was saturated with so many crappy third party games that offered no more than a lackluster of 5 minutes of play as the quality in the system's library of games started declining around that point. Also it depends on the region where the consoles fought. In Europe/Australia/Brazil the NES was a flop and the Master System and Mega Drive/Genesis did extremely well. In the United States the NES and Genesis did well but not the Master System. Great video Pojr.

The Genesis had a MUCH faster CPU compared to the SNES, so it's a bit disingenuous to say the SNES outclassed it in pretty much every way.

It easy in hindsight to bash console addons. But people always ignore the fact that the PC Engine CD was quite successful in Japan. That's why other companies followed that idea.

No audio?

Pointless addons? I guess hindsight really is 20/20 except, well, yeah, the 32X wasn't very good, but the MegaCD was not only a good addon, even if it wasn't fully used, but EVERYONE was starting to use CD-ROMS back then. Even Nintendo was going to release a CD addon for the SNES and instead... they created Playstation. And I mean everyone, all consoles and PCs were using it, PCEngine, 3DO, CD-I, Amiga CD32, etc, and Nintendo stuck for cartridges for the N64, which was a colossal blunder.

I don't think the sega cd was pointless. It brought a lot to the game, literally.

Aladdin and Jurassic Park were much better on Genesis. And all of the EA sports games, were much better on Genesis.

I only have to disagree about the Master System beating the NES in all aspects. It is superior in graphics and that's it. The audio is inferior and it even has less buttons on the controllers.

Greta Thurnberg @ 7:03 😂

Wow, not even a minute in and I'm already anmoyed, the SNES is not 1. Better lineup of games? Excuse me? The Master System had tons of games the NES had but in better forms, if you like plodding Mario that's fine but dont make such subjective statements like they are fact. 2. The SNES was not outright more powerful than the Mega Drive or Genesis for you yanks, the SNES had a much slower more complicated CPU aswell as slower DMA, this means that if the SNES had to rapidly move data around it caused performance to dip, yes the SNES did have sprite scaling and rotation built in (Master System actually had integer sprite scaling built in) but this was rarely used in any meaningful capacity because it was so heavy on bandwidth, where as the Mega Drive had the grunt to power through it in software.

Yea no sound

Let me know if you want to come on my show Kickin'it old skool

I think Atari turned down Nintendo btw so that is why sega turned down Sony.

I've seen a couple of videos and i like what you do but I'm NOT subscribing, thank you very much

"Blast Processing? Those are just phoney-baloney buzz words made to fool the simple-minded!" - Sticks the Badger, Sonic Boom

Though I think your summaries are a bit pointless tbh, I still can’t get enough of the closing tune from that fighting game I forget 😅

Actually, SEGA DID lie to consumers. "Blast Processing" was not in any game tile ever released. It was a misrepresentation of a DMA ability to bypass the CPU to draw colors on the screen. Basically, it's just a pixel-pusher, but you had full access to all 512 colors in the palate. Problem is it worked similar to Atari 2600 with it had to be done "Racing the Beam", as you had to input timings, the actual color to draw, similar to the 2600. Problem is, all of the Genesis's processing was needed just to display a full 512-color image on the screen, zero cpu cycles for anything else. There were tricks where colors would alternate every other frame to somewhat simulate an image with almost 230K colors, but it was very flickery, so there were only a useful 4K colors in the trick. There are resources online to tech magazines that go into detail about it, since links in comments are a taboo practice.

Sega cd hardware and 32x add-on will forever be the worst thing sega ever did finacially which lead to there downfall during saturn surpise launch. Also, the worst products of all times next to the supergrafx and super cd add-on. Plus, also sega popularity declined late 1993 and 1994. Due to the press stating the genesis is a aging console due to the sega cd hardware. Also, the poorly developed games and engines being a created (especially the horrible gems sound engine and ect). SVP was expensive due to sega purchasing the chip from samsung with it's licensing fee. As for the nay-sayers disagreeing with his point. I will like ask you a question. Which branch of sega poached the idea of a uograded genesis model which the same branch agree to turn into a add-on?

Have you just turned into a this Vs that channel to bring in the fanboy crowd? Sega wiped the floor with Nintendo with the Mega Drive which Nintendo only recovered from with the Switch after lagging behind Sony and Microsoft since the N64/Gamecube days. Sega wiping the floor with Nintendo gave Sega USA a massive EGO which resulted with infighting and one-upmanship between Sega USA and Sega Japan as can be seen with the 32X and the original Saturn system until Sega of Japan saw their arse when they found out about the PS1 and its 3D capabilities resulting in the Frankenstein monster the Saturn turned into with all the Jerry rigging of extra CPUs and memory to make the Saturn a true 3D graphics platform to compete with the PS1. When that failed they put their faith into the Dreamcast which was their last failure due to marketing issues and then security bypass of the game media. Come on Pojr you're better than this as can be seen by your other videos which are great the Nintendo is better than Sega. Put the effort in and stop going for the low hanging fruit for clicks. You're better than this.

Not first😢

Sega Genesis/Mega Drive did beat SNES, together with south American Mega Drives which were oficially licensed Sega consoles, they had way more total sales than SNES, so the title of this video is bullshit

What are you talking about. Stop with the revisionist history. Sega were beating Nintendo in sales from the inception of the SNES in 1990 and were 50/50 by Jan 94. This was just Sega making the first of many financial blunders. By the end of 94 Nintendo pulled a head ( the first time they ever did since the start of the 16 bit era as they were consistently playing catch up to Sega until that point ).

This is the first time I totally dissagree with almost everything you say Pojr. The genesis was a total success, indeed the addons were a big mistake but you can not call their failure the failure of the genesis. I can name many Nintendo addons which totally failed. And the addons failed because of their high price point. I also don't agree when people take the superfx games as examples of the snes capabilities. Adding a new processor in a cartridge is cheating. And Starfox wasn't that great as people remember. Go play it again, it has a low framerate and is not that fun to begin with. It just blew peoples minds such a thing was possible. I'm not saying one should like Sega over Nintendo, there are enough reasons to like of dislike both of them., And I do agree that Sega made a mistake by complicating their genesis platform, but telling people the genesis lost to the snes is totally wrong. And people did not lose faith in sega after the genesis... its the saturn who did that. Mostly the failt of Sega in the US. They wanted the 32x while Japan wanted the Saturn. Putting them both on the market made people confused. And after investing in the addon, they did not want to invest again in a new console. The dreamcast lost for a totally different reason. False promises from the competition together with delayed release dates and specs they could not yet achieve at the time they were promised. You really sounded like a nintendo fanboy this time instead of being neutral. I'm sorry for telling you my honest opinion.

We love you Pojr!