32X
The 32X is an add-on for the Sega Genesis video game console. Codenamed "Project Mars", it was designed to expand the power of the Genesis and serve as a transitional console into the 32-bit era until the release of the Sega Saturn. The 32X uses its own ROM cartridges and has its own library of games. It was distributed under the name in Japan and South Korea, Genesis 32X in North America, Mega 32X in Brazil, and Mega Drive 32X in all other regions.
Sega unveiled the 32X at the Consumer Electronics Show in June 1994, and presented it as a low-cost option for 32-bit games. It was developed in response to the Atari Jaguar and concerns that the Saturn would not make it to market by the end of 1994. Though the 32X was conceived as a new, standalone console, at the suggestion of Sega of America executive Joe Miller and his team, it became an add-on for the Genesis which made the console more powerful. The final design contained two 32-bit central processing units and a visual display processor.
The 32X failed to attract third-party developers and consumers because of the announcement of the Saturn's simultaneous release in Japan. Sega's efforts to rush the 32X to market cut into time for game development, resulting in a weak library of 40 games that did not fully use the hardware, including Genesis ports. Sega produced 800,000 32X units and sold an estimated 665,000 by the end of 1994, selling the rest at steep discounts until it was discontinued in 1996 as Sega turned its focus to the Saturn.
The 32X is considered a commercial failure. Initial reception was positive, highlighting the low price and power expansion to the Genesis. Later reviews, both contemporary and retrospective, were mostly negative because of its limited game library, poor market timing and its market fragmentation of the Genesis.
History
The Sega Genesis was released in 1988. By early 1994, Sega had started to become concerned about competition from newer, more powerful 32-bit consoles, such as the Atari Jaguar and the 3DO. The Sega CD, a previous add-on for the Genesis, had not met commercial expectations, and the Genesis' successor, the Sega Saturn, would not be fully rolled out worldwide until late 1995. This left a nearly two-year gap that Sega worried would allow its competitors to gain traction. According to former Sega of America CEO Tom Kalinske, in regards to discussing about the longevity of the Genesis, "Initially, the argument was that we could get another year of life out of the Genesis before we had to introduce the Saturn. Japan disagreed with me on that, so as kind of a stopgap measure, the 32X came up."Development
During the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in January 1994, Sega of America research and development head Joe Miller took a phone call in his Las Vegas hotel suite from Sega president Hayao Nakayama, in which Nakayama stressed the importance of coming up with a quick response to the Atari Jaguar. Included on this call were Sega of America producer Scot Bayless, Sega hardware team head Hideki Sato, and Sega of America vice president of technology Marty Franz. One idea mooted by the Japanese team, referred to by former Sega of America producer Michael Latham as "Genesis 2", was an entirely new independent console. This would have been a new Genesis model with an upgraded color palette and some limited 3D capabilities thanks to integration of ideas from the development of the Sega Virtua Processor chip.According to Latham, Miller dismissed an upgraded Genesis as "just a horrible idea. If all you're going to do is enhance the system, you should make it an add-on. If it's a new system with legitimate new software, great. But if the only thing it does is double the colors...." Miller said his idea was to leverage the existing Genesis as a way to keep from alienating Sega customers, who would otherwise be required to discard their Genesis systems entirely to play 32-bit games, and to control the cost of the new system in the form of an add-on. From these discussions, the new add-on, codenamed "Project Mars", was advanced.
With Miller pushing for his American team to create the system, the 32X was designed as a peripheral for the existing Genesis, expanding its power with two 32-bit SuperH-2 processors, the same as those that would be used in the Saturn but with a lower clock speed. The SH-2 had been developed in 1993 as a joint venture between Sega and Japanese electronics company Hitachi. The original design for the 32X add-on, according to Bayless, was created on a cocktail napkin, but Miller denied this. In another account, Bayless claimed that Franz began designing the 32X on a hotel notepad, drawing two SH-2 processors with separate framebuffers.
Although the new unit was a stronger console than originally proposed, it was not compatible with Saturn games. This was justified by Sega's statement that both platforms would run at the same time, and that the 32X would be aimed at players who could not afford the more expensive Saturn. Bayless praised the potential of this system at this point, calling it "a coder's dream for the day" with its twin processors and 3D capabilities. Sega of America headed up the development of the 32X, with some assistance from Sato's team in Japan. Shortages of processors due to the same 32-bit chips being used in both the 32X and the Saturn hindered the development of the 32X, as did the language barrier between the teams in Japan and the United States.
Before the 32X was launched, the release date of the Saturn was announced for November 1994 in Japan, coinciding with the 32X's target launch date in North America. Sega of America was tasked with marketing the 32X with the Saturn's Japan release occurring simultaneously. Their answer was to describe the 32X a "transitional device" between the Genesis and the Saturn; Bayless said this "just made us look greedy and dumb to consumers".
Promotion and release
The unveiling of the 32X to the public came at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show in June 1994 in Chicago. Promoted as the "poor man's entry into 'next generation' games", 32X was marketed for its US$159 price point as a less-expensive alternative to the Saturn. However, Sega would not answer as to whether or not a Genesis console equipped with a Sega CD and a 32X would be able to run Saturn software. Trip Hawkins, founder of The 3DO Company, was willing to point out that it would not, stating, "Everyone knows that 32X is a Band-Aid. It's not a 'next generation system.' It's fairly expensive. It's not particularly high-performance. It's hard to program for, and it's not compatible with the Saturn." In response to these comments, Sega executive Richard Brudvik-Lindner pointed out that the 32X would play Genesis games, and had the same system architecture as the Saturn.In August of that year, GamePro highlighted the advantages of the upcoming add-on in its 32-bit processors and significantly lower price, noting that "o doubt gotta-get-it-now gamers will spend the big bucks to grab Saturn or PlayStation systems and games from Japan. For the rest of us, however, 32X may well be the system of choice in '94." Edge was more critical, questioning if the 32X was only there to fill in as a stopgap for the Christmas season in the US and Europe, and referred to the Japanese release as a "PR exercise and quick money maker than a serious bid to get the machine into every home". Responding to concerns over the 32X being a stopgap, Kalinske said, "Saturn will be at a price point that will not make it a massmarket item. In terms of volume and keeping the category exciting, it's Genesis and 32X."
The 32X was released on November 21, 1994, in North America, in time for the holiday season that year. As announced, it retailed for $159.99 without a pack-in game. Demand among retailers was high, and Sega could not keep up with orders for the new system. Over 1,000,000 orders had been placed for 32X units, but Sega had only managed to ship 600,000 units by January 1995. In the United States, nearly 500,000 units were sold by Christmas 1994, exceeding Sega's initial sales projection. Launching at about the same price as a Genesis console, the price of the 32X was less than half of what the Saturn's price would be at launch. The European release came in November 1994, at a price of £169.99, and also experienced initial high demand.
Sega promised 12 games available at launch and 50 games due for release in 1995 from third-party developers. Despite Sega's initial promises, only six games were available at its North American launch, including Doom, Star Wars Arcade, Virtua Racing Deluxe, and Cosmic Carnage. Although Virtua Racing was considered strong, Cosmic Carnage "looked and played so poorly that reporters made jokes about it". Games were available at a retail price of $69.95. Advertising for the system included images of the 32X being connected to a Genesis console to create an "arcade system". Japan received the 32X on December 3, 1994, two weeks after the launch of the Saturn in the region. The 32X launched in Brazil in March 1995.
Decline
Despite the lower price console's positioning as an inexpensive entry into 32-bit gaming, Sega had a difficult time convincing third-party developers to create games for the new system. Top developers were already aware of the coming arrival of the Sega Saturn, Nintendo 64, and PlayStation, and did not believe the 32X would be capable of competing with any of those systems. Not wanting to create games for an add-on that was "a technological dead-end", many developers decided not to make games for the system. Problems plagued games developed in-house due to the 32X's quick development time. According to Bayless, "games in the queue were effectively jammed into a box as fast as possible, which meant massive cutting of corners in every conceivable way. Even from the outset, designs of those games were deliberately conservative because of the time crunch. By the time they shipped they were even more conservative; they did nothing to show off what the hardware was capable of." Kalinske has said that Sega of America did not receive enough support from Japan in game development. Development kits came out late, leaving little time for game development before the 32X release. According to one developer, the 32X's hardware was significantly slower than the Saturn and lacked the capability for texture mapping.Journalists were similarly concerned about Sega's tactic of selling two similar consoles at different prices and attempting to support both, likening Sega's approach to that of General Motors and segmenting the market for its consoles. In order to convince the press that the 32X was a worthwhile console, Sega flew in journalists from all around the country to San Francisco for a party at a local nightclub. The event featured a speech from Kalinske, live music with a local rapper, and 32X games on exhibition. However, the event turned out to be a bust, as journalists attempted to leave the party due to its loud music and unimpressive games on display, only to find that the buses that brought them to the nightclub had just left and would not return until the scheduled end of the party.
Though the system had a successful launch, demand soon disappeared. Over the first three months of 1995, several of the 32X's third party publishers, including Capcom and Konami, cancelled their 32X projects so that they could focus on producing games for the Saturn and PlayStation. The 32X failed to catch on with the public, and is considered a commercial failure. By 1995, the Genesis had still not proven successful in Japan, where it was known as Mega Drive, and the Saturn was beating the PlayStation, so Sega CEO Hayao Nakayama decided to force Sega of America to focus on the Saturn and cut support for Genesis products, executing a surprise early launch of the Saturn in the early summer of 1995. Sega was supporting five different consoles before this—Saturn, Genesis, Game Gear, Pico, and the Master System—as well as the Sega CD and 32X add-ons. Sales estimates for the 32X stood at 665,000 units at the end of 1994. Despite assurances from Sega that many games would be developed for the system, in early 1996, Sega finally conceded that it had promised too much out of the add-on and decided to discontinue the 32X in order to focus on the Saturn. In September 1995, the retail price for the 32X dropped to $99, and later the remaining inventory was cleared out of stores at $19.95, with 800,000 units sold in total.