The Story Of 5 Failed Console Expansions
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- Опубліковано 4 сер 2023
- In this mini-documentary I look at 5 failed expansion add-ons for home consoles.
Video Links:
Starpath Super Charger Games - • Every Epyx & Starpath ...
Mattel Intellivision Review - • Mattel Intellivision -...
Sega 32X Games Compilation - • Over 40 Sega 32X Games...
The Story of the Sega Neptune - • The Story of the Unrel...
Atari Jaguar CD Review - • Atari Jaguar CD - Revi...
Atari Jaguar CD Exclusives - • 10 Amazing Atari Jagua...
Support my creative work on Patreon: / lairdslair
#atari #nintendo #sega - Ігри
An interesting fact about the Starpath Supercharger is that it didn't specifically *need* a cassette, in fact if you plug it into just about any music playback device that has the data on the cassette tapes - even CD players and modern MP3 players, it'll still work. In fact all of the Supercharger games were re-released in a single collection on audio CD format called "Stella gets a new brain", which worked on original hardware if you plugged the Supercharger into a CD player.
Yep, a lot of people do the same with 8-bit computers, using something like an MP3 player to load the games from.
I got a Jaguar for Christmas in 94, absolute madness to introduce a cd drive when the original was barely selling. Like Everton moving stadiums when they can’t fill goodison 😉
Nice analogy! Also see Man City and West Ham . . . . .
@@TheLairdsLair haha exactly!
is a '5 console expansions that were a roaring success' video even possible?
Pretty much what I was saying in the intro, it's hard to even come up with one that succeeded.
@@TheLairdsLaireven the Famicom Disk System - which you mention - ended up being discarded in Japan after a few years once mapper chips came around and cartridge manufacturing costs went down. Super Mario Bros was basically the peak of what you could do on base Famicom hardware but mapper chips threw that out the window.
What about the Game Boy Player for the GameCube? I don't think I've ever seen someone think of that as a failure.
Probably the most successful one was the expansion that allowed ColecoVision to play Atari 2600 games, and that was more of an adapter.
I wouldn't call the Game Boy Player an expansion module, I'd say it was a converter. Because it didn't improve the actual hardware in any way, it just provided backwards compatibility, ditto the Super Game Boy.
The Jaguar CD really did look like a robot's toilet.
The robots need a toilet? 🤔I've never seen a toilet like that, have you?😂
Skibidi
AVGN said the same thing.
😆
@@franmui1068I'm assuming that's where robots CHANGE their oil. 🤖💨
But now the youth are smoking robot crack pipes so 🤷
Interesting list; Sega Lord X has a comparison between 32X and Saturn games. The 32X held its own in some games, makes you wonder what would have happened if they were cheaper.
The SuperCharger may have been a commercial failure but the unit itself worked very well and it gave us one of the best versions of Frogger for a system of the time. Had there not been a video game crash in North America, the SuperCharger would have likely done well.
I agree 100%!
It got cloned in Brazil and did well there!
I had one, and almost all of the games. Think I may still have one or two of the cassettes somewhere, although the Supercharger itself is long gone. Actually a pretty awesome little piece of tech.
I think I was one of the few people who got a Paravision SX1 module for the Amiga CD32. It worked pretty well, basically turned it into a Amiga 1200.
This setup gave me an AGA Amiga for years before I could afford a used A4000
The Jaguar Cd unit is hella expensive these days to buy, but fortunately, there is an alternative means to play the cd games with the Jaguar Game Drive; a great item!
I have a Jaguar CD I got from EB Games when they pulled it from retail. Still have a few games.
If You want the real deal, the Jaguar is the way to go. Otherwise, Rich Whitehouse's excellent BigPEmu allows You to play Jaguar CD games and VLM. He recently released a new version of BigPEmu which support VR headsets for Missile Command 3D :D
Because many had a high fail rate
When I was in University, I had a side business from my home doing retro repairs - fixing old consoles, cleaning and servicing old controllers, etc. A surprisingly popular thing I ended up doing a few times was directly wiring the Jaguar CD expansion into the Jaguar. I took the bottom off, 3D printed a new part and then remove the plastic of the cartridge guide and I'd solder the thing directly to the board. I'd say 8/10 worked after doing that.
I did about 30 of them and advertised my services in Retrogamer and a newsletter I used to get. Of course back then the Jaguar wasn't as ludicrously expensive as it is now - but those Jaguar mods definitely helped keep me fed during some very lean years as a student.
Great video, really enjoyed this one Kieren 👍🏻🕹
2:12 that super charger commercial is a riot
I think recently Peter Moore has come out and said it was the 32x and the saturn that led to sega leaving the hardware market not there last console the Dreamcast.
I totally agree, the 32X was a huge mistake.
It might have been the beginning of the end, but it was segas last console that too them out of the hardware business. if it was 32 x then that would have been the end. If it was the Saturn then why the Dreamcast - it makes no sense.
@@BAZFANSHOTHITSClassicTunes I think I remember reading somewhere Peter Moore said the Dreamcast only sold 3-4 million in North America by January 2001 and they wanted at least 5 million sales in NA by the end of the Christmas 2000 season and that in Europe/Japan it only sold 2 million in each region by that time. I've alsp seen articles claiming that sega was doing deals to sell a dreamcast alongside a DVD player for $300 or $400 or selling the console then offering a rebate for the price if you buy a seganet/dream arena online subscription. They got super desperate when the PS2 came out and realised how badly they screwed up by not including a DVD drive inside the console
I started collecting video game consoles a few years back. My goal was to eventually own every console which has at least a couple of good games unique to the console or at least the best version/port for games which appear on multiple consoles. I hesitated, but ultimately decided that the 32x should be part of my collection. Knuckles Chaotix, Shadow Squadron/Stellar Assault, Virtua Racing, Star Wars Arcade (good and only port of the Japanese Star Wars arcade game), Kolibri (beautiful shmup like game from the makers of Ecco the Dolphin) and a few more. So in my opinion it's a commercial failure but not a complete failure, since it's still worth playing it 2023.
I've only ever purchased one console expansion...'The Voice' for the Odyssey2/Phillips G7000, which was of course their add on speech synth.
It did what it was advertised to do in the handful of games that supported it, so I never felt to have been ripped off.
I moved dirtectly into computers from the Odyssey2, so it was both my first and last console.
(Fell in love with the N64 through emulation though)
I still have my mom's Intellivision with the Intellivoice module. "BEE SEVUHNTEEN BAWMBER!"
@@ShadowEl I went from the Odyssey2 w/ The Voice module to the TI-99/4A with the TI speech synth...now THAT is a machine that I expanded the heck out of...in fact 40 years later, I still spend a seriously-unwise portion of my income on her.
Blew the inheritence my grandmother left me on a peripheral expansion box with dual half-height drives back in 1982 (about $1000 at the time (or $3000 in 2023 money).
TI discontinued the computer the following year but I didn't!!
If I'm broke at the end pf the month, it's likely that some new 4A gadget or must-have homebrew cart has been released earlier in the month.
man you and that intro hit at the right time fam
I think with the 32x specifically, it wasn’t exactly clear “what sega was doing”. The thing about 1993 is it wasn’t fully clear the Saturn was even in the works. The internet was a baby, and your only knowledge of what was going on in Japan was likely found by reading something like EGM.
When the 32x was released, it wasn’t fully clear this was a half measure to cover the year before their REAL next Gen console was released. A lot of people thought this was their next system. It cost $200 in 1994 dollars at launch. Of the 600,000 people who bought it, they would absolutely have been the first people to buy a Saturn. After spending $200 + $50-60 for games only to be told within 12 months “sorry suckers” turned a lot of people off from future Sega investment
Floppy discs were not quite dying at the time of the 64DD announcement . So-called zip drives were fairly common until the early 2000s
I love the Sega CD, it should've been an rpg machine
I was hoping to see more arcade game ports and sequels to their IPs that took advantage of the CD technology. Sonic CD and Final Fight are two great examples of the potential it had.
I was hoping to see more arcade game ports and sequels to their IPs that took advantage of the CD technology. Sonic CD and Final Fight are two great examples of the potential it had.
Too bad the stone heads who ran SEGA Of America only gave their approval to garbage games featuring heavy use of FMV & not quality Japanese titles.
One thing i'll give Atari corporation credit for is that with all their limited resources and bad decision making at least they got the jaguar CD add on out if fairly quick time (almost 2 years after the release of the jaguar) in comparison to how long it took nintendo to release the n64 disk drive (over 3 years after the release of the n64) and even then they never bothered to release it in the west.
Imagine how much money was put into the 32x project from day one from Sega and what they ended up with barely six months down the line
And marketing spend
I have 2 out of 5: The ECS and the 32X. However, I only purchased each of these within the last year or so.
The 32X is a neat addon, but there is one serious problem, and that is the requirement of additional power. Indeed, the Tower of Power wasn't just a fun name for the Mega Drive stack, but perhaps an ironic critique of the fact that the Mega Drive / Genesis, Mega CD / Sega CD, and the 32X each needed their own power adaptor to function. I have tried aftermarket all-in-one power adaptors, but when they work, there seems to be some signal noise on the display. It was already a chore when I was a child to make space for 2 power supplies to play the Sega CD, as well as powering the television, and of course having a VCR connected as well. I can only imagine my frustration if I had to find room for a 3rd fat power supply in the mix, because it's a bit frustrating as an adult.
The ECS is an interesting addon. I have three of the games, but haven't taken too much time to give them a try. The most impressive game that I actually tried was World Series Major League Baseball, which was a radical improvement from the Major League Baseball that was released for the base Intellivision. What is more interesting is that it is the only game that takes advantage of two Intellivision addons, as you can connect the Intellivoice addon to the ECS, which connects to the base Intellivision, and the game will have a very robotic announcer. You still need to power the Intellivision and the ECS separately, however the Intellivoice didn't need additional power.
Speaking of failed addons, I own 4 out of the only 5 Intellivoice games produced.
I feel a post traumatic experience coming on....i hope i dont go schitzo and cook my pet cockatiel
@8:13 as an italian, I laughed a bit when I noticed "motoschifo" on the list of words, instead of "motoscafo" (speedboat).
"Motoschifo" can be roughly translated as "Motodisgust"...well done! 😅
Problem with add ons is always the same. Game companies can spend their time making a game that every owner of the console can buy, or making a game that just a small subset ofowners can.therefore the software is always thin on the ground
Spot on!
The story of the 32X has got to be one of the dumbest scenarios in gaming history. If they knew that the new console, the Saturn, was on it's way soon, what better to do than rush a half assed brick to the market that will no doubt discourage sales of the new console as consumers and parents especially will reason "we just got the new SEGA." Not only that, but releasing an add on in fear of the Jaguar is just mind boggling. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the Jaguar and appreciate it more than most, but just looking at Atari at the time and seeing the awful stock and piss poor direction makes it clear that SEGA didn't have anything to worry about. SEGA had loads of developers and IPs that were recognized and relevant. Atari didn't have anything close to that. Above all, if you were so scared about a new console having 64-bit capabilities, why in the HELL would you name your shiny new add on the 32X? That'd be like NEC getting scared of the Genesis touting 16 bits, so they name their console the TurboGrafx 8. That just gives the competitor more ammo. What an awful move, even without hindsight. At the very least Sega CD had somewhat of a point to exist. 32X couldn't even really do what it promised, as some games played the same or choppier then their Genesis counterparts. I'll get off my soapbox.
I totally agree, what they should have done is either release a Mega Drive adapter for the Saturn which could plug into the cartridge slot, or even better, just make the Saturn backwards compatible in the first place, especially when it already had that aforementioned cart slot!
In the US the 32x sold the Atari Jaguar 4 to one and the CD32 wasn't officially released but in the UK those three consoles were neck and neck from what i've read.
Yes they were, had the supply of Jaguar's not been so limited it would have shot ahead though.
It's a shame how Atari botched the Jaguar, it had potential and could have given the Saturn a run for its money at least in Europe. It had some solid third party titles and the odd solid first party title. By the way I love your videos.
Definitely!
And glad your enjoying them, that's why I make them!
I got a 32X, after the saturn had come out, for £15 from woolworths after Christmas. Near the front of the store, where the video games were over on the side, they had large aisles with vaious central displays in the middle of them displaying different things (in this area consoles, they game boys, gamecoms, etc). However at the end of the aisle the central display had been left blank and turned into a metal basket marked clearence. It was full of video game related stuff - R-Zone, Tiger handhelds, tiger watches, copies of 5 in 1 Game and Watch for game boy... And at the bottom of the basket, I found a 32X.
A couple of years later in the same place, I picked up a pokemon mini and a bunch of those tiny games for it for less than £10.
I remember those bargain bins well, the one in St. Albans had a crap load of Mega Drive games for £10 each and I bought 4 or 5 of them and then went back later in the week to try and get more but most of them had gone by that point. I am trying to remember what games they were. I know Fire Shark was one of them, I think Gain Ground and Gynoug were too - so all really good titles!
AM2 sound bite - evokes many memories for me
I hit shuffle on my massive YT playlist and for some odd reason this replayed 5 times.....I'm amazed at how bad Mattel messed with FTC. Everyone got an angle
The 64DD isn't a floppy disk. They are magneto-optical discs. Akin to Zip discs. Which were very popular until cd burners were cheaper and able to enter the home market with no issues. Also you forget that CDs are a Sony and Philips product, Nintendo didn't want to pay royalties to Sony or Philips...
It's a variation/evolution of the same concept. Nintendo's stubbornness costly them dearly that generation.
The old 32x man, what a huge mistake. If it weren't for that stupid idea Sega could possibly still be making consoles
Historical timeline of failure, story of my life.
Atari should have done the same thing that Sega should have done - introduce the add-on, but ALSO introduce an all in one at the same time.
Sega of course could have also headed off a lot of their failure by making a the Saturn backwards compatible, although that would have been tough - Genny on a chip (like the CDX nearly has) in place of the 68000 the Saturn has for audio, modified memory setup and cartridge port.
The tension between Sega of Japan and America made that impossible though.
Thanks for covering console expansions 👍😎👍 💯‼️
Ibthought the supercharger was like the game genie of its time.im sure it sucks anyway but i truly love the ideas they came up with.
Hi great content I loved virtual Racing for the 32x
Now i know the story behind the failure of the Nintendo 64DD. It also led to the demise of a planned sequel to Mother (Earthbound).
In non-American fashion "How the bloody hell did I miss this!"
I thought for sure the Coleco Adam would be on the list, if we're going by American popularity.
Also the 32X had the largest Day One Launch if 500k consoles in 24 hours.
Then 24 hours later, the Saturn had a launch date announced (which they jump the gun on vs the press conference that was one 3 digit number... 299
I just did a whole video on the Adam and I wasn't sure if it really fitted with the others given the Adam could be bought as a standalone system.
The 64DD feels more like the N64 version of the Sega CD & 32X, only this time released only in Japan. (16:35)
I've enjoyed the heck out of Turbo/PCE CD Super System 1.0-3.0 and Arcade Card games, Sega CD games, and 32X games back in the day and today. The 32X in particular I bought at launch, and really hoped for more Model 1 adaptations and even PC ports of early polygonal games. I'll never understand the interwebs' obsession with hyperbolic "failure" labels. Add-ons and peripherals were totally common in the industry, and far, far, far better than buying an incrementally upgraded set top box for the same retail price you already paid.
January-July 1996- Bought a Jaguar CD with about 9 titles.
December 2005-Threw the Jaguar CD and games in the trash while moving.
August 2023-Still kicking myself in the ass for what I did 18 years ago.
Oh wow! What a horrific error of judgement!
That Supercharger commercial was quite the um, "tribute" to the Archie Bunker character from the tv sitcom All in the Family here in the States. No shame back then
Not only did I get the JagCD and games, but I managed to get a Memory Track cartridge, too.
Ditto
"...and their parent company, SEGA Enterprises." THANK YOU for not being like seemingly every other UA-camr who incorrectly says "SEGA of Japan"!!!
After you said that the Atari Jaguar CD is highly sought after in working condition, I remembered that I have my old Atari stuff in my storage unit along with the Jag CD. I know the CD should work because it's never been opened. Still factory sealed. I see they are going for some nice change on eBay. I have never used eBay so I don't have an account so if anyone is interested in buying it I will sell it to the highest bidder. I'm not going to name a price. I just know what is reasonable after checking prices on ebay.
If you're on Facebook then join the "Jaguar Sector III" group, there will no doubt be a few people there interested.
One could argue that both the Aladdin Deck Enhancer by Codemasters & Camerica and the Datach by Bandai for the NES/Famicom is an expansion add-on (although not official), and both of them failed in the market with only 7 games released for each add-on.
I have the 32X and can play some N64DD games with the everdrive, but I don't have the courage yet to get a Jaguar and experience the JaguarCD.
I would of wanted a n64 DD today IF there was a fire emblem title on it lol
I disagree that Sega had the particular strategy you ascribe to them (at the time of the 32X) because I genuinely think _they had no strategy at all:_ they were really operating like four separate companies, each of which tinkered with a lot of new ideas without really making a commitment to any one of them. They got away with that in the Master System era (gee, did you waste money on the 3D expansion? How about the "sports pad"?), and they got away with it in the arcades, but nobody at Sega understood the extent to which they were making their customers hate and resent them by "trying out" and then abandoning (genuinely innovative) new hardware ideas.
I bought a 32x and it broke after a week but by then I was bored of virtual racing and there just wasn't s many games for it so I was so pleased when they gave me my money back in Woolworths😂
I had a Sega CD and loved it if you knew what games to get it was a great time
I remember going to toys r us 32x was 19.99 sega cd were 49.99 i already had a sega cd i picked up a 32x and 5 games
Still have a 32X and still love it
Was really disapointed about the N64 DD. It could have been really, really cool if Nintendo hadnt messed up with it. Ocarina of Time Master Quest, which was an alternate version of OOT with redesigned dungeons that were more difficult, which wasnt available until it released on a bonus disc for pre-ordering Wind Waker for the GC, was the sort of thing we would have seen from the DD addon if it had been succesful.
I had a 32X, which I had gotten by trading my Sega Saturn with another kid for his complete Sega Genesis collection that included a Sega CD. It was really disappointing at the time. The games on it were just bleh. I really regret having traded my Saturn... that was a dumb thing for kid me to do, especially with how much my dad had paid for it.
Wow! That was a bad deal!
I should clarify that the Saturn was the dissapointment, not the Genesis, I had already had one before I got my Saturn, but when I traded it I got things like the 32X and the Sega CD with it. I also wish I had kept the Saturn because I might have found out how to mod it down the line and import Japanese games.
The N64 Disk Drive probably should have been the format the system launched with, seeing as how they weren’t using CDs.
Wouldn't it be cool if sony or xbox got the ip from digital pictures and remaster there games (sewer shark,slam city , supreme warrior,corpse killer, marky Mark and the funky bunch, etc)
The house of kalinske really did suck ass
I was hoping the XBox 360 HD-DVD expansion might be on the list, but hey, idea for a future video? :-)
Somebody else suggested that too, as I said to him, I only cover retro stuff so didn't even consider it.
Well, at least you saved the worst for last.
The Sega Neptune design would of been a better route imo.
I think it would be interesting to see "X hardware add-ons that _succeeded," frankly.
However, some definition is required:
To count as a "hardward add-on", a product must have been available through whatever retail channels the manufacturer normally uses as a seperate item from te base platform. Its fine if the item is bundled with software, but it is also fine if the add-on was _also_ available as a bundle with the base unit, but if it was *only* available as a bundle with the base unit (via normal retail channels) then it doesn't count. For example, the Nintendo Zapper wouldn't count unless the Zapper actually appeared on store shelves as a standalone unit.
An add-on is _successful_ if it has more third party titles than it has first party titles. For purposes of this calculation, any titles that were sold exclusively via hardware bundles count as "first party titles," as it is likely that the add-on manufacturer commissioned the update rather tan the third party paying for it themselves.
I don't think there are _any_ console add-ons that qualify as successful by the above metric, and even if you expand to include computers there are very few successes. For computers there are a very few memory and storage upgrades that qualify. To get clear examples of success you have to resort to the IBM PC compatibles -- sound cards and video cards obviously qualify, as do CD-ROMs.
Sega of America were so reluctant to let go of what sucess they were having they seemed to think making an add on was the better option simply because of the instal base and that everyone would simply upgrade that way. While I do think they should have had more input in games development things like this prove they shouldn't have been making business decisions. They also seemed way too worried about what others like Atari were doing thinking again the Jaguar would be competition based on it name in America alone. Much like with not wanting to let go of their own old hardware they seemed to think the past was going to keep Atari relevant too exactly the reason they shouldn't have been making any business decisions.
Yeah, they were just such a mess at that point.
According to Tom Kalinske, it was Sega of Japan's President and CEO at the time (and his boss) Hayao Nakayama that was worried about the Atari Jaguar taking market share before the Saturn arrived. The Genesis was still doing fine against the SNES in the western markets, it had a huge library with a steady stream of titles being released in 94-95, it had a price drop ($89 USD) and had 50% of the market.
Sega of America's concern was the impending lack of 16 bit software with SoJ making the Saturn their main focus.
Nakayama pushed for a stop gap measure, but it was SoA that decided on its form, they chose an add-on versus a stand alone console. As mentioned in the comments, the add on only served to split the userbase more than it already was (with the Mega/Sega CD).
I don't know that a standalone 32x/Neptune would have done better, especially with the Saturn looming on the horizon.
Looking back the correct decision would have been wait out the Jaguar worries, and just launch the Saturn, and possibly an adapter to play your 16 titles on it.
SoJ was calling all the shots back then, SoA never had a chance in hell.
@@lazarushernandez5827 "the Genesis was still doing fine against the SNES in western markets"
Not really. The thing is Sega's supposed miraculous North American success in the 16-bit era was little more than smoke and mirrors in reality. Tom had sacrificed profitability for brand recognition and market share, which in theory could work if you're the size of a Sony/Microsoft or you can capitalize on the momentum with your next major product, but obviously neither of these were true of Sega.
The decision to cut the Genesis price by $50 ahead of the impending SNES launch meant they were selling the hardware at a loss until the arrival of the cost reduced Genesis 2, which were the biggest sales years for the console. More importantly in order to get American big box retailers like Wal-Mart and Target to carry Sega products Tom Kalinske had to enter into a completely one-sided arrangement where Sega took on all of the risk. They were required to produce ludicrously large orders for both hardware and software and then buyback any unsold stock from these retailers at near full market price if they didn't sell by a certain date (Nintendo had an already established relationship with these retailers and far more leverage and never had to agree to anything like this) . This was fine in 91-92, but as soon as sales started stagnating in 93 SOA started losing money hand over fist and by 94-95 they had multiple warehouses filled to the brim with unsold stock. On top of all that the Sega Technical Institute had also become a massive money pit losing the company nearly $100 million dollars annually according to the Japanese execs.
tl;dr SoA never turned a profit and by 1994 even before the launch of the 32x they were absolutely hemorrhaging cash.
@@lazarushernandez5827 They should have focused on SEGA CD and making good games for it until the Saturn launch. SEGA CD had a lot of potential but they squandered a lot of it on those horrible FMV games.
To think of all these companies making these products and the time and effort and cash it takes to put into them just to throw em in the bucket like last weeks leftovers. Oh this new device is gonna revolutionize the industry, well management doesn't like the idea anymore so throw it deep in the dumpster and layoff 60 or 70....better make it 100 so we are ahead of the game.....
Thank you for referring to the video game crash as the "North American Video Game Crash". Far too many people don't realize that the industry only crashed in the US. It never crashed in Asia, Europe, or other parts of the world. Next, we must shatter the myth and the lie that Nintendo saved video games despite the industry thriving elsewhere and never actually crashing outside of the US.
I always do, I get very annoyed when American assume the crash affected everyone and get even more irritated when they claim the "NES saved gaming". I will continue to educate on both myths!
Well I'm really not the biggest Nintendo fan nowadays and there are a lots of myths concerning how they were this big innovating force in the industry (almost all their so-called innovations were not by them). They were mostly good at refining concepts and marketed them better. But they really did help console gaming to recover from the 80's crash in America, especially since the Sega Master system really didn't catch on here compared to other regions. Nintendo Power magazine was brainwashing kids all over America to an extent you can't even imagine if you're not American. They even sent a free Dragon Warrior 1 cartridge to every subscribers at one point.
@@TheLairdsLair I will always bring up that IMO, the NES is what shaped the gaming industry into what it was at the time irregardless of financial reasons. It's no secret that PC gaming wasn't dead, even in the US. But that was a very different ball game. Even the most action oriented Commodore, Amstrad, Atari 8 bit, and so on games were lesser than the prime NES games. And that's not a knock towards them at all, NES lacked the strategy and text based games. NES games were made within a different mindset then what was available prior. PCs cost hundreds. NES cost roughly the equivalent to $180 in most areas. Beatable action games were hot. PC games were cheap. NES games were not! PCs were a tool. NES was a toy. It's a different outlook. Yes, Master System took headway in Europe, but would that have looked the same without the NES? It most likely would have been a more powerful Sega SG-1000, with a joystick to boot! The Atari 7800 likely wouldn't have gotten it's mainstream release to the scale it did. The NES brought along a different era of game design philosophy. It wasn't alone, but it made the headway. For that, I would very much argue that it "saved" the industry to make it what it is today, and it's possible to acknowledge it's influence while respecting the works of it's competitors. I need to get off my soapbox again, LOL!
@@TheLairdsLair I'm glad I'm not the only one! Keep up the great work!
@bubbythebear6891 You make some interesting points, but really the NES didn't have any effect on the UK/European market and I don't believe it influenced others that much either. One of the reasons I say this is that Atari pretty much ruled the UK console market for the whole of the eighties, in fact there is a magazine clipping I have that states official market share figures from 1990 that shows even then Atari held over 50% of that particular sector. The 2600 never stopped selling over here and the UK/Europe even got its own specific model of the 2600 in the "Black Irish" version of the Jr. Manufactured in the Atari Games coin-op factory in Tipperary, Ireland it was built specifically to help satisfy the demand for the console. So I think that even if the NES didn't exist, we would have seen other consoles at some point in Europe to compete with Atari for that slice of the market.
You cannot count the Jaguar CD as a failure. As the Jaguar itself was such a monumental failure, any expansion released for it is also so horrible, that it wraps around and becomes awesome. It's like a double negative. I will await your correction.
I think that's quite a stretch!!!
You consider the 64DD to be a bigger failure than the Virtual Boy?
Yes it sold far less and never made it out of Japan.
The Nintendo DD was even named correctly. Developmentally disabled.
Had never heard of it. Only one on the list but as you said they cancel the western release that makes sense as I’m not in Japan. Lol.
Even a search comes up a zip. Lol. Did you mean DS? Lol. No google. Nintendo: yeah let’s just forget that one. Haha.
I've just been setting up an everdrive on my genesis. When I found out the Master System games would work if I disconnected my 32x, but then I couldn't play 32x games, I quickly disconnected the 32x 😂😂
UGH the 32 X and the Jaguar Toilet
32X was actually cool. Had one. The games looked good. Had they backed it, as well as a system with built in 32X it would have done much better
Had they had a master adapter and Game Gear adapter for the 32X, then people could have played all their stuff on one system. May have helped them. Where people could play their old games and new games with a huge library.
I bought a Jag and CD CIB in 99. I think i payed $200 and felt ripped off. I payed $30 the week before for a Saturn with 40 games and $25 for the Virtual Boy new and 3DO CIB with several games. But now the cd is worth what? It is a neat looking combo, but the quality is not good.
I bought my Jaguar CD on launch day and never regretted it, I got a Saturn about a year later.
No mention of the Aladdin deck enhancer? 🤔😅
I did consider it, but its far from an official device
I like this comment section, because usually everyone is like, "Sega of Japan was so stupid! If only they obeyed Sega of America, then they would have succeeded!"
But seriously no. Sega of America was stupid. Absolutely stupid. They got lucky with marketing Sonic on the Genesis, but other than that every decision was disastrous self-own, and a knife in Sega's back. Even their success in selling the Dreamcast was actually a mistake - accidentally setting the price too low to make a profit (which was desperately needed, to keep Sega afloat).
The 32X and Mega CD? That piled on stupidity upon stupidity upon stupidity. What ever gave them the idea that any add on could be successful? They could have just looked at every console add-on in the history of USA video gaming ever to realize it was a stupid idea.
Morons.
I'll tell you an interesting story that I should probably expand upon in a video at some point, but it basically centres around former Coleco, Atari and Sega president Mike Katz.
When I got to interview him a few years back I asked him a lot about his time at Sega and why he left, and it was very revealing. He basically told me how he had come up with the idea to do all the Sega Sports games to give them something that Nintendo didn't have and how he came up with the whole "Genesis Does What Nintendon't" campaign.
But Also how Sega of Japan slapped this totally unrealistic target on him to sell something like (I'd have to check the real figures so I am just paraphrasing here) 2 million consoles in the first 6 months of launch. It was an impossible target and he hoped to be able to talk them round, especially as the Genesis launch had far exceeded his own expectations and had been by far Sega's best console launch. He couldn't talk them round and then they fired him and replaced him with Tom Kalinske, who ended up taking the credit for a lot of Katz's work.
The blame is on both Sega of Japan and Sega of America.
First off Sega of America could not do anything on their own without Sega of Japan's approval. Even Sonic's success, a decision made by Kalinske, was only possible because Nakayama gave him authority to do so.
The Mega CD was produced in Japan as a reaction to the PC Engine releasing their CD ROM peripheral, and a sneak peak at the Super Famicom's mode 7 abilities, how exactly was this SoA fault?
The blame for SoA here is the choice of software they decided to push in western markets. My favorite titles for the Sega CD were Sonic CD, Snatcher, Lunar: The Silver Star and Lunar: Eternal Blue; all of which are Japanese in origin, the western market provided all of these FMV titles; Night Trap, Sewer Shark, and those 'Make my Video' titles... never really liked any of those.
As for the 32X, it was Nakayama that was worried about Jaguar market share before the Saturn showed up in the west, he pushed for a hold me over. SoA's blame here is the decision of making it an add on. It really should not have been greenlit knowing that the Saturn was on its way.
By 1996, Sega of Japan and Sega of America had changed leadership: Kalinske left in 96, Hayao Nakayama stepped down from being co-chairman. Shoichiro Irimajiri replaced Kalinske as President of Sega of America at this point.
In 98 Nakayama resigned as President of Sega of Japan. Irimajiri took over as CEO and President of Sega of Japan and Bernie Stolar as President of Sega of America.
These two handled the Dreamcast development and launch while simultaneously cutting short the Saturn's future.
Plenty of blame to go around.
@IsaacKuo Sega DID NOT learn , they even had a DVD add on for the dreamcast planned for 2001-02
The 32x was a neat idea but even when it was brand new i had a hard time getting mine to work and it stopped working all together by the time I got rid of it 23 years ago.
Yeah, Ok, objectively the SuperCharger failed but it's the coolest of the bunch here and unlike Sega for example, Arcadia/Starpath made sure it got only quality titles. It was an excellent product, period
Totally agree, as I said in the video, it was the crash that killed it, not the quality of the product and had it been released a little earlier I'm sure it would have been a big success.
32 X failed because it was the same price as a comparable full system
It s safe to say that the Mega cd was the most successful add on ever created. Not a flop actually
The Mega CD was released to compete with the PC Engine Super CD, which was really successful in Japan, so I'd say that was the most successful add-on.
Where's the XBOX 360 HD-DVD drive?
I only cover retro systems.
I think I'd actually be more curious to hear about the console expansions that actually succeeded. I don't recall hearing too much going wrong with the PC-Engine CD add-on and the Sega CD/Famicom Disk System could be deemed successes compared to the other console expansions that came about.
0:51 - Oh, what do you know, you ended up mentioning the PC Engine Super CD and Sega Mega CD right away as not failures but not exactly successes either.
2:41 - First I'm hearing of the Starpath Supercharger and hilarious coincidence it had a similar name to another Atari 2600 expansion. I must admit, I've never really thought much about Gen 2 and their potential console expansions. WIth the sheer abundance of consoles confusing consumers, I can only imagine the additional chaos of having to factor in console expansions as well.
9:11 - All this could have made a video in of itself. A console add-on that the company was trying to cancel but forced to release. What a crazy journey for it. Coming out in 1983 could have been to it's advantage if it worked out properly though. At a time where consoles were crashing in the North American market, being able to use an expansion and pitch said console as a micro-computer instead may have worked out. Ultimately it didn't but you get my point.
10:40 - I always hear about Sega of Japan and Sega of America but never Sega of Europe. Given the better success of the Master System in PAL territories and the Mega Drive also doing well there, you would think they would have more sway or presence in discussions at this time.
12:37 - I feel Sega of America's better approach to continuing the drive of the Mega Drive would have been to give more support to the already existing Sega Multi-Mega CDX. The low adoption rate of the Mega CD would have been due to high-price and it's add-on nature, but by 1994, prices would have come down and the combined console variant would have fixed the add-on factor so they could of grown both the existing Mega Drive and Mega CD markets more.
14:56 - I was about to say, good on Atari for delaying the Jaguar CD to give it those improvements and then lo-and-behold, no upgrades were made. Atari were struggling to get people to develop for the Jaguar and could see the history of poorly selling console add-ons, so I've no idea why they thought this was a good idea. Strange that Nintendo would later make the same mistake.
16:34 - The DD stands for Dynamic Drive!? I never knew that.
17:21 - I don't question Nintendo not going with CDs. More CD consoles were failing than succeeding and there were advantages to cartridges, one Nintendo were keen to focus on. What I do question is why they thought the CD add-on idea was a good idea? History had already shown it not, only providing limited success at best. I do wonder if certain N64 games would have come out earlier or avoided cancellation if they were made for N64 first and foremost, rather than being distracted by the DD.
With regards to Sega Europe, they didn't really exist for a long time, for years Sega just teamed up with various European distributors, of which Virgin Mastertronic in the UK became the most important and prominent (they also controlled France too) so much so that Sega ended up buying them out (which officially created a Sega Europe).
@@TheLairdsLair Thanks for the explanation. I recall the story of Virgin Masertronic involvement with Sega but didn't realise they were eventually purchased by Sega. When did that happen?
It seems that Sega of Japan and Sega of America should have taken advice from Virgin Masterstronic then.
I loved the 32X when it came out 😊. If Sega Of Japan 🇯🇵 had supported Sega Of America 🇺🇸 instead of shutting them out, it would have been successful. The Saturn 🪐 debacle is a story all on its own that shows how inept they (SOJ) were. 😢
I kinda fascinated with the 32X since it supposedly has 2 32-bit processors in it I wanna disect one and see them
Yup, SEGA sabotaged themselves. SOJ was just too stubborn and hating on SOA's success in North America. I passed on SEGA CD and 32X as they were just too expensive and I didn't see any games worth getting at the time. A few years later, I did get the CD system and quite a few games. They both had potential. I can only imagine what could have been if SOJ and SOA had worked together to make them successful.
Sega CD
The Sega 32X was the most unnecessary add on ever and killed the Saturn in North America.
👍👍👍❤❤❤
Surprised you didn't mention Nintendo's failed Super Nintendo add on that resulted in the creation one of Nintendo's biggest competitors: the Sony PlayStation. That really wasn't a failure in terms of cost, but a failure in terms of the tried and true business practice of, you know, not creating a competitor.
That wasn't failed, it was cancelled and I covered in another video about cancelled devices.
The 32x launch sold more than jaguar life and 32x sold a million. Sega CD 3 million. Both those add ONS highest selling ever before Xbox Kinect 💡
Famicom Disk System sold nearly 4 1/2 million units.
the virtual boy was nintendos biggest flop
The Virtual Boy sold 770,000 units, the N64 DD sold 15,000 - the Virtual Boy was a roaring success in comparison.
@@TheLairdsLair in what country/countries ? i know the vb did pretty poorly here in the states
That's worldwide sales, although the VB only came out in Japan and North America. The N64 DD never even made it out of Japan.
@@TheLairdsLair yeah i knew the dd was a japan only thing i spose we could say both of those are their biggest flops
I too prefer my PC Engines with more Western penetration.
Both the famicom disksystem and mega CD should,ve beenmentioned as well🤣
I mentioned both at the start, both made a profit for their respective companies and were well supported so can't be considered failures really.
@@TheLairdsLair aha oke.
The FDS was near obsolete mere months after launch.
I got the 32X the Christmas it was released with Doom, VR Deluxe and Star Wars. I was genuinely blown away but then... no games worth a mention to be seen for ages. It was a great little add on completely let down by Sega.
I remember reading somewhere that Sega of America knew it was time to put the final nail in the coffin of their aging, Sega Genesis, once Donkey Kong Country for the SNES/SFC hit the market.
I'm not so sure about that, Sega were doing some similar things at the time.