32X
And now we’re getting into the really fun stuff! The Sega 32X was one of Sega’s most ill advised moves during the console wars. The Maga Drive/Genesis had been out for several years and whilst they and Nintendo were battling for winning position in the sales during the 16-bit era, there were many rival consoles popping up during this time. These included more powerful machines such as the Atari Jaguar, Philips CDI and Amiga CD32. Nintendo were also prepping their Nintendo Ultra 64 and Sony were poised to release their Play Station, and with this Sega would need to bring out something new to keep their position at the top.
Sega being Sega had various development teams work on options for hardware at the same time, and whilst research and development of this nature isn’t uncommon, they did make the strange choice of releasing two separate 32-bit consoles within a few months of each other.
The first of these was the Sega Saturn, which will get to in this list soon, but as a 3D capable stand alone console that could produce similar games to Sega’s current arcade machines it was clearly Sega’s future (until they decided it wasn’t, but we’ll get to that soon). Sega also decided to release the 32X, which by the fact it was a second add on for the Mega Drive (after the Mega-CD) it was clearly routed in the past.
Plugging into the top of the Mega Drive and resembling a mushroom cloud exploding out of the cartridge slot, the 32X was problematic console in that not only did it add significant size and height for the Mage Drive, but it also required it’s own power unit. Considering that there were games that required both the 32X and the Mega CD which also had it’s own power unit, you may end up needed 3 plug sockets (plus a forth for the TV) just to play one game!
Whilst there was some initial interest in the machine, the public and publishers soon realised that the 32X wasn’t a wise purchase, and if they were Sega fans they would be much better served to wait for the Sega Saturn.
Of course hindsight is 2020, and on one level there were positives to this idea. The Mega CD had been a moderate success, and coming out years later, the Mega Drive had a much larger install base to market this thing to. Buying the 32X would mean players could still use their Mega Drive controllers and Mega Drive games could still be plugged into the 32X (although it didn’t enhance the games in any way).
Also because the machine was under supported and given up on by Sega after a year it left a lot of Sega fans who had supported the machine feeling burned and this combined with other mistakes during the 32X/Saturn era damaged the good will that they had built up with the public.
Looking back at the situation Sega would perhaps have been better to either release the 32X as an upgraded Mega Drive with the 32-bit games and backwards compatibility being the selling points, or more sensibly just release the Sega Saturn and not release the 32X at all.
If Sega had just concentrated on the Saturn they wouldn’t have damaged the trust with their loyal Mega Drive owners, would have saved wasted money and resources on development and advertising, and here’s the real kicker – they could have put out the 32X exclusive Knuckles Chaotix as a launch title for the Saturn. Knuckles Chaotix for those who don’t know is a Knuckles starring spin off to the 2D Sonic games, and was Sega’s only 32-bit Sonic platformer as an original game was never released for the Saturn. Certainly, it’s true that if the game, which still looked very much like the Mega Drive games had come out on the Saturn, it may not have been the best showcase for why the Saturn was an upgrade to the Mega Drive, but if that’s true, then it was also true for them releasing it on the 32X.
Other than Knuckles, you could get versions of Doom and Virtua Fighter for the 32X, but as you could get both on the Saturn, and in the case of Doom, you could get a Super Nintendo version, these did little to help the console’s fortunes. Over all 34 games were made for the machine with highlights being Spider-Man Web of Fire, Virtua Racing Deluxe, WWF Raw and WrestleMania the Arcade Game, Space Harrier and Mortal Kombat II.
