Glenn Saunders wrote:
>I guess you could see the 32X as related to the Starpath Supercharger, but
>I don't think the Supercharger came close to the pricepoint of the 32X. So
>it was more like buying a whole new system vs. a cartridge. The 32X was
>what, $99 or something?
Over, here, the 32X was, without a game, ATS 2990.-, which was essentially
the same price the SNES had at launch (a game included), and the N64 had it
too (without a game). What Sega planned with its concoles at that time was
rather confusing... they planned the Neptun, which I also read of, and they
also brought out the Multi Mega, which was a portable Mega Drive with CD
player included - it could be powered by batteries (6 of them), and of
course also played everything the Mega CD could play - including Karaoke
CD+G's, but offering greater comfort with direct keys for title skipping on
Audio CD's (and CD+G's), just like on a normal CD portable. And... it was
explicitly said that the 32X wouldn't run on this unit... By the way, the
"Multi Mega" costed ATS 6490 here, which was more than the Genesis and its
CD-II unit together.
For that backwards compatibility: This is of course a good idea, but I think
it could also hamper the advance of system technology. Just look at Windows
95, 98 et al. I think those OS's could run a lot more stable, and a lot
faster, wouldn't they have to be compatible to their precedessors. On the
other hand, maybe PC's only succeded because of that... the number of
software running on the machines is just constantly growing... and on Win 98
with a Pentium II, you can still run that old Atarisoft version of "Dig Dug"
in CGA as beautifully as it ran on an XT, though many other games who don't
have such good timing routines won't run properly, and though, of course,
the emulation of the original arcade machine looks a lot nicer...
So... it probably make sense that the Atari 8-bit's not compatible to the
2600, and the Amiga doesn't play Atari 8-bit games... but it of course
should be done if it's very easy to do.
Sega's mistake with the 32X was that the Saturn was actually their next
console. The Neptune probably couldn't stand the comparison to other
consoles just developed at this time. Otherwise, they could have said: "The
Neptune is the new console" (Did it have the CD drive included, by the way?)
"And if you already have a Genesis, you can expand it with the 32X and the
CD drive to play Neptune games too." Something like that. Nintendo, for
instance, could modify their N64 and build the memory expansion into it from
now on (of course it would have to cost less than the N64 and memory
expansion together now), so only people having the old system, and wanting
to buy new games, would need to buy the expansion seperately.
By the way, in the USA, what's the pricepoint of the N64, carts and its
expansion now?
With love (and slightly turning to newer systems?!!)
Kurt Woloch
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