At least someone was scared of the Jaguar back in the day...... Sega

[GKC]

Reading Retrogamer's Videogames Hardware Handbook Vol. II about the 32x and it explains that the idea for the 32x was to respond to the Atari Jaguar. It's actually a quote from Scot Bayless who was senior producer at Sega during that time:

 

"...but the essence of the call was that we needed to respond to Atari's Jaguar and we needed to do it right away."

 

That's right, to respond to the Atari Jaguar. Sega was quaking in their boots

 

Pg. 241 if anyone is interested.

Edited December 19, 2010 by GKC

[kevincal]

That is pretty cool. I guess Sega overestimated the impact that the Jaguar would have though... 32X = big mistake. The Sega CD hurt the company enough, but they really shot themself in the foot with the 32X... They should have ditched the 32X altogether and released the Saturn in the US in late 1994. Its so easy to say "what if" now, though.

[GKC]

They should have ditched the 32X altogether and released the Saturn in the US in late 1994.

 

This is more or less what the article and the people interviewed from Sega said. Ditch the 32x and focus on the Saturn. Sega was adamant though about extending the life of the Genesis and creating a transition console from the Genesis to the Saturn with the 32x (and of course responding to the Jaguar as mention before ).

[Lost Dragon]

Thread bump, but people seemed to have liked the 3DO quotes etc so try these:

Tom Kalinske 'I don't fear anything priced over $500' (refering to 3DO price).

Bill White, Sega USA V.P/Head Of Marketing:'The question we ask ourselves-and this is based on their (Atari's) prior experienc-is that they may fall into the same trap of launching hardware (Jaguar)without adequate software support.Looking at what's been seen in the states, we don't see anything to get too worried about' (responding to Atari's claim Sega and Nintendo are the people we have to beat).

[Lost Dragon]

Sega's Tom Kalinske, talking to Edge in April 1995:

'I don't believe the current Jaguar is powerful enough to compete with the new machines and there's not enough great software out there to support it.They've done a better job recently of getting some other decent games out for it but it's not enough to save it.It's too little, too late.'

:-) Maybe Retro Gamer should have quoted a few other Sega Sources to give wider range of views?...just sayin.....

[Rick Dangerous]

Seems odd to respond with an inferior machine. I'm having a lot of fun with my 32x right now but it's obviously not as powerful as the jag.. The 32x really was the begginging of the end for Sega. I hate to say it because I enjoy mine, but they really should have never released it and focused on the Saturn.

[doctorclu]

Or skip the Saturn entirely, extend the Genesis, and bring on the Dreamcast!

 

Sadly, the mediocre support of the Saturn is what killed Sega. They tried to bring back the interest with the Dreamcast, and they were kinda succeeding, but the damage with the Saturn was done. And when Playstation 2 showed up, they knew the battle was over.

[JagChris]

Or skip the Saturn entirely, extend the Genesis, and bring on the Dreamcast!

 

Sadly, the mediocre support of the Saturn is what killed Sega. They tried to bring back the interest with the Dreamcast, and they were kinda succeeding, but the damage with the Saturn was done. And when Playstation 2 showed up, they knew the battle was over.

 

 

Also the lack of copy protection combined with piracy killed the DC.

[Willard]

I never read this thread/knew of the article before, kind of interesting but it doesn't entirely make sense.

 

The 32x was released in north America only like 4 months before the Saturn launched there, so the only real threat that Sega faced was the fact that the Jaguar cost about half the Saturn. But Atari was also not doing very well by the end of '94 and the Jaguar was getting panned by critics, the only thing that really kept them going was their settlement with Sega in September '94. Did Sega really think that the Jaguar would pull a 180?

 

The only real reasons I can see for them releasing the 32x would be to have a good excuse to keep supporting the genesis (still had a large market share at the time) and to provide a lower cost alternative to the relatively expensive next-gen wave of 32-bit systems ($159 for 32x, $299 for PS1, $399 for Saturn, I know which one parents would prefer to get for their kids ).

Edited September 14, 2014 by Willard

[Lost Dragon]

:-) I could devote entire threads to what in effect 'killed' Sega, but Saturn in it's original form was designed as a 3DO beater, which it would of been an Sega were offered a 1 chip solution to bring Saturn in line with tech specs of PS1, but that would of meant a later launch etc.

 

With 32X:Starwars, Virtua Fighter and Motocross were originally planned as SVP MD/Genesis cart games to go along side Virtua Racing, but the cost of putting the SVP chip onto Genesis carts was not feasiable.Everything bar Virtua Fighter was transfered to 32X, VF going to Saturn as a flagship launch game before being converted for 32X.

 

I've seen a lot of quotes from Sega USA over the years, never personally had impression Sega (or anyone else) really feared Atari with the Jaguar.Sega had the installed user base, brand name (arrogance :-) ), 3rd party support (initally at least) and cash reserves Atari simply did not have.

[Bill Loguidice]

The information that I recall seeing was that the 32X was really to bridge the gap to the release of the Saturn, but the Saturn's release was moved up to get the jump on Sony, making the 32X kind of moot. Naturally, that backfired, with the Saturn releasing with too few and too rough titles, which didn't exactly endear the platform to potential consumers (though one wonders if it would have made much of a difference with the 32X - it's actually quality hardware, but at that point it was probably one too many add-ons for the Genesis). Sony by contrast had a near flawless launch, with a large, varied launch line-up. It's amazing that a console newbie like that would show up the veterans.

[Lost Dragon]

Sega's early launch did backfire on a number of levels, a lot of 'loyal' Sega retailers had been ignored in favour of the big boys (Toys 'R' Us, Babbages etc), Triple-A software (the reson people would be buying Saturns) simply was'nt ready.

Sega was also trying to 'support' far too many platforms:Genesis, Sega CD, Game Gear, Nomad, Pico, 32X, 32X CD.

Saturn (or Gigadrive as it started out) was simply designed to be a powerful, multi-purpose console, which would out-spec the 3DO.Sony might have lacked experience in the videogaming market (and had it's fingers burnt with MSX years before), but it had been working with and manufacturing MIPS Processors used in SGI Workstations for a number of years, so i guess they were fully aware of just how important 3D was in the new generation of console hardware.

[Lost Dragon]

In terms of 'beefing-up' Saturn, Sega had 2 teams, 2 choices.Hideki Sato+his hand picked team of 27 Sega Engineers (the away team) favouring the cheaper, off the shelf option (using 2 Hitachi SH-2's to boost power via parallel processing) or Tom Kalinske+teams option, of going with the simplistic, single chip design they'd been offered, after approaching Silicon Graphics.Nakayama-San (Sega CEO) overruled Tom's team in favour of the away team option (rumour had it this was partly due as a favour to a golfing buddy).

 

Nakayama-San also ordered Tom Kalinske to drop ALL previous Sega hardware and focus soley on Saturn, IF Sega USA had taken different tactics, kept 16 Bit market going for another 12 months, who knows how differently things might have turned out?.

[Lost Dragon]

:-) Found the article quote is taken from and it really needs to be put in context with rest of the article.Sega of Japan knew the Saturn was going to be 'slow to take off ' at retail, due to the price tag it'd be selling for, plus Nakayama lacked confidence Saturn would make it to the market in 1994 and he was savy enough to understand the importance of how well the MD had done in Europe/Genesis in USA, yet by know 16 Bit games were in danger of looking a little long in the tooth.

3DO and Jaguar would only add to that impression as they were doing 3D beyond SVP or Super FX Chip ability etc.

32X was designed far more simply to prolong life in the 16 Bit Sega market, rather than as a result of fearing the Jaguar itself.

Sega simply wanted to hold onto the market share it had, as that was wherew it was earning most of it's income.

[+Gemintronic]

Of course, another twist in considering Sega's logic is the fight between the American division and Japan. Different cultures with different ideas. Who knows what the strategy was or how much of it was from whom.

[Lost Dragon]

Tom Kalinske has gone on record saying SEGA Japan originally were going to do all the development on 32X and provide many games for it, but at some point they basically turned around and said to SEGA USA, here you go, it's all yours to finish off.So they had to complete the hardware and start 'finding' most of the games for it.

 

Plus he felt that had the strategy concerning 32X been executed properly, it would have worked far better in terms of extending the life of the Genesis.

[82-T/A]

Or skip the Saturn entirely, extend the Genesis, and bring on the Dreamcast!

 

Sadly, the mediocre support of the Saturn is what killed Sega. They tried to bring back the interest with the Dreamcast, and they were kinda succeeding, but the damage with the Saturn was done. And when Playstation 2 showed up, they knew the battle was over.

 

 

Am I mistaken, or did the Saturn not do really well in Japan? Not sure whether or not that brought in enough income and "paid the bills"...

[108 Stars]

The Saturn did better than elsewhere in Japan, but that still meant it was far behind the PlayStation.

[Jagosaurus]

I remember Virtua Fighter on 32x being REALLY impressive. I think much like most short lived systems, the 32x had a lot of untapped power. There's footage of Quake running it on floating around.

 

Yeah, SS did really well in JPN. Games were still being released in 2000 IIRC.

 

Lack of copy protection didn't kill the DC. While it likely slightly impacted software sales... I knew 1 person with a machine & CD burner in '99 that could rip & burn the GDROM format on to a CDR. The DVD format (see the unreleased DC DVD add on) & PS2 had much more to do with it. Sega was already in too deep... burning games was a paper cut when they were bleeding out money already.

[guiltl3ss]

I remembering being a kid and knowing that a 32x and a Saturn existed, but for all of my friends (and myself) it didn't really matter; we were all waiting on a new Nintendo system or were happy with the SNES. The Genesis was good, but seriously lacked the king of games we got hooked on. Namely, RPGs. The Phantasy Star and Shining series were good, but lacked what Final Fantasy and other games brought. 1995 had the Saturn, but it also had Chrono Trigger. None of us cared about a new Sega system because the games would be...well...Sega games. Good arcade ports to people who don't play arcade games that much doesn't matter. I still remember playing a demo of NIGHTS at my local Circuit City (double whammy there) and thought it looked good but was frustrated by the controls and game concepts. Maybe that left a bad impression on me but I didn't play a Saturn again until my Japanese friend brought over Shining the Holy Ark, which was awesome. I dont know, I'm rambling. I just don't think Sega marketed it properly to the audience but looking back I wish I would've got it.

[Lost Dragon]

Only got 2nd page of the feature on Jaguar in Dec'93 issue of Mega (p17 etc) but Sega responding to question of wether they were worried about Jaguar's supposed tech specs:

 

'we're not looking back at hardware specs of Jaguar or even 3DO.We're looking ahead to the next generation of software and are very excited about the prospects of our existing systems.We'll sell something in excess of 6 Million Genesis systems this year alone, something between 23 and 25 million units of software for a total retail value of over $2 Billion and maybe next year will get larger.So we're not concerned at the moment about Jaguar or 3DO.1993, 1994 and certainlly 1995, to a degree are going to be 16 Bit years and we have leadership in that category and we're going to continue to runthe wheels off it'.

 

 

So again, RG really needed extra sources for balance in that article.

[NeoGeoNinja]

I remembering being a kid and knowing that a 32x and a Saturn existed, but for all of my friends (and myself) it didn't really matter; we were all waiting on a new Nintendo system or were happy with the SNES. The Genesis was good, but seriously lacked the king of games we got hooked on. Namely, RPGs. The Phantasy Star and Shining series were good, but lacked what Final Fantasy and other games brought. 1995 had the Saturn, but it also had Chrono Trigger. None of us cared about a new Sega system because the games would be...well...Sega games. Good arcade ports to people who don't play arcade games that much doesn't matter. I still remember playing a demo of NIGHTS at my local Circuit City (double whammy there) and thought it looked good but was frustrated by the controls and game concepts. Maybe that left a bad impression on me but I didn't play a Saturn again until my Japanese friend brought over Shining the Holy Ark, which was awesome. I dont know, I'm rambling. I just don't think Sega marketed it properly to the audience but looking back I wish I would've got it.

 

Interesting perspective re: Nintendo preference > SEGA. I used to feel the same way in the 8-bit & 16-bit era. I had owned all four consoles at one point, but the NES and then SNES totally killed it for me as a kid gamer. SEGA really couldn't compete in my eyes.

 

In truth, SEGA didn't actually get my attention UNTIL the Saturn arrived. I ended up getting one in 96 with SEGA Rally, Virtua Fighter 2, Virtua Cop 2, Daytona CCE, Panzer Dragoon II, XMEN COTA and SFAlpha 2. Yeah... a pretty awesome selection of titles right out of the gate imo. I had lots of great titles for the Saturn and respected it enough, individually from the PS1, which I also loved.

 

However, SEGA didn't fully take the spotlight for me until the DC arrived. Seriously... I don't think I had ever been so impressed with a games console and its performance in all of my life. Serious leapage...

[+madman]

Seems odd to respond with an inferior machine. I'm having a lot of fun with my 32x right now but it's obviously not as powerful as the jag.. The 32x really was the begginging of the end for Sega. I hate to say it because I enjoy mine, but they really should have never released it and focused on the Saturn.

I haven't looked at the tech specs of either for awhile, but I think it might be unfair to say the 32x isn't "obviously" as powerful as the Jag. Virtua Racing on the 32x is an excellent game, the Jag didn't produce anything anywhere nearly as good as far as 3D goes. The problem with both "systems" was the programming. Many 32x games mainly used the Genesis side of the house, with the 32x adding little value. Same with the Jag where the 68k was the main processor. I was never a Genesis fan back in the day, but after picking up a 32x on clearance for $20 and Virtua Racing, I will defend the 32x as a viable add-on for gamers. That game alone is worth it IMO.

[Lost Dragon]

@madman:32X hardware got decent amounts of 'love' from coders interviewed in UK press, Scavenger rated it (and that X-Men demo looked superb) and in among the many, many interviews i'm having scanned to appear on here, you'll find Jeremy Smith of Core praising it as well.

[Bill Loguidice]

The 32X and Jaguar are definitely something of kindred spirits, with both falling into the same general no-Man's Land between generations. Even though the 32X sold far more than the Jaguar, both were definitely commercial failures. Both too were never really pushed to their technological limits, which is not uncommon for short-lived and undersupported systems. Both also suffered from a high percentage of rushed ports, games that didn't leverage the hardware, etc. Both also had a handful of gems when the hardware was leveraged (or at least care was taken). Etc. It obviously hurts the 32X's present day popularity that it was "just" an add-on to one of the most popular consoles of all-time; it doesn't get the same love/homebrew support that even the Jaguar gets to this day.