hey guys~

[stu]

Also, just to clear up a misconception. The 32X/Mars project was actually thought up by SOJ as a way of prolonging the Genesis/Megadrive in the US and Europe. Since the MegaDrive was already dead in Japan, SOJ was going to focus their efforts on the Saturn. SegaBase explains it further.

Source - http://www.eidolons-inn.net/tiki-index. ... e+32X&bl=y

Quote "

The system that would be known as Project Mars was given birth on 8 January 1994, the night before the opening of the 1994 Winter CES in Las Vegas, Nevada, in a hotel room during a conference among top-level Sega executives from both Japan and America. Those present at this meeting included Sega CEO Hayao Nakayama, Sega of America president Tom Kalinske, his special assistant Joe Miller, Sega of Japan's Hideki Sato, Sega of America's Paul Rioux, and a couple of other Sega of Japan personnel. Surprisingly enough, Nakayama was the one who first broached the subject at this meeting. As such, it is he and not Sega of America's Joe Miller who should be given credit as being "the father of the 32X." Miller remembers this meeting well.

Quite simply, Nakayama-san had directed the company to design and produce a cartridge-based 32-bit platform and bring it to market before the Christmas selling season of 1994. This was a lengthy, somewhat heated meeting - but in the end there was no question that Sega of Japan (in the form of a classic Nakayama mandate) had determined that this was what we were going to do. It was now up to the senior team to figure out and go execute. The difference, this time, was that Sega of Japan was actually inviting Sega of America into the process - instead of creating new platforms in a vacuum and throwing them over the ocean at us when it was too late to have meaningful input .... Sega of Japan was completely committed and was ready to mobilize whatever internal resources were require to finish the design and produce it in quantity for Christmas.As first presented by Hideki Sato and his team of engineers, the original concept for Mars was little more than a Genesis with an extra 32-bit processor (a Hitachi SH-1, according to some reports) and an expanded color palette (128 out of 512 possible colors on screen). Joe Miller, who was in fact chief technical wizard at Sega of America, was appalled at the suggestion. "That is a horrible idea," he told them. "If all you're going to do is enhance the system, you should make an add-on. If it's a new system with legitimate software, great. But if the only thing it does is double the colors ...." There was some grumbling about this, but in the end Sega of Japan conceeded the point. They had several other hardware projects in the works, so this one was to be left up to the Americans. Mars was to be Sega of America's baby, although senior management staff from Sega of Japan would be present and oversee it through to production. By the time all was said and done that could be accomplished at that meeting, Nakayama was so excited at the prospect of Project Mars that he wanted its "core senior design team" to leave CES before it had even started and get started working on the new system right away. Miller, Sato, and the rest wound up attending the rest of the show, but went ahead and began the process during a series of late night meetings in Miller's hotel room over the next four days. What Miller and his associates at Sega of America did not know at the time was that Sega of Japan already had another competing 32-bit nextgen console design under wraps back at home. They would not learn about this new system until work on Project Mars was already well underway. "

[MrSega]

SEGA's complete 32 bit CPU line & thier respective hybrids:

System 32. Mid Range System 16 replacement ala RingEdge.

Was developed into GigaDrive later codenamed "Jupiter" & set to become vaporware
System for western markets. Meanwhile in June 1993 SOA becomes obvious to the top secret Away 27 project "Aurora" & decides to design an expansion pack for the Genesis. Since the hybrid used parts from SegaSonic arcade the chipset is codenamed "Mars".

System 32 Model 1. 3D single core processor board orignaly Saturn's planned chipset
Was abandoned after JAMMA 1993. Later given the prototype name "Sega Neptune".

System 32 Model 2. High end cutting edge dual 32-bit processing boarwE vd, state-of-the art. 3D polygon. Officially System 16 successor, after choosing a less costly, off the shelf low res design for Aurora, SEGA officially dubs the chipset Sega Saturn.


Keep in mind, Mega Drive was supported in Japan until late 1995. To make a long story short, Nakayama sent out patents,silicon & blueprints for "Jupiter" in early 1994 and told SOA he expected it ready for the Fall. Unbknowest to him, Mars had already been dubbed 32X.

[MrSega]

I can assure anyone that this account is accurate. Because SOJ giving SOA the patents for"Jupiter" in early 1994 match the date that the Sega Jupiter & Sega Neptune prototype trademarks were filed.

[Dan Kuso]

Some good news, Sony going 3rd party -

http://kotaku.com/5852377/playstation-g ... says-hirai

PlayStation Games "Not Just For Sony Devices" Says Hirai

[Mephiles550]

Some good news, Sony going 3rd party -

http://kotaku.com/5852377/playstation-g ... says-hirai

PlayStation Games "Not Just For Sony Devices" Says Hirai

Reminds me of that one article on IGN saying that Nintendo would be putting out Pokemon games on Mobile phones.

Don't get your hopes up.

[stu]

Some good news, Sony going 3rd party -

http://kotaku.com/5852377/playstation-g ... says-hirai

PlayStation Games "Not Just For Sony Devices" Says Hirai

They're talking about expanding the Playstation Suite, which presently only runs on Android, to other systems. They're hardly going 3rd party like you claim, unless you think that being able to play a bunch of ancient PSOne games is considered "Sony going 3rd party" .

Geez

[CruSega]

Also, just to clear up a misconception. The 32X/Mars project was actually thought up by SOJ as a way of prolonging the Genesis/Megadrive in the US and Europe. Since the MegaDrive was already dead in Japan, SOJ was going to focus their efforts on the Saturn. SegaBase explains it further.

Source - http://www.eidolons-inn.net/tiki-index. ... e+32X&bl=y

Quote "

The system that would be known as Project Mars was given birth on 8 January 1994, the night before the opening of the 1994 Winter CES in Las Vegas, Nevada, in a hotel room during a conference among top-level Sega executives from both Japan and America. Those present at this meeting included Sega CEO Hayao Nakayama, Sega of America president Tom Kalinske, his special assistant Joe Miller, Sega of Japan's Hideki Sato, Sega of America's Paul Rioux, and a couple of other Sega of Japan personnel. Surprisingly enough, Nakayama was the one who first broached the subject at this meeting. As such, it is he and not Sega of America's Joe Miller who should be given credit as being "the father of the 32X." Miller remembers this meeting well.

Quite simply, Nakayama-san had directed the company to design and produce a cartridge-based 32-bit platform and bring it to market before the Christmas selling season of 1994. This was a lengthy, somewhat heated meeting - but in the end there was no question that Sega of Japan (in the form of a classic Nakayama mandate) had determined that this was what we were going to do. It was now up to the senior team to figure out and go execute. The difference, this time, was that Sega of Japan was actually inviting Sega of America into the process - instead of creating new platforms in a vacuum and throwing them over the ocean at us when it was too late to have meaningful input .... Sega of Japan was completely committed and was ready to mobilize whatever internal resources were require to finish the design and produce it in quantity for Christmas.As first presented by Hideki Sato and his team of engineers, the original concept for Mars was little more than a Genesis with an extra 32-bit processor (a Hitachi SH-1, according to some reports) and an expanded color palette (128 out of 512 possible colors on screen). Joe Miller, who was in fact chief technical wizard at Sega of America, was appalled at the suggestion. "That is a horrible idea," he told them. "If all you're going to do is enhance the system, you should make an add-on. If it's a new system with legitimate software, great. But if the only thing it does is double the colors ...." There was some grumbling about this, but in the end Sega of Japan conceeded the point. They had several other hardware projects in the works, so this one was to be left up to the Americans. Mars was to be Sega of America's baby, although senior management staff from Sega of Japan would be present and oversee it through to production. By the time all was said and done that could be accomplished at that meeting, Nakayama was so excited at the prospect of Project Mars that he wanted its "core senior design team" to leave CES before it had even started and get started working on the new system right away. Miller, Sato, and the rest wound up attending the rest of the show, but went ahead and began the process during a series of late night meetings in Miller's hotel room over the next four days. What Miller and his associates at Sega of America did not know at the time was that Sega of Japan already had another competing 32-bit nextgen console design under wraps back at home. They would not learn about this new system until work on Project Mars was already well underway. "

This confirms my worst suspicions: SOJ were just as idiotic as SOA when it came the the American market. Never was Nakayama-san's disdain for the American market more obvious than the release of the 32X, thinking American gamers would purchase any garbage with the Sega Logo cause it was "cool" at the time.

It was fishy that if SOA developed 32X, how did it end up having dual SH2s just like the Saturn (be it lower clock speeds). So Japan would receive a choice of both systems-and a monkey would know which to choose. But Americans, who were Sega's loyalest consumers, were duped into buying a 32X if they couldn't wait for Saturn, which they thought would arrive in the Fall of 1995. Fortunately, most Americans still didn't buy that 32x abomination! The failure of 32X cannot be overstated, its up there with new Coke as one of the dumbest corporate ideas in history.

Nakayama was a moron. Sega had one truly successful console in Japan, primarily because of the Virtua Fighter phenomenom and Sega bent over backwards for a successful Japanese launch even at the expense of the American market who were "blessed" with a 32X.

Towards the end of the millenium, Sega had a well-deserved reputation as a company that could not be trusted. Where were the precious Japanese gamers when Sega was facing it's darkest hour? How many times should America be expected to bail Sega out?

I remember on Sega DC boards at the time, Sega was being compared to the Simpson's Sideshow Bob character who faced skepticism from Bart and Lisa in his 6th appearance on the sitcom when he finally turned nice. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me three times, shame on me--was the general sentiment in America during the last days of the DC.

[CruSega]

Some good news, Sony going 3rd party -

http://kotaku.com/5852377/playstation-g ... says-hirai

PlayStation Games "Not Just For Sony Devices" Says Hirai

They're talking about expanding the Playstation Suite, which presently only runs on Android, to other systems. They're hardly going 3rd party like you claim, unless you think that being able to play a bunch of ancient PSOne games is considered "Sony going 3rd party" .

Geez

But it is a first step. Just as SegaSoft was launched in the mid-90s solely for PC with games such as Flesh Feast and Plane Crazy but none of Sega's valuable IPs, SegaSoft would become a springboard for further expansion into other consoles which is what ultimately happened with Sega.

Still, while PS3 has been a failure by Playstation standards and Sony's brand is not as revered as it was 10-15 years ago, the chance of Sony going strictly 3rd party is a long shot.

BluRay has not set the home theater or computer world on fire either, what with the cheap prices of flash storage. If Sega really makes another console, wouldn't it be more attractive using some proprietary flash storage medium instead of BluRay? If costs of 64Gb flash memory becomes less expensive than optical discs in cost, why not go for the flash memory?

Apple, who have dictated trends the past decade has already released Mac Minis without optical drives deeming them obsolete. I think we have come full circle and back to solid state storage with optical media on the cusp of being obsolete.

[MrSega]

@CruSega. I can assure you that Mars & Jupiter were developed by two different divisions at SEGA. Mars was an American lead project by Skunkworks, Jupiter was Japanese lead by Away27. The account that Nakayama knew about Mars is not accurate. Mars was SOA's idea NOT SEGA of Japan's idea.

And for SEGA's next arcade board & rumored console "RINGWAVE/Futura" will not use standard BD but they WILL use Pioneer Blu-Ray16 which uses 200GBs instead of 50 & is very HARD to pirate.

[MrSega]

Some good news, Sony going 3rd party -

http://kotaku.com/5852377/playstation-g ... says-hirai

PlayStation Games "Not Just For Sony Devices" Says Hirai

After losing $10 billion dollars, SCEI has invested $2 billion into Vita and hopes that it can turn profits around for them, however knowing that it will take years to earn back $10 billion & seeing that PS3 needs a graphical enhancement to compete against Wii U, Sony has opened up software 3rd party markets in case SCEI goes bankrupt in a few years.