Why Did The SEGA CD FAIL !? - Gaming History Documentary

I have a Sega CD. Some of the best JRPG's were on it: Lunar: The Silver Star, Lunar: Eternal Blue, Vay, Shining Force CD, Dark Wizard, and Popful Mail. Silpheed was a great shooter.

It's kind of shocking when you realize that Microsoft has been in the console business longer than Sega was. And that it's been over 20 years since the Dreamcast was discontinued.

That’s the greatest era of console gaming ever. Arguably the greatest arcade era, as well. I love the Genesis and the SNES, but there was also the TG-16 and the Neo Geo. All four of those were solid systems.

My favourite console as a kid, I played sonic CD until my eyes bled.

The CDX was the best iteration of the Mega CD/Sega CD in my book; a Megadrive, Mega CD, AND portable CD player all in one? I totally wanted one when they were on clearance...as my first portable CD player, since the actual games I wanted were already fairly hard to find at that point.

I had a Sega CD. That system was amazing at the time!

Ironically the "lazy" FMV games must've been more expensive to produce than a regular game or a port of an arcade

$300 in 1992 was just laughably high for my family. My dad laughed off the thought of ever getting one for me due to the price alone. For years as a kid I viewed anyone that had a Sega CD as someone who was quite wealthy. Well, that was up until the PS1 came out and by that time $300 wasn’t as bad.

When I first played a game with FMV on the Sega CD, I couldn't believe my eyes. I remember thinking that I couldn't believe I was playing a movie, and it would never get any better.

Personally, from the US perspective here's how Sega of America had attempted handing the Sega CD. Since they were not given a prototype for them and developers to work with, they had been forced to look at the next best thing: the CD-ROM, which was just coming out on its own in the PC market. Observing these games, they acknowledged the use of FMV in them, and as you said immediately went with this angle when marketing the add-on. The problem was, people here kept confusing CDs with LaserDisc (LDs) presuming the Sega CD could produce more vibrant and animated graphics like in Dragon's Lair (or by today's comparison, Pokemon Arceus Legends), so when the actual footage came out, despite JVC's efforts, the graphics were a bit lackluster. The other issue was the original hardware itself. If SOJ had let SOA have a basic prototype, they might have been able to prevent one major design flaw: the heatsink issues. Since the add-on did use the Genesis itself as a processing source, the power caused it to create major heat. Now if you were playing say Sonic CD or some arcade like game, this wasn't a major concern. But if you were playing an RPG like Lunar or Shining Force CD for several hours, where the original add-on reached a critical temperature, the emergency cut-off would activate, and you had to wait for it to cool down. The reason why I recall this was my friend had purchased one directly from its launch date, and after playing with it for several months, the unit had actually burned out due to this. Regrettably, the Sega support team couldn't offer any solutions to it, so he wound up with a $400 door stop. Until he could eventually replace it with the more sleeker, compact disc like model, which had addressed the heatsink issues. Also came the problem of Sega 'converting' some of their Genesis titles into CD format. Expecting the graphics, or at least the gameplay itself, being improved, they were disappointed in finding out the only upgrade was the processing/loading time for the games, since it was simply the same game. Making some players feel cheated, despite the fact the Sega CD did have a few original titles out there.

Doodle Pigeon! I’m so glad you covered it’s development correctly being a response to the PC-Engine CD, and not the SNES or to extend the life of the MD. So many incorrectly report that part. I learned something new too with this video, about the styling being designed to mimic the look of a Hi-Fi stacked setup. It makes so much sense! Great video for one of my favorite childhood consoles.

The main issue is that it was just priced too high. Although it wasn't much more than standard CD players at the time, their target market weren't the people that would be purchasing CD players. They should have spent the time and money developing a better stand alone disc system with Sony.

The biggest downside was needing multiple adapters and a massive space to fit the sega mega CD and 32x

Considering how well the SEGA CD could handle scaling & rotation FX, why SEGA never bothered to make "CD" versions of their popular ip's is something I'll never understand. If they wanted to do FMV games, that's fine, but ALSO be sure to invest in new fancy versions of games based on your arcade hits, which could now use the SEGA CD hardware. Imagine SEG CD versions of OutRun, After Burner, Space Harrier, Super Thunderblade, Power Drift, Outrunners & more! With hardware scaling & rotation, plus redbook CD-quality audio & extra modes & features that could fill up a CD, don't tell me those titles wouldn't be a hit. Also, the fact SEGA was able to pull off a great 2 player port of Final Fight meant they could've done the same for Captain Commando, Michael Jackson's Moonwalker Arcade, The Punisher, Cadillacs & Dinosaurs Arcade, King of Dragons & stuff like Knights of the Round. Heck, they could've perhaps even done a decent port of Golden Axe Revenge of Death Adder (maybe).

I was the only one among my friends to own a Sega CD (I owned a first Generation console, the "block" that the Sega Genesis rests on as opposed to the later one that sits beside it), and I loved the console despite its lackluster library and low popularity. The FMV games were, at the time, awe-inspiring even if the "games" sucked, but the real gems were the RPGS (Lunar, Vay), strategy RPGs (Dark Wizard, Shining Force CD), and games like RIse of the Dragon and Snatcher. Ports of older games, like Final Fight CD and the 4-in-1 Classic Sega games that was packed in with the console, were also just absolutely great games, with Final Fight CD still being my favorite version of that game to this day. My friends warmed up to the system after playing some of its games at my house, but for a little while, I was the only die-hard fan of the console in my class. Also, I loved that many of the games could be played in CD players; I spent so many hours doing homework or working on my next D&D session with Final Fight CD, Lunar or Shining Force CD music blasting from my CD player. Note that I didn't learn of Snatcher until much later, but I totally would have played it consistently if I owned it back then. I owned – still own – the other games mentioned.

What could be worst than the Sega CD? Sega 32X: "Hold my beer." Keep up with these Console Failure Series.

my mom & dad bought me the sega cd 2 for Christmas & it came with sewer shark. over the time i did picked up a few games for it. i did picked up popful mail. it was an ok game. but i wish sega did more with the sega cd by adding more colors & have better graphics to make it equal or better then the snes

The first thing I bought with my first pay check from my first real job was a Sega CD from a Pawn Shop for $100 in the summer of 1995. I loved that thing. It was already "dead" at that point but I was able to buy all kinds of games real cheap for it because of that reason. Lunar 1 & 2, Wing Commander and Snatcher were my favorite games that I had for it. Man I was SO GOOD at Wing Commander on Sega CD! I miss it. My Sega CD was the type 2 but my Genesis was Type 1. It hung off the side of it and looked so stupid but it was awesome!

I think one of the best things about the Turbographics CD ROM drive, was that it could double as a portable CD player. Something not one single game console would do, up until the Sega CDX platform, which incorporated the Megadrive and CD ROM drive into one ridiculously compact package. Expensive too, so much so that it's extremely rare and expensive today.

I didn't get my hands on a CD until just recently, my neighbor sold me his, which was just sitting in his attic for years. Only playing it a few times as a kid, mostly with Lunar: Silver Star, it remains very fascinating to me as a platform.