Little things you wish Sega had done differently

IIRC, the Sega Teradrive actually implemented 128 KB VRAM. It's also not entirely useless on a standard Genesis: since 128 KB mode interleaves the additional RAM, it can be exploited to perform byte-length writes to VRAM (the OverDrive 2 demo apparently does this).

 

In my opinion, not having experimented with this mode (though I have read of it), you're probably not writing efficient code if you need to do this for the sake of single byte writes. But of course, given my lack of experience with the feature, I can be proven wrong.

 

128KB VRAM still does word writes, but it writes to both banks at the same time, doubling DMA bandwidth. If the extra 64KB of RAM is missing, you effectively get byte writes on that RAM that is there. So if you want to only modify a byte (like you're raycasting and drawing vertical strips, or you're modifying small bits existing data in VRAM), it's easier to do.

I think the Sega CD would have done much better if some cartridge games came with an optional CD to promote the add-on. You could play the game off the cartridge, but if you had a Sega CD, you could get things like better sound, more levels, or extra animation with the disc. It would do a lot to push a kid to get a Sega CD if they already had a disc to use and felt like they were missing out on the full game.

 

Speaking of the Mega CD and more MD memory and looking back with the benefit of hindsight

I wish the MegaDrive/CD 2 was a complete all-in-one system and to be sold like the PC Duo just as a single unit. I think would have helped get the MEGA CD much better support and I also wished that the Saturn had double the sound ram. The Saturn had fantastic sound hardware but was often outclassed by the PS sound hardware, thanks to its onboard sound compression and sadly ADX didn't come out till late in Saturn's life.

I also wished SEGA could have put in an Alpha mode for 3D transparencies, the lack of clear 3D polygon transparent effects really made so many Saturn games look worse than their PS counterparts just on that fact alone (just look at Tunnel B1)
I know people talk of quads but the 3DO had amazing 3D transparent effects that used Quads. I sure wish SEGA could have found a workaround because polygon wise the Saturn wasn't that far off the PS when all is said and done

 

The Mega CD tech was more than good enough it was a 1991 add-on after all. Core design did say that the bottleneck of the system was the speed of memory but it didn't stop them making full use of the system with scaling and effects way beyond what the Snes could offer or even the Neo Geo. John O Brien made the best use of the system IMO The 3D engine used in Batman Returns and Cliffhanger looked utterly amazing and showed what could be done.

It was so sad SEGA didn't look to have an engine like Batman Returns and port the likes of Outrun, AB 2, and Super Hang-On. IMO that would have made a big difference to system sales and credibility. All that said, it remains my favourite bit system add-on or not LOL

 

The Sega CD was bottlenecked from being an add-on. If it was a new system, even just a backwards compatible, incremental upgrade for the Genesis, it would've been half as complex and so much more powerful that the 32x would have been unnecessary.

 

Even brand-new consoles have bottlenecks and NEC tried the new system with full BC and it held back the Super Grafx no end and was pointless even the XBox One X was held back with the need to the Jaguar CPU for BC
The tech inside the Mega CD was good for a 1991 system, but its biggest issue was it was never used enough not least by SEGA Japan themselves,that was the issue.

SEGA Japan made more use of the tech Mega CD in its boot up screen than in most of their games sadly enough. It was rather embarrassing to see a tiny little UK studio totally outshine and outdo SEGA Japan's top consumer teams in pushing the Mega CD and making full use of the ASIC and PCM chips. Switch and F1 BTY were great mind, but SEGA Japan could have done so much more

 

Point isn't that it wasn't a good system, but that if it was made as a "Mark VI" enhanced Megadrive chipset, it could've been stronger and also cheaper and very likely preventing the blunder that cost Sega the hardware business.

 

While it was unavoidable as of result of its TMS9918 heritage, the VDP’s registers and memory not being directly accessible from the 68k is a bit limiting at times, particularly with regards to decompression of graphics. It would have also been nice to have the DMA controller support transfers across the 68k address space rather than strictly from 68k to the VDP or within VRAM.

 

I

don't agree , sorry mate . When the system was used it was a amazing system way above the standard Mega Drive could offer or the SNES or even the NeonGeo in terms of Hardware rotation.

Games like Lunar 2 really showed what the hardware could offer and you play Wing Commander, Rise Of The Dragon , Popful Mail and the extra tech lifts it well above most 16 bit versions and Batman Returns offered the sort of scaling and rotation would expect to see in a SEGA coin up

The Mega CD was just basically a CD Add On . What cost SEGA was the 32X and trying to hold on to the 16 bit market instead of dropping it completely in 1994 and focused on a single platform.

 

The Mega CD wasn't just an add-on, it was a full system with its own CPU running in parallel. It had horrible low frame rate scaling because it required uploading tiles to the host VDP, which simply did not have enough speed for that. Forcing it to be an add-on raised costs and greatly limited its strength.

If you give back the Megadrive its original intended specs (native VDP scaling, 2x 64K VRAM interleaved, 4K external CRAM), plus the faster 68k, and it could've ran circles around the Sega CD in scaling at a far lower cost and twice the color count. The faster CPU and double speed VRAM would've allowed for 3D titles and FMVs to run significantly better too. And we haven't even gone to the implication of having a more powerful 2D console spearheading a less fragmented market.

 

The MCD might have been better if it had been a standalone system, but I feel it would have fragmented Sega's market share, and made it seem as though Sega was planning to abandon the hugely successful MD prematurely.

Pretty much all the major criticisms Sega was lambasted for in later years (having two simultaneous systems competing with each other and jumping ship too soon) would have started sooner.

 

It wasn't its own system though it did need the Mega Drive and that was part of the trouble. Also, the scaling rate wasn't that bad and it depended on how much use was made of the chip in-game; You play Cuck Rock 2 and you get scaling and rotation effects at 60 FPS (Yes very limited sport effects) the same went for some of the sport effects on Puggsy and even if you went full hog and used the scaling chip in its window and at 20 fps Batman Returns still blew away anything the Snes could offer or any home console around at the time for that matter, never mind how much better Soul Star looked compared to GF 2 running on the base Mega Drive. Never mind that back in the early 90's people were far far more forgiving of frame rates, just look at Star Fox on the Snes or Virtual Racing on the Mega Drive or even the likes of Geoff's F1 GP2 on the PC

It was just a shame not enough use of the ASIC was made, I felt that most SEGA fans wanted an answer to the SNES Mode 7 and its soundchip and SEGA Japan just let down SEGA fans on that score with their Mega CD games. When used the system was amazing and offered an experience you couldn't get on a base Mega Drive. You play Fifa on the Mega CD to the Mega Drive version and the PCM sound effects are on their own so much better than the base MD version, the same is true for Pitfall and games like NHL 94 and Sensible Socer made great use of CD-DA and the PCM chip to give you an atmosphere you just couldn't get in the base MD versions and it added so much to the games IMO and I still play Seni and NHl 94 on the Mega CD to this very day

Rise of the Dragon made great use of the storage and the PCM chip to give you full voice acting and again an experience you couldn't get on a base MD (IMO its better than Snacther), Wind Commander makes full use of the system down to its storage, ASIC and PCM chips to give you the best 16-bit version of the game IMO and again experience the base MD just couldn't offer one plays Final Fight CD and again thanks to storage and the PCM chip you get Arcade perfect sound, almost all the animation a better intro and music and an experience that was above what the base MD could offer and killed the Snes version and the Lunar's and Popfulmail are incredible. The Mega CD needed more of those sort of games along with SEGA Japan porting its Arcade scaling coin-ups


I feel the PSVR2 is having much the same issues as the Mega CD did. Sony In-House studios aren't making enough exclusives for it, it costs a lot and the attachment rate is small which means 3rd party support is limited, like with the Mega CD the best games on the SONY VR are really from the 3rd parties

 

When the dreamcast launched, this was absolutely impossible. We got our first DVD player in 1999, a year after the Dreamcast had first launched, and it was about $800. The only reason Sony was able to put a DVD player for so cheap into the PS2 is because Sony was part of the DVD consortium in the first place and had the verticallity in the market to get them down that cheap. Sega could have never done that, especially not in 1998. The tech was too expensive and bringing the cost down enough to be included with the dreamcast was impossible.

 

Bernie Stollar and others from the American side seem to disagree. I recall them making the suggestion that it wouldn't do much to increase the cost. This was in some interview for Sonic, perhaps the 20th anniversary. Maybe someone who knows what I'm talking about can link to it. I can't do it at the moment.

 

I'm not going to believe Bernie Stollar's recollection here. The price of the PS2's DVD player was an enormous talking point about it's release, owing that it was the absolute cheapest DVD player on the market at launch at $299 in 2000. There is absolutely no way Sega could have popped a DVD player into the Dreamcast 2 years prior and hit their $199 price point. It's absolutely impossible. Again, a bog standard DVD player cost $800 a year after the Dreamcast launched. It was unfeasibly expensive to include a 56k modem in the Japanese launch despite existing for many years on the market at that point, but a DVD drive, bleeding edge tech that had formally launched merely a year prior could have been fit in? No way, no how, not buying it at all.

Here's an of-the-time price comparison from NDP. The average price of a DVD player by the time the Dreamcast launched in North America was still well above the base price of the Dreamcast sans DVD player itself. You can see right around the time the PS2 launched, the average price of a DVD player had finally dipped below the original price of the Dreamcast.

EDIT: here's a video of Stollar saying the exact opposite of what you're saying, from when the Dreamcast was alive. He specifically says the reason the Dreamcast does not have a DVD drive is because of "economics" and it'd drive the price up too high, saying "when DVD reaches a comfortable price point, that's when you'll see us add DVD to dreamcast.":


SECOND EDIT: I actually found some interviews with Stollar in retrospect that you're talking about, and his interview about the decisions he made about the Dreamcast sound very clouded. Like he talks about how he could have had either a DVD drive or the 56k modem, and he chose the modem because he thought Cloud Gaming was the future. This was an interview from just a few years ago, before he passed. Everything I've seen from him of the day had him saying they couldn't go with a DVD drive for economic reasons except this interview. But given that he's claiming he included the 56k modem for *cloud gaming*, I think his decades-post-hoc reasoning here is very questionable and his internal timeline for retro-tech had fallen off.

THIRD EDIT: Here's another thing to consider, it's not just the cost of the DVD drive that factors into the equation. DVD playback requires a DVD Playback license, and the cost is actually not cheap. Sony got around this because they are part of the DVD consortium, they didn't have to license the playback for the PS2. But, as a comparison, Microsoft did for the Xbox, which is why you have to buy a dongle for DVD playback on the Xbox -- they passed the price of the license onto the consumer.

How much does a license cost? Well, I did some looking, and as of 2012, a DVD playback license has a flat cost of $2.00: https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-much-do-dvd-and-digital-media-playback-features-really-cost/

Assuming that price was even half that much on the Dreamcast, that would still make the license one of the most expensive components of the entire system. You need to bundle the license with the system, that's millions of dollars in added production cost of the Dreamcast just for the license, not even the hardware, at a time when Sega was basically broke and their CEO was taking out loans just to cover the launch.

Again, it was simply unfeasible to include a DVD drive in the Dreamcast at that time.

 

$299? I remember the PlayStation 2 being very expensive at €600. A quick look-up confirms that that was the price at launch.