Japan Hardware and Software Sales (Feb 27 - Mar 5)

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Nintendo didn’t just take their time bringing the SNES to the west, SEGA released the Mega Drive in Japan in 1988, and the Super Famicom wasn’t released until 1990.

The Genesis released in the US a full year before the Japanese release of the Super Famicom, in 1989! They only had NEC’s bungled TurboGrafx launch to deal with for two years before the SNES was launched in the US.

Yeah; I think Sega have their arcade hardware development team to think for that. Aside from just the Genesis/MegaDrive being based on System 16; the turnaround time from Master System (which was notably more capable than Famicom/NES tho it did come out a bit later) to MegaDrive/Genesis was very quick. I think if they waited a little later they could've had sprite scaling & rotation hardware built into the system but it's also arguable they would've been too late and released too close to SNES/Super Famicom, particularly in Japan.

Though since the head-start did little for them in Japan anyway, maybe holding off a Japanese release until late 1989/early 1990 with a Western release around Fall 1990 (still a year ahead of SNES) would've been better if they could've gotten some extra hardware in there, and avoid resorting to stuff like the Mega/Sega CD and especially the 32X.

 

[Old Gamer]

There's a weird crossover of Xbox fans who think what Microsoft is doing now is "revenge" for Sega. Can't make this up. Even though it was Microsoft themselves who shut down an opportunity for Sega to do an actual Dreamcast 2, or even have Dreamcast BC in the Xbox.

They cope by imagining Sony killed off SEGA, but the reality is that MS gained a lot more from their downfall.

 

[KiryuRealty]

Yeah; I think Sega have their arcade hardware development team to think for that. Aside from just the Genesis/MegaDrive being based on System 16; the turnaround time from Master System (which was notably more capable than Famicom/NES tho it did come out a bit later) to MegaDrive/Genesis was very quick. I think if they waited a little later they could've had sprite scaling & rotation hardware built into the system but it's also arguable they would've been too late and released too close to SNES/Super Famicom, particularly in Japan.

Though since the head-start did little for them in Japan anyway, maybe holding off a Japanese release until late 1989/early 1990 with a Western release around Fall 1990 (still a year ahead of SNES) would've been better if they could've gotten some extra hardware in there, and avoid resorting to stuff like the Mega/Sega CD and especially the 32X.

The timing of the Mega Drive was perfect. It was the first true 16-bit gaming platform, right when it was feasible from an economic standpoint.

As for the SEGA-CD, the success of the PC Engine CD-ROM^2 and the birth of PC CD-ROM showed that CD would be where everything was heading. It was support and pricing that hurt it.

The 32X was just SEGA management being as dumb as they usually were and throwing another thing out there like they did with the Pico, thinking they might short-circuit the PlayStation by jumping into 32-bit first.

Had the 32X been supported by SEGA Japan, it could have done well. The eternal war between SEGA’s Japan and US branches killed it. Not making the Saturn able to play 32X carts was a huge mistake, as it would have given an easy upgrade path for Genesis users at far lower cost.

The Mega Drive releasing when it did really doesn’t change any of that.