Why didn't the Sega CD add tons of color to the mix?

[Anthony1]

If you look at the battle between the Genesis and the Super Nintendo, the SNES had two major advantages:

1. Much better sound
2. Much better color

With the Sega CD, Sega did address one area of weakness, the weakness of the Genesis sound chip. Obviously with the sound of a CD system, the Sega CD got the sound advantage back, at least when it came to cd games. But why couldn't Sega somehow have helped the color palette of the Genesis?

They added hardware scalling and rotation, yet didn't do anything to improve the poor color palette.

If the Sega CD improved the Color capabilities of the Sega CD/Genesis combo, it could have been a serious powerhouse in the battle against the SNES.


Speaking of color, I know that the 32X was supposed to dramatically improve the color of the Genny, but in all honesty, I just don't see it. I wonder if it all was a bunch of marketing mumbo jumbo and it really didn't do much of anything.

[Ze_ro]

I think the SegaCD was restricted by the same restrictions on the Genesis itself... the SegaCD could do whatever it wanted with the graphics (Like sprite manipulation and blitting and such), but it still had to push them through the Genesis video chip, which means any color limitations still apply (As well as other limitations, such as resolution, refresh rate, video modes, etc). If I have this wrong, someone please correct me.

The 32X, on the other hand, actually generates it's own video signal, and overlays it on top of the video signal from the Genesis, so it can some extra tricks, which includes the better color depth (and of course, 3D polygons). Although I actually have a very nice 32X, I have absolutely no games for it... so I can't really comment much on the difference. If I recall correctly, the 32X was able to push about 32,000 colors, so you might want to compare the 32X version of Mortal Kombat 2 to the vanilla Genesis version, as color depth is probably a lot more noticable with digitized graphics.

--Zero

[Daniel Thomas]

The 32X did a pretty good job of pushing color. The problem, of course, is that most of the games were terrible, and the unit was never around long enough for developers to take advantage of its abilities.

that said, I think the 32X versions of Afterburner and Space Harrier are terrific. I'd suggest finding those two if you can find them.

[omnedon]

32X Tempo, Kolibri, and Knuckles Chaotix prove that the colour palette is vastly increased from the measly 64 on screen the Genny could do on it's own.

The limited on screen colours of the Genny really bit SEGA on the ass when they added the CD attachment. It made FMV look like ass, and really restricted how good the regular graphics looked, in my opinion. Sadly, few games seemed to utilize the extra that the SEGACD brought to the party. Robo Aleste put some of the scaling and rotation to work, and in a later level has a very funky colour warping effect, that may be made possible by the CD hardware. The SNES could have really made a CD add on shine, I'd bet.

I was very disappointed with my launch day bought SEGACD. A few months later I abandoned console gaming altogether i was so disgusted...

...I've since come back. LOL

[Retsudo]

I know what you mean when it comes to the colors of the Sega CD. I Played BC Racers and Ah3 Thunderstrike yesterday and the games dont look any better than a Genesis. I never played Mortal Kombat on this sytem, so does it look like the Genesis version?

[digitalpress]

I never played Mortal Kombat on this sytem, so does it look like the Genesis version?

It does, and though it sounds better, it plays worse. Suddenly you have to deal with load times, sometimes during a match!

The CD does have some cool music tracks though. And that brililant Mortal Monday commercial.

[Atari7800]

Yeah, Sega really dropped the ball with the Sega CD. The Sega CD has...

1. Another 16-bit 6800 CPU that is 25% faster than the one in the Genesis
2. Hardware-supported scaling and rotation (something the SNES has as well... the Genesis had to do scaling and rotation through software.)
3. CD sound
4. Vast storage capabilities

So we have a system that is WAY faster than the SNES and has massive storage potential to boot. Then Sega then blew it when they decided not to add a chip that would have bumped up the color display. Of course, the piles of FMV software (and it's $299 original retail price) were what REALLY did in the Sega CD IMHO.

Some of the Sega CD software IS really good, though.

:o

[Retsudo]

I never played Mortal Kombat on this sytem, so does it look like the Genesis version?

It does, and though it sounds better, it plays worse. Suddenly you have to deal with load times, sometimes during a match!

The CD does have some cool music tracks though. And that brililant Mortal Monday commercial.

I guess thats one game Im not going to look into. I never was into the Sega CD back when it first dropped. I picked mine up from a guy who tried to trade it in at EB. He couldnt, so he sold it to me with 8 games for 10 bucks.

[Cmosfm]

it has the mortal monday commercial on it! How do you unlock it? Maybe its in the options...I never seemed to check. :o

[YoshiM]

Even if the Sega CD could push out better color with the Sega CD it still probably wouldn't have made a bigger splash than it did.

-It's an add-on. Add-ons typically do not sell too well, especially when the price is around $299 (according to the Rarity Guide. Was it that much? I don't remember paying that much back then). Even if it had more color one would have to wonder if the CD playing, CD+G and game play was worth more than what your original Genesis was priced.

-Underutilization. When companies made games for the Sega CD it was either something that actually made use of the specialized hardware above and beyond FMV splash (Silpheed and Sonic CD come to mind) or a near carbon copy of a cartridge game (Sol-Feace and Sol-Deace are virtually identical except maybe voice/fmv and maybe music, Joe Montana Football for Genesis and CD are almost the same if I'm not mistaken). If companies made more games that actually used the CD for more than just multimedia AND made them exclusive to that platform the Sega CD may have had a better chance.

-Little exclusitivity. I touched on this on the last point but with any platform having need-to-have exclusives is KEY. I remember seeing the Genesis shelf at my favorite store have one title for Genesis and the same game for CD. Sometimes the CD versions gave you some bonus fluff (like FMV) but games like Brutal: Paws of Fury, Eternal Champions or Ecco: Tides of Time were virtually indifferent in visuals (usually) and game play over their cartridge counterparts. With multimedia being somewhat new during this time period games like these aren't going to sway a prospective customer into buying a Sega CD if there wasn't any software to make the add-on purchase worth it.

The Sega CD was a neat attempt to really bring gamers "to the next level". I remember being really excited and was chomping at the bit to get my tax return (much to my parents' dismay that I'd be spending that cash on a game system and not on something meaningful). However as time went on I was disappointed at the offerings that came out.

[Raccoon Lad]

I could have sworn it was supposed to have doubled the number of on-screen colors.

[YoshiM]

I could have sworn it was supposed to have doubled the number of on-screen colors.

I think it increased the palette but not the on screen number of colors, if memory serves.

[Ze_ro]

I never played Mortal Kombat on this sytem, so does it look like the Genesis version?

It does, and though it sounds better, it plays worse. Suddenly you have to deal with load times, sometimes during a match!

The CD does have some cool music tracks though. And that brililant Mortal Monday commercial.

I seem to recall that the SegaCD version of Mortal Kombat also added in the short FMV clips that accompanied the character bios in the arcade version.

--Zero

[Atari7800]

I could have sworn it was supposed to have doubled the number of on-screen colors.

There was ONE game that doubled the color output of the Genesis... weird to have only one game. This taken fron the faq on
http://www.classicgaming.com/museum/faqs/segacdfaq.shtml
Colors:

* Originally 64, same as Genesis
* Using programming tricks, can get 128 colors via HAM ("Hold and
Modify")
- Originally developed on the Commodore Amiga to boost color
capabilities
- Basically a graphic over a graphic = a double-color
* Using Cinepak and TruVideo:
- 128 to 256 colors
- Increase screen size from 1/4 to full
- Advanced compression scheme, used in Win 95
- Software-based upgrade
* Eternal Champions CD uses 256 colors simultaneously (only game to
do so)

[Stamp Mcfury]

Yeah, Sega really dropped the ball with the Sega CD. The Sega CD has...

1. Another 16-bit 6800 CPU that is 25% faster than the one in the Genesis
2. Hardware-supported scaling and rotation (something the SNES has as well... the Genesis had to do scaling and rotation through software.)
3. CD sound
4. Vast storage capabilities

So we have a system that is WAY faster than the SNES and has massive storage potential to boot. Then Sega then blew it when they decided not to add a chip that would have bumped up the color display. Of course, the piles of FMV software (and it's $299 original retail price) were what REALLY did in the Sega CD IMHO.

Some of the Sega CD software IS really good, though.

:o

I'd have to agrea with that.
Most of the SegaCD games were:

A. FMV games like Sewer Shark
B. Direct ports of regular Genny games with CD sountracks


Most of these games did not even take advantage of what the scaling or rotation that the Sega CD could do. Sewer Shark with more colors or even if it had full screen FMV would still have been a bad game

Its sad when you look at the few games that really used the system for games instead of interactive movies like Sonic CD or Lunar 1+2,

I don't think the specs killed the Sega CD i think it was the bad games and the fact that it was an add on that did it in.

[Jasoco]

A lot of Sega CD games look like shit because of the color limit. Mainly ones with a lot of FMV.

Some come to mind..

Power Rangers has really horrible looking video. Like a bad animated GIF.
Corpse Killer as well. The 32X version looked slightly better.
INXS Make My Video...

Not that these were even good games.

The Sega CD and 32X both suffered from a huge lack of quality games.

One must imaging how awesome games could have gotten had they lasted longer and developers had enough time to learn the limits of the combo. CD based games on a 32-bit Genesis... imagine the games... Maybe there would have been more than 6 hybrid games.