The Sega Neptune

[ReaXan]

I saw this

http://www.longhornengineer.com/Projects/Neptune


and it made me began to think what Sega could have done to have kept their momentum going from the Genesis. The 32x shouldnt have been made and dare I say, even the Sega Saturn.

In all honesty, with the right marketing the Sega Neptune could have have carved out a big niche in the gaming market.

Reasons

*The 32X/Neptune was almost on par with the Saturn graphically. You didn't have CD quality music, but you still had graphics that were far superior to the Genesis/SNES

*Cartridge games were still fine in 1994, the N64 proved that you could make quality games on that format (Angel Studios proved how much you could fit on a cartridge with RE2). The Cartridge should have had its formal death when the Dreamcast/PS2 generation began.

*The cartridge games would have been higher, but the intitial cost of the system would have been good enough for the mainstream(199 to 249 max, compared to the 400 dollars Playstation and the CD format)

*In late 1994, it was getting cheaper to produce a Sega Genesis. The Model 3 proved that. The Neptune could have had backward compatability with the Genesis similiar to the converter base for the Master System/Gen
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I hate to sound like a Sega Fanboy but I really wish Sega would have held off on CD's until the Dreamcast. The Sega CD proved that the CD format didn't mean a better game.

Like the AVGN said, it should have been a standalone in the first place.

[Sonicwolf]

They should have cancelled the Pico, Saturn and Game Gear and stopped making regular Genesis' systems. The Neptune could have been sold instead so you could play the new 3d games and the regular Genesis games. Then they could have also made the mushroom 32x for Genesis-only owners. Then they could have then waited a few more years and released a really kickass console to compete with the 64 and the PS.

[Therealqtip]

The Neptune exsists? I thought that thing never had one console made cause they just said fiuck it and made the saturn

[weirdguy]

Technicaly it exists, as some people put a 32X in a Genesis shell. It's one hell of a hack job but it's doable. Almost done on mine.

[Tupin]

They made two non-functioning prototypes, which were just shells. One is in a video game museum somewhere and sometimes travels around to classic game conventions, and the other is at Sega of Japan's headquarters on display.

[PapaStu]

They made two non-functioning prototypes, which were just shells. One is in a video game museum somewhere and sometimes travels around to classic game conventions, and the other is at Sega of Japan's headquarters on display.

The 'videogame museum' shell is actually part of the CGE museum collection. When it comes out, it comes out for CGE's. I believe the picture posted by the OP is one that someone took at a CGE as I think i'm seeing corners of ID cards of other items around it.

[Tupin]

The 'videogame museum' shell is actually part of the CGE museum collection. When it comes out, it comes out for CGE's. I believe the picture posted by the OP is one that someone took at a CGE as I think i'm seeing corners of ID cards of other items around it.

Yeah, I figured it was in the CGE museum collection, that's probably the only reason there are pics on the net of it.

[Kid Fenris]

In all honesty, with the right marketing the Sega Neptune could have have carved out a big niche in the gaming market.

I love Sega fans, and I love the deluded little fantasies they concoct.

Yes, I'm sure that Sega would've fared better had the company backed a 1994 cartridge-based system that was less technically impressive than the Sega Saturn. Never mind that Nintendo, a company with more consistently successful first-party titles than Sega, lost third-party support and market share after going with a cartridge-based system in the mid-1990s. Things would've been totally different for Sega! Because they're SEGA and I LIKE THEM, DAMMIT.

If you're going to imagine alternate realities where Sega didn't ride its bike into a telephone pole over and over, at least think things through.

[Greg2600]

The 32X should never have been released, ditto the Neptune obviously. The Saturn was a clear next generation system with capabilities far exceeding the Genesis or Super Nintendo. They could have easily extended the life of the Genesis for current users or people who could only afford a discounted older system, same as Nintendo did with the SNES. The 32X was barely, yes barely more advanced than the Genesis, and way too expensive, which is why no one bought it. They would have been wiser to just continue releasing Genesis or even SegaCD games.

[Baloo]

IMHO, there's a lot of things Sega should've done here.

In 1995, Sega should've kept going with the Genesis and the 32x (Sega CD was fine enough to cut support for, same with Pico and Game Gear) along with the Saturn, because everyone knows that the Genesis still had a good 2-3 years with it, especially with the 32x. The 32x could've basically acted as a counterpart to the Saturn for owners of the Genesis who didn't want to buy the Saturn. Instead, they cut off the Genesis and killed themselves when the Saturn tanked.

[heybtbm]

The Sega Uranus doesn't have the same ring, does it.

[MASTERWEEDO]

the saturn shouldve been backwards compatible with the genesis, 32x and sega cd.

[Auzlander]

IMHO, there's a lot of things Sega should've done here.

In 1995, Sega should've kept going with the Genesis and the 32x (Sega CD was fine enough to cut support for, same with Pico and Game Gear) along with the Saturn, because everyone knows that the Genesis still had a good 2-3 years with it, especially with the 32x. The 32x could've basically acted as a counterpart to the Saturn for owners of the Genesis who didn't want to buy the Saturn. Instead, they cut off the Genesis and killed themselves when the Saturn tanked.

This quote says it all. Genesis could have gone allot further and in a few years be replaced by something different.

[8-bitNesMan]

The Sega Uranus doesn't have the same ring, does it.

No, it has a brown ring *rimshot*

[otaku]

I would have kept going with the genesis and can even see the 32x and sega cd add ons as fine to do but they handled the saturn launch all wrong and it should have had Sega cd support and genesis support would have been great. sega was major add on crazy.

[chrisbid]

the 32x and sega cd did not kill sega, they may have pulled resources from the genesis and saturn, but they were secondary problems.

two things killed sega

1- they abandoned the genesis too early and 2- the saturn was overpriced and underpowered

the 32x couldve been used as an inexpensive stopgap that addressed both of these problems by extending the life of the genesis and buying R&D time for the saturn, but sega never had a cohesive plan, only a bunch of bickering cliques... failure and hilarity ensue

[parallaxscroll]

The 32X should've never have been released. The SegaCD should've been given more advanced video processors for handling more sprites, colors and smoother scaling & rotation. The SegaCD would be the only upgrade the Genesis gets.


The Saturn that came out, with its mess of an architecture and poor 3D polygon capabilities, also should never have come out. Instead, Sega should've worked closely with IBM or Hitachi and most importantly, Lockheed Martin, to design a powerful, clean, 3D-capable console using PowerPC CPU and Lockheed Martin Real3D graphics chipset. The 3D polygon performance, texture-mapping and image quality would exceed the Model2 arcade board as well as the unreleased 3DO / Matsushita M2 console and the 3DFX Voodoo Graphics PC chipset, not to mention the lowly PS1 & N64 consoles by a huge margin. Lets just called it 'Exodus' to avoid confusion with Saturn. This would be the true successor to the Genesis and would see Sega through until at least 2000.

Therefore there would be no need to rush the Dreamcast out in 1998 & 1999, but instead prepare an even more powerful console of the PS2/GCN/Xbox1 generation, (codename 'Revelation') which would be fully back compatible with 'Exodus', and use an even more advanced PowerPC CPU + Real3D/ArtX designed (ATI) GPU.

[tomaitheous]

Why do people get so riled up about the Neptune? The 32x potential was held back by quite a few design flaws.

*The 32X/Neptune was almost on par with the Saturn graphically. You didn't have CD quality music, but you still had graphics that were far superior to the Genesis/SNES

Not even close. NOT EVEN close. 32x has no hardware acceleration for sprites, background layers, or any sort of 3D (flat shaded or textured polygons). Every thing was done manually, in software, by the two Hitachi CPUs. Also, the two CPUs were crippled when trying to access any ROM data. And it had a measly 256k of ram between them, when the two CPUs are busy fitting for the same 256k on that BUS (read: you're never going to hit max speed of either CPU when both are accessing rom or ram). To top it off, the frame buffer the CPU's have to manually write to - has wait states attached to it - slowly the process down further. Scrolling is pretty much limited to 30fps (unlike the SNES/TG/MD/GB/GBC/PSX/Saturn hell even the NES - which scroll at 60fps for sprites or background). 256k of ram is nothing compared to the size of VRAM of the Saturn, or it's main ram.

The 32x design is mainly designed for flat shaded polygon 3D. The 32x couldn't even do what the SNES could do graphically. It can't even match the Genesis' own VDP (video processor) output! That's quite far from the Saturn capabilities.

*Cartridge games were still fine in 1994, the N64 proved that you could make quality games on that format (Angel Studios proved how much you could fit on a cartridge with RE2). The Cartridge should have had its formal death when the Dreamcast/PS2 generation began.

The only thing N64 proved with sticking with cart format was Nintendo's failure to adopt the current and future trend. ROM space was much more expensive than CD-ROM media. 32megabytes (the larger late gen cart size) VS 700megabytes? Cart format at the time: no streaming audio, megabyte to megabyte ROM was hundreds of time more expensive, carts were kept smaller to keep cost down (i.e. something had to give game design wise), besides passing the extra cost to the customer - the developer also eat a good chunk of the cost of the rom chips (i.e. more expensive to develop for the N64). NEC proved back in '88 with the release of the PC-Engine CD that CD format was the way of the future for game development.

*The cartridge games would have been higher, but the intitial cost of the system would have been good enough for the mainstream(199 to 249 max, compared to the 400 dollars Playstation and the CD format)

Read above.

*In late 1994, it was getting cheaper to produce a Sega Genesis. The Model 3 proved that. The Neptune could have had backward compatability with the Genesis similiar to the converter base for the Master System/Gen

Given that the top selling games for NA were still Japanese designed games, where was Sega of America going to get these games from? Genesis wasn't exactly hot in Japan to begin with and software had all but dried up by late '94 for the Megadrive. Not to mention the 32x wasn't even supported in Japan (yeah, it got an official release but that's about it.). So unless you actually like that crappy US developed soft (and UK/EU dribble too for the most part), the Genesis and by extension the 32x had no software resource to compete with. I think people really fail to understand this.

I hate to sound like a Sega Fanboy but I really wish Sega would have held off on CD's until the Dreamcast. The Sega CD proved that the CD format didn't mean a better game.

The Saturn had a cart slot. It's a perfectly viable cart slot to boot game from too. No one was going to develop carts for the Saturn when CDs could be made for pennies on the dollar. The only thing the SegaCD proved as that Sega lacked the balls to make the SegaCD the new focus. NEC did the opposite and made the CD addon the main focus - dropping cart format early on. They proved that the CD format was extremely viable.

[Iron Draggon]

we've all been through this before...

1: Master System shouldn't have focused on barely upgraded rehashes of arcade games, and shouldn't have died an early death
2: Genesis shouldn't have focused on barely upgraded rehashes of Master System games, and shouldn't have died an early death
3: Sega CD shouldn't have focused on barely upgraded rehashes of Genesis games, and shouldn't have died an early death
4: 32X shouldn't have focused on barely upgraded rehashes of Sega CD games, and shouldn't have died an early death
5: Saturn shouldn't have focused on barely upgraded rehashes of 32X games, and shouldn't have died an early death
6: Dreamcast shouldn't have focused on barely upgraded rehashes of Saturn games, and shouldn't have died an early death
7: Sega is best left to remain an arcade publisher that ports its games to the PC and other consoles, and shouldn't have died an early death
8: If Sega ever released another console, it would focus on barely upgraded rehashes of Dreamcast games, and it would die an early death

lather, rinse, repeat...

[mobiusclimber]

I'm surprised there are ANY 32X supporters. That system had NO good games. Yeah, there are a few DECENT ones, but decent is all they are. The Sega CD, on the other hand, has a very rich, albeit small, library and several classic titles.