The 8 famous myths and fake news about the 32 X
First Myth: "Only 800.00 units were sold". False. Th real worldwide sales figures are much higher. More information at: https://segaclassics.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-real-sega-32x-sales-figures.html
Second Myth: "The launch games did not have a good reception". False. In fact, practically all the launch titles were a critical success such as Virtua Racing Deluxe, Star Wars Arcade, Doom and Space Harrier and the games launched shortly thereafter also had in general a very positive reception such as After Burner Complete and Mortal Kombat 2. And then some very impressive titles were released throughout its short lifespan, such as Virtua Fighter and Shadow Squadron. More than half of the console library (around 25 games) are considered to be good or great games (Grade A-B). More information at: https://segaclassics.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-best-32-x-games.html
Third Myth: "Initial sales were poor". False. In fact, orders in the US and Europe were so high (over a million each) that Sega was unable to handle all orders. More information at: https://segaclassics.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-real-sega-32x-sales-figures.html
Fourth Myth: "Few games have been released". False. In just over a year, 42 games for the add-on were released, which is considered a very reasonable amount. That number would be much higher, as several games in development were canceled due to the influence of Sega's Japanese board. Virtua Fighter for 32X (the second and final game developed by Sega Japan for 32X) was delayed almost a year with the prioritized version of Saturn. Some projects migrated to Saturn by order of the Japanese board of Sega, including Shinobi, Panzer Dragoon and Daytona USA. Others were simply canceled as OutRun. The 3D games of the X-Men and Sonic being developed by Sega of America also had their support cut off by Japan. Even so, the add-on was more successful or almost one par with just about every contemporary consoles, both in terms of the number of units sold and the number of games released:
3DO: 129 games; 2 million units;
Jaguar: 56 games; less than 250,000 units sold
Neo Geo AES: 145 games and 410,000 units sold;
Neo Geo CD: 13 games not released for the Neo Geo AES; 570,000 units sold;
Philips CD-i: 151 games; 570,000 units sold;
SuperGraphix: 5 games; 75,000 units sold;
Tandy Memorex Visual Interactive System: 11,000 units sold
PC-Fx: 9 games; 100,000 units;
Virtual Boy: 22 games and 770,000 unit sold;
Bandai Playdia: 33 games; 50,000 units sold
Apple Bandai Pippin: 24 games; 42,000 units sold;
Commodore CD-TV: 54,800 units sold;
Amstrad GX4000: less than 30 games sold;
PC-Engine Duo/ TurboDuo: 50 games; 1.92 million units sold
In addition, it should be remembered that it is an add-on to Genesis / Mega Drive. Considering the sales of other add-ons and the number of games released, the 32 X was relatively successful, especially considering its short lifespan due to the change in policy by Sega's Japanese leaders.
Jaguar CD: 11 games; 20,000 units sold;
CDROM² + TurboGrafx-CD: 50 games; between 500,000 and 1 million units sold
SuperGrafx Super-CD-ROM² + PC Engine Super-CD-ROM²: 109 games; between 50,000-100,000 u
Arcade Card Duo and Arcade Card Pro: 9 games.
LD-ROM2 (LaserActive PAC): 11 games; between 1,000 and 5,000 units sold
Nintendo 64 DD: 9 games; 15,000 units sold.
Fifth Myth: "The 32X release was one of the worst console releases". False. The first mistake is that the 32X was an add-on and not a console. The second is that it was marketed for only about a year. Thirdly, the 32X was not canceled due to low sales, but due to a battle between the Japanese directors of Sega and Sega of America. Tom Kalinske, CEO of Sega of America, went so far as to claim that the 32X would win the competition against Saturn and PlayStation. In other words, Sega was so dominant in the world market that "Console Wars" in 1995 was basically an internal war between Sega's Japanese headquarters and Sega of America. Sega anticipated the launch date of Saturn in the US by almost a year and canceled support for 32X early. Sega won the war against Sega of America and with Saturn and Dreamcast it became predominantly a Japanese company unlike what had happened in previous two generations where Sega's success outside Japan was much greater.
Sixth Myth: "32X was not supported by a third party". Flase. Not only was it supported early on, but two of the top 5 softhouses of the time started developing games for the 32X, such as Capcom and Konami, which were canceled when Sega's Japanese directors announced they would no longer support the add-on as of November 1995. Among the games that were in development are an exclusive Konami Castelvania for the 32X whose project migrated to Saturn and Playstation, Capcom Darkstalkers and Alien versus Predator (arcade game from Capcom that never had a home console release).
Seventh Myth: "The Sega CD and 32X were released to compete with snes". False. This myth was created to forge false ideas that snes was technically superior and that it was the market leader. The Mega CD was released to compete directly in the Japanese market with the NEC's Super CD-ROM² and the PC Engine Duo in 1991. The 32X was released to compete with the "next generation" consoles that were being launched, such as Jaguar, 3DO, Philips CD- i and Playstation.
Eighth Myth: "The 32X hurt Saturn's sales". False. What hampered Saturn's sales was Sega preventing Namco from launching Tekken and Ridge Racer to the console in order not to compete with Virtua Fighter and Daytona USA. Sony had no IP unlike Sega, which was the softhouse with the highest number of classic IPs at the time and was the main softhouse on the market. Not only did Sega not launch most of its for the Saturn franchises, it prevented Namco from launching its. Sega prevented Sega of America from launching Eternal Champions for Sega Saturn in order not to compete with Virtua Fighter. So Sega basically let Namco to Sony and Namco was one of the 5 biggest softhouses at the time (Sega, Konami, Capcom, Namco and SNK). In addition to a lack of strategy, it was also Sega's lack of gratitude for everything Namco had faced a few years earlier*. This serious management flaw was followed by others such as the failure to achieve exclusivity in Tomb Raider and the failure to close the deal with Sqare / Enix, which also migrated to Sony. Sega had many great arcade games that could easily have received good ports for the 32X, but have never been released for any console (or had limited release) such as "Golden Axe: the Revenge of Death Adder"; SegaSonic the Hedgehog; Spider-Man: The Video Game; Moonwalker; Laser Ghost; Line of Fire; Air Rescue; Arabian Fight, Alien 3: The Gun; OutRunners; GP Rider; Power Drift among many others. The only thing about the 32X that damaged Sega's image was the early cut-off of support for the add-on.
*Namco challenged a monopolistic contract with Nintendo and launched several games for the Mega Drive in 1990. Namco was one of the first major softhouses to challenge this monopolistic practice of Nintendo, before it was considered illegal in court. This has angered Hiroshi Yamauchi (Nintendo), who publicly humiliated Masaya Nakamura (Namco). As a result, they did not release any games for the Mega Drive for almost a year. Nakamura's revenge was to release a perfect version of Rolling Thunder 2 (better than the original arcade) and the exclusive Splatterhouse 2 for the Mega Drive. And later Rolling Thunder 3 and Splatterhouse 3 were also released exclusively for the Mega Drive.
More information on the 32X:
Sales Figures: https://segaclassics.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-real-sega-32x-sales-figures.html
List of best games: https://segaclassics.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-best-32-x-games.html
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