Sega CD

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The Sega Mega-CD (Japanese: メガCD) is an add-on device for the Sega Mega Drive released in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. The North American version is called the Sega CD. The device allows the user to both play CD audio discs and specially designed game CDs. It can also play CD+G discs.

The development of the Sega CD was top secret; game programmers did not know what they were designing for until the Mega-CD was finally revealed at Tokyo Toy Show in Japan. The Sega Mega-CD in Japan was designed to compete with the PC Engine, which had a separate CD-ROM drive.

The Sega Mega-CD was not meant to compete with the Super Famicom (Super Nintendo Entertainment System outside Japan). This posed a problem in the markets outside of Japan, where the PC Engine was not as popular, and the expectation was that the Sega CD would be in competition with Nintendo.

At first, the Sega CD was a CD tray unit that sat under the console. The Sega CD 2 was a smaller, cheaper top loading drive that plugged next to the Sega Mega Drive.

In the United States, the Sega CD was considered a failure due to its high price, low sales, few hardware upgrades, and general confusion with the Sega 32X, another Genesis peripheral offered. Due to Sega of America's lack of support for the Sega CD and 32X, many consumers lost their trust in Sega. It can be said that Sega never recovered from this, as the Saturn and the Dreamcast, although considered a good effort on Sega's behalf, was unable to compete effectively with Sony's PlayStation consoles.

Markets

Japan

The Sega Mega-CD was released first in Japan in 1st December 1991. Its retail price was about ¥49,800. Initially, it was a great success because of the inherent advantages of CDs (high storage capacity and the low cost of media). The fact that it had a nice RPG catalog also helped.

The system sold 100,000 units during the first year of release in Japan. However, cost issues prevented more units from being sold.

North America

Sega of Japan did not speak to Sega of America about their Mega-CD plans for that market until a few months later.

The Sega CD had been announced at the Chicago CES on November 1992. Early reports had suggested that hardware in the system would allow it to display more on screen colors (from a larger palette) than the Sega Genesis or the Super Nintendo, which was an important technical concern for consumers.

In the end, the Sega CD failed to convince North American gamers, mostly due to the cost of the console, and the lack of any hardware advancements. There just was not enough value for the price. Moreover, the game experience was little improved. Players came to have high expectations for the add-on, and Sega even promised that the Sega CD would allow a higher color palette than the Genesis. However, the end result was somewhat lacklustre compared to expectations.

Graphically, most standard 2D platform games and RPG's looked little different from an average Genesis 2D game.

Sound was likely to be better if it included some CD audio tracks, but on the average, conventional games looked the same. Sega wanted to showcase the power of the Sega CD, and so focused on the "FMV" games rather than importing "extended" games that only expanded ordinary games by taking advantage of the extra storage space of the CD media. Sega insisted on licensing and producing primarily "full motion video" games similar to earlier laserdisc games, that were universally panned by game reviewers.

The single speed CD drive added load times to all games, and the 64-color graphics and underpowered processor (for video rendering) made these full-motion games look terrible. One particularly infamous result of the single speed CD drive and its subsequent load times came in the form of Mortal Kombat CD, which was widely criticized due to the fact that certain moves, particularly the games popular "fatalities", would not perform until after a notable lag between the execution of the move and its actual on screen animation.

Another problem was that much of the Sega CD library consisted of quick upgrades of existing Genesis games. Most of them just had some extra FMV scenes and an enhanced soundtrack, but the game is still the same. However, some games such as Earthworm Jim or Spider Man vs. the Kingpin added some extra levels or made some game changes. (Spider Man vs the Kingpin in particular made many changes, which drastically restructured the game, making it somewhat non linear, and adding animated cutscenes.) The console also had one standard Sonic game, simply titled Sonic CD. While the game is generally well regarded as a solid, fun Sonic game, the CD platform offered little different in the way of gameplay, except for some animated cutscenes and a slightly larger number of levels. However, this game had its fair share of controversy as well due to the altered soundtrack for the US release which delayed the game by two months in the US.

Despite a somewhat lackluster library of games, the console produced two very famous titles. The Sega CD had the Lunar series, which, despite the relatively narrow circulation the two titles on the Sega CD received, went on to be critically acclaimed and became a cult classic, with both games remade for the PlayStation in the late nineties; a prequel to the series was created for the Nintendo DS in 2005. The same company that released Lunar, Working Designs, also released another RPG for the platform, entitled Vay. While it received generally positive reviews, the game was not as popular as the Lunar titles, both of which can fetch somewhat high prices on ebay.

Europe

In Europe the Mega-CD was thought to be overpriced. It was released in April 1993 in the United Kingdom for £270 (over €400 now). Unlike The Mega Drive, which was a very successful console in Europe, only 60,000 of the 70,000 Mega-CD's shipped to Europe were sold by August 1993.

Some European countries (Spain for instance), would not get the original Mega-CD, but the Mega-CD 2, which also slowed sales.

Australia

The Australians got their Mega-CD on 19 April, 1993.

Models

The following models were released:

• Sega Mega-CD I (Sega CD I in North America)
• Sega Mega-CD II (Sega CD II in North America). Designed for the Mega Drive/Genesis II and to reduce manufacturing costs
• JVC Wondermega (Xeye in North American release, never released in Europe), was an all-in-one Genesis/Sega CD unit
• Sega Multi-Mega (called Sega CDX in North America). A portable CD player that plays both Mega Drive and Mega-CD games
• Pioneer LaserActive Sega CD module, an add-on device available for the LaserActive system

Screenshots

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|Battlecorps
|Dune
|Road Avenger
|Sewer Shark

|Core Design (1994)
|Cryo (1994)
|Wolfteam (1992)
|Digital Pictures (1992)

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|Sonic CD
|Third World War
|Tomcat Alley
|Snatcher

|Sega (1993)
|Micronet (1993)
|Sega (1994)
|Konami (1994)

Technical Specifications

CPU

The main CPU is a 12.5-MHz 16-bit Motorola 68000 processor. The Mega Drive/Genesis has the same processor, but at a lower clock rate of 7.67 MHz.

Graphics

• Graphics Processor: Custom ASIC
• Number of simultaneous colors on screen: 64 (Using programming tricks, this limit is increased to 128 colors via raster effects)
• Colors available in Cinepak and TruVideo modes: 128 to 256 colors
• Video size from 1/4 to full screen
• Advanced compression scheme
• Software-based upgrade

RAM

• Main RAM: 6 Mbit
• PCM samples: 512 Kbit
• CD-ROM data cache: 128 Kbit
• 64 Kbit Internal Backup RAM

The Sega CD also features sprite enhancement effects such as scaling and rotation, similar to that of the Super Famicom/SNES Mode 7.

Storage

• 500 MB CD-ROM discs (equivalent to 62 min of audio data)
• 1/4 screen B/W footage video: 1.5 to 4 hours
• 1/4 screen color footage: 45 minutes
• CD-ROM drive transfer rate: 150 Kbytes/s (1x)

(Above specs prior to compression)

BIOS

• Size: 1 MBit
• Used for games, CD player, CD+G and karaoke
• Access time: 800 ms

BIOS Revisions

BIOS Version	Machine
1.00	Original Mega-CD
1.10	Original Mega-CD with motorized disk tray
2.00	Mega-CD 2 (Sega CD 2 in North America)
2.05	Mega-CD 2
2.10	Mega-CD 2
2.21	Sega Mega LD (Japan), Sega Multi-Mega (Europe), CDX (North America)

Audio

The Sega CD adds 10 extra sound channels to the existing Genesis YM2612 SPU.

• Sound format: Stereo PCM
• Sound channels: 8
• Maximum sample rate: 32 kHz (44.1 kHz for CD-DA)
• 16 bit DAC
• 8x internal over-sampling digital filter
• Frequency Range: 20 Hz - 20 kHz
• Signal-to-Noise Ratio: > 90.0 dB @ 1K
• Channel Separation: > 90.0 dB
• Output: RCA stereo Pin Jack x2 (L/R) / SCART cable
• Mixing Input Port for stereo sound on the original Sega Mega Drive / Sega Genesis Model.

Other

• Dimensions: 301mm × 212.5 mm × 112.5mm
• Weight: 1.4 kg (3.1 lbs)

Technical trivia

• Using raster techniques to change colors mid-frame, some developers managed to display much more color than the meager 64 that the Sega CD could normally display. This was especially put to good use for the games Snatcher (which can display 192 colors on screen at once) and (which displayed a whopping 256 colors at once!!)

NOTE: This is actually incorrect and it's a common myth; neither game exceeded 64 colors on screen, nonetheless it is possible for software to exceed 64 colors at once - Sonic CD's water stages are a good frame of reference, as the water effect is done by a mid-frame palette switch. You can take a raw screenshot for Eternal Champions or Snatcher at any point and do a color count with a program and the usual color count will be 30-50 colors. While these games did put good use to the Genesis/Sega CD limited colors on screen, neither Snatcher or Eternal Champions CD exceeded. Eternal Champions CD especially looks deceiving due to large amount of dithering, which blends together when using RF or composite video output, thus creating the illusion of a larger color count.

See also

• List of Sega CD games
• Sega Dreamcast
• Sega Gamegear
• Sega Master System
• Sega Nomad
• Sega CDX
• Sega 32X
• 16-bit Era

External links

• Defunct Games: [Sega CD Review Archive]
• [Sega-16] - Comprehensive site with hundreds of reviews and articles.
• [Console Passion Retro Games] - includes reviews, polls, online shopping, modifcation and much more.
• [Retroscene Retro Games] - supplier of Sega Mega CD retro games.
• [SegaBase] - Comprehensive history of this system

Sega CD Universe.

• [Sega CD Universe] - Includes Reviews, Screen shots, Music, and much more!

 

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